The author provides a biography of the pre-war Japanese naval leader Admiral Kato Kanji. In a distinguished career spanning the period which witnessed the emergence of the Imperial Navy as a key player in domestic and international politics, Kato Kanji occupied a controversial role in both naval politics and the evolution of civil-military relations. His career also paralleled a series of international naval arms control debates which divided the naval establishment into competing factions, contributed to a reorganization of the Naval General Staff, and culminated in a greatly expanded role...