Japan’s Yen for Old Friends, Celebrities Attracting Reagan to Fall Visit

After retiring from politics, former President Ronald Reagan has apparently rejoined the megastars of his first vocation, show business, in coming to Japan to cash in on the almighty yen.

Reagan has been invited by the Japanese government to visit, and while he is here in late October he will also be the main attraction at a “symposium” sponsored by the Fujisankei Communications Group, a giant media conglomerate.

His fee for making a few speeches and attending some banquets during what Fujisankei is calling “Reagan week” has not been officially disclosed, but it is rumored to be a seven-digit figure.

Fujisankei will not comment on the honorarium it will pay Reagan. Nor will Charles Z. Wick, former director of the U.S. Information Agency and longtime friend of Reagan who negotiated the honorarium, reportedly after both men left public office in January.

$2 Million Fee Reported

According to a Fujisankei insider, a veteran of one of the group’s media holdings, a report that Reagan will be paid $2 million for his efforts has “checked out to be accurate.”

“Two million dollars would be nothing if the Fujisankei group were to consider it an advertising fee,” said the source, who is no longer with the conglomerate. “After all, they’re hiring an actor. It’s like bringing over Frank Sinatra, with a little extra thrown in.”

The $2-million figure, reported last week without attribution in an opinion column in the New York Times, could not be further corroborated. But it is perhaps destined to become one of the many shadowy, disconcerting pieces of information relating to Japan that ultimately acquires a vague semblance of truth, if for no other reason than because no one will officially deny it.

Celebrities Tap Funds

“I personally think it’s wrong, but I can only speculate,” said Makoto Masui, deputy secretary general of the Fujisankei Communications Group, who is coordinating the arrangements for Reagan’s visit. “Only a few people at the top know what the real figure is. I have no knowledge, and even if I did, I wouldn’t be in a position to say anything.”

The ex-president-for-hire issue emerges at a time when other foreign celebrities are learning how to tap the formidable corporate funds available in Japan, which has been propelled by a massive trade surplus and a strong currency over the past few years into an enviable position as the world’s most cash-rich nation.

Actors such as Sylvester Stallone and Paul Newman, the rock star Sting and tennis player John McEnroe appear in advertisements endorsing a range of products here, under contracts that reportedly bring in as much as $1 million in some cases. Entertainers like Michael Jackson open their world tours before enthusiastic fans at sports stadiums in Tokyo.

The Reagan visit coincides with a heating up of U.S.-Japanese relations as the Bush Administration sends out signals that it will adopt a more adversarial approach to resolving protracted trade disputes.

It is becoming increasingly likely that U.S. Trade Representative Carla A. Hills will name Japan as an unfair trading partner at the end of the month, a designation that carries a palpable threat of sanctions.

Japan’s trade surplus with the United States mushroomed from $12 billion a year to nearly $60 billion during the Reagan presidency while Administration officials held firm to a laissez-faire philosophy and deflected calls for protectionism. Reagan is revered here as a champion of free trade and a sympathetic friend.

It is in that spirit that Fujisankei ventured to arrange the Reagan visit, which sponsors say they hope will help soothe troubled bilateral relations.

Editorially, the Fujisankei group adheres to a “conservative point of view,” said Masui, a former Washington correspondent for the group’s publishing flagship, the newspaper Sankei Shimbun. “We want to place importance on U.S.-Japan relations and take an active role in relaxing trade friction.”

Fujisankei’s chairman, Nobutaka Shikanai, 77, first invited Reagan to visit Japan in the course of an exclusive interview at the White House in 1983, according to a company news release. His adopted son, Haruaki Shikanai, who is chief executive of the group, renewed the invitation at a banquet in Washington marking Reagan’s departure from office, the release said.

Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita also invited Reagan to come to Japan, as an official guest of the government, when the two met at an economic conference last year in Toronto, and again when the two met in Los Angeles in February, according to the Foreign Ministry.

Takeshita has announced that he will soon resign to take responsibility for a bribery scandal that is unraveling his government, but Reagan is expected to meet with his still-unnamed successor and other government officials during his seven-to-10-day visit. The government had no comment on Fujisankei’s honorarium.

“It’s entirely a matter between Mr. Reagan and the Fujisankei group,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Seiichi Kondo said.

Masui said it would be up to Reagan’s office to decide whether to disclose the amount, because Fujisankei respects his rights as a private citizen. Wick, meanwhile, told the Los Angeles Times that he had nothing to say about the money.

‘Constructive Purposes’

“I feel quite certain, as do many other people in Japan and the United States, that President Reagan’s visit to Japan . . . will serve a number of constructive purposes for both countries,” Wick said. “I take pride in having been helpful in making the arrangements for the visit. There is nothing else that requires public comment by me.”

Rumors of large sums paid to former U.S. officials on speaking tours in Japan are not unprecedented. Former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger is said to have been paid $200,000 by the newspaper Yomiuri in the late 1970s. Paul A. Volcker reportedly earned $90,000 for speaking at a symposium sponsored by Nomura Securities Co., the world’s largest brokerage, after he stepped down as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board two years ago. These figures could not be confirmed.

The Fujisankei group is closely held by private interests, mostly the Shikanai family. It calls itself “Japan’s largest mass media conglomerate,” with controlling interests in about 120 companies.

TV, Radio Holdings

Chief among the holdings are Fuji Television Network Inc., the biggest commercial broadcaster in the country in terms of sales; Nippon Broadcasting Corp., the top commercial radio network, and Sankei Shimbun, the fifth-largest national daily, with an audited circulation of slightly more than 2 million. Total revenues for the group totaled $4.8 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1988, according to Masui.

A New York-based subsidiary, Fujisankei Communications International, oversees its operations in the United States, where it is involved in such enterprises as Japanese-language local broadcasting and sales of computer game software.