Hajime Tamura
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Hajime Tamura | |
|---|---|
田村 元 | |
 Tamura in 1986 | |
| Speaker of the House of Representatives | |
| In office 2 June 1989 – 24 January 1990 | |
| Monarch | Akihito |
| Deputy | Yoshinori Yasui |
| Preceded by | Kenzaburo Hara |
| Succeeded by | Yoshio Sakurauchi |
| Minister of International Trade and Industry | |
| In office 22 July 1986 – 27 December 1988 | |
| Prime Minister | Yasuhiro Nakasone Noboru Takeshita |
| Preceded by | Michio Watanabe |
| Succeeded by | Hiroshi Mitsuzuka |
| Minister of Transport | |
| In office 14 December 1976 – 28 November 1977 | |
| Prime Minister | Takeo Fukuda |
| Preceded by | Hirohide Ishida |
| Succeeded by | Kenji Fukunaga |
| Minister of Labour | |
| In office 7 July 1972 – 22 December 1972 | |
| Prime Minister | Kakuei Tanaka |
| Preceded by | Toshio Tsukahara |
| Succeeded by | Tsunetaro Kato |
| Member of the House of Representatives | |
| In office 28 February 1955 – 27 September 1996 | |
| Preceded by | Kiyoshi Nakamura |
| Succeeded by | Constituency abolished |
| Constituency | Mie 2nd |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 9 May 1924 |
| Died | 1 November 2014 (aged 90) Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan |
| Party | Liberal Democratic |
| Children | 3 |
| Relatives | Norihisa Tamura (nephew) Masahito Moriyama (son-in-law) |
| Alma mater | Keio University |
Hajime Tamura (田村 元, Tamura Hajime) (5 May 1924 – 1 November 2014) was a Japanese politician. He held different cabinet posts and served as the speaker of the House of Representatives.
Tamura was born in Matsuzaka, Mie Prefecture, in 1924.[1] In 1950, he received a law degree from Keio University.[1][2]
Political career
Tamura was a member of the Liberal Democratic Party.[3] He was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1955.[1][4] In the party Tamura was one of the leaders of the Interparty Relations Committee and belonged to the faction led by Kakuei Tanaka.[5]
He was appointed labour minister in 1972 and transport minister in 1976.[1][2] As of 1975 he was the chairman of the Committee of Korean Affairs of the Afro-Asian Problems Study Group.[3] In July that year Tamura headed a delegation which visited North Korea and met with Korean ruler Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang.[3]
From 1986 until 1988, Tamura served as Minister of International Trade and Industry (MITI) in the cabinets led by Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone and then by Noboru Takeshita.[6][7][8] Tamura's brief tenure as MITI minister largely revolved around the Toshiba–Kongsberg scandal, when Toshiba was caught illegally selling machinery intended for the production of nuclear submarine propellers to the Soviet Union.[9] According to then-congressman Duncan Hunter, these noise-reduced propellers meant that the range at which American nuclear submarines could detect Soviet nuclear submarines was reduced by 50%.[10] In the midst of the ensuing scandal, Tamura traveled to the United States at the behest of Prime Minister Nakasone to formally apologize to US Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger.[11] In December 1988, Hiroshi Mitsuzuka replaced Tamura as MITI minister.[8]
Tamura became the speaker of the House of Representatives on 2 June 1989, replacing Kenzaburo Hara in the post.[12] Tamura's term ended on 24 January 1990 when Yoshio Sakurauchi was appointed speaker.[12] Tamura, nicknamed the “wheeler-dealer” in political arena, continued to serve as a member of the House of Representatives until his retirement from politics in 1996.[13]
