On U.S. Visit, Obuchi to Pitch Friendly Ties

“Moshi moshi? Hello? This is Obuchi. This is Keizo.”

Obuchi is not a common name in Japan. So it is a mark of gracious self-effacement that Japan’s unexpectedly popular prime minister not only places surprise telephone calls himself--a rarity in this protocol-mad nation--but also has introduced himself to the stunned people on the line using his first name.

George Bush earned the affection of thousands of Americans with notes he penned himself. But Obuchi, who came into office nine months ago sharing with the former U.S. president a problem with “the vision thing,” has made the telephone his weapon of statecraft.

His phone habit has become the subject of media interest here in the struggle to explain why a leader dubbed as dull as “cold pizza” has seen his poll ratings double, his rivals join him in coalitions and his legislation move through parliament with decidedly un-Japanese speed. Last week, the former foreign minister was rewarded with the headline “The Obuchi Who Cares.”

Obuchi departs today for his first official visit as prime minister to the United States, stopping in Los Angeles and Chicago before heading to Washington for a Monday summit with President Clinton.

“I have a love in Los Angeles,” Obuchi announced on the eve of his departure Wednesday at a luncheon for U.S. reporters. He added quickly that he meant the Queen Mary, on which he sailed from Southampton, England, to New York in the 1960s as an impoverished student on a world tour.

In Chicago, the 61-year-old prime minister will throw the first pitch at a Cubs baseball game. With characteristic self-deprecation, Obuchi remarked, “I haven’t thrown a pitch in 50 years, so I’m worried that I won’t make home base.”

The understated Obuchi has built a career on being unassuming and now charms even his detractors by cracking such jokes about his own image as a genial dud. In a recent speech, Obuchi introduced himself as a “slow cow.”

Yet political analysts here say Obuchi need not dazzle the United States. To succeed at this summit, they say, he need only do what he does best: make friends. Battered by the worst recession since World War II, neighbor to an increasingly assertive China and a belligerent, unpredictable North Korea, Japan seeks to cement its alliance with the United States.

Obuchi should be seen having a good time in the U.S., said Tokyo University professor Takashi Inoguchi. The important thing is to have TV cameras beaming back reassuring images to a Japan where the latest government poll found that 71% of respondents were dissatisfied with their society and 87% felt some degree of economic anxiety.

For the White House, throwing a state dinner for a friendly ally like Obuchi could be a welcome respite from the intensifying conflict with Yugoslavia--especially since Japan announced Tuesday that it will increase its contribution to $200 million to aid Kosovo Albanian refugees and their host nations.

Japan and the U.S. have serious business to discuss, including coordinating the two nations’ policies toward North Korea, China and Russia, diplomatic sources said. Obuchi probably will present Clinton with the legislation passed by Japan on Tuesday to clarify how Japan would assist U.S. forces in case of a military emergency in deliberately undefined “areas surrounding Japan,” and the two leaders almost certainly will discuss the “theater missile defense” system that Tokyo and Washington want to build in the region despite fierce opposition from China.

Obuchi is expected to try to reassure U.S. officials that a host of steps already taken to stabilize and stimulate the ailing Japanese economy will suffice. On Wednesday, he discounted rumors that Japan is considering yet another stimulus package to keep the economy from withering once the staggering $14.4-billion package he pushed through last year is spent.

However, the key message to emerge from the visit, Inoguchi of Tokyo University predicted, will be that “Japan and the U.S. are getting along with each other very nicely, despite some adversity at home or abroad. We’re doing fine.”

“Mr. Obuchi has uplifted the troubled Japanese economy in half a year, and Mr. Clinton claims he has elevated the American economy to unprecedented levels for unprecedented duration,” Inoguchi added with tongue in cheek. “Both leaders have things to be proud of, absolutely. Whether they are based on reality, I do not know. Reality is multifaceted.”

In June, when Obuchi was ranked the least popular of all the candidates for prime minister, Inoguchi said Westerners failed to understand that it is not charismatic upstarts but skilled political insiders like Obuchi, leader of the largest faction of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, who can get things done in Japan.

Back in his home district of Gumma prefecture, Obuchi was known as an indefatigable networker. As a young lawmaker, the politician’s son set himself the goal of visiting 50,000 homes of constituents a year. According to Japanese media reports, the locals had a saying: “Wherever three people gather, Obuchi will show up.”

On Wednesday, Obuchi revealed that a meeting with Robert F. Kennedy helped shape his political style. In 1963, when Obuchi was a graduate student staying at the YMCA in Washington, he went to the office of the then-attorney general with a letter requesting an audience. A week later, a call summoned him to Kennedy’s office. Because his English was not fluent, Obuchi asked a fellow Japanese lodger to accompany him.

After a chat, Kennedy gave them tie clips made in the shape of PT-109, the Navy boat commanded by President John F. Kennedy during World War II. Later that year, when Obuchi returned to Gumma to run for parliament, he too had tie clips made for supporters. And because he admired Kennedy’s “sincerity” in receiving a foreign graduate student staying at the YMCA, which then offered the cheapest lodging in Washington at $1.50 per night, Obuchi said: “I’ve decided to meet anyone who comes to see me--with the exception of murderers.”

Concerning his upcoming trip to Washington, the prime minister remarked: “I’m going to get to stay in a place that’s even cheaper: Blair House. No charge!”

Some critics of the Japanese prime minister say they underestimated the mild-mannered man whom they dismissed last summer as no more than the puppet of powerful Liberal Democratic Party kingmakers.

“He’s doing better than I thought,” said Katsumi Sato, a conservative expert on North Korea.

Sato hasn’t been called by the prime minister--though he says he thinks he should be.

Last week, the Asahi newspaper printed a list of people, from high school principals to cartoonists, who have received calls from what the paper called the “telephone-crazed” prime minister. A call for comment about the phenomenon to political analyst Taro Yayama, one of Obuchi’s harshest critics, revealed that Yayama also has been getting the calls.

Each time, Yayama has been out, so the prime minister left messages with Yayama’s wife, saying of articles critical of government policy, “I’ll look into it,” and, “This was very useful to me.”

“Unfortunately, my wife has now become an Obuchi fan,” Yayama sighed.

Chiaki Kitada in The Times’ Tokyo Bureau contributed to this report.