Background
HACHIRO AKITA was born in 1884 on the island of Sado in Niigata Prefecture. His elder brother was the financier and political leader Yamamoto Teijiro (1870-1957).
HACHIRO AKITA was born in 1884 on the island of Sado in Niigata Prefecture. His elder brother was the financier and political leader Yamamoto Teijiro (1870-1957).
After graduating from the law course of Tokyo Imperial University in 1909, he entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
He was assigned to various overseas posts and in 1927 became head of the Asian Bureau, ranking along with Shigemitsu Mamoru as one of the ministry’s most influential experts in Asian affairs. He served as minister to Australia in 1931 and in 1932 became vice-minister of foreign affairs. In 1934 he was appointed ambassador to Belgium.
He became a member of the Upper House of the Diet in 1938.
In 1953, after the Pacific War, he was elected to the Diet. He was a reform candidate for mayor of Tokyo in the elections of 1955 and 1959, but was defeated both times. In his late years, he sued the novelist Mishima Yukio for invasion of privacy because of resemblances between his own political career and that of a character in one of Mishima’s novels, but the matter was settled out of court.