Name Isamu Togawa | Role Writer | |
Isamu Togawa (戸川猪佐武, Togawa Isamu, 16 December 1923 - 19 March 1983) was a Japanese writer and political commentator. Togawa was born in the city of Hiratsuka in Kanagawa Prefecture. His father was the novelist and former mayor of Hiratsuka Sadao Togawa and his younger brother was the novelist Itaru Kikumura.
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Life and career
After graduating from Shonan Secondary, now Kanagawa Prefectural Shonan High School, he enrolled in the Faculty of Politics and Economics at Waseda University. Afterwards he was called up to serve in the army, but was found to be ill during the physical exam and received a temporary deferment. He was called up again after recovering but the war ended soon after so he returned to his studies at Waseda and graduated.
He joined Yomiuri Shimbun in 1947. As a reporter in the newspaper's politics division he became a familiar face in Japan through his many interviews with politicians. He also stayed in Moscow for a time as a special correspondent. In 1955 he acted as an intermediary between his father Sadao and Kenzo Kono, an LDP member of the House of Councillors who had asked Isamu to persuade his father to run in the Hiratsuka mayoral election. Isamu succeeded in getting his father elected. He left Yomiuri Shimbun in 1962 to do political writing. In addition, he served as anchor for JNN News Scope, a TBS news program that started in October 1962.
Before long he entered politics himself like his father, running as an independent candidate for his hometown in Kanagawa's 3rd District during the general elections of November 1963. However, he lost election with only 19,871 votes, not enough to qualify to get his candidate registration fee refunded. After that he concentrated on his political writing. He established his literary reputation as a member of the Togawa family through his bestselling non-fiction political novel Shōsetsu Yoshida Gakkō ("The Yoshida School: A Novel"), the inside story of the world of conservative politics in Japan. By the time of Isamu Togawa's death it was an eight-volume work extending from Shigeru Yoshida's first term as prime minister up to the government of Zenko Suzuki. He also wrote companion volumes such as Shōsetsu Yoshida Shigeru ("Shigeru Yoshida: A Novel") and Shōsetsu Miki Bukichi ("Bukichi Miki: A Novel") that delved even more deeply into this subject.
Togawa, who had an office in New Japan Hotel, is also known for playing a central role in negotiations on collective compensation for the devastating 1982 fire there which left 33 dead.
Writings
In his political commentary, he consistently defended the conservative establishment of the Liberal Democratic Party due to the personal relationships he had built up with them from his time as a reporter. He wrote extensive commentary on those who served as prime minister, and towards the end of his life had close ties with Kakuei Tanaka. In particular, due to his ties to his home prefecture, it was understood that he was very close with the Kono family of politicians, including Kenzo Kono and Ichiro Kono, who were also from Kanagawa, and Shigeru Yoshida who resided in Oiso after retiring from politics.
On the other hand, he portrayed politicians of the "bureaucratic" type like Eisaku Sato and Mamoru Shigemitsu in a less favorable light.
Togawa's works that were labelled as "novels" were actually all non-fiction that followed the historical facts scrupulously. Togawa said "I chose the form of a novel rather than taking it upon myself to write a critical biography. Politicians are people whose behavioral patterns are controlled by their character and personality. Thus, by depicting what kind of person they are we can understand for the first time the fact that they did what they did because of who they are."
Death
On 18 March 1983 Togawa attended a preview of the new film adaptation of "The Yoshida School: A Novel" and a party hosted by Noboru Takeshita, and soon after, before daybreak on 19 March, he died suddenly. He was 59 years old. The then Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone hurried to his wake and at his funeral Kakuei Tanaka gave a eulogy written by Taro Maki, a journalist who was referred to as Isamu Togawa's only disciple.
According to news coverage at the time, after Togawa had gotten back to his hotel where his office was he suddenly fell ill. The woman who was staying in his hotel room called emergency and though the response team rushed to the scene and administered first aid, he could not be resuscitated and died there. At first, the cause of death was reported as an intracranial hemorrhage but then it was announced to be heart failure due to his chronic arrhythmia. According to Taro Maki, Togawa died during sexual intercourse at his hotel room. Togawa's younger brother Itaru Kikumura also acknowledged in contemporary interviews with the magazines Shukan Shincho and Shukan Bunshun that Togawa died during sex, though this theory was denied by Tsuneo Watanabe, a journalist at Yomiuri Shimbun.