Eisaku Satō, Prime Minister of Japan, Nobel Peace Prize, 1974

Eisaku Satō - 佐藤 榮作 (27 March 1901 – 3 June 1975) was a Japanese politician and the 39th Prime Minister of Japan, elected on 9 November 1964, and re-elected on 17 February 1967, and 14 January 1970, serving until 7 July 1972. He was the first Prime Minister to have been born in the 20th century.

Later life

Satō shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Seán MacBride in 1974. He was awarded for representing the Japanese people's will for peace, and for signing the nuclear arms Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1970. He was the first Asian to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. (In 1973, Vietnamese politician Le Duc Tho had become the first Asian to win the prize, but Tho had rejected it.)

Death

While at a restaurant on 19 May 1975, Satō suffered a massive stroke, resulting in a coma. He died at 12:55 a.m. on 3 June at the Jikei University Medical Center, aged 74. After a public funeral, his ashes were buried in the family cemetery at Tabuse.

Satō was posthumously honored with the Collar of the Order of the Chrysanthemum, the highest honor in the Japanese honors system.

Sato received the following awards:

• Knights Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic (1965)
• Grand Cordon of the Order of the Chrysanthemum (1972)
• Nobel Peace Prize (1974)
• Collar of the Order of the Chrysanthemum (1975)

Personal life

Satō married Hiroko Matsuoka, the daughter of diplomat Yōsuke Matsuoka in 1926 and had two sons, Ryūtarō and Shinji. In a 1969 Shukan Asahi interview with novelist Shūsaku Endō, his wife accused him of being a rake and a wife-beater. The 37th prime minister of Japan, Nobusuke Kishi was his older brother and the current prime minister, Shinzō Abe was his great-nephew. Both prime minister Satō and his wife, Hiroko Matsuoka, are descendants of samurais.