JAPAN'S MOOD OF TRANQUILLITY

FROM his first election speech last month, when he stood atop an aqua and yellow campaign bus, Japanese Premier Eisaku Sato staked his political life on support of Japan's security pact with the U.S. It was no small gamble. Only last January, riot police had to use fire hoses to control more than 800 militantly antiwar students who tried to keep the USS Enterprise crew from taking shore leave in Sasebo. In April, Tokyo housewives marched in protest against the opening of a hospital for U.S. troops wounded in Viet Nam, and a month later a wave of fear swept the nation with reports that Sasebo's waters showed evidence of high radiation while the U.S. nuclear submarine Swordfish was in port. Last week, however, Sato's gamble paid off: in nationwide elections, his Liberal Democrats retained their majority in the Diet's upper house for another three years.

Talent Candidates. Because of his conservative party's slim margin of 13 seats in the 250-member chamber, a loss of five or six seats would probably have cost Sato his party leadership and the premiership. Now, with the loss of only two, he has taken firmer control of his party than ever. In a major defeat, Sato's chief opponents, the Socialists, lost at least eight seats. At their expense, gains were made by the small parties, notably the "clean government" Komeito Party (tour seats), which is backed by the Soka Gakkai sect of Buddhists, the Communist Party (three) and the independents (five). It was the last group--plus a trio of reform-minded members of Sato's party--that accounted for the most interesting new faces in Japanese politics.

Dubbed the "talent candidates" for their nonpolitical achievements, they campaigned on simplistic clean-up platforms and brought mass-media familiarity to the voters. Two, in fact, were popular television funnymen: Yukio Aoshima, 35, who plays a meddling grandmother on a weekly situation comedy, and Nokku Yokoyama, 36, member of a slapstick comedy team. From the Sato camp came other celebrities. Toko Kon, 70, is a Henry Milleresque Buddhist monk who gained fame as a writer of pornographic short stories, now likes to sling outrageous insults at prominent figures on a television talk show. Hirofumi Daimatsu, 47, coached Japan's Gold Medal women's volleyball team in the 1964 Olympics, and Shintaro Ishihara, 35, is the author of 22 novels on the attitudes of Japanese youth; he drew the largest vote (3,016,000) ever won by a Japanese parliamentary candidate.

Unpleasant Choice. Sato readily admitted that he had "never worked so hard in my life as in this election," but hard work was only part of the explanation for his success. For one thing, Japan's anti-American mood had been severely overestimated--particularly by the Tokyo press. In fact, some of the grievances that had sparked the protests, including the one in front of the Tokyo hospital, were less ideological objections than complaints against the noise of helicopters bringing in wounded G.I.s, jets landing at bases, and other down-to-earth factors. Sato acted quickly to move some military installations away from populated areas, but clearly most Japanese do not object in principle to their presence. Moreover, Lyndon Johnson's decision not to seek reelection, and the opening of the Paris peace talks have taken the edge off the war issue in Japan.

At the same time, many Japanese do not approve of U.S. policy in Asia. The student protest against U.S. war vessels, for one thing, bespeaks a strong desire on the part of the young to carve out a new national identity, based partly on pacificism and partly on self-sufficiency. Many leaders, too, are embarrassed over the continued dependence of Asia's No. 1 industrial power on U.S. defense hardware. Many of them look for a change in 1970, when the mutual-protection pact comes up for review. Polls show that nearly half the population is still undecided on whether the agreement should be continued; the tendency for now, however, is to put off thinking about an unpleasant choice.

TV to Toyota. Sato was vastly helped by Japan's present mood of tranquillity and satisfaction. Materially, the country has never been better off. Its economy, booming along at an annual growth rate of 13.6%, provides full employment. Last year Japan overtook Britain to become the world's fourth largest industrial power, after the U.S., Russia and West Germany. In the past five years, Japanese consumers have upgraded their status symbols from a Sony TV set to a new Toyota auto, and many are saving their wages so that they can escape the stacks of overcrowded public apartments in large cities to a home of their own. A government survey taken in January showed that 63% of those over 20 were "satisfied with current living conditions" v. 53% the year before.

The election also brought out Japan's considerable strain of pragmatism. Japanese voters have an abiding admiration for Ho Chi Minh's holdout against U.S. attack, but they can also understand why the U.S. cannot return Okinawa, with its B-52 landing bases, so long as the war continues--and the electorate decided not to make an issue of it. Sympathy with China, on the other hand, has declined rapidly as Japanese newsmen and businessmen have been harassed and imprisoned there; trade with China has declined 20% in the past two years. Even the popularity of the talent candidates had its practical side. Standing foursquare in favor of good government, they gave the Japanese voter a breath of his current enthusiasm in politics--"fresh air"--without making him go through a disruptive housecleaning.

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