"Narrow but Safe"

"When a cooking pot begins to stink, it's time to put the lid on." That was the advice the influential Tokyo Shimbun recently flung at Premier Shigeru Yoshida, 75. A government corruption scandal of Teapot Dome proportions threatened to overturn Yoshida's conservative coalition government. Everyone wondered whether shrewd, durable Premier Yoshida would be able to meet this challenge.

The stink began to rise three months ago when a Korean confidence man named Masutomi Ito was arrested for bilking thousands of small investors of some $3,000,000 in an investment-trust racket. Swindler Ito spent part of his plunder on such delicacies as broiled eels in Tokyo and an expensive mistress in Kyoto. He admitted that he had continued to solicit funds even after his investment company had gone bankrupt, blandly told police: "If this constitutes fraud, I'm afraid there's nothing I can do about it."

Geisha Galas. As investigators looked deeper into Ito's financial shenanigans, they found a trail that led, indirectly, to scores of respected businessmen and government officials. A Tokyo moneylender whom police linked to Ito's financial operations said that these were small compared to the way subsidized shipbuilders used government money to bribe officials for more subsidies. The moneylender backed up his story with a list of wild geisha parties thrown by shipbuilders and subcontractors for government officials, including seven members of Yoshida's Cabinet. Altogether, 600 geishas were involved in the parties. Soon 100 suspects, among them 59 company heads and directors and five Diet members, ended up in Tokyo's Kosuge prison accused of either giving or taking bribes. Streets outside Kosuge were filled with secretaries and geishas bearing gifts of chocolates, bean-paste cakes, silk pillows and $60 cashmere underwear for the prisoners.

Clamor for Yoshida's resignation increased. His left-wing opposition in the Diet, though divided within itself, is bigger than his own coalition. The left-wingers were hot & heavy after Yoshida for his pro-Western policy, and used the scandals as their club. Haughtily refusing either to discuss the scandals or to give police the help they needed to clean out corruption, Yoshida stayed away from the Diet, calmly warmed his feet over a charcoal brazier at his private villa in Oiso, 42 miles from Tokyo. His own Liberal and Progressive supporters realized that if they tried to desert him, he could dissolve the Diet and call for elections. The Liberals and Progressives well knew that an election would mean heavy losses for them.

20 Votes. Last week, with confidence that the time was ripe to topple the "old fox," the Socialists offered a motion of "no confidence" in the Diet. In 65 years, no Japanese Premier had ever survived a similar motion.

As the Diet convened to decide Yoshida's fate, members hurled angry insults across the chamber and demonstrators showered spectators and legislators with Yoshida-must-go leaflets. Through it all, Yoshida sat impassively, twirling his silver-headed cane. When the votes came, he won, 228 to 208.

"Narrow but safe," breathed a relieved Yoshida supporter. Having again proved himself the most powerful man in Japan, Yoshida climbed into his black Chrysler to motor back to his Oiso retreat, there to take off his wing collar and brown business suit, slip into a comfortable kimono and white tabi, and contemplate his forthcoming trip to the U.S. and Europe.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.