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Hashimoto quiet in

top post until now

TOKYO: For a politician with a reputation for being aggressive and outspoken, Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto had been curiously quiet since taking office in January -- until last Friday.

That's when he strode to the podium for a televised news

conference to announce that Futenma Air Base, a key U.S. Marine

Corps base on Japan's island of Okinawa, would be shut within

five to seven years and the land returned to its owners.

Hashimoto will be host to U.S. President Bill Clinton this

week for a summit to shore up security ties frayed by the end

of the Cold War and strained by Japanese outrage over the rape

of a schoolgirl by U.S. servicemen.

The return of Futenma and other cutbacks in U.S. military

facilities on Okinawa aim to pacify Okinawans outraged by

bearing the brunt of the burden of the U.S.-Japan alliance.

But the surprise news conference by Hashimoto and U.S.

Ambassador Walter Mondale, plus reports that Hashimoto had

played a key role in working out the agreement, was also meant

to burnish Hashimoto's fading image, political analysts said.

He had been suffering from public ire at a financial

bailout scheme using tax money and by disappointment in some

domestic quarters over his leadership qualities.

The LDP elected Hashimoto president last September hoping

he would win the premiership and lead it back to sole power, a

position voters had deprived the party of in 1993 in anger over

various scandals.-Reuter