MITI and the Japanese miracle

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struction. His clash with Vice-Minister Kishi was the greatest confrontation within the ministry before that of 1963, when the politicians appointed Imai Zen'ei as vice-minister in place of the MITI bureaucrats' choice of Sahashi Shigeru. Kobayashi was not a compromise business candidate like Ikeda Seihin or Admiral Godo * (that is, acceptable to both sides); he was a famous entrepreneur who made no bones about the fact that he did not like state control, reform bureaucrats, or Kishi. Ikeda had recommended his appointment in order to maintain peace with the business community, but it was clear from the outset that MCI was not big enough to hold both Kobayashi and Kishi. One of them had to go.

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Before Kobayashi arrived on the scene, Kishi had been able to overturn many of Murase's personnel appointments, although he retained his new structure. In December 1939 Kishi made his most important personnel move: he installed his Manchurian colleague and "junior," Shiina Etsusaburo*, as director of the pivotal General Affairs Bureau.

Shiina then proceeded to bring into the bureau the brightest, most ambitious, control-oriented minds he could find within the ministry. They all subsequently became leaders of industrial policy during the era of high-speed growth, and most of them went on to become MITI vice-ministers. Among those working as section chiefs or officials in the General Affairs Bureau under Shiina were Yamamoto Takayuki (chief of the Production Expansion Section and later MITI's first vice-minister), Hirai Tomisaburo* (chief of the Materials Coordination Section and MITI vice-minister from 1953 to 1955), Ueno Koshichi* (a section chief in the General Affairs Bureau after Shiina became vice-minister in 1941 and MITI vice-minister from 1957 to 1960), Tamaki Keizo* (also a section chief in the General Affairs Bureau in 1941 and MITI vice-minister during 195253), Yoshida Teijiro* (a section chief while Shiina was bureau chief and postwar deputy director of the Coal Agency), Ishihara Takeo (a deputy section chief in 1940 and MITI vice-minister from 1955 to 1957), and Tokunaga Hisatsugu (an official in the General Affairs Bureau under Shiina and MITI vice-minister from 1960 to 1961).

This was the beginning of the Kishi-Shiina line. It was perpetuated after the war, while Kishi was in prison and Shiina was purged, by Toyoda Masataka (the first head of the Enterprises Bureau in 1942 and Shiina's successor as vice-minister in 1945) and Matsuda Taro* (a section chief during 1940 in the vertical bureaus and in 1949 the last MCI vice-minister). Matsuda Taro was the official in charge of the creation of MITI.