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ABSTRACT
Informed by the concept of plausible deniability and newly-declassified U.S. and Japanese documents, this study explores the interconnectedness between public and private security assurances made during the 1957-1960 revision of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty. The role of secret agreements is conceptualized as a form of covert operations in U.S.-Japan allied secret diplomacy. The revised security treaty and joint communiques announced by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi were reinforced by secret agreements. Dual confidential arrangements enabled the transit of nuclear-armed U.S. vessels and warplanes into Japanese territorial waters and airspace, along with the free-use of U.S. bases in Japan for Korean contingencies. The U.S. employed overt and covert mechanisms to preserve its extended deterrent capabilities in East Asia as well as to meet Congressional and military requirements to preserve U.S. base rights in Japan. Japanese officials utilized covert strategies, including concealing the existence of secret agreements, thereby denying alleged public deception and ensuring their political survival for decades. In essence, secret agreements lay at the heart of the U.S.-Japan asymmetric alliance.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Acknowledgement
I am grateful for the exceptionally helpful comments offered by the journal’s editor and anonymous reviewers. An earlier version of this article was presented at the April 2021 International Studies Association Virtual Convention. I would like to express my special gratitude to Dr. Amy Szarkowski for offering constructive suggestions and precious professional assistance.
Notes
1. Joint Statement on 60th Anniversary of the Signing of the U.S.-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, January 18, 2020, U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Japan, https://jp.usembassy.gov/joint-statement-60th-anniversary-us-japan/ (accessed May 15, 2021).
2. Secrecy is considered to be ‘necessary to enable governments that have taken extreme positions in public to compromise in private and to be protected against the consequences of disclosure until the terms of agreement are final and can be defended successfully against domestic critics’. Charles W. Freeman, The Diplomat’s Dictionary, Revised ed. (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2006), 264.
3. Robert A Wampler, ed. Nuclear Noh Drama: Tokyo, Washington and the Case of Missing Nuclear Agreements, October 13, 2009, The National Security Archive (NSA); Japan Confirms Secret Nuclear Pacts With US, NPR, March 11, 2020; Shinichi Kitaoka, “The Secret Japan-US Security Pacts: Background and Disclosure,” Asia-Pacific Review 17/2, (2010): 10–25.
4. Melinda Haas and Keren Yarhi-Milo, “To Disclose or Deceive: Sharing Secret Information between Aligned States,” International Security 45, no. 3 (2020/21): 122–61; Alex Wellerstein, Restricted Data (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2021); Allison Carnegie and Austin Carson, Secrets in Global Governance (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2020); James B. Bruce, Sina Beaghley, and W. George Jameson, “Secrecy in U.S. National Security,” Perspective November 2018, Rand Corporation; Austin Carson and Keren Yarhi-Milo, “Covert Communication: The Intelligibility and Credibility of Signaling in Secret,” Security Studies 26, no. 1 (2017): 124–15; Chalmers Johnson, Nemesis (New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2006).
5. An overt operation is conducted openly without concealment, while a covert operation is planned and conducted to conceal the identity of the sponsor and thus allows plausible denial by the sponsor. A clandestine operation is planned and conducted to conceal both the sponsor of the operation and the existence of the operation itself. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, January 2021, Department of Defense, https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/dictionary.pdf (accessed February 28, 2021).
6. Brian Blankenship, “Promises Under Pressure: Statements of Reassurance in US Alliances,” International Studies Quarterly 64 (2020): 1017–30; Rosanne W. McManus, “Making It Personal: The Role of Leader-Specific Signals in Extended Deterrence,” The Journal of Politics 80, no. 3 (2018): 982–95; Rosanne W. McManus and Keren Yarhi-Milo, “The Logic of ‘Offstage’ Signaling: Domestic Politics, Regime Type, and Major Power-Protégé Relations,” International Organization 71/4, (2017): 701–33; James H. Lebovic and Elizabeth N. Saunders, “The Diplomatic Core: The Determinants of High-Level US Diplomatic Visits, 1946–2010,” International Studies Quarterly 60/1, (2016): 107–23.
