다음은 동아일보의 홈페이지  http://www.donga.com 에 있는 기사임. 이기사와 관련이 있는 뉴욕타임스의 영문 기사 " Shadow Shogun Steps Into Light, to Change Japan " 는 이 기사 뒤에 올릴 것임. “역사 모르는 고이즈미 공부도 않고 교양 없어” 뉴욕타임스 11일자 1개 면 전체를 장식한 와타나베 쓰네오 요미우리신문 회장의 인터뷰. 와타나베 회장은 이 인터뷰에서 고이즈미 준이치로 총리에 대해 “역사에 무지한 데다 공부도 하지 않는다”고 직격탄을 날렸다.   일본 요미우리신문 와타나베 쓰네오(渡邊恒雄·사진) 회장의 고이즈미 준이치로(小泉純一郞) 총리 비판이 미국 뉴욕타임스와의 인터뷰로까지 이어졌다. 보수적 논조로 일본 내 발행부수 1위를 지켜 온 요미우리신문의 와타나베 회장은 11일 발간된 뉴욕타임스와의 인터뷰에서 “고이즈미 총리는 역사나 철학을 모르면서 공부도 하지 않고 문화적 소양도 없다”고 직격탄을 날렸다. 그는 70대 후반의 나이에도 정계 막후에서 영향력을 행사하고, 국가적 의제 설정자로 평가받는 인물이다. 신문은 그를 ‘어둠 속의 쇼군(將軍)’으로 묘사했다. 그는 우선 “야스쿠니(靖國)신사 참배가 뭐가 잘못된 것이냐” “참배를 비판하는 것은 중국과 한국밖에 없다”는 고이즈미 총리의 말을 도마에 올렸다. 그는 “그런 어리석은 말을 하는 게 바로 이런 무지에서 비롯됐다”고 말했다. 와타나베 회장은 태평양전쟁 말기 이등병으로 전쟁터에 내몰렸던 기억을 되새기며 고이즈미 총리의 역사 인식을 문제 삼았다. 그는 특히 “가미카제(神風) 특공대가 ‘천황폐하 만세’를 외치며 기쁨으로 돌진했다는 것은 모두 거짓말이다. 특공대는 도살장에 끌려 온 가축에 불과했다”고 말했다. “한 병사는 일어설 수도 없어서 다른 병사들에게 들려서 (돌아올 연료가 없는) 비행기 안에 밀어 넣어졌다”고 당시를 회고했다. 그의 일본 우익 공개 비판은 이번 인터뷰가 처음은 아니다. 그는 지난해 6월 요미우리신문의 사설을 통해 야스쿠니신사 참배를 비판하면서 대체 추도시설의 건립을 촉구했다. 보수적 성향의 사설을 통해 외국 언론의 신사 참배 비판에 거부감을 표시해 왔던 요미우리신문으로서는 ‘깜짝 변신’이었다. 연초 아사히신문 와카미야 요시부미(若宮啓文) 논설주간과의 대담(시사월간지 론자·2월호)에서는 “군국주의를 부채질하고 예찬하는 전시품을 늘어놓은 박물관(류슈칸 전쟁기념관)을 야스쿠니신사가 경영하고 있다”며 “그런 곳에 총리가 참배하는 것은 이상하다”고 비판했다. 그런 그가 전선(戰線)을 뉴욕타임스로까지 넓힌 것이다. 제2차 세계대전의 당사자이면서도 고이즈미 총리의 야스쿠니신사 참배까지 ‘못 본 척하는’ 미국의 조야(朝野)를 겨냥한 것으로 보인다. 뉴욕타임스와의 인터뷰는 도쿄(東京)의 요미우리신문 회장실에서 2시간 동안 진행됐다. 이 신문은 “어둠 속에 남아 있던 거물 언론인이 여든을 앞두고 양지로 나오고 있다”고 그와의 공개 인터뷰를 묘사했다. 이 신문은 또 “최근 와타나베 회장이 60년 전 사건들을 조명하는 연중 기획기사를 지시했고 일부 정치인이 생각을 가다듬는 계기가 되고 있다”고도 썼다. 실제로 와타나베 회장은 “(삶이) 얼마 남지 않았다. 일본이 잔혹했던 태평양전쟁 시대를 인정할 필요가 있다”며 최근 눈에 띄는 전후세대의 민족주의를 경계했다. 와타나베 회장은 인터뷰에서 “일본 전체를 바꿀 수 있다고 본다”는 말도 했다고 이 신문은 덧붙였다. 와타나베 회장의 ‘황혼 전쟁’을 일본 사회는 어떻게 받아들일까? 워싱턴=김승련 특파원 srkim@donga.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 다음은 뉴욕타임스  http://www.nytimes.com 에 있는 기사임. February 11, 2006 The Saturday Profile Shadow Shogun Steps Into Light, to Change Japan By NORIMITSU ONISHI TOKYO AT day's end, it was perhaps one of the few things over which he held no sway, the relentless logic of aging, that made Tsuneo Watanabe, Japan's most powerful media baron, decide to step out of the shadows. For years, most Japanese had caught only glimpses of the man, usually leaving, late at night, one of his favorite ryotei, the members-only redoubts where Mr. Watanabe dined with fellow power brokers and received supplicants. Reporters would swarm around him as he made his way toward his black sedan, peppering him with questions on the day's topic, and he would oblige them with imperious one-liners that made him the embodiment of the arrogant, ultimate insider. But Mr. Watanabe, now nearly 80 years old, has stepped into the light. He has recently granted long, soul-baring interviews in which he has questioned the rising nationalism he has cultivated so assiduously in the pages of his newspaper, the conservative Yomiuri — the world's largest, with a circulation of 14 million. Now, he talks about the need to acknowledge Japan's violent wartime history and reflects on his wife's illness and his own, as well as the joys of playing with his new hamsters. Struck by his own sense of mortality, Mr. Watanabe seems ruffled that his power may be waning. He has railed against Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who he says just doesn't listen to him anymore. "Before, early on, he used to listen to me sometimes," Mr. Watanabe told a television interviewer. During a two-hour interview at his office, where, in addition to the paper, he presides over Japan's most popular baseball team, the Yomiuri Giants, and the rest of the Yomiuri Media Group's empire, he puffed on one of the three pipes on the coffee table before him. He was a man in a hurry, in a hurry to change Japan, no less, by forcing it to confront, understand and judge its wartime conduct — and set it on the correct path as his testament to the nation. "I'll be 80 years old this year," he said. "I have very little time left." His first move was to publish an editorial last June criticizing Mr. Koizumi's visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, the Shinto memorial where 14 Class A war criminals, including the wartime prime minister, Hideki Tojo, are deified. It was an about-face for The Yomiuri, which had tended to react viscerally against foreign criticism of the Yasukuni visits. Indeed, the paper was a main force in pushing for the more muscular nationalism now emerging in Japan. Shortly after becoming editor in chief in 1991, Mr. Watanabe set up a committee to revise the American-imposed pacifist