U.S., Japan secretly agreed on nuclear storage on Ogasawara
WASHINGTON, Aug. 1 Kyodo - On the occasion of the 1968 reversion of the Ogasawara Islands, Japan and the United States secretly agreed that Tokyo would tacitly approve the storage of nuclear weapons on the islands by the U.S. military in an emergency, two declassified U.S. government documents showed Tuesday.
The two records -- a secret telegram dated March 21, 1968, sent to then U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk from then U.S. Ambassador to Japan Alexis Johnson and a confidential memorandum at the Department of Army dated Aug. 26 that year -- indicate the two sides' secret approval on the issue.
The documents were housed at the National Archive in Washington and the Lyndon Johnson Library in Austin, Texas.
In the telegram, Johnson stated that the Japanese and U.S. governments concluded negotiations on the text for oral statements to be exchanged between then Japanese Foreign Minister Takeo Miki and him ''on a contingency requiring nuclear storage'' in the Ogasawara Islands, south of Tokyo.
Johnson said that in the event of a contingency requiring the use of the Ogasawara Islands for nuclear weapon storage, the U.S. would raise the matter with Japan while expecting a ''favorable reaction'' from Tokyo since such a request would not be made unless vital security interests in the area were under threat.
Miki responded by saying that major changes in the equipment of U.S. forces in Japan are the subject of prior consultation between the two governments under the 1960 Japan-U.S. security treaty and that ''under the circumstances you (Johnson) cite the government of Japan will enter into such consultation.''
The islands were returned to Japan from U.S. occupation in June 1968, after the two countries signed an accord in April of that year.
Even though documents confirming actual oral statements made by the two governments in signing the accord for the Ogasawara reversion are still classified, the confidential memorandum titled ''Nuclear Weapons on Okinawa'' outlined the two countries' secret agreement on nuclear storage.
''We said in a classified exchange that we expected that the Japanese would understand if we had to use the Bonins (Ogasawara Islands) for nuclear operations in a crisis. The Japanese acknowledged that position -- which saved them from having to 'agree,''' the memorandum said.
A former senior official at the State Department who engaged in talks on the Ogasawara reversion also admitted that the two countries discussed possible nuclear storage on the islands, saying an approval must have orally been made following the text shown in the telegram.
The memorandum also referred to the U.S. government's moves to let Japan allow nuclear storage in Okinawa during crises after the island's reversion in line with the secret accord struck over the Ogasawara Islands, as it said a proposed scenario on Okinawa is ''similar to what was worked out for the Bonins.''
Okinawa was reverted to Japan in 1972. It has been revealed that Japan and the U.S. secretly agreed on the introduction of nuclear weapons in Okinawa in case of grave emergencies.
In 1971, the Japanese Diet passed a resolution on three nonnuclear principles of not producing, possessing or introducing nuclear weapons, which also ban nuclear storage even in the event of contingency.
==Kyodo
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