7. Paul Schroeder, “Alliances, 1815–1945: Weapons of Power and Tools of Management,” in Historical Dimensions of National Security, ed. K. Knorr (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1976), 227–62; Etel Solingen, Nuclear Logics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2007); Jeremy Pressman, Warring Friends (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 2008); Thomas J. Christensen, Worse Than A Monolith (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2011); Victor D. Cha, Powerplay (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2016); Yasuhiro Izumikawa, “Binding Strategies in Alliance Politics: The Soviet-Japanese-US Diplomatic Tug of War in the Mid-1950s,” International Studies Quarterly 62, no. 1 (2018): 108–20.
8. The so-called ‘secret diplomacy’ conceals certain elements of negotiations: the content of negotiations; the fact that negotiations are taking place; the content of any agreement successfully reached at negotiations; and the fact that any agreement is successfully reached. G.R. Berridge and Alan James, A Dictionary of Diplomacy, 2nd ed. (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003), 239–40. Private assurances were used between adversaries and between rivals. Carson and Yarhi-Milo, Covert Communication, 125–26; Keren Yarhi-Milo, “Tying Hands Behind Closed Doors: The Logic and Practice of Secret Reassurance,” Security Studies 22, no. 3 (2013): 405–35.
9. John Swenson-Wright, Unequal Allies? (Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2005); Hidetoshi Sotooka, Masaru Honda, and Toshiaki Miura, Nichibeidōmei hanseiki: Anpo to mitsuyaku (Tokyo: Asashi Shumbunsha, 2001); Kazuya Sakamoto, Nichibei dōmei no kizuna (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 2000); Walter Lafeber, The Clash (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1997); Michael Schaller, Altered States (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997); Yoshihisa Hara, Nichibei kankei no kōzu (Tokyo: NHK Books, 1992); Idem, Sengo nihon to kokusaiseiji (Tokyo: Chūōkōronsha, 1988).
10. Wampler, ed. Nuclear Noh Drama; Richard McGregor, Asia’s Reckoning (New York: Viking, 2017); Cha, Powerplay; George R. Packard, Edwin O. Reischauer and the American Discovery of Japan (New York: Columbia UP, 2010); Kenneth B. Pyle, Japan Rising (New York: PublicAffairs, 2007); Richard J. Samuels, Securing Japan (New York: Cornell UP, 2007); Taichi Nishiyama, Okinawa Mitsuyaku (Tokyo: Iwanamishinsho, 2007); Robert A. Wampler, ed. Revelations in Newly Released Documents about U.S. Nuclear Weapons and Okinawa Fuel NHK Documentary, 1997, NSA; Hans M. Kristensen, Japan Under the Nuclear Umbrella: U.S. Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear War Planning in Japan During the Cold War, 1999, The Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability; Swenson-Wright, Unequal Allies?; Lafeber, The Clash; Schaller, Altered States; Sotooka, Nichibeidōmei hanseiki; Sakamoto, Nichibei dōmei no kizuna; Hara, Nichibei kankei no kōzu; Idem, Sengo nihon to kokusaiseiji.
11. Iwayuru mitsuyaku mondai ni kansuru chōsa ni tsuite, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (MOFA), https://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/gaiko/mitsuyaku.html (accessed May 15, 2021) It should be noted that, prior to investigation, Foreign Minister Okada made it clear that no current or former MOFA bureaucrats would be prosecuted regarding their involvement in secret agreements. Prime Minister Hatoyama was highly critical of past Liberal Democratic Party cabinets and stressed the need to declassify documents regarding secret agreements.
12. Gaikōbunsho no ketsurakumondai ni kansuru chōsaiinkai, chōsahōkokusho, June 4, 2010, gaimushō, https://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/gaiko/pdfs/ketsuraku_hokokusyo.pdf (accessed May 15, 2021).
