The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 19 | Issue 14 | Number 3 | Article ID 5609 | Jul 15, 2021

1

Six Decades of US-Japanese Government Collusion in BringingNuclear Weapons to Japan.

Steve Rabson

Abstract: The Navy ship containing nuclearbombs that a junior officer saw anchored offIwakuni Marine Corps Air Station in 1959 wasonly the most notorious of many U.S. violationsof Japan’s official policy banning nuclearweapons. The Japanese government has a longhistory of secret ly agreeing to theirdeployments, and feigning ignorance when theywere revealed. The outrage that erupted in thepress and in the Diet when former AmericanAmbassador to Japan, Edwin Reischauer, spokepublicly in 1981 about nuclear-armed warshipsin Japan’s ports came close to bringing downan LDP government. In Okinawa local residentsprotested the large numbers and types ofnuclear weapons based there during the U.S.military occupation (1945-72). Breaking itspromise that they be permanently removed, theJapanese government concluded a secretnuclear understanding as part of the 1969Okinawa Reversion Agreement that the U.S.government could bring them back whenever itdecided there was “a great emergency.” In2009 a high Japanese government officialadvocated their return to Okinawa in testimonybefore a U.S. Congressional Commission.

Key Words: MCAS Iwakuni, LST, AtomicEnergy Basic Law, Three Non-NuclearPrinciples, Bravo H-Bomb Test, Lucky DragonNo. 5, Ambassador Edwin Reischauer, HonestJohn rocket, U.S.S. Ticonderoga, KadenaAirbase, Okinawa Reversion Agreement, PrimeMinister Satō Eisaku, President Richard Nixon,secret nuclear understanding, Henoko

Ordnance Storage Depot, Akiba Takeo

Stewart Engel was a Navy junior officer in late1959 when his assigned ship, USS Carpenter,made a port call at Iwakuni Marine Corps AirStation in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan.

Off our beam, moored or anchored, was anLST [“Landing Ship, Tank” or tank landingship]. It was by far the worst rust bucket Isaw in my three years of active duty. AnyC.O. [commanding officer] would havebeen mightily embarrassed to command it.Its condition convinced me that it had notbeen to sea with a Navy crew for a while.

During our entire stay at Iwakuni I neversaw a sailor on the ship. I did always seetwo Marines, one forward and one aft.Sometimes Marines are used as decorativebase gate guards in their pressed uniformswith perhaps a sidearm. These were not.They were dressed for combat and heavilyarmed accordingly.

The peculiar arrangement caused me toinquire about the LST’s purpose and I wastold it was to repair electronics. That madeno sense. Anybody with equipment torepair would have carried it to a dock andscheduled a boat to go out to the LST. Inaddition, I saw no accommodation ladderon the side of the LST.

APJ | JF 19 | 14 | 3

2

Clearly there was some hanky-panky goingon. At the time I speculated on what itmight be. My first choice was that it wasactually a brig for really, really badmilitary personnel. A distant second choicewas that it was being used to housevictims of extraordinary rendition, afloating precursor to Gitmo. Both choicesmeant that the guards were there to keeppeople from escaping from the LST.Regardless of the LST’s actual function,the foolishness of the cover story seemedto ensure that Iwakuni would draw morethan its fair share of attention from Sovietor Chinese spies. I learned later that thehold was full of amtracs [armored trackedvehicles] packed with nuclear bombs.

In 1981 former U.S. Ambassador to Japan,Edwin Reischauer, revealed publicly that theU.S. had been bringing nuclear weapons intoJapanese ports for decades contrary to thegovernment’s stated policies and publicunderstanding.1

In fact, Reischauer had negotiated anagreement with Foreign Minister ŌhiraMasayoshi in April, 1963, to accept the transitof nuclear armed warships in Japanese waterswhich only formalized what had been going onalready. “I've long suspected,” wrote StewartEngel,” that Japanese officials approved thesenukes but needed ‘plausible deniability’ fordomestic political reasons.”

