Bribery Shokku At the Top

Early one morning last week, a black sedan wheeled through the imposing gates of No. 1-19-12 in Tokyo's exclusive Mejiro district. When the car stopped at a large villa, two men got out, showed their identification at the door and asked to see the master of the house. Within a few hours, bull-necked Kakuei Tanaka, 58, Premier of Japan from 1972 to 1974 and still regarded as the tough, calculating "computerized bulldozer" of his country's dominant political party, had been booked at a police station and signed into a cell at the Tokyo House of Detention. There he was to undergo further questioning on a charge that he had pocketed a share of the millions of dollars of tainted funds spent in Japan by the Lockheed Corp. in recent years.

Tanaka's arrest was the stunning climax of the long-brewing Lockheed scandal that has lapped at the highest levels in Italy and The Netherlands, as well as in Japan. "Operation Summit," as the Japanese dubbed the Tanaka arrest, was hailed with a chorus of banzais. On the floor of the Osaka Stock Exchange, recounted one Japanese broker, after a moment of stunned silence, "everybody began howling his head off." In Tokyo, after an early morning dip, stock prices jumped twelve points.

Tanaka and his secretary Toshio Enomoto, 50, who was also arrested, were not charged with bribery but with violation of Japan's foreign exchange-control law, a relatively minor offense carrying a prison sentence of up to three years and fines of up to $1,000. But the case will revolve around allegations that Tanaka received $1.7 million in illicit Lockheed money on four occasions in 1973-74 from Hiro Hiyama, then head of the Marubeni Corp., which was Lockheed's sales agent in Japan.

Serious Offense. Eventually, the prosecutors hope to link these payments to government-influenced decisions to buy Lockheed planes. One case involves a 1972 decision by All Nippon Airways to buy Lockheed passenger jets, despite having taken a prior option to purchase McDonnell-Douglas aircraft. In a second case, the Japanese reversed plans to build their own antisubmarine patrol planes, and instead decided to study the Lockheed P-3C Orion. If the cash pocketed by Tanaka can be tied to these decisions, Tanaka will almost surely be charged with bribery, a serious offense opening him to a maximum prison sentence of 1 5 years.

Tanaka's jailing came after five months of work by a team of Japanese prosecutors who have been investigating the case since February, when U.S. Senate probers examining corporate practices abroad disclosed that $12.6 million in bribes had been paid to Japanese officials. In a series of arrests beginning June 2, charges had been brought against 15 other Japanese, most of them businessmen, including top corporate leaders like Hiyama as well as smaller fry; several of them were allegedly involved in funneling Lockheed cash to government officials. But with Tanaka's arrest, the scandal finally reached the top echelon of Japanese politics, a level of power and privilege that most Japanese had cynically felt was above prosecution. Said Seiichi Yoshikawa, a Tokyo lawyer, in describing the general shock: "People here have been resigned for a long time to the belief that big fish like Tanaka were immune to prosecution. So many of us banzaied to see that myth go to pieces."

The Tanaka case caused ripples in other countries touched by Lockheed cash. In Italy, where investigations into allegations that a former Premier, among others, received Lockheed money are at a standstill, pending resolution of the latest government crisis, editorials complained that "in our country, only the little fish get caught." In The Netherlands, where Tanaka's arrest also made headlines, a blue-ribbon investigating team is scheduled to make a report in two weeks on Lockheed wrongdoing.

Mr. Clean. Disclosures about Lockheed bribes at the Church committee hearings in the Senate last winter galvanized many Japanese into feeling that wrongdoing in Japan could not simply be ignored. Then Takeo Miki, Tanaka's successor as Premier, promised to "get to the bottom of the affair." Though the pledge was dismissed by many in the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (L.D.P.) as "pious hogwash," Miki's determination was genuine. In part, this was because Miki could only enhance his image as the "Mr. Clean" of Japanese politics by giving free reign to the Lockheed prosecutors, while his longtime L.D.P. opponent Tanaka could only be hurt. But Miki also recognized that the Japanese public, long ago sickened by the lavish spending of Japanese politicians--and keenly impressed by the U.S.'s forthright handling of Watergate--would not tolerate a coverup.

Many L.D.P. Diet members besides Tanaka are believed to have received Lockheed cash, most of which apparently went to fund the party's 1974 parliamentary campaign. A series of arrests could badly damage the L.D.P. just when it is trying to refurbish its image in preparation for the national elections that must be held before the end of the year.

Still, the party and particularly Miki, its chief, should gain from Tanaka's arrest. With the Tanaka faction in disarray, Miki has eliminated his most serious rival within the party. Miki has been widely accused--with some justification--by his L.D.P. colleagues of lackluster leadership, and he could yet face a serious challenge before the election campaign. But his once sagging popularity is on the rise, and the Japanese, still no boat rockers despite their glee over Tanaka's fall, do not seem to be in a mood to turn in large numbers to any of the opposition parties on the left. With Tanaka on the dock and Mr. Clean at the party's head, the scandal-prone L.D.P. just might do better in the elections than its record would justify.

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