13. Iwayuru ‘mitsuyaku’ mondai ni kansuru yushikisha iinkai hōkokusho, March 9, 2010, MOFA.
14. Iwayuru ‘mitsuyaku’ mondai ni kansuru yushikisha iinkai hōkokusho, March 9, 2010, MOFA; Shoji Niihara, Mitsuyaku no sengoshi (Tokyo: Sogensya, 2021); Kosuke Yoshitsugu, Nichibeianpo taiseishi (Tokyo: Iwanamishinsho, 2018); Mikio Haruna, Kamen no nichibei dōmei (Tokyo: Bunsyunshinsho, 2015); Sumio Hatano, Rekishi to shite no nichibeianpojyōyaku (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2010). Other secret agreements include: a classified understanding that greatly limits Japan’s exercise of custody and allows U.S. personnel to remain free and thus bypass the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA); a Japanese confidential payment for the restoration of former U.S. base areas in Okinawa; Prime Minister Eisaku Sato’s promise to voluntarily reduce textile exports to the U.S. ‘1965 US docs show secret pact with Japan over detention of US military personnel’, Mainichi Shimbun, February 28, 2020; Takashi Shinobu, Beigunkichiken to nichibei mitsuyaku (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2019), Idem, Nichibei seni mitsuyaku (Tokyo: Nihonhyoronsya, 2012); Johnson, Nemesis, 171–207.
15. John J. Mearsheimer, Why Leaders Lie (New York: Oxford UP, 2013), 63–64.
16. Ibid., 64, 93.
17. Allen W. Dulles, The Craft of Intelligence (Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2006), 235. Regarding potential leakers, there is the notion of ‘contrived leak’, namely, what is secretly passed out to the press by dissatisfied or resentful government officials who oppose or dislike a particular policy. Ibid., 236. A major example of leakage by officials includes the publication of the Pentagon Papers in June 1971. Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (New York: Penguin Books, 2002).
18. John Prados and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi, ed., Understanding the CIA: How Covert (and Overt) Operations Were Proposed and Approved during the Cold War, 2019, NSA. The NSC5412/2 maintained that ‘any U.S. Government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons and that if uncovered the U.S. Government can plausibly disclaim any responsibility for them’. NSC5412/2, Covert Operations (undated), Document 250, National Security Council Directive, Foreign Relations of the United States [FRUS], 1950–1955, The Intelligence Community, 1950–1955 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2007).
19. There are external and internal objectives for the practice of plausible deniability: 1) to protect the state as a whole from international blame (including adversaries and allies); and 2) to protect chief executives – such as presidents and prime ministers – from domestic blame (including the legislative branch, opposition political parties, the media, and general public). Michael Poznansky, “Revisiting Plausible Deniability,” Journal of Strategic Studies March 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2020.1734570 (accessed May 15, 2021); David N. Gibbs, “Secrecy in International Relations,” Journal of Peace Research 32, no. 2 (1995): 213–28; Cormac and Aldrich, “Grey is the New Block”, 479–84. Within the context of bureaucratic politics inside a government, moreover, principal decision-makers may also seek to conceal controversial policies or sensitive information from rival agencies or departments. Priscilla Clapp, Morton Halperin, with Arnold Kanter, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2006); Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision, 2nd ed. (New York: Longman, 1999); Gibbs, “Secrecy in International Relations,” 214–15.
20. Mearsheimer, Why Leaders Lie, 70; Cormac and Aldrich, “Grey is the New Block”, 479; Carson and Yarhi-Milo, “Covert Communication,” 135–36; Dan Reiter, “Democracy, Deception, and Entry into War,” Security Studies 21, no. 4 (2012): 594–623; Jonathan N. Brown and Anthony S. Marcum, “Avoiding Audience Costs: Domestic Political Accountability: and Concessions: in Crisis Diplomacy,” Security Studies 20, no. 2 (2011): 141–70.
21. Packard, Edwin O. Reischauer and the American Discovery of Japan; Idem, Protest in Tokyo: The Security Treaty Crisis of 1960 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1966); Yoshihisa Hara, Sengoshi no naka no nippon shakaitō (Tokyo: Chukoshinsho, 2005), 154–55.
22. Hans M. Kristensen, “The Neither Confirm Nor Deny Policy: Nuclear Diplomacy at Work,” February 2006, The Federation of American Scientists.