Japan's “Atomic Energy Basic Law,” enacted bythe Diet in 1955, states that “atomic energyshall be limited to peaceful purposes, aimed atensuring safety . . . and under democraticmanagement.” Its “Three Non-NuclearPrinciples” resolution, passed by the Diet in1971, states that “Japan shall neither possessnor manufacture nuclear weapons, nor shall itp e r m i t t h e i r i n t r o d u c t i o n i n t oJapanese territory.”

In h is book The Doomsday Machine:Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner(Bloomsbury, 2017), Daniel Ellsberg writes that“in early 1960 I was told in great secrecy by anuclear control officer in the Pacific that onesmall Marine airbase at Iwakuni in Japan had asecret arrangement whereby its handful ofplanes with general war missions would gettheir nuclear weapons very quickly in the eventof a general war alert.” Ellsberg goes on toexplain how they would be deployed.

Because of the special relation of theMarines to the Navy, there was a flat-bottomed ship for landing tanks on thebeach (LST, for Landing Ship, Tank),anchored just offshore Iwakuni withnuclear weapons aboard, loaded ontoamphibious tractors, just for the smallgroup of planes on this base.

Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni with portand airfield.

APJ | JF 19 | 14 | 3

3

U.S. Navy LST

The LST, the USS San Joaquin County, hada cover mission as an electronics repairship. It was permanently stationed not justinside the three-mile limit of Japaneseterritorial waters but anchored a couple ofhundred yards from the beach, in the tidalwaters. By any standards it was stationedwithin the territory of Japan. So were itsnuclear weapons.

In a nuclear emergency. The San JoaquinCounty would operate as it was designedto do in an amphibious landing. It wouldhaul anchor and come straight ashore. Thefront of the ship would open up like aclam-shell, and amphibious tractors loadedwith nuclear weapons would come down aramp into the water or directly onto thebeach, then head on land straight to theairstrip where the weapons would beloaded onto the Marine planes.

[ In 1966] Edwin Reischauer, ourambassador to Japan, learned of [the SanJoaquin County’s] presence—through aleak to his office—and demanded that it beremoved. He threatened to resign if itwasn’t. In 1967 it finally moved back toOkinawa.2

Ellsberg later wrote, “There were majorinterviews in Japan after Reischauer’srevelations, in one of which I was paired with aretired general who had been in one of thehighest positions in the Japanese defenseestablishment.”

Like other official spokespersons at thetime, he maintained that the U.S. hadassured the Japanese government theywould inform the government of anyintention or practice of introducingnuclear weapons into Japanese territory.This was in reference to nuclear weaponseven aboard U.S. ships in Japanese ports,l e t a l o n e p e r m a n e n t l yin Japanese territorial waters like the LSTat Iwakuni. Since the U.S. had not madea n y s u c h a n n o u n c e m e n t t othe government, the government assumedthat no such introduction had everoccurred.

Every US sailor in a Japanese portknew that was untrue. Virtually every U.S.ship in a Japanese port had nuclearw e a p o n s a b o a r d . B u t d i dthe Japanese government know it? Yes,said former ambassador Reischauer.Moreover, he said, they knew about theLST, and accepted it, so long as the U.S.kept it secret and denied it. On the ports,the US always said "We neither confirmnor deny the location of any US nuclearweapons.” This declaration was largely toallow the Japanese government, inparticular, to deny their knowledge and tolie about it.3

APJ | JF 19 | 14 | 3

4

Edwin O. Reischauer, U.S. Ambassador toJapan, 1961-66

In an article headlined “Japan reels underReischauer’s nuclear ‘bombshell’” (ChristianScience Monitor, May 19, 1981), reporterGeoffrey Murray wrote,

Why did he choose now to make astatement like that? It's incredible, beyondbelief." The anguish in the voice of thesenior Japanese Foreign Ministry officialwas obvious. He was referring to claims byEdwin Reischauer, a highly respectedformer US ambassador to Tokyo and now aHarvard professor, that Americanwarships carrying nuclear weapons hadfrequently entered Japanese ports orpassed through territorial waters.

Repeatedly over the years, however, the

Japanese people have been assured bytheir government that visiting U.S. vesselshave been "clean" in compliance with thiscountry's three nonnuclear principles -- notto manufacture, possess, or allowintroduction of nuclear weapons.

