Tojo Cabinet Wartime Meetings at the PM Residence

In October 1941 the third Konoe cabinet resigned over the deadlock in negotiations with the United States. Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal Kido Koichi, fearing that a cabinet under Prince Higashikuni would expose the imperial family to blame if policy failed, instead recommended Army Minister Tojo Hideki on the reasoning that only Tojo could restrain the army's hardliners. In commanding Tojo to form a government the Emperor instructed him to return to a 'clean slate' and re-examine the war deadline set by the earlier Imperial Conference. The Tojo cabinet took office on October 18, 1941, with Tojo, a general on active service, as Prime Minister and still Army Minister, and at first Home Minister as well.

During Tojo Hideki's tenure as Prime Minister (October 18, 1941 - July 22, 1944), the cabinet meeting room (閣議室) in the Prime Minister's Official Residence in Nagatacho served as the venue for the war cabinet's most consequential deliberations. After the Hull Note was received on November 27, 1941, the decision to go to war with the United States, Britain and the Netherlands was confirmed by the cabinet here and formally finalized at the Imperial Conference held in the palace on December 1; on December 8 Japan invaded British Malaya and attacked Pearl Harbor. Subsequent wartime decisions were handled here: the 'Imperial Rule Assistance election' of April 30, 1942, the creation of the Greater East Asia Ministry on November 1, 1942 and of the Munitions Ministry on November 1, 1943, and the Greater East Asia Conference held in Tokyo on November 5-6, 1943.

Tojo concentrated immense power. Besides the premiership he was Army Minister from July 1940 until his fall, and at various points concurrently Home Minister (October 18, 1941 - February 17, 1942), Foreign Minister (September 1-17, 1942), Education Minister (April 20-23, 1943), Commerce and Industry Minister (October 8 - November 1, 1943) and Munitions Minister (from November 1, 1943). On February 21, 1944 he also became Chief of the Army General Staff, uniting government and command in one person against established practice.

After the fall of Saipan in July 1944, pressure from the senior statesmen, members of the imperial family and some ministers mounted; Minister of State Kishi Nobusuke refused to cooperate with a cabinet reshuffle, leaving Tojo unable to keep his government together. Tojo gave up the post of Chief of Staff and tendered the cabinet's resignation on July 18, and the Koiso Kuniaki cabinet succeeded it on July 22. The residence building, completed in 1929, was relocated and remodelled in 2005 and now serves as the Prime Minister's official living quarters, one of the few surviving buildings of Japan's wartime political centre.