Nakagawa did well in school and went on to study agriculture at Kyushu University, after which he began working for the Hokkaido Development Agency.

[1] Nakagawa's turn towards politics came due to his encounter with Banboku Ōno, an influential politician who was appointed director general of the Hokkaido Development Agency in 1954.

[3] In 1973, Nakagawa, along with Shintaro Ishihara, Michio Watanabe, Koichi Hamada and others, formed a cross-factional rightist group of junior LDP Diet members, called the Seirankai, or Blue Storm Society.

He ran in the November 1982 LDP presidential election to succeed Suzuki, but lost in fourth place.

[7] The cause of death was initially reported as a heart attack and Nakagawa's friend and Diet colleague Masaaki Takagi admitted to having asked the physician to cover up the true cause at the urging of the family.