Sato Eisaku 1901-75
Japanese politician and Nobel Prize winner

The younger brother of Kishi Nobusuke, he was an official in the Ministry of Railways before World War II, and was first elected to the Diet in 1949. Indicted for corruption in 1954, he was released in 1956 as part of a general amnesty celebrating Japan's entry into the UN. During his period as premier (1964-72), relations with South Korea were normalized (1965) and US-held Okinawa was returned to Japan (1972). Although the 1960 security treaty with the USA was automatically extended in 1970, a dispute over Japanese textile exports and President Richard Nixon's normalization of relations with China, done without consulting Japan, soured US-Japanese relations during his last years in office. It is widely believed that his three non-nuclear principles (non-manufacture, non-possession and non-introduction into Japan of nuclear weapons) earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974.