MITI and the Japanese miracle

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Could you tell us about them?" "Certainly," replied Fukuda. "Since MITI is an agency that serves the public, the fact that Sahashi has gotten a bad reputation with industry makes him unsuitable. I think that Imai would be good. I intend to appoint him as the next vice-minister."

²⁹

The ensuing explosion within MITI has become legendary. All work stopped. Just as at the time of the military mutiny in 1936, officials met in groups according to their entering classes to caucus on this unprecedented development. Some were quoted in the next day's newspapers as asking, "How is it that a party-politician minister, who knows nothing about the traditions of our glorious MITI, can pick a vice-minister we don't like?" The press club commented sardonically that the bureaucratic

amai seikatsu (la dolce vita

) at MITI had come to an end. And the public was confused: it thought that the minister always chose his own top subordinates, at MITI and at other ministries. Some cooler heads remarked, "Of course the minister technically has the final say in personnel matters. Both Sahashi and Imai are OK, and except for the fact that Sahashi has developed a faction within the ministry, neither can change MITI as a whole." Thus was born the "Sahashi faction"and its opposite number, the "international faction," which would take over the ministry in 1966. The press coverage of the ''Fukuda typhoon" effectively diverted attention from the Special Measures Law in the Diet and raised enough questions about its author to cause it to become "sponsorless legislation."

The reasons for Fukuda's action are not hard to find. First, as a party politician in a party increasingly dominated by former bureaucrats, Fukuda wanted to put the bureaucrats in their place. He was often quoted as saying, "It is sheer arrogance that some bureaucrats want to usurp the authority of politicians." Second, both the Maruzen affair and the Special Measures Law had made the business world nervous about a restoration of bureaucratic controls over the economy. Fukuda's action reassured business leaders on this score, since Imai was not only a champion of liberalization but had also won the trust of the prime minister and was the son-in-law of Yamazaki Taneji, president of the Yamazaki Securities Company. Third, LDP insiders believed that there was a link between Sato* Eisaku and Sahashi, and this was something Fukuda's faction leader, Ono* Bamboku, wanted severed.

The MITI elders were called in to try to control the damage. Outgoing Vice-Minister Matsuo advised Sahashi to keep his mouth shut while they worked out a solution. Sahashi made it clear that even though he and Imai were both from the class of 1937, he would not