JAPAN: The Bull Wins

JAPAN

A disciple of give and take

"Frankly," admitted a stunned Premier Takeo Fukuda, "I was astounded." "It was a surprise to me, too," aid Masayoshi Ohira, secretary-general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (L.D.P.). What startled them and their countrymen last week was the result of a four-way race for Fukuda's job as the leader of the L.D.P. and, therefore, of Japan's government. Though the experts had forecast a dull election in which the urbane Fukuda, 73, would easily win a second term, he was thoroughly whipped by Ohira, 68, a deliberate, unassuming technocrat known in Japanese politics as...

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