JAPAN: One More Haircut

Twenty-six years ago, in Tokyo's Central Railroad Station, a nationalist fanatic named Yoshiaki Sagoya shot Japan's liberal Premier, "Lion" Hamaguchi. Last week bull-necked Yoshiaki Sagoya was back doing business at his old stand. In protest at Prime Minister Ichiro Hato-yama's avowed intention of flying to Moscow to negotiate a World War II peace treaty with the U.S.S.R. (TIME, Sept. 24), Sagoya and the khaki-clad toughs of his "National Protection Society" staged a mock funeral service for the ailing, 73-year-old Premier. On top of an altar, flanked by artificial flowers, sat a 12-ft. high Buddhist memorial tablet that described Hatoyama...