To the list of things broken in Japan, including political will and the banking system, add the limousine of Defense Minister Fukushiro Nukaga. He was arriving at the Pentagon last week to meet his American counterpart William Cohen when a meter-high, steel anti-terrorist barricade unexpectedly popped up and smashed into the underside of his car, leaving it perched atop the barrier, windshield shattered and fenders crumpled.

Full of symbolism, the accident in Washington took place just 24 hours before Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and President Bill Clinton held their first meeting in New York. Nukaga was taken by ambulance to a hospital, treated for cuts and bruises and released. Obuchi was not in the car, but it was he, of course, who sustained the more serious injuries.

No, Clinton didn't mug him. The President was busy acting presidential while America picked through the four hours of his videotaped grand jury testimony and thousands of pages of supporting documents in the Monica Lewinsky scandal released the day before, just as Nukaga had his run-in with a U.S. non-trade barrier. In the delicate minuet of the leaders' meeting, the grace notes were in tune: the planned quarter-hour went to 45 minutes; they called each other Keizo and Bill; Obuchi's joke that he had once been described as "cold pizza" was met by Clinton's truthful riposte that he loved the same; and the Prime Minister was duly invited to visit Washington, a trip that predecessor Ryutaro Hashimoto had to cancel when he lost office in July.

It's a shame that outside of the Imperial Household Agency such banalities are not worth a plugged yen. In fact, the Obuchi-Clinton meeting was a bust. It's just as well that the Prime Minister had come to visit the United Nations. Had he been in the United States solely to see the President, the trip would not have been worth the jet fuel. Sure, it's always important to know personally the leader of an important ally, especially one with the world's second largest economy. But few in Washington expect Obuchi to be in office long enough to collect on his official invitation. He was already the sixth Japanese Prime Minister Clinton has met and, for all the President's problems in holding his own office, it's more likely he'll be meeting a seventh before long.

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P O L L :

Is Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi doing enough to revitalize his country's economy?