Yasuo Fukuda
Fukuda was born in Takasaki, Gunma, the eldest son of politician (later the 67th Prime Minister) Takeo Fukuda. He grew up in Setagaya, Tokyo, attending Azabu High School and graduating from Waseda University in 1959 with a degree in economics. After university, he joined Maruzen Petroleum (now part of the Cosmo Oil Company). He was only minimally involved in politics over the next seventeen years, working his way up to section chief as a typical Japanese "salaryman". He was posted to the United States from 1962-64. While his father Takeo Fukuda was prime minister from 1976–78, Yasuo became a political secretary. From 1978 to 1989, he was a director of the Kinzai Institute for Financial Affairs, serving as a trustee from 1986 onward.
National Diet of Japan Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission
Chain of command were disrupted amid the crisis which created confusion, while communication failures about critical decisions undermined trust between the different parties. The prime minister’s office waited too long to declare a state of emergency. TEPCO’s disaster-response manuals were out of date, missed key diagrams, while TEPCO was too slow to relay information to the government. The administration of then prime minister Naoto Kan hampered operations as the disaster unfolded, the report said, and did not use a logical chain of command. "The prime minister's office was supposed to contact the plant operator through an on-the-spot task force. But … issued direct instructions to TEPCO head office and the accident site, confusing the command line." Then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan traveled to the plant mid-meltdown and “diverted the attention and time of the on-site operational staff and confused the line of command,” the report said. “Had the head office of Tepco actively communicated the on-site situation from the start, and explained the severity of the situation to the other parties,” the report said, “there is a possibility that the distrust — and the confusion in the chain of command that followed — could have been prevented.”