Nobuo Ishihara, a former deputy chief Cabinet secretary who earned the moniker "shadow prime minister" while serving a record seven prime ministers from 1987 to 1995, has died, the government said Wednesday. He was 96.
Ishihara, who became the top bureaucrat in the Cabinet after serving as vice minister of the now-defunct Home Affairs Ministry, worked under every Japanese leader from Noboru Takeshita to Tomiichi Murayama.
He died Sunday due to multiple organ failure, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a news conference.