Word: tanaka
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Politics in Japan has traditionally been a sport for the upper classes, those proper conservatives who went to the elite schools and enjoyed the right connections. Premier Kakuei Tanaka, 56, son of an indigent horse trader and a self-made millionaire, was a striking ex ception. Boasting nicknames like "the Computerized Bulldozer," he swept into the premiership 28 months ago with promises of "decision and action" and an expansion of trade with China. Last week he proved to be a victim of his own hard-driving success...
...coup de grace was a 61 -page expose published by the respected monthly magazine Bungei-Shunju (see THE PRESS). Documenting various ru mors and allegations, the periodical ran a devastating chronicle of Tanaka's financial dealings through dummy cor porations, secret bank accounts, incomplete tax statements and the use of vast amounts of money to buy support within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (L.D.P.). Tanaka clung to office just long enough to welcome President Ford to Tokyo. Five days after Ford's departure, Tanaka did what most Japanese expected of him. He said he was "solely to blame...
...Tanaka's regime was already in desperate trouble even before the disclosures. Japan's spectacular economic growth rate has dropped from 11% in 1972 to an estimated sub-zero figure this year. The country's inflation of more than 20% a year is the worst in the industrialized world. Last summer the dominant L.D.P. barely won a two-seat victory in elections for the upper house of the Diet, and Tanaka's personal popularity sank in the polls from a record high of 62% when he took office to a record low of 16% this fall...
...With Tanaka reduced to caretaker status, L.D.P. leaders began the complex bargaining that will result in a consensus on a successor, possibly this week. Tanaka's own choice is Finance Minister Masayoshi Ohira, 64. His chief rival is former Finance Minister Takeo Fukuda, 69, a sleepy-looking veteran politician who was runner-up to Tanaka in the party election of 1972. Although a conservative, Fukuda has long called for reform of Japan's system of "money power," and this may make him more palatable to the party leaders as a symbol of belated reform...
...theme of partnership set the tone for the talks between Ford and Tanaka in the ornate gilt, cream and pink marble Rising Sun Room of the Akasaka Palace. Their discussions touched on detente, China, the Middle East and Japanese sensitivities about nuclear weapons but focused principally on energy and food. In the final communique, the two leaders promised that their countries would cooperate on oil policy -an agreement that appeared to override Japan's previous reluctance to act in any way that might offend the Arab oil producers. But the statement did not commit Japan to joining the consumers...