Word: ohira
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...Ohira spent the World War II years in the Finance Ministry. Early in the 1950s he went into politics, eventually winning ten terms in the Diet. In 1960 he started his climb to power by moving from one ministry or Cabinet post to another in different L.D.P. governments. He has been Finance Minister and Minister of International Trade and Industry; he has also been Foreign Minister twice in different regimes. As Tanaka's Foreign Minister in 1972, he initiated the restoration of relations with Peking...
...colleague describes Ohira's party role as "the lubricating oil that smoothed things out." His ability to mediate was to become his main political asset. "Confrontation is a waste of energy," he has said. "A little give and take is much more efficient in politics...
Three times since 1972, Ohira has had a chance to drive for the party leadership, but on each occasion the reluctant bull backed away. The last time, in 1975, he and Fukuda, his opponent, reportedly made an oral agreement that Ohira would withdraw and support Fukuda and that Fukuda in turn would step aside as Premier and party leader at the end of his term, in Ohira's favor. Fukuda apparently reneged on the deal, and that may be what finally moved Ohira to put up a real fight for the leadership...
...Ohira was Finance Minister in 1975 when Jimmy Carter, then an ex-Governor from Georgia with ambitions, went to Japan for a Trilateral Commission meeting. To Ohira, whom he met on that trip, Carter made a confident promise that he would see him "next time at the White House." When Ohira takes him up on that invitation, his Oval Office visit will be more than a courtesy call...
Shortly after he was elected to head Japan's Liberal Democratic Party, Masayoshi Ohira met with TIME Tokyo Bureau Chief Ed Reingold and Correspondent Frank Iwama at party headquarters to discuss some of the challenges he will face as Premier...