At times in recent weeks caucus sessions of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party have looked rather more like sumo matches than the deliberations of a conservative party. Angry debates have touched off an unseemly spectacle of party members toppling desks, smashing glasses and hurling soggy pieces of sushi (rice sandwiches) at one another to underscore their points. The fighting is a product of the violent dissension within the L.D.P. that is now haunting the shaky and increasingly unpopular government of Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka.
The cause of the uproar is a proposed civil air agreement between Japan and the People's Republic...
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