Desperate people -- and groups -- can be expected to take desperate steps. The carefully orchestrated public relations campaign in which the Aum Shinrikyo cult is now engaged, including changing the cult name to Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, for a "fresh start," seems like little more than a ploy to keep the police and public safety authorities at bay. The admission by senior cult members that founder Shoko Asahara (real name Chizuo Matsumoto) may have been involved "to a certain extent" in at least 17 major crimes for which he is now on trial, combined with an apology to the victims and their families, is being treated in all quarters with the suspicion it rightly deserves.

How can it be otherwise? The "drastic reforms" supposedly being undertaken by the cult charged with, among other crimes, the March 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subways that killed 12 people and injured another 5,500, were detailed in a letter sent to the media over the name of senior member and former official spokesman Fumihiro Joyu. At one time he was responsible for facing television cameras and making vociferous denials that Aum Shinrikyo had anything whatever to do with such crimes. Joyu does not seem to have been idle in the less than one month since he was released from prison after serving a three-year sentence for perjury.

In his letter he claimed he wanted to "officially amend" his former "incorrect statements." The public has waited a long time for that ostensible change of heart to occur and is understandably doubtful that it is genuine, couched as it was in qualifications. To be sure, the groundwork for the "reforms" was laid a month and a half ago when acting cult leader Ms. Tatsuko Muraoka issued her own statement expressing "regret" for the crimes in which she acknowledged that Aum had been involved. That also failed dismally to sway public opinion in the cult's favor.