In fact, Japanese government officials have along history of approving U.S. nuclear weaponsdeployments going back to 1954 when the crewof a Japanese fishing boat suffered severeradiation poisoning from the test of a hydrogenbomb in the South Pacific. The March, 1954“Bravo Shot” H-bomb explosion dumpedradioactive debris on the Marshall Islands, U.S.servicemen aboard Navy ships, and the crew ofthe Japanese fishing boat Lucky Dragon No. 5.The multi-megaton blast infected MarshallIslanders with radiation sickness and causedcancers in the years that followed. Theircontaminated home on Bikini Atoll remainsuninhabitable to this day. U.S. servicemen whohad been purposely transported into the blastzone have suffered from multiple cancers fromradiation exposure. For years their claims weredenied by the Veterans Administration. It tookan act of Congress in 1990 to providecompensation for them and their children withbirth defects. One crew member of LuckyDragon No. 5, Kuboyama Aikichi (age 40), diedwhile in treatment with the others for radiationexposure.4

APJ | JF 19 | 14 | 3

5

“Bravo Shot” H-bomb test, Bikini, March1, 1954

Japanese scientists examine the hull ofcontaminated Lucky Dragon No. 5

at Yaizu City port, Shizuoka Prefecture,Japan.

With the Diet in an uproar over the H-bombtests and the resulting poisoned fishermen,opposition parties demanded that the Japanesegovernment bring the case to the International

Court of Just ice. On March 17, 1954,Representative Kawasaki Hideji of theProgressive Party argued that “world opinionwould be deeply sympathetic to a nation thathas now been victimized three times by nuclearexplosions. Our foreign policy must becourageous enough to petition the InternationalCourt.” Foreign Minister Okazaki Katsuoresponded that “I am confident we can resolvethe issue without going to the Court.”

On April 9, 1954, Foreign Minister Okazakiexplained his decision not to pursue America’slegal responsibility at a party in Tokyo given bythe America-Japan Society. “We recognize thatnuclear tests are indispensable to the securitynot only of America, but of Japan and otherdemocratic nations. Thus, we join the otherdemocratic nations in helping to make sure theatomic tests are successful.”5

For his thoroughly researched article “Japanunder the US nuclear umbrella,” HansKristensen drew on historical records andrecently declassified documents obtained underthe Freedom of Information Act that listed U.S.nuclear weapons deployments in Japan duringthe Cold War.6

There was in fact no such understanding.In a secret letter on July 17, 1955, theforeign minister was officially informed bythe Embassy that the ambassador "madeno commitments ... regarding the storageof atomic weapons in Japan" and that "theU.S. government does not consider itselfcommitted to any particular course ofaction."

In March of 1955, one year after the crew ofLucky Dragon No. 5 had suffered radiationpoisoning from the Bikini H-bomb test, PrimeMinister Hatoyama Ichirō was asked at a pressconference if he would permit U.S. nuclear

APJ | JF 19 | 14 | 3

6

weapons in Japan. He responded much likeForeign Minister Okazaki Katsuo had theprevious year. “If we are to sanction thepresent ‘peace sustained by force’ asjustifiable, then I would have to allow suchstockpiling.” To calm the furor that ensued, theruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) insistedthat Japan had an “understanding” with theU.S. that it would be consulted before suchdeployment took place. Foreign MinisterShigemitsu Mamoru told the Diet in June, 1955,that there would be “prior consultation” withthe U.S. if nuclear weapons were ever deployedin Japan. But in a classified internal report in1957 the U.S. State Department refuted thisclaim.

