Kiichi Aichi

Aichi was born in Kōjimachi Ward, Tokyo (now Chiyoda Ward) as the eldest son of Keiichi and Yoshiaki Aichi. His family moved to Sendai after his father, Keiichi, became a professor of physics at Tohoku Imperial University in 1911. His mother, Yoshiaki, was from a family of Chinese scholars, and the entire family was said to be a scholarly family. Aichi attended the former Miyagi Prefectural Second Junior High School (now Sendai Second High School) and the former Second High School, before studying political science at Tokyo Imperial University, graduating in 1931. During his time at the second junior high school, he was a member of the judo club. He was known as a brilliant student, and in junior high school he competed with his classmate Masao Okahara, who later became the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, for the top grades. He studied under the great masters of criminal law Eiichi Makino and civil law Sakae Wagatsuma during his time at the Faculty of Law at Tokyo Imperial University. He received 15 "excellent" grades, even though 10 was considered a genius. When he was in his third year of junior high school, his father Keiichi died from food poisoning at the age of 42 from eating fugu. ==Bureaucratic career==

After graduating from Tokyo Imperial University, he joined the Ministry of Finance and was assigned to the Banking Bureau. He was stationed in the United Kingdom and France as a financial secretary, and as secretary to the Minister of Finance Eiichi Baba. In 1947 he became the Director-General of the Banking Bureau, and worked hard to protect Japan's financial sector as the GHQ broke up the zaibatsus. ==Political career==

He resigned from the Ministry of Finance in 1950, and ran as a Liberal Party candidate in the second regular election for the House of Councillors held that same year, winning his first election. His experience and policy-making skills were highly evaluated by Hayato Ikeda, who was the Minister of Finance at the time. Following Ikeda's resignation due to illness in November 1964, Aichi continued to serve as Minister of Education and Director-General of the Science and Technology Agency in the First Satō Cabinet, and was again appointed as the Chief Cabinet Secretary after a cabinet reshuffle. He was later appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Second Satō Cabinet after a reshuffle in 1968, and he retained this position in the Third Satō Cabinet. As Minister for Foreign Affairs, he visited the United States in September 1970 to attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. Using this as a foothold, he was in charge of negotiations between Japan and the United States for the return of Okinawa, which led to the signing of the Okinawa Reversion Agreement in 1971. When Satō retired after a long administration, he supported Kakuei Tanaka instead of Takeo Fukuda, whom Satō had considered as his successor. Aichi then drafted policies for Tanaka's candidacy for the LDP presidential election. In July 1972, Tanaka was elected President of the LDP and became Prime Minister. On 22 December 1972, the Second Tanaka Cabinet was formed, and Aichi was appointed Minister of Finance. Tanaka appointed Aichi, a proponent of proactive fiscal policy, during this most difficult period as the "trump card" of his administration, as he highly valued Aichi's abilities. In February 1973, as the Smithsonian system was completely collapsing, Aichi decided to move the yen to a floating exchange rate system which led to a major shift in foreign exchange transactions. Furthermore, the 1973 oil crisis, which was caused by the Yom Kippur War, had caused extreme shortages and inflation due to an overheated economy. In the midst of all this, Aichi actively visited various countries and promoted economic diplomacy. ==Death==

In the midst of the emergency oil measures being carried out, Aichi was extremely tired from his hard work and had caught a common cold. He complained of a high fever in the middle of the night on 22 November and was taken by ambulance from his home in Bunkyō to the Keio University Hospital in Shinanomachi on the evening of the following day, but was already unconscious when he arrived at the hospital. He never regained consciousness and died at 9:50pm on the same day, shortly after being admitted. Upon hearing the news, Kakuei Tanaka rushed to the hospital, and was left stunned and speechless in front of Aichi's body. All he could say was, "A great star has fallen, it's painful to lose Aichi-kun at this time." Tanaka, grieving the death of his trusted adviser, decided to reshuffle his cabinet and appointed Takeo Fukuda as his successor as Minister of Finance. Aichi was later buried in Zōshigaya Cemetery. ==References==