Constitution. If MacArthur's Constitution emasculated Japan by forbidding it to have a real military, Mr. Watanabe's Constitution, published in 1994, restored its manhood. Now, it seems only a matter of time until Japan completes the process that Mr. Watanabe started years ago. Still, he seems troubled by some aspects of the nationalist movement he helped engender. The editorial, which reflected his worries about Japan's relations with its Asian neighbors, sent shock waves through the political world. It called for the building of a secular alternative to the shrine and said Mr. Koizumi did not understand history. Mr. Koizumi worships at a shrine that glorifies militarism, said Mr. Watanabe, who equates Tojo with Hitler. He added, "This person Koizumi doesn't know history or philosophy, doesn't study, doesn't have any culture. That's why he says stupid things, like, 'What's wrong about worshiping at Yasukuni?' Or, 'China and Korea are the only countries that criticize Yasukuni.' This stems from his ignorance." Like many of postwar Japan's leaders with wartime experience, Mr. Watanabe is suspicious of the emotional appeals to nationalism used increasingly by those who never saw war. In his high school in Tokyo, he said, military officials visited regularly to instill militarism in the young. "I once instigated my classmates to boycott the class and shut ourselves in a classroom," he recalled. "We were punished later." When he entered the army as a second-class private, the war was in its last stages. The military began dispatching kamikaze pilots, whom the Japanese right wing now glorifies as willing martyrs for the emperor. "It's all a lie that they left filled with braveness and joy, crying, 'Long live the emperor!' " he said, angrily. "They were sheep at a slaughterhouse. Everybody was looking down and tottering. Some were unable to stand up and were carried and pushed into the plane by maintenance soldiers." AFTER graduating from the University of Tokyo after the war, Mr. Watanabe joined The Yomiuri newspaper in 1950 and made his mark as a political reporter. Political reporters in Japan tend to succeed by becoming close to a particular politician. According to a 2000 biography by Akira Uozumi, Mr. Watanabe ingratiated himself so much with one Liberal Democratic heavyweight, Banboku Ohno, he became the gatekeeper at his house. Politicians seeking favors from Mr. Ohno would ask Mr. Watanabe to put in a good word. One young politician helped by Mr. Watanabe was Yasuhiro Nakasone, the future prime minister. They remain close. Such was Mr. Watanabe's power that by the 1980's, he helped broker major political deals. In those ryotei, nationally known politicians prostrated themselves before the shadow shogun. It was only after Mr. Watanabe became the head of the media group's baseball team in 1996, that the Japanese became aware of his existence. He became a George Steinbrenner-like figure of a team even more dominant than the New York Yankees. "I'm not an ogre or a snake," Mr. Watanabe said with a smile, protesting that his one-liners were frequently twisted. NOWADAYS, he is expansive, even on his own frailty, including his fight against prostate cancer eight years ago. Talking about his wife of 50 years and the brain hemorrhage that led to her senility, he turns reflective. "We rarely went to the play or other places together," he said. "I'd come home late at night and then leave home early in the morning. She dozes all day now. She's lost much of her personality. I remembered that one time I slapped her on the cheek. I want to make it up to her, but there's nothing that I can do. Sometimes she smiles happily. That makes me the happiest." The couple moved to a new home, where he misses the wild birds that used to fly into their old garden. So Mr. Watanabe began keeping hamsters. He is hardly ready for retirement, though. Convinced that Japan will never become a mature country unless it examines its wartime conduct on its own, Mr. Watanabe ordered a yearlong series of articles on the events of six decades ago. In August, the newspaper will pronounce its verdict. The series and Mr. Watanabe's attacks on Mr. Koizumi are said to have shaken Japanese politics, as Mr. Koizumi prepares to retire in September. Even though he won a landslide election a few months ago, attacks against his legacy are rising. Political analysts see the hand of Mr. Watanabe. The series, he said, has started changing the opinions of some politicians. But he is far more ambitious. "I think I can change all of Japan," he said.