Meanwhile, only one week after he told theDiet the U.S. would not bring nuclear weaponsinto Japan without asking first, ForeignMinister Shigemitsu sent a letter to theAmerican ambassador John M. Allison assuringhim that “nothing in the discussions in the Dietcommits the U.S. to any particular course ofaction.” As noted by Hans Kristensen, “Thisdouble standard policy of secretly relieving theU.S. from any obligations before bringingnuclear weapons in, while at the same timeassuring the public that specific limitationsexisted, would become a trademark of Japanesegovernments for the next four decades.”7

On July 29, 1955, only eleven days after theState Department’s letter, the Associated Pressreported a U.S. Army announcement that it wassending nuclear missiles and Honest Johnartillery rockets to Japan. The report cited a“heretofore secret agreement” between theU.S. and Japanese governments permittingtheir deployment, but that “the Diet had notbeen informed.” The report made headlines inJapan. The next day Prime Minister Hatoyama,testifying in the Diet, denied any knowledge ofthe planned deployment and claimed there wasno secret agreement. Without mentioning anagreement, U.S. Ambassador Allison released astatement that the missiles and rockets would

be sent to Japan minus their nuclear warheads.In fact, the “secret agreement” between thetwo governments allowed for the positioning ofthe weapons and their crews in Japan with theunderstanding that nuclear warheads would bebrought in if both governments agreed that theinternational situation required them.8

However, no such subterfuge was necessarywhen it came to Okinawa. A prefecture of Japanuntil the spring of 1945, Okinawa was seized bythe U.S. during the Battle of Okinawa and ruledunder U.S. military occupation until 1972. Thisallowed American forces “freedom ofoperations” unfettered even by the easilycircumvented laws in “sovereign” mainlandJapan. The same day, July 29, 1955, that theAssociated Press reported the U.S. dispatch ofnuclear weapons to Japan, the Chicago Tribunereported that atomic cannons and nuclear-armed Honest John rockets were beingdeployed to Okinawa.

APJ | JF 19 | 14 | 3

7

Although the subsequent presence of nuclearweapons in Okinawa was supposed to be highlyclassified information, anti-nuclear proteststhat greeted the arrival of Honest John rocketsshowed that they were hardly a secret toOkinawans. How could local residents not besuspicious of the extremely high security at theArmy’s ordnance storage base at Henokowhere squads of armed soldiers with GermanShepherd sentry dogs patrolled its perimeter24/7, where signs along the main road passingit ordered "no stopping," and where a largearea of close-cropped grass surrounded byhigh-wire fencing contained several oblong,sod-covered concrete bunkers with steel doors?They could easily find out that the base's "SW"designation on the sign at its entrance gatestood for "special weapons"--nuclear, chemicaland biological. Among Okinawans inclined todo some research into nuclear issues, a bookpublished in mainland Japan about the U.S.military in Okinawa noted that an unclassifiedArmy manual descr ib ing the base ’sorganization listed a "nuclear ordnanceplatoon.”9

Nuclear-capable Honest John rocket on itstruck-transported launcher.

APJ | JF 19 | 14 | 3

8

Storage “igloos” at the Army ordnancecompany in Okinawa

that stored nuclear weapons until 1972.(Photos by the author, 2014)

In the 1956 edition of the college studentmagazine Ryūdai Bungaku, its founderArakawa Akira published his poem “TheColored Race,” protesting deployment of theHonest John rockets and calling for blacksoldiers to join Okinawans in resisting the U.S.military occupation. Occupation officialspromptly shut down the magazine for one year,confiscated issues already printed, and expelledArakawa and his co-editor Kawamitsu Shin’ichfrom University of the Ryukyus. One stanzareads,

The whites,

The flabby, hairy whites

Bring the Honest John to our island,

Strut around arrogantly,

And act like our masters,

Calling us yellow.10

There could have been any number of reasons

for this crack-down on a small studentpublication, but nuclear weapons in Okinawawere supposed to be a military secret.According to a November, 1999 article in theBulletin of Atomic Scientists, nuclear weaponshad first come to Okinawa in 1954.

Deployment of complete weapons andcomponents coincided with the U.S.-Chinacrisis over the Taiwan straits in 1954–55.The Eisenhower administration, worriedthat Chinese forces might attack theoffshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu oreven Taiwan itself, made nuclear threatsand developed contingency plans for theuse of nuclear weapons against China.Complete nuclear weapons were deployedto Okinawa in December 1954. Thatsame month, the nuclear-armed aircraftcarrier U.S.S. Midway deployed toTaiwanese waters. . . .

