Foreign Minister Named New Japanese Leader

Ignoring opposition from enraged senior statesmen, outgoing Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita and the four top officials of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party decided Wednesday to name Foreign Minister Sosuke Uno, 66, as Takeshita’s successor.

Ryutaro Hashimoto, deputy secretary general of the party, said the decision was telephoned to Uno in Paris, where he was attending a meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. “After a pause,” Hashimoto said, Uno accepted the job.

Interviewed on TV, Uno said he replied that “this is a time of unprecedented crisis for the Liberal Democratic Party, but I will entrust myself to the party.”

He was scheduled to return today to have his selection as president of the ruling party formalized Friday in a caucus of Liberal Democratic members of Parliament. The legislature would then elect him prime minister, possibly as early as Friday, after Takeshita and his Cabinet resign.

Uno is well known to American leaders as an advocate of close relations with the United States. But his leadership ability is untested, and, unlike all previous Liberal Democratic prime ministers, he commands no faction or personal following within the party.

He is expected to have to rely upon the party’s strong men to help him tackle economic frictions with the United States and to revive the ruling party in the wake of a $7.7-million influence-buying scandal that precipitated Takeshita’s decision to resign.

Takeshita, 65, called the party executives together to make the decision after holding three futile meetings since Sunday with former Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda, 84, in an attempt to persuade the elder statesman to accept his recommendation of Uno.

Fukuda, as well as former Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki, Susumu Nikaido, a former vice president of the party, and Toshio Komoto, a former deputy premier, all objected to Uno on the grounds that he is a lieutenant of the party faction that had been headed by former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone.

It was during Nakasone’s 1982-87 administration that Recruit Co., an information and real estate conglomerate, conducted most of its influence-buying operations. Revelations of the scandal, which began emerging last June, have paralyzed Japanese politics. Takeshita, whose campaign coffers also benefited from Recruit’s largess, decided April 25 to step down to assume his part of the responsibility.

Using a word for “company” that implies the equivalent of an American five-and-ten-cent store, Fukuda called Uno a “managing director of the Nakasone Company” responsible for the scandal and said his selection was “a challenge to the people.”

“I find the political consciousness of the party executives incomprehensible,” Fukuda said. “I am completely astonished! My jaw could not drop farther! I could not be more apprehensive (of the future) for Japan.”

Fukuda warned that he intends to retain a free hand.

“As a politician, I must deal with the reality that has occurred. I intend to retain the freedom to take actions of conscience,” he said. He did not spell out what those actions might be.

The outburst came despite a decision by the party executives and Takeshita to meet Fukuda’s demands halfway by installing a vice president of the party under Uno to oversee the political reform regarded as crucial to win voters’ support in an upper house election July 23.

A group of about 40 younger Liberal Democrats issued a statement condemning Uno’s choice.

Fukuda had insisted on separating the leadership functions, choosing two leaders, one as prime minister and the other as party president.

Opposition leaders also reacted critically, declaring that Uno’s administration will be a “Nakasone offshoot” that cannot be trusted to clean up the “money politics” of the ruling party.

As prime minister, Uno technically will be entitled to serve until the end of the present term of the lower house of Parliament in July, 1990, or until that chamber is dissolved for a general election before that date.

His Term Not Specified

Party executives failed to spell out in their decision whether Uno would be given the party president’s normal two-year term or whether he would only serve out the remaining six months of Takeshita’s term.

By tradition, the prime minister must resign when his term as party president expires.

Whatever the length of Uno’s term, however, the party clearly regards him as a “relief pitcher.”

With all of the party’s leaders tainted by the Recruit scandal, the search for a successor had focused from the beginning on dark horses. Nonetheless, Uno’s emergence came as a complete surprise. Until last Thursday, his name had not even been mentioned.

After Takeshita announced his intention 36 days ago to resign when the fiscal 1989 budget took effect, a consensus was reached quickly to tap the party’s “Mr. Clean,” Masayoshi Ito, chairman of its executive board. Ito, however, wanted all tainted party leaders to give up their seats in Parliament, and when his demand was rejected, turned down the job.

Last Saturday, Takeshita came out for Uno as most qualified to take over at a time when trade frictions with the United States are at a new peak. Having served as foreign minister since the beginning of Takeshita’s term in November, 1987, Uno also is well versed in issues that will confront leaders at the seven-nation summit of advanced industrialized democracies to be held in Paris July 14-16, the prime minister said.

To respond to the criticism of Uno’s ties with himself, Nakasone announced Sunday that he would give up leadership of his 86-member faction and resign from the party. On Wednesday, Nakasone completed the procedures to carry out those pledges.

He also handed over to party officials $400,000 of the profits his aides pocketed in stock transactions that Recruit made available to them preferentially and he promised to turn over the rest, or another $46,000, today.

Nakasone took the action in line with a party recommendation that all Liberal Democrats who had traded stocks offered them by Recruit Co. “return the profits to society.” The party will keep the funds until it makes a decision on how they should be used.

Party leaders said today they will make one more--and presumably final--effort to persuade Kenzaburo Hara, speaker of the lower house, to resign in order to clear the way for Uno’s election as prime minister Friday.

Opposition parties have declared they will boycott any attempt to elect the new leader unless Hara steps down to assume “responsibility” for allowing the ruling party to ram the fiscal 1989 budget through the lower house in the midst of an opposition boycott.

Hara, however, has rejected calls from even the Liberal Democrats to resign. If Hara rejects today’s request, the ruling party was expected to submit and vote for a resolution of non-confidence to oust him.

UNO PROFILE, Page 10

JAPAN’S NEXT PRIME MINISTER A look at Japanese Foreign Minister Sosuke Uno, picked by his party to be the next prime minister:

Background--Born into a sake-brewing family; army duty in World War II, captured by Soviets in Korea in 1945, interned in Siberia.

Politics/Government--First elected to state assembly at 28, to Parliament in 1960, since reelected nine times. Cabinet posts: defense, science and technology, administrative management, international trade and industry, foreign affairs.

Personal--Plays piano and harmonica, writes books, essays, poetry, practices kendo fencing; age 66; married, with two daughters.