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It had taken Ichiro Hatoyama a near lifetime of nimble politicking and Diet brawling, of playing along with Japan's prewar militarists and yet surviving them, of being purged by the U.S. occupiers and turning the purging to profit, of losing power and then grabbing it back. At last, at 72, he had unfurled the long-dusty banners of Japanese nationalism and marched with them to his life's goal.
Jovially, he descended to join the celebrators. Partially paralyzed from a cerebral stroke, he got about with the aid of a gnarled black cane or the arm of an aide, but even in feebleness he had a courtly air. He worn, as he always does, well-cut Western clothes. His small bronze face sat satisfiedly behind round black spectacles that looked, in a certain light, as if they had been painted on by Bobby Clark's makeup man. Beneath a hesitant growth of gray mustache^ his round mouth was flattened into a broad grin. "What would you like for breakfast?" someone shouted. "More votes," grinned Ichiro.
Identical Pin-Stripes. In the final tally, Hatoyama got more votes (149,541) than any Japanese Diet candidate in history. The transfer of power from the Liberals of ex-Premier Shigeru Yoshida to Hato-yama's Democrats was in great part a result of Hatoyama's personal popularity, his canny exploitation of Japan's disillusionment with his highhanded and distant predecessor, Yoshida. But, as Hatoyama was among the first to acknowledge, his mandate went far deeper than a change of personalities. In sweeping out the Liberals, the Japanese were sweeping away a regime that represented to the majority of Japanese a decade of meek complaisance to the commands and suggestions of the U.S. occupiers. Yoshida was re-elected from his own Kochi district last week, and his former Foreign Minister ran a dramatically repudiated eighth in a nine-man race.
In place of the Yoshida men, the electorate had turned to men of almost identical pinstripe; indeed, some were the very same men. But they wore new colors — more independence from the U.S.; negotiations with the Chinese Communists and Russia; some second thoughts about rearming and lining up on the Western side of the cold war. "... I feel that alignment only with the Western nations and the ignoring of the Communist nations . . . could lead to a third world war," said Ichiro Hatoyama. "I would like to awaken the people to a deeper, more serious sense of their independence."
A Tokyo businessman put it more crudely. "Yoshida," he said, "sold Japan from under his kimono, like a Parisian selling dirty pictures. Hatoyama is different. He is like a brand-new shopkeeper on the Ginza — his door is open to everybody.''