A t t h e e n d o f t h e E i s e n h o w e radministration, U.S. nuclear deploymentson shore in the Pacific—at Okinawa, Guam,the Philippines, Korea, and Taiwan(but not Hawaii)—totaled approximately1,700 weapons. There were about adozen weapons on Taiwan, 60 in thePhilippines, 225 on Guam, and 600 inKorea. The lion’s share—nearly 800weapons—were located at Kadena airbase,Okinawa, the location of SAC’s strategicbombers. New dispersals to the Pacificreg ion began w i th the Kennedyadministration. By the beginning of 1963,on-shore deployments—to Guam, Okinawa,the Philippines, and Taiwan—grew toabout 2,400, a 66 percent increase from1961 levels. The on-shore stockpile inthe Pacific peaked in mid-1967 at about3,200 weapons, 2,600 of which were inKorea and Okinawa.11

APJ | JF 19 | 14 | 3

9

Stored with the Honest John rockets at theArmy’s ordnance base in Henoko were Nike-Hercules surface-to-air anti-aircraft missileswith nuclear warheads. They were deployed onhilltops and at airfields in Okinawa. In 1959one of the Nike-Hercules missiles at NahaAirbase fired accidentally killing two Armycrewmen and injuring one. The warheadbounced out and rolled on the ground, but didnot detonate. Soldiers in Okinawa worriedabout the Nike Hercules. Although it wascapable of destroying a squadron of SovietMiGs, a nuclear explosion in the air wouldrelease radiation endangering everyone on theground.

Nike-Hercules warhead, conventionalversion.

Nuclear version was white.

Along with the nuclear strategic bombers atKadena airbase, nuclear-armed Mace-Bsurface-to-surface missiles arrived in 1961 witha range capable of attacking all of China andthe Soviet Far East. An erroneous launch orderissued to Mace-B crews during the CubanMissile Crisis of October, 1962, came close tostarting a nuclear war.12

Mace-B surface-to-surface guided missile.

Along with growing outrage in Okinawa andmainland Japan over the presence of nuclearweapons, NATO nations in Europe demanded in1957 that they had to be deployed “inagreement” with the host country. In response,a meeting of officials from the U.S. military andthe Atomic Energy Commission in January,1958, produced the “Neither Confirm norDeny” (NCND) policy that remains in effecttoday.13

[I]t is the policy of the United StatesGovernment . . . neither to confirm nordeny the presence of the nuclearcomponent of nuclear-capable weapons inany another country, and that this policywould be followed in the event that U.S.officials are queried with respect to anystatement made by an official of a foreigncountry or by any other source.

The United States refused to agree to treatylanguage committing it to seek Japan’sapproval for nuclear weapons deployments onland . In Apr i l , 1963 i t s ecured theaforementioned agreement from ForeignMinister Ōhira Masayoshi, with an exchange offormal letters, to accept the transit of nucleararmed warships through Japanese ports andterritorial waters. (Kristensen) This directly

APJ | JF 19 | 14 | 3

10

contradicted Japan's 1955 “Atomic EnergyBasic Law” that restricted nuclear energy to“peaceful purposes;” and its “Three Non-Nuclear Principles” resolution passed by theDiet in 1971 specifying that “Japan shallneither possess nor manufacture nuclearweapons, nor shall it permit their introductioninto Japanese territory.” Not limited to transitby ship, Navy records from 1963 and the 1972interview of a former U.S. serviceman,published in the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper,indicate that nuclear weapons were deliveredby air to U.S. bases in Japan. “On a number ofoccasions over three years beginning in 1960we carried B-43 small nuclear bombs andothers from McCord [Air] Base in Tacoma,Washington to four bases in Japan: Yokota,Misawa, Johnson (Iruma), and Kadena [inOkinawa].” 14

In March of 1961 with tensions rising inSoutheast Asia over anti-governmentinsurgencies, the U.S. Navy declared aDEFCON 2 alert, the condition immediatelybelow the outbreak of war. Nuclear-strikeaircraft carriers USS Midway, docked atYokosuka Naval Base in Japan, and USSLexington at Okinawa, were ordered to theSouth China Sea. The Japanese governmentwas already well aware of U.S. carriers’nuclear capability. One month earlier, inFebruary of 1961, the Chief of Staff of Japan’sMaritime Self-Defense Forces (JMSDF)observed a demonstration of “special weaponsdelivery” by U.S. Navy aircraft from nuclearstrike carriers on a three-day cruise toOkinawa. By this time Navy warships wereroutinely bringing both tactical and strategicnuclear weapons into Japanese ports wellbefore the 1963 formal agreement from theJapanese government.15

