Takahira Kogorō

Baron Takahira Kogorō KCMG (高平 小五郎, 29 January 1854 – 28 November 1926) was a Japanese diplomat and ambassador to the United States from 1900 to 1909.

Postings in Europe as Minister-Resident to Netherlands and Denmark, and as Minister Plenipotentiary at Rome, Vienna and Bern spanned the years before his 1901 return to Washington, D.C.

Takahira was one of the principals of the Japanese delegation negotiating with the Russians to conclude the Treaty of Portsmouth, which ended the Russo-Japanese War.

[1] As principal negotiator for Japan, his name is commemorated in the 1908 Root-Takahira Agreement, which was intended to ease Japanese-US tension by defining each nation's role in the Pacific arena and China.

[1] Takahira later elevated to danshaku (baron) under the kazoku peerage system, and was appointed to the House of Peers, and subsequently served on the Privy Council.

Ambassador Takahira Kogoro leaving the U. S. State Department, Washington, D. C. in 1908
Baroness Takahira, wife of the Ambassador Takahira in 1909
Negotiating the Treaty of Portsmouth (1905) -- from left to right: the Russians at far side of table are Korostovetz, Navohoff, Witte , Rosen , Plancoff; and the Japanese at near side of table are Adachi , Ochiai , Komura , Takahira, Satō . The large conference table is today preserved at the Museum Meiji Mura in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, Japan.