Matsutarō Shōriki

Matsutarō Shōriki
正力 松太郎
Shōriki in 1955
Chairman of the National Public Safety Commission
In office 10 July 1957 – 12 June 1958
Prime Minister	Nobusuke Kishi
Preceded by	Tomejirō Okuba
Succeeded by	Masashi Aoki
Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission
In office 1 January 1956 – 23 December 1956
Prime Minister	Ichiro Hatoyama
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Kōichi Uda
Personal details
Born	(1885-04-11)11 April 1885 Daimon, Toyama, Japan
Died	9 October 1969(1969-10-09) (aged 84) Atami, Shizuoka, Japan
Children	Tōru Shōriki
Alma mater	University of Tokyo
Baseball career
Member of the Japanese
Baseball Hall of Fame
Induction	1959

Matsutarō Shōriki (正力 松太郎, Shōriki Matsutarō, April 11, 1885 – October 9, 1969) was a Japanese media proprietor and politician. He was the owner of the Yomiuri Shimbun, founder of the Yomiuri Giants and the Nippon Television Network Corporation.

After a career as a police officer, Shoriki acquired the bankrupt Yomiuri Shimbun in 1924. Under his management it would become one of the major newspapers in Japan. Shoriki also popularised professional baseball in Japan during this time and founded the Yomiuri Giants. After the war Shoriki was arrested as a war criminal, but the charges were dropped in 1947. He founded Japan's first commercial television station, Nippon Television Network Corporation in 1952.

Shoriki also became a prominent supporter of nuclear power in Japan. In 1955 he was elected to the House of Representatives. Shoriki became the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission under Prime Minister Ichiro Hatoyama and Chairman of the National Public Safety Commission under Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi.

For his varied activities he received several appellations, such as the "father of Japanese professional baseball," the "father of Japanese private broadcasting" and the “father of Japanese nuclear power”.

Early life and career

Shōriki was born in Daimon, Toyama. He graduated from Tokyo Imperial University Law School, where he also was a competitive judoka in the Nanatei league. He was one of the most successful judo masters, receiving the extremely rare rank of 10th Dan after his death.

After graduating , Shoriki joined the Home Ministry in 1913 and worked at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, rising high in the ranks. As chief secretary of the Metropolitan Police Department, he was involved in the large-scale crackdown on the Japanese Communist Party in June 1923.

After the Toranomon Incident, an assassination attempt on the Prince Regent Hirohito on 27 December 1923, Shoriki resigned assuming responsibility together with Superintendent General of Tokyo Metropolitan Police (警視庁, Keishichō) Kurahei Yuasa. Although an amnesty cleared him of his disciplinary action, he did not return to public service.

President of the Yomiuri Shimbun

In 1924, with Home Minister Viscount Shinpei Goto providing funds, Shoriki bought the bankrupt newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun and became its president. Shōriki's innovations included improved news coverage and a full-page radio program guide. The emphasis of the paper shifted to broad news coverage aimed at readers in the Tokyo area. By 1941 it had the largest circulation of any daily newspaper in the Tokyo area.

Baseball

Shōriki is known as the father of Japanese professional baseball. He organized a Japanese baseball All-Star team in 1934 that matched up against an American All-Star team. While prior Japanese all-star contingents had disbanded, Shōriki went pro with this group, which eventually became known as the Yomiuri Giants.

Shōriki survived an assassination attempt by a right-wing nationalist for allowing Americans to play baseball in Jingu Stadium. He received a 16-inch-long scar from a broadsword during the assassination attempt.

Shōriki became Nippon Professional Baseball's (NPB) unofficial first commissioner in 1949. In 1950, Shōriki oversaw the realignment of the Japanese Baseball League into its present two-league structure and the establishment of the Japan Series. One goal Shōriki did not accomplish was a true world series.

Post-war career

After the surrender of Japan, Shōriki was arrested by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers as a "Class A" war criminal due to his proximity to the wartime regime, spending 21 months in the Sugamo Prison. On August 22, 1947, a recommendation was made to release Shoriki. He was released after the Americans determined that the accusations against him were mostly of an “ideological and political nature."

Nippon Television Network

In Japan, private television broadcasting began in the early 1950s thanks largely to the policies of the U.S. occupation authorities. In July 1952, just three months after the US occupation bureaucracy had formally ended, Shōriki was granted a broadcasting license for the new Nippon Television Network (NTV) by Japanese media regulators. This was the first commercial television broadcaster in Japan.

Nuclear power

In January 1956, Shōriki became chairman of the newly created Japanese Atomic Energy Commission, and in May of that year was appointed head of the brand-new Science and Technology Agency, both under the cabinet of Ichirō Hatoyama with strong support behind the scenes from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. He also used his position as owner of the Yomiuri Shimbun to promote nuclear power in the popular media. In 1957, he joined the first Kishi cabinet as chairman of the National Public Safety Commission, and around the same time, the Japanese government entered into a contract to purchase 20 nuclear reactors from the United States of America. Shōriki is thus also now known as "the father of nuclear power."

In 2006, Tetsuo Arima, a professor specialising in media studies at Waseda University in Tokyo, published an article that proved Shōriki acted as an agent under the codenames of "podam" and "pojackpot-1" for the CIA to establish a pro-US nationwide commercial television network (NTV) and to introduce nuclear power plants using U.S. technologies across Japan. Arima's accusations were based on the findings of de-classified documents stored in the NARA in Washington, D.C.

Death

Shōriki died on October 9, 1969, in Atami, Shizuoka.

Tributes

In 1959, Shōriki was the first inductee into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame. The Matsutaro Shoriki Award is given annually to the person who contributes the most to Japanese baseball.

The position of Chair of the Department of Asia, Oceania, and Africa at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is also named after Shōriki.

Further reading

• De Lange, William (2023). A History of Japanese Journalism: State of Affairs and Affairs of State. Toyo Press. ISBN 978-94-92722-393.
• Uhlan, Edward and Dana L. Thomas. Shoriki: Miracle Man of Japan. A Biography. New York: Exposition Press, 1957. E-book at the Internet Archive.