U.S.S. Midway underway in the Pacific

In December, 1965, a jet fighter carrying ahydrogen bomb accidentally rolled off theaircraft carrier U.S.S. Ticonderoga returning toYokosuka Navy Base in Kanagawa Prefecture,one hour west of Tokyo. Hans Kristensendescribes the accident:

While steaming 80 miles off Okinawa onDecember 5 enroute to Yokosuka, anuclear weapon loading exercise wasconducted onboard. An A-4 strike aircraftwas loaded with a B43 hydrogen bomb androlled onto one of the ship’s elevators to bebrought up to the flight deck. For reasonsthat remain unclear, the brakes failed andthe aircraft, with the pilot still strapped inhis seat, rolled overboard and sank in16,000 feet of water with its nucleararmament. Neither the pilot, the aircraft,nor the bomb was ever recovered. Thecarrier’s remaining nuclear weapons werestill onboard when the USS Ticonderogaarrived at Yokosuka only two days afterthe accident. Japan was not informed ofthe accident at the time.16

APJ | JF 19 | 14 | 3

11

By the mid-1960’s protests in Okinawa againstthe U.S. occupation and its nuclear-armedbases were beginning to interfere with thefunctioning of the American military mission.Mass demonstrations, including sit-ins at basegates and occupation headquarters, demandeda return of Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty,reduction of the U.S. military presence, and theremoval of nuclear weapons. Beginning in1967, negotiations led to the “OkinawaReversion Agreement” between U.S. PresidentRichard Nixon and Japan’s Prime Minister SatōEisaku, concluded in November, 1969.

Prime Minister Satō and President Nixonat the White House in November, 1969

The Japanese government had publicly pledgedan Okinawa reversion with bases reduced tomainland levels (hondo nami) and withoutnuclear weapons (kaku nuki). Thus the actualagreement, which left the U.S. militarypresence intact and mentioned nothing aboutnuclear weapons, sparked outrage and moreprotests in Okinawa. Officially named inJapanese Okinawa Henkan Kyōtei (OkinawaReversion Agreement), it came to be knownamong Okinawans as Okinawa Henken Kyōtei(Okinawa Discriminatory Agreement). PrimeMinister Satō, who reaped enormous politicalbenefits from the agreement in mainland Japan

and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974, waslater revealed as the ultimate betrayer.

Accompanying the Reversion Agreement, Satoand Nixon secretly signed what was officiallycalled an “agreed minute,” drafted by HenryKissinger, later known in Japan as a “secretnuclear understanding” (kaku mitsu-yaku).Confirming widespread suspicions of itsexistence, the “secret” was uncovered in 1972,the year of the reversion, by Mainichi Dailyreporter Nishiyama Takichi. Two decades laterWakaizumi Kei, special envoy and interpreter,published a draft of the “agreed minute” in hisbook Tasaku Nakarishi o Shinzamuto Hossu (IWant to Believe There Were No Other Options),Bungei Shunjū, 1994. The existence of thisdocument has never been officially recognizedby the Japanese or U.S. governments, but in2009 Satō’s son Shinji discovered it, signed byhis late father and President Nixon, inside adrawer at a former family residence in ShibuyaWard, Tokyo.. The English text of theagreement reads,

Agreed Minute to Joint Communique ofUnited States President Nixon andJapanese Prime Minister Sato (Draft)

21st November, 1969

United States President:

As stated in our Joint Communique, it isthe intention of the United StatesGovernment to remove all the nuclearweapons from Okinawa by the time ofactual reversion of the administrativerights to Japan; and thereafter the Treatyof Mutual Cooperation and Security and itsrelated arrangements will apply toOkinawa, as described in the Joint

APJ | JF 19 | 14 | 3

12

Communique. However, in order todischarge effectively the internationalobligations assumed by the United Statesfor the defense of countries in the Far Eastincluding Japan, in t ime of greatemergency the United States Governmentwill require the re-entry of nuclearweapons and transit rights in Okinawawith pr ior consul tat ion with theGovernment of Japan. The United StatesGovernment would anticipate a favorableresponse. The United States Governmentalso requires the standby retention andactivation in time of great emergency ofexisting nuclear storage locations inOkinawa: Kadena, Naha, Henoko and NikeHercules units.