23. The Lucky Dragon No.5 (Daigo Fukuryū Maru in Japanese) Incident of March 1, 1954 (a Japanese tuna fishing boat was contaminated by U.S. nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll) led to street demonstrations against possible U.S. deployment of nuclear weapons onto Japanese territories and reinforced Japanese public opposition to nuclear testing. LaFeber, The Clash, 311.
24. Peter J. Katzenstein, Cultural Norms and National Security (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1996); Thomas U. Berger, Cultures of Antimilitarism (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1998); Yasuhiro Izumikawa, “Explaining Japanese Antimilitarism: Normative and Realist Constraints on Japan’s Security Policy,” International Security 35, no. 2 (2010): 123–60.
25. “The Three Non-Nuclear Principles”, MOFA, https://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/un/disarmament/nnp/ (accessed May 15, 2021).
26. Sotooka, Nichibeidōmei hanseiki, 600.
27. “Japan Says It Allowed U.S. Nuclear Ships to Port”, The New York Times, March 9, 2010, “Japanese Split on Exposing Secret Pacts With the US” The New York Times, February 8, 2010, “Come Clean On Secret Agreement,” The Japan Times, July 18, 2009.
28. On process tracing, see Alexander L. George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), 205–32; Andrew Bennett, “Process Tracing and Causal Inference”, in Rethinking Social Inquiry, ed. Henry E. Brady and David Collier, 2nd ed. (New York: Rowman&Littlefield, 2010), 207–19; “Process Tracing: A Symposium,” Security Studies 24, no. 2 (2015): 200–50; Norrin M. Ripsman, Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, and Steven E. Lobell, Neoclassical Realist Theory of International Politics (New York: Oxford UP, 2016), 132–5.
29. John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, Revised and Expanded Edition (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005), 146–50, 163–73.
30. Fred Kaplan, The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War (New York: Simon&Schuster, 2020), 25–29; Stephen Kinzer, The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War (New York: St.Martin’s Griffin, 2013), 199–200.
31. Yasuhiro Izumikawa, “To Coerce or Reward? Theorizing Wedge Theories in Alliance Politics,” Security Studies 22, no. 3 (2013): 498–531.
32. Yasuhiro Izumikawa, “Network Connection and the Emergence of the Hub-and-Spokes Alliance System in East Asia,” International Security 45, no. 2 (2020): 7–50; Yasuhiro Izumikawa, “Security Dependence and Asymmetric Aggressive Bargaining: North Korea’s Policy towards the Two Superpowers,” Asian Security 3, no. 1 (2007): 45–71; Iain D. Henry, “What Allies Want: Reconsidering Loyalty, Reliability, and Alliance Interdependence,” International Security 44, no. 4 (2020): 45–83; Cha, Powerplay, 4–5; Christensen, Worse Than A Monolith, 28–41.
33. George F. Kennan, Memoirs 1950–1963 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972), 39–45. The February 1950 Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance claimed that the two sides would take measures, ‘for the purpose of preventing aggressive action on the part of Japan or any other State which should unite with Japan, directly or indirectly, in acts of aggression’. Ibid., 43–44.
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36. Telegram from the Embassy in Japan to the Department of State, December 24, 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, Japan Korea, Vol. XVIII (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1994), 118.
37. On the origins of U.S.-Japan security arrangements, see Ayako Kusunoki, Yoshida Shigeru to anzenhoshō no keisei: Nichibei no kosō to sono sōgosayō, 1943–1952 (Kyoto: Minerva, 2006); Ayako Kusunoki, “Has Japan’s Foreign Policy Gone Beyond the Yoshida Doctrine?” March 10, 2020, The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2020/03/has-japans-foreign-policy-gone-beyond-the-yoshida-doctrine/
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39. Parsons naiwa [Informal talks with Parsons], May 28, 1957, Dai1jihōbei 1, A’.1.5.2.4., Kishi sōri dai1ji hōbei kankei 1ken, dai1kan, Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (DA-MOFA).
