Disgraced Former Premier Is Back in Style

Noboru Takeshita, the former Japanese prime minister, admits he has no grand world vision. But his encyclopedic knowledge may count for more in Japan’s political world.

Takeshita has memorized who represents every political district in Japan. He can recite the birthdays and phone numbers of far-flung contacts. He knows which academic cliques the leading bureaucrats belong to and when they entered Japan’s ministries.

Such strategic attention to detail--along with a reputation for keeping promises, listening well and shunning political showmanship--helps explain why Takeshita is regarded as the current government’s single most influential figure.

It was Takeshita, according to Japanese news reports, who masterminded the LDP return to power in June by forming a startling coalition with the party’s historical rivals, the Socialists, and with the New Party Harbinger.

Although Takeshita resigned the premiership in disgrace over the Recruit Co. bribery scandal in 1989, the Liberal Democrat has more than rebounded. Today, eclipsing more visionary and forceful politicians such as Ichiro Ozawa of the New Frontier Party, Takeshita represents classic Japanese-style leadership.

“Takeshita’s style, using consensus and the strength in numbers of his political faction, is better suited to Japan, and his successes last longer,” said Tomoaki Iwai, a political science professor.

Takeshita, asked in a written interview to compare his leadership style to that of American politicians, responded in a characteristically soft manner: “I wonder if it isn’t a fundamental thing for politicians in a democracy to communicate their ideas to as many people as possible and obtain their understanding. In that sense, I think attentiveness to people and building consensus are necessary things, not only for myself.”

Such fuzzy phrasing is a Takeshita hallmark. He once confessed, “I know that people say of me: ‘His words are clear, his meaning unclear.’ ”

But it is also one element of his success. “Everyone who talks to him comes away thinking he agrees with them,” said one political reporter.

When Takeshita was anointed prime minister in 1987 to succeed the dynamic Yasuhiro Nakasone, he drew withering press. People picked at his bland personality and parochial mind-set. His grand political platform--”The Japanese Archipelago Hometown Theory”--never quite made a splash.

But after one year, the reviews had reversed. Takeshita opened Japanese markets for beef, oranges and construction. He raised Japan’s financial contributions for American troops stationed here. He sealed a pact to supply more technological information to the United States.

His actions wiped the slate clean of all outstanding U.S.-Japan issues for the first time in memory, according to then-Ambassador Mike Mansfield.

Domestically, Takeshita’s greatest triumph was achieving what Nakasone had failed to do: break through enormous public opposition and introduce a consumption tax in 1989.

Takeshita, whose father was a sake brewer, was born in 1924 and, after a stint in the army, graduated from Waseda University. He was drawn to politics in college during his nation’s postwar turmoil and helped organize young former soldiers to participate in the newfound democracy.

In 1951, at age 27, he was elected to the Shimane Prefectural Assembly, and he moved on to Parliament seven years later. He held the posts of chief Cabinet secretary, finance minister and construction minister before winning the premiership in 1987.

A mainstream conservative, Takeshita quickly established himself as a master of the human relationship. He forged ties with the Socialists--one reason he was able to pull off the recent power grab with them. He is known to endear himself to bureaucrats by finding them post-retirement jobs. He even builds ties through marriage: His daughter married former political don Shin Kanemaru’s son.

In a recent interview with Nikkei Business magazine, Takeshita said his political style was forged by history--by his coming of age when his nation was forced to throw out its values and adjust to foreign democratic ones. “Although we lack a grand picture of the world, we can adjust to reality because we survived in the middle of it,” he said.

He said his style may be more fitting to today’s post-Cold War world. “Rather than tell people ‘Follow me,’ the leadership of the new era is to find rough consensus among nations and people,” he said.