Japanese Prime Minister:

The Government of Japan, appreciating theUnited States Government's requirementsin time of great emergency stated aboveby the President, wi l l meet theserequirements without delay when suchprior consultation takes place.

The President and the Prime Ministeragreed that this Minute, in duplicate, bekept each only in the offices of thePresident and the Prime Minister and betreated in the strictest confidence betweenonly the President of the United States andthe Prime Minister of Japan. [emphasisadded]

Washington, D.C., November 21, 1969

Despite the stated desire to keep theagreement in “strictest confidence,” itssubsequent revelation showed that PrimeMinister Satō had not only broken his oft-stated

promise of a post-reversion Okinawa withoutnuclear weapons (kaku-nuki), but he hadviolated his own proclamation for the 1971 Dietresolution of Japan’s “Three Non-NuclearPrinciples” (non-production, non-possession,and non-introduction), which was cited as amajor reason for awarding him the Nobel PeacePrize in 1974.

With Okinawa’s return to Japan in May, 1972, itbecame the nation’s only prefecture where theJapanese government explicitly approved there-deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons on itsland, in its surrounding waters or airspaceduring any U.S.-determined “emergency.” The“secret understanding” became headlines andsparked outrage in Japan when it was firstrevealed publicly by a Mainichi Daily reporterin 1972 and when Satō’s interpreter publishedthe text in 1994. Subsequently, Akiba Takeo, asenior Foreign Ministry official, testified beforea U.S. Congressional Commission in 2009 thatre-deploying nuclear weapons to Okinawa“sounds persuasive to me.”

Akiba’s statement to the Commission, obtainedby the Union of Concerned Scientists, ignited apredictable firestorm in Japan. GregoryKulacki, UCS Senior Analyst, explained, “[A]reason for redeploying US nuclear weapons inOkinawa that might sound persuasive to MrAkiba is that US and Japanese officials can useambiguities in the language of the Nixon-Satoagreement, and t ight controls on thedissemination of information about relatedbilateral discussions, to obscure the processthat would be followed if the United Statesdecided to make Okinawa nuclear again.”K u l a c k i e x p l a i n s h o w t h e “ s e c r e tunderstanding” makes redeployment easy inOkinawa.

[P]ermission [of the Japanese government]need not be explicit, or public. It may noteven be necessary. The language of theNixon-Sato agreement is intentionally

APJ | JF 19 | 14 | 3

13

vague and suggests simple notification at arelatively low level of the bureaucracymight be enough. This kind of low levelagreement would give the prime ministerand other LDP officials the same kindof plausible deniability they used to avoiddiscussing the Sato-Nixon agreement onredeploying nuclear weapons in Okinawafor more than 50 years.

The potential presence of US nuclearweapons in Okinawa would be furtherobscured from public view by the USgovernment’s non-confirm, non-deny policyon military deployments. . . . In theabsence of an external inquiry, US nuclearweapons could be put back in Okinawaquietly, without public knowledge ordebate.

[Another] reason Okinawa might soundpersuasive to Mr. Akiba is that the UnitedStates is building a new military base inthe Okinawan village of Henoko. Theproject includes significant upgrades to a

munitions storage depot, adjacent to thenew base, where US nuclear weaponswere stored in the past. Henoko isspecifically mentioned in the 1969 Nixon-Sato agreement as a mutually acceptablelocation for the possible redeployment ofUS nuclear weapons in Japan.17

Thanks to the Tokyo government’s betrayal inthe 1969 Okinawa Reversion Agreement, thissmall island prefecture still bears 70% of theU.S. military presence in all of Japan on 0.6% ofthe nation’s land area with 1% of its population.Construction of the new base in Henoko, withoffshore runways for planes and helicopters,has been delayed more than twenty years bydaily protests at the construction site andopposition by the local prefectural governmentwhich has filed lawsuits on jurisdictional andenvironmental grounds. Joining a protest rallyat the site on March 3, 2016, Gregory Kulackiurged Okinawans to continue opposing itsconstruction. The protests continue in 2021.

