CAMBRIDGE, England -- The ink was barely dry on my April 21 Japan Times article "Koizumi trade pitch misses," which stated Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was thinking of going to pray at Yasukuni Shrine, when the news came that he had gone. We were told that he had felt the need "to mourn those who gave their lives to the country during the course of (Japan's) history since the (1868) Meiji Restoration" and to "pray for those who lost their lives."

The chief Cabinet secretary was careful to explain that it was a personal visit made on the basis of the prime minister's personal faith. The prime minister's claim that his motive for the visit to the shrine was personal raises questions.

First, if the motive was purely personal and the result of a need to mourn and pray, why could he not have done this in the privacy of his own home? Second, if he needs an institutional setting for his praying, why did he not go to the tomb of the Unknown Soldier? Third, if it was a personal and private gesture, why did he arrange extensive publicity and sign the visitors' book as "prime minister?"