Power Couple Pay a Call on Newlyweds

KAWANA, Japan — Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin lived up to his image as a hopeless romantic Saturday when he and Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto brought flowers and presents to a couple whose wedding was disrupted by their summit at the same hotel.

Yeltsin had barely conducted any business at this seaside resort when he swept into the wedding reception, flanked by security agents and with Hashimoto and the two first ladies in tow.

The room erupted with tipsy relatives cheering and yelling the only Russian words they knew--”Khorosho” (Good) and “Spaseba” (Thank you).

Yeltsin rose to the occasion, kissing the tiny, stunned bride on both cheeks, bestowing a red-and-gold-wrapped gift box on the newlyweds and telling them: “I think there is not another wedding in the world attended by the leaders of two great powers, Russia and Japan.”

The wedding was a security nightmare for Japanese and Russian security guards, but love found a way for the couple to go ahead with their marriage at the famous Kawana Hotel, where Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio spent their honeymoon in 1954.

Kayori Takami, the 27-year-old bride, and Naoya Gotoh, a rose grower, were supposed to marry last weekend, but the hurriedly arranged summit planned for the same date forced them to postpone their plans.

Then Russia’s political turmoil forced a delay of the summit until this weekend, and the couple were once again asked to put off their dream wedding.

This time, they dug in their heels and insisted that their marriage was just as important as a summit meeting.

Japanese and Russian authorities, fearing a public relations disaster if word got out that the leaders had wrecked a wedding, decided to bite the security bullet and allow it to go ahead while Yeltsin and Hashimoto were meeting in another wing of the hotel.

The mother of the bride, Sachiko Takami, said she nearly fainted when Yeltsin’s wife, Naina, singled her out to congratulate her. “I can’t believe it happened,” she said. “This is such an honor.”