Stewart Engel served in the U.S. Navy from July,1958 to July, 1961 as LieutenantJunior Grade. He trained at Watch Officers School in San Diego and was aboard theU.S.S. Carpenter in the Western Pacific when it entered port at the Marine Corps AirStation, Iwakuni, Japan in late 1959. He has worked as a computer programmer,systems analyst, and engineer for companies in New York, Rhode Island, NewHampshire, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, California and Virginia where he currentlyresides in Fredericksburg.

Steve Rabson was stationed as a U.S. Army draftee at the 137th Ordnance Company (SW) inHenoko, Okinawa from July, 1967 to June, 1968. He is professor emeritus of East Asianstudies at Brown University and has published books and articles about Okinawa, andtranslations of Okinawan literature. His articles about nuclear weapons in Okinawa and Japanare listed below.

"Okinawa's Henoko was a 'Storage Location' for Nuclear Weapons: Published Accounts," Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 11, Issue 1, No. 6, January 14, 2013.

APJ | JF 19 | 14 | 3

14

Ota Masakatsu and Steve Rabson, “U.S. veterans reveal 1962 nuclear close call dodged inOkinawa,” Asia-Pacific Journal, Volume 13, Issue 13, Number 3, March 30, 2015.

Gregory Kulacki with a comment by Steve Rabson, “Nuclear hawks in Tokyo call for strongernuclear posture in Japan and Okinawa,” Asia-Pacific Journal, Volume 16, Issue 11, Number 1,June 1, 2018.

Okuaki Satoru, Introduction and translation by Steve Rabson, “How Japanese scientistsconfronted the U.S. and Japanese governments to reveal the effects of Bikini H-bomb tests,”Asia-Pacific Journal, Volume 17, Issue 17, Number 2, September 1, 2019.

Notes1 Geoffrey Murray, “Japan reels under Reischauer's nuclear 'bombshell',” Christian ScienceMonitor, May 19, 1981.2 Ellsberg, Doomsday Machine, 118.3 From email communication with Daniel Ellsberg in May, 2021.4 Okuaki Satoru, “How Japanese scientists confronted the U.S. and Japanese governments toreveal the effects of Bikini H-bomb tests,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, September 1, 2019,Volume 27, Issue 17, Number 2. From the introduction by Steve Rabson.5 Okuaki.6 Hans Kristensen, “Japan under the US nuclear umbrella, supporting documents globalproblem-solving nuke policy,” Nautilus Institute, July 21, 1999.7 Kristensen, “Nuclear umbrella.”8 Kristensen, “Nuclear umbrella.”9 Okinawa Beigun kichi (U.S. bases in Okinawa), Shin-Nihon Shppan-sha, 1972. IncludesHenoko ammunition storage area map.10 Translated in Steve Rabson, Righteous Cause or Tragic Folly: Changing Views of War inModern Japanese Poetry, Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 1998, 227.Also see Michael S. Molasky, The American Occupation of Japan and Okinawa: Literature andMemory, Routledge, 1999, 93-102.11 Robert S. Norris, William M. Arkin, William Burr, “Where they were,” Bulletin of AtomicScientists, November 1, 1999.12 Ota Masakatsu and Steve Rabson, “U.S. veterans reveal 1962 nuclear close call dodged inOkinawa,” Asia-Pacific Journal, Volume 13, Issue 13, Number 3, March 30, 2015.13 Kristensen, “Nuclear umbrella.”14 Quoted in Kristensen.15 Kristensen, “Nuclear Umbrella.”16 Kristensen, “Nuclear Umbrella.”17 Gregory Kulacki with a comment by Steve Rabson, “Nuclear hawks in Tokyo call forstronger nuclear posture in Japan and Okinawa,” Asia-Pacific Journal, Volume 16, Issue 11,Number 1, June 1, 2018.