The Voice from Heaven

When, after Commodore Matthew Perry opened Japan to the world, the Shogun of Japan sent a special emissary to Washington in 1860 to observe the U.S. Congress at work, the appalled official duly reported back: "It's like the Nihonbashi fish market!'' Japan's own Diet, patterned in part after the U.S. Congress, was even more a fish market last week. What should have been a mere formality--the re-election of pro-Western Nobusuke Kishi, 61, who had resigned as Premier in accordance with the constitution after the last general elections (TIME, June 2)--turned into a shambles.

Since his Liberal Democrats had won the election so handily. Kishi was automatically the man for the Diet to name as Premier. But, having won, Kishi wanted to do things a bit differently from the past, when minority parties got a share of key Diet posts. With some justification, he accused the Socialists of using important committee chairmanships to sabotage legislation (they often did not show up for work, as a way of delaying action). Kishi, bent on responsible government under his own control, demanded that all 16 committee chairmen of the House of Representatives, and the Speaker and the Vice Speaker of the House as well, be members of his party.

In the Bag. He had the votes, but the Socialists had other resources. On the first day they kept the secretary-general of the lower house, without whose presence no business can take place, holed up in his office for 11 1/2 hours. When the secretary finally got to the chamber, only four minutes of the session were left-Next day the Socialists filibustered so successfully agains: the election of the committee chairmen--u procedure that usually takes 90 minutes--that by the stroke of midnight, only seven men had been named. On the third day the Socialists contested the election of Kishi himself. In the end, Kishi won what had been in the bag from the beginning. Then he rushed his new ministers to the palace to be sworn in by the Emperor.

"Obeying a voice from Heaven," he had so drastically overhauled his Cabinet that, with the exception of Foreign Minister Aiichiro Fujiyama, every member was new. The most surprising appointment was that of his own brother, Eisaku Sato, as Finance Minister.

Brother Fast Ears. In 1954, when he was secretary-general of Yoshida's ruling Liberal Party, Sato resigned over charges that he had taken $150,000 in bribes to promote legislation favorable to big business. After a libel trial that lasted two years, he finally collected $138.50 damages from a magazine. Sato coolly defended himself: "My job was to raise party funds; I did nothing that any politician who knew his job would not have done."

Since Kishi became premier a year ago. Sato has been giving him support, explaining that "to be a successful politician one must always be with the main current." His appointment last week caused the stock of Mitsubishi, one of Japan's monster combines, to rise. Sato has such close contacts with Japanese big business and such a private information service that his nickname is "Hayamimi' (Fast Ears).

Premier Kishi, with big-business backing, is in no mood to tolerate Socialist monkey business, nor is he apt to be too tolerant of the intriguing that has gone on inside his own Cabinet and party. Standing in front of a row of potted plants, Kishi pointedly remarked to a reporter: "These plants were all selected by a master gardener, but some are not perfect under the surface. Who knows but there may be still two or three like that in my new Cabinet?"

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