World Notes JAPAN

One reason Sousuke Uno got the Prime Minister's job in the wake of the Recruit influence-peddling scandal was that he was widely regarded as Mr. Clean. Last week that reputation was impugned from an unexpected quarter: a former geisha who claimed to have been his lover. SCOOP: A SCANDAL INVOLVING PRIME MINISTER UNO, shrieked a headline in the weekly magazine Sunday Mainichi. In an interview, the 40-year-old, otherwise unidentified former geisha said Uno paid her about $21,000 during a five-month affair that began in October 1985. She portrayed Uno as bullying and self-aggrandizing.

Traditionally, a public servant's private life is ignored in Japan, but the Sunday Mainichi's editor in chief, Shuntaro Torigoe, argued that "the time has come to question Japanese politicians' illicit relations with women." Questioned by legislators, Uno said, "I'd rather refrain from commenting on such matters in public."