to minimize overlap and competition. In general, bilateral issues are assigned to the geographic bureaus, and multilateral problems to the functional bureaus. The Treaties Bureau, with its wide-ranging responsibilities, tend to get involved in the whole spectrum of issues. The Information Analysis, Research, and Planning Bureau engages in comprehensive and coordinated policy investigation and planning. Long a profession of high social prestige, diplomatic service from the Meiji period through World War II was a preserve of the upper social strata. In addition to formal qualifications, important prewar requirements for admission were proper social origin, family connections, and graduation from Tokyo Imperial University (the present-day University of Tokyo). After World War II, these requirements were changed as part of democratic reform measures but foreign service continued to be a highly regarded career. Most career foreign service officers had passed the postwar Higher Foreign Service Examination before entry into the service. Many of these successful examinees were graduates of the prestigious Law Faculty of the University of Tokyo. Almost all ambassadorial appointments since the 1950s have been made from among veteran diplomats. Diplomacy in postwar Japan was not a monopoly of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Given the overriding importance of economic factors in foreign relations, the ministry worked closely with the Ministry of Finance on matters of customs, tariffs, international finance, and foreign aid; with the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) on exports and imports; and with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries on questions of foreign agricultural imports and fishing rights. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also consulted other agencies, such as the Defense Agency, the Fair Trade Commission, the Japan Export-Import Bank (JEXIM), the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund, and the Overseas Technical Cooperation Agency. On many issues affecting the country's foreign economic activities—and thus its diplomatic relations as well—the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and sometimes MITI and the Ministry of Finance were known to favor liberalizing import restrictions. The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries and other domestic ministries, however, took a more protectionist stand, evidently because of pressures from special interest groups. The vital importance of foreign affairs expanded to affect virtually every aspect of national life in postwar Japan, and the multiplicity of agencies involved in external affairs continued to be a source of confusion and inefficiency in the formulation of foreign policy. Yet as the postwar generation