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영어

One of the projects of the administrative reform by the Hashimoto Cabinet is to affiliate and integrate the functions of security, crisis management and information control. In this paper, I focus on the aspect of "information control" because the project of the Cabinet Intelligence Bureau which assumes the role of collecting, analyzing and utilizing the information concerning security and crisis management draws our attention. In its initial project, the Cabinet planned to integrate the functions of the Cabinet Intelligence Investigation Bureau, the Public Security Investigation Agency, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs International Intelligence Bureau into the Cabinet Intelligence Bureau. Here I would rather regard this integrating project of the Cabinet Intelligence Bureau as a revival project of the Cabinet Board of Information in prewar Japan than as a newly projected one. To show it is so, there is first of all, close similarity between the project by the Hashimoto Cabinet and the one in prewar Japan by which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs lnformation Bureau, the Army and Navy information organization, and the Home Office and the Communications related information affairs were integrated into the Cabinet Information Agency. Second, the Cabinet Information Agency projected by the Hashimoto Cabinet is expected to play a pivotal role in the internal and external propaganda policy just as the Agency in prewar Japan did. Though this integrating project was not completed by the Hashimoto Cabinet, it seems that the Cabinet Intelligence Bureau ultimately has taken the same steps as the Cabinet Information Agency did in prewar Japan. The systematization of the Cabinet Information Agency in the Japan of today with such a working hypothesis will be acknowledged, although we should not make a hasty judgement. Comparing with the prewar time, will enable us to more correctly comprehend the direction and the meaning of reconstructing the Cabinet Information Agency of Japan in the present time and in the future.