INVESTIGATIONS: The Harder They Fall

In its ability to topple the mighty, Tokyo's widening stock scandal is turning into a Japanese version of Watergate. Since July, when the daily newspaper Asahi Shimbun accused 76 highly placed political and business leaders of unethical trading in shares of the real estate firm Recruit Cosmos, 20 people implicated in the scheme have given up their posts. Last week Hisashi Shinto, 78, chairman of the giant firm Nippon Telegraph & Telephone, resigned after admitting that his bank account contained $73,000 in profits from the Recruit deal. Just five days earlier, Finance Minister Keiichi Miyazawa had departed under a similar cloud.