Takeo Miki
In August 1973, then–Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka said that the scandal had "no cancelling influence on U.S. leadership in the world". Tanaka further said, "The pivotal role of the United States has not changed, so this internal affair will not be permitted to have an effect." In March 1975, Tanaka's successor, Takeo Miki, said at a convention of the Liberal Democratic Party, "At the time of the Watergate issue in America, I was deeply moved by the scene in the House Judiciary Committee, where each member of the committee expressed his own or her own heart based upon the spirit of the American Constitution. It was this attitude, I think, that rescued American democracy."