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45. Izumikawa, “Explaining Japanese Antimilitarism,” 129–32.
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48. U.S. Policy Toward Japan (NSC5516/1 Progress Report), June 27, 1956, FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol.XXIII, Part I, Japan, 188n.
49. For the conceptualisation of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty as a constraint on Japan, see, Yukinori Komine, Secrecy in US Foreign Policy: Nixon, Kissinger and the Rapprochement with China (New York: Routledge, 2008), 173–6, 217–9, 236–7; Yukinori Komine, “The Japan Card in the U.S. Rapprochement with China, 1969–1972,” Diplomacy & Statecraft 20, no. 3 (2009): 494–514; Yukinori Komine, “Whither a Resurgent Japan?: The Nixon Doctrine and Japan’s Defense Build-up, 1969–1976,” Journal of Cold War Studies 16, no. 3, (2014): 88–128.
50. Nichibei anpojyōyaku kaitei an (dai an) [Plan 2: The Revision of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty], March 13, 1957, Anpojyōyaku 1, jyunbishiryō, A’.1.5.2.4., Kishi sōri dai1ji hōbei kankei 1ken, dai1kan, DA-MOFA. Article I of the original security treaty also provided U.S. forces the right to ‘put down largescale internal riots and disturbances’ within Japan, caused by external provocation or intervention. Hara, Nichibeikankei no kōzu, 111–2. Kishi argued in Diet discussions that the Far East could loosely cover the areas from the north of the Philippines as well as Japan and its surrounding area, including the Republic of Korea, and the area under the control of the Republic of China. Hara (ed.), Kishi Nobusuke Shōgenroku, 244–6.
51. Kishi sōri MacArthur taishi kaidan yōshi [Memorandum of Conversation/Memcon, Kishi-MacArthur], April 10, 1957, Kishi-MacArthur yobikaidan (Tokyo), A’.1.5.2.4., Kishi sōri dai1ji hōbei kankei 1ken, dai1kan, DA-MOFA.
52. Japan-U.S. Exploratory Talks, Japanese Paper no. 2, April 10, 1957, MOFA.
53. Hara (ed.), Kishi Nobusuke Shōgenroku, 122–3, 136, 145. As a nationalist, Kishi believed in an independent self-defence and the total withdrawal of U.S. forces from Japan in the long-term. As a realist, however, he recognised that these two objectives were unrealistic in the short-term. Thus, Kishi sought to take a two-step approach to restore Japan’s autonomy, namely the substantial revision of the security treaty, followed by the amendment of Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan. Yoshihisa Hara, Kishi Nobusuke (Tokyo: Iwanamishinsho, 1995), 156–7.
54. Anzenhoshō jyōyaku no kaisei ni tsuite (taibei mōshiire yō memo), [Regarding the Revision of the Security Treaty: Memo for Negotiations with the U.S.], March 22, 1957, A’.1.5.2.4., Kishi sōri dai1ji hōbei kankei 1ken, dai1kan, DA-MOFA.
55. Check List of Presidential Actions, July 28, 1961, Nuclear History, NSA.
56. Asakai Taishi – Ishii daijin rinjidairi, Kishi sōri bei daitoryō kaidan ni kansuru ken [Paper for Kishi-Eisenhower Meetings], 20 June 1957, A’.1.5.2.4., Kishi sōri daijin hōbei kankei 1ken, dai2kan, DA-MOFA; Memcon, 19 June 1957; Memcon, 20 June 1957, FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol.XXIII, Part I, Japan, 371–2, 387.
57. Memcon, June 20, 1957, FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol.XXIII, 387.
58. Memcon, June 21, 1957, Ibid., 406.
59. Joint Communique of Japanese Prime Minister Kishi and U.S. President Eisenhower, June 21, 1957, The World and Japan Database, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia (IASA), The University of Tokyo, http://www.ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~worldjpn/documents/texts/JPUS/19570621.D1E.html (accessed May 15, 2021)
60. Memcon, September 8, 1958, FRUS, 1958–1960, Vol.XVIII, 62–63.
61. Memcon, September 9, 1958, Ibid., 67.
62. Formula, attached to 10gatsu 4 ka sōri gaimudaijin zainichi beitaishi kaidanroku [Memcon, Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, and U.S. Ambassador to Japan], October 4, 1958, Kanrenbunsho 1–18, MOFA.
63. U.S. Embassy in Japan to State Dept, June 20, 1959, FRUS 1958–1960, Vol.XVIII, 202.
64. MacArthur to Secretary Herter, June 11, 1959, Document No.00014, Japan and the United States: Diplomatic, Security, and Economic Relations, 1960–1976 (hereafter J-US), Digital National Security Archive (DNSA).
65. Nichibei sōgokyōryoku oyobi anzenhosho jyōyaku kōshōkeii [Records of Japan-U.S. Negotiations regarding the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security], June 1960, Hōkokutaishōbunsho 1–2, MOFA.
66. Telegram from the Embassy in Japan to the Department of State, December 14, 1959, FRUS 1958–1960, Vol.XVIII, 246.
67. Nicibei anzenhosho jyōyaku kaiteikōshō no keii ni kansuru hōkoku [Report of Japan-U.S. Negotiations regarding the Revision of the Security Treaty], November 10, 1959, Kanrenbunsho 1–69, MOFA.
68. Hara, Nichibeukankei no kōzu, 179.
69. Hara, Sengoshi no naka no nippon shakaitō, 154–5.
70. “US Policy of Neither Confirming or Denying Presence of Nuclear Weapons on Board US Naval Ships or Aircraft Visiting Foreign Territory.” March 26, 1964, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vol.X, National Security Policy, Doc.23 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2001), 65–68.
71. Japanese officials also sought to prevent anti-militarist sentiments among Japanese citizens from becoming anti-U.S. sentiments in the Japanese public. Nisso fukkō go no taibeikankei shorihoshin(an) [Policy towards the U.S. after Japan-Soviet Diplomatic Normalization], December 19, 1957, jyunbishiryō, A’.1.5.2.4., Kishi sōri dai1ji hōbei kankei 1ken, dai1kan, DA-MOFA.
72. Chōsabu kikakuka, Hikakusangensoku no keii to seifu no tachiba [The Three Non-Nuclear Principles and the Government’s Position], February 8, 1975, 2023–07, Documents related to Takeo Miki (Miki-docs), J-DAC.
73. Peter Kuznick, “Japan’s nuclear history in perspective: Eisenhower and atoms for war and peace,” April 13, 2011, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists; Joint Communique of Japanese Prime Minister Kishi and U.S. President Eisenhower, June 21, 1957, The World and Japan Database, IASA, The University of Tokyo, https://worldjpn.grips.ac.jp/documents/texts/JPUS/19570621.D1E.html (accessed May 15, 2021)
74. In the mid-1950s, the U.S. sought to store nuclear weapons in Japan. However, State and Defense officials came to share their recognition of the substantial political risks due to heightened sensitivity in the Japanese public against nuclear weapons. Letter from Dulles to Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson, March 11, 1955, 00001; Memo for Dulles, March 11, 1955, 00002; Dulles to Wilson, June 3, 1955, 00005; Requirement for Availability of Nuclear Weapons in Japan, June 17, 1957, 00010, J-US, DNSA.
75. U.S. Embassy in Japan to State Dept, October 5, 1958, FRUS 1958–1960, Vol.XVIII, 94.
76. Hara, Nicibeikankei no kōzu, 151.
77. 10gatsu 4 ka sōri gaimudaijin zaikyō beitaishi kaidanroku [Memcon, Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, and U.S. Ambassador to Japan], October 4, 1958, Kanrenbunsho 1–18, MOFA.
78. Anzenhosho mondai no chōsei ni kansuru ken [Regarding the Adjustment of Security Issues], June 19, 1958, Kanrenbunsho 1–3, MOFA.
79. Anzenhosho ni kansuru tōmen no shomondai ni tsuite (daijin setsumei an) [Briefing Paper, Current Issues in National Security], July 