How It All Looked on Television Concerned Japanese : Each Nation Had a Pet Project to Plug

For Canada and Italy, it was an emotionally charged issue at the summit conference, but it dealt with neither terrorism nor trade. It was whether the G-5 would become the G-7.

For France, the big question was whether Premier Jacques Chirac would sit next to, or behind, President Francois Mitterrand.

For Japan, the overriding issue was how it would all look on television.

President Reagan and others in the U.S. delegation were preoccupied with winning support for their offensive against Libyan-sponsored terrorism, but other countries came with a grab bag of concerns.

Marc Lortie, a spokesman for the Canadians, told a reporter, “You Americans sometimes forget that there are issues other than the ones that interest the White House.”

Canada and Italy were angry because the five larger countries--the United States, Britain, France, West Germany and Japan--had not included them in last year’s decision to force down the value of the dollar. They wanted this “Group of Five,” or G-5, as the bankers say, expanded to include them and to become G-7.

‘No Voice in It’

“That decision affected our economy, and we had no voice in it,” Joe Clark, Canada’s external affairs minister, complained.

At one point, European diplomats said, Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi threatened to walk out of the economic talks unless the demand was met.

In the end, the Italians and Canadians got full membership in a new Group of Seven and a promise that they will be included in any future talks that might affect their economies.

The French delegation’s chief concern was political. The summit meeting was one of the first tests of the relationship between the Socialist President Mitterrand and the conservative Premier Chirac, who took office in March.

A Rocky Marriage?

The French call this political arrangement “cohabitation,” but here it looked more like a marriage about to go on the rocks. Mitterrand and Chirac traveled in separate limousines, and French reporters were quick to note that the president’s limo was longer than the premier’s.

Mitterrand aides made a point of noting that Chirac was not present for the negotiations on terrorism or other foreign policy issues. But Chirac did get a private meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, and reportedly asserted that as far as France’s economic policy goes, he is in charge.

“There is only one voice for France,” Mitterrand said. But when French reporters pressed him on the issue, he grew testy. “We are not going to discuss France’s internal problems in Tokyo,” he said. “You can ask me in Paris.”

Japan’s preoccupation was also political: What would the summit do for the image of Nakasone? In the view of most politicians here, Nakasone is planning to seek an unprecedented third term as prime minister.

Yen Still Climbing

For most of the leaders, the summit went well. But for Nakasone, who was the host, most of the news was bad. Not only did the summit meeting fail to halt the rise in the relative value of the yen, which makes Japanese exports less competitive; it actually spurred the yen to a new peak by making it clear that the other six nations represented here are more than willing to let the yen continue to appreciate.

Despite massive precautions, Japan’s inventive leftists found a chink in the security armor and sent five automatically triggered rockets whizzing over the site of the conference. They also set off at least 20 small bombs in Tokyo’s subway system, temporarily closing down stations just a few minutes’ walk from the state Guest House. Neither attack caused any casualties--except perhaps to Japan’s reputation for efficiency.

But the security, which went so far as to close some freeways to let motorcades pass, did succeed in snarling Tokyo’s already tangled traffic and annoying thousands, perhaps millions, of voters.

In a typically Japanese gesture, Nakasone offered a formal apology at his press conference on Tuesday.

“We made great impositions on the people of Tokyo because of restrictions on traffic, and we are most sorry,” he said. “This was unavoidable, but I wish to apologize.”