More than a few ministry bureaucrats are worried their leaders may not be able to sustain hours of serious talk without someone to whisper in their ears.

To provide programming for a third channel, the ministry in 1984 pooled investments of more than 200 companies into Japan Satellite Broadcasting under the leadership of a former ministry bureaucrat.

Frustration over her behavior reached a high point last week when foreign ministry bureaucrats openly ridiculed her and she faced a grilling from opposition politicians in Parliament.

They said that to be effective in her new post, Ms. Tanaka will have to mend fences with the ministry bureaucrats.

The 13-story administrative building of the Petroleum Equipment Ministry is to be a children's hospital, with the ministry bureaucrats instead shoehorned into spare offices at a local factory.

Traditionally, ministry bureaucrats had been viewed almost universally as honest and extraordinarily hard-working - choosing a life of Government service over far more lucrative options in the private sector.

Time was running short, he said, and if the ministry bureaucrats were not brought under control, the sanctions would go into effect.

There was also a certain amount of envy on the part of many of the ministry bureaucrats toward the comparatively privileged conditions under which Porro, Gottardi, and Garrati were working.

Influential Ties One reason his factory works so well is that Mr. Samsonov is on a first-name basis with many party stalwarts and ministry bureaucrats.

Politicians, though, are more worried than ministry bureaucrats, partly because members of the upper house of Parliament face election this summer.