Recruit Scandal

Foreign Minister Sosuke Uno flew home today to become Japan's next prime minister but found instead that a rival candidate had emerged within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Uno, 66, had been expected to be elected without opposition to replace Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, who is resigning over Japan's biggest political scandal since World War II. But a small group of party elders and younger members have objected to his connections with Takeshita and former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, both of whom have been disgraced by the Recruit Co. stocks-for-favors scandal.

The founder of Recruit Co. and three other businessmen were arrested today in a stock-trading scandal that has shaken Japan's governing party and contributed to its loss in a special parliamentary election. Recruit reportedly sold tens of thousands of unlisted shares of stock at bargain prices to politicians, their aides and other prominent people. The purchasers then profited when the stocks were publicly traded and skyrocketed in value.

Justice Minister Takashi Hasegawa resigned early today amid criticism over donations he received from Recruit Co., the company at the center of a stock-trading and alleged influence-peddling scandal that is rocking the Japanese government. Hasegawa had been appointed to the post just three days earlier in a Cabinet reshuffle aimed at restoring public confidence in the administration of Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita.

Japan's opposition Clean Government Party emerged Wednesday as the latest casualty in a bribery case that has thrown the government into confusion, with its chairman becoming the third political party leader to say he will resign because of the scandal. Junya Yano, chairman of the Buddhist-affiliated Komeito, or Clean Government Party, declared his intention to resign hours after prosecutors questioned Katsuya Ikeda, a Komeito member of Parliament, on suspicion of peddling influence to Recruit Co., the employment services firm at the center of the scandal.

A top Japanese businessman received a suspended jail sentence and heavy fine Tuesday for his role in the 1988 Recruit corruption scandal, which brought down the government and sparked fierce debate about political fund raising. But political analysts said the verdict will have little impact in reforming the nation's money-oriented political system. Hisashi Shinto, former chairman of telecommunications giant Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp.

Ron Zell Brewer, a reserve tight end on the Texas Christian University football team, was suspended Tuesday after saying he had been receiving cash payments in violation of NCAA rules, Coach Jim Wacker said. Brewer, a senior, was the seventh TCU player to be suspended since Thursday amid allegations of illegal recruitment practices. Brewer was recruited in 1981 under the school's previous football coaching staff and spent the 1984 season as a redshirt.

A former Labor Ministry official was convicted on bribery charges Monday in the nation's most serious financial scandal, the Recruit Co. affair that toppled one prime minister and contributed to the resignation of another last year.

There's a powerful story in the excesses of big-time college sports. "What Price Victory" isn't it. Anyone keeping track of sports is aware that colleges face a major task in exorcising their demons when it comes to athletic recruiting. Occasional disclosures of jock exploitation or special favors that include under-the-table cash and other violations of National Collegiate Athletic Assn. rules are probably small items compared with the vastness of the problem. What grist for the dramatist.

Businessman Hiromasa Ezoe, the 52-year-old founder and former chairman of Recruit Co., may go down in history as Japan's greatest political revolutionary. Ezoe, who has been under arrest since mid-February charged with bribing ministers and other top officials, has revealed the dark side of the relationship between business and government, contributing to a growing sense of economic and political alienation among average Japanese citizens. And in blowing the lid off Japanese politics, Ezoe has raised the most fundamental question of all: What kind of democracy is Japan?

His eyes are the first thing you notice. Bright green, nearly translucent. They dim only when he grimaces, when he thinks back. Two years have passed since Dante Clay, just 14 years old, stumbled into a football recruiting scandal more befitting a big-time college player. His story is not unique--school administrators say that throughout Los Angeles and the country, the ills of professional and college sports are seeping ever deeper into the high school ranks.