Matsutarō Shōriki

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 Kurahei Yuasa. Although an amnesty cleared him of his disciplinary action, he did not return to public service.

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 served the CIA as an agent under the codenames "PODAM" and "POJACKPOT-1" and worked 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.