Editing Takeo Fukuda (section)

==Early life and bureaucratic career==
Fukuda was born in the village of Kaneko in [[Gunma prefecture]] (present day [[Takasaki|Takasaki City]]) on January 14, 1905, the second son to an old [[samurai]] family who had been village headmen in the [[Edo period]]. His father was the mayor of Kaneko, his grandfather had also been mayor and his older brother eventually filled the same role. Fukuda was a gifted student who went on to [[First Higher School]] in [[Tokyo]], followed by studying law at [[University of Tokyo|Tokyo Imperial University]]. He received the top score on the civil service examination and entered the [[Ministry of Finance (Japan)|Ministry of Finance]] upon graduating in 1929.<ref name=Kotobank>{{cite web|author=Kotobank|url=https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%A6%8F%E7%94%B0%E8%B5%B3%E5%A4%AB-124083 |website=Kotobank |title=Fukuda Takeo |language=ja |access-date=March 7, 2023}}</ref><ref name=pace/><ref name=sayle/>

Fukuda was assigned as financial attaché to the [[embassy of Japan in London]] the following year. After three years he was called back to Japan to serve as the head of a local Tax Office.<ref name=MacDougall>{{cite book |last=MacDougall |first=Terry Edward |date=1982-01-01 |title=Political Leadership in Contemporary Japan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VaD6DwAAQBAJ |publisher=University of Michigan Press |pages=23–25 |isbn=9780939512065}}</ref>

At this time he married Mie Arai, the granddaughter of a [[Supreme Court of Judicature of Japan|Supreme Court]] justice. The couple came to have three sons and two daughters. [[Yasuo Fukuda]] was their eldest son. Fukuda steadily rose in the ranks of the Ministry. During the [[Pacific War]] he served as an adviser on fiscal policy for the [[Wang Jingwei regime]].<ref name=MacDougall />

At the time of the [[surrender of Japan|Japanese surrender]], Fukuda was chief secretary and head of the Minister's Secretariat. [[Masayoshi Ohira]] and [[Kiichi Miyazawa]] were his subordinates at that time. He became chief of the Banking Bureau in 1946 and by 1947 he had risen to chief of the Budget Bureau. Fukuda was in line to become administrative vice minister, however in 1948 he was arrested in connection to the [[Showa Denko]] scandal, a corruption scandal involving several bureaucrats, businessmen and politicians which precipitated the fall of the [[Hitoshi Ashida|Ashida]] administration. Fukuda was later acquitted, but the incident led him to resign from the Ministry in 1950.<ref name=Kotobank /><ref name=sayle>{{cite news|last=Sayle|first=Murray|title=Obituary: Takeo Fukuda|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-takeo-fukuda-1590409.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220526/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-takeo-fukuda-1590409.html |archive-date=26 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|access-date=12 January 2013|newspaper=The Independent|date=8 July 1996}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Yoshida|first=Kiyohisa|title=そろって大目玉をくらった３人の「総理大臣」 |url=https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/column/henshu/20230517-OYT8T50019 |date=23 May 2023 |url-access=subscription |access-date=14 June 2023|newspaper=Yomiuri Shimbun}}</ref>