Friday In Moscow

One bitter, sleety day in Moscow last week, as ailing Japanese Premier Hatoyama climbed gingerly into a Soviet limousine, he asked the Russian chauffeur: "Is the weather a bad omen for the talks?"

Cracked the chauffeur: "You know the Russian proverb: 'Rain on Saturday, laughter the following Friday.' " But the following Friday, as 73-year-old Premier Hatoyama sat down with Russia's Premier Bulganin to sign an agreement to "end the state of war" between Japan and the Soviet Union, only the Russians were laughing.

In World War II, by issuing a formal declaration of war one week before Japan yielded to U.S. arms and the atom bomb, the Russians justified their seizure of South Sakhalin, the Kurils and other Japanese islands. By holding the islands and delaying peace talks, they kept themselves in a strong bargaining position for eleven years. Last month the Russians decided that the time had come to strike a bargain with the Japanese, hinted that if Premier Hatoyama dropped in at Moscow's Spiridonovka Palace, he might hear something to his advantage about the island territories. Hatoyama, who needs such a political victory to keep his Liberal-Democratic government from falling apart, had hopes that the Russians might yield, not Sakhalin or all the Kuril Islands, but at least Habomai and Shikotan off Hokkaido, which Russia last year promised to return.

Accompanied by his wife, a nurse (carrying a wheelchair) and his foreign-affairs brain, Ichiro Kono, aging Hatoyama hobbled out of his plane at Moscow airport, smiled gratefully as white-bearded Premier Bulganin took him firmly by the arm to help him down. Hatoyama was obviously flattered by the imposing list of Soviet notables attending the conference: "Some of their biggest men," said Ambassador Matsumoto. The visits began with banquets too rich for Japanese stomachs ("Oh, if they'd only cut the servings in half," muttered Mrs. Hatoyama), accompanied by toasts to the glories of Japanese culture. But in the long private sessions with Khrushchev, neither water, tea nor cigarettes were provided; it was long, cold bargaining.

Ending a phony "state of war" apparently did not mean peace in Russian terms. Moscow was willing to exchange ambassadors with Japan, ratify the long-outstanding fisheries pact, put trade relations "on a friendly basis," and even repatriate 1,000 Japanese prisoners (the Japanese insist that the Russians have an additional 10,000 Japanese P.W.s). Russia promised to hand over the Habomai and Shikotan islands "at the conclusion of the peace treaty," a date that Russia can postpone as she wishes. The only real political concession the Russians were prepared to make was not to veto Japan's next bid for U.N. membership but the wily Bulganin later took some of the gilt off this piece of gingerbread by telling newsmen at an embassy party that he "couldn't guarantee that some other country might not veto Japan in the U.N."

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