2009/12/24A 1969 document, found by a son of former Prime Minister Eisaku Sato (1901-1975), proves conclusively that a secret pact did exist between Tokyo and Washington over the 1972 reversion of Okinawa to Japan.
According to the "agreed minute to joint communique" of Sato and U.S. President Richard Nixon released in November 1969, Japan promises to allow the United States to bring back nuclear weapons to Okinawa "in time of great emergency."
The existence of this secret deal was revealed in the 1990s in a book authored by Kei Wakaizumi (1930-1996), a former Kyoto Sangyo University professor who was Sato's official envoy for the Okinawa reversion talks with U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. But the Japanese government repeatedly denied the existence of this document, which has not been disclosed in the United States either.
Yukio Hatoyama's administration is in the process of uncovering secret Japan-U.S. deals struck under Liberal Democratic Party administrations. Among documents that have been discovered so far is one that substantiates the existence of another secret accord that allowed U.S. naval vessels carrying nuclear weapons to call at Japanese ports or sail in Japanese waters without prior consultation with Tokyo. But nothing compares with the impact of the discovery of the text of the secret pact itself after 40 years.
The typed document bears the signatures of both Sato and Nixon. It mentions places in Okinawa as nuclear storage locations. They are Kadena and Naha, as well as Henoko, which Tokyo and Washington agreed upon in 2006 as the relocation site of the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.
The document also says that this minute should "be treated in the strictest confidence" between only the U.S. president and the prime minister. The bluntness of the wording of the original text took our breath away.
The world was in the middle of the Cold War then, and the Vietnam War was escalating. In compliance with Sato's demand that the returned Okinawa must be nuclear-free like the rest of the nation, Washington agreed to remove nuclear weapons from U.S. bases in Okinawa Prefecture.
But as a quid pro quo, Washington made Sato promise to allow the "re-entry" of nuclear weapons into Okinawa in the event of a contingency.
This deal vividly reveals Okinawa's tremendous importance to U.S. military strategy and Washington's desire to minimize any diminishment of Okinawa's role even after its reversion to Japan.
Sato, who was determined to go down in history as the prime minister who brought Okinawa back to Japan, accepted Washington's terms. But because his decision was in conflict with the nation's three non-nuclear principles, he chose to "deceive" the Japanese people by keeping this pact a secret.
Hatoyama and Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada have entrusted a Foreign Ministry panel of experts with getting to the bottom of this and other secret deals.
What needs to be ascertained is how the secret agreement was passed on through the decades in top government circles. All surviving former prime ministers and top diplomats should tell the truth to the public.
And it is more important for Tokyo to confer with Washington and come up with a unified stand on whether the 1969 pact is still legally binding today.
There is a big difference between today and 40 years ago in the security environment and the nuclear weapons operating strategy. In practical terms, there is a bare possibility of the United States requesting Japan to allow the re-entry of nuclear weapons today.
Still, it would be wrong to leave unattended the conflict between the secret deal and the three non-nuclear principles. Failure to face this problem could shake the public's faith in the Japan-U.S. alliance.
Especially now that Hatoyama's waffling on the Futenma issue is straining Japan-U.S. ties, the government must act wisely.
--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 23(IHT/Asahi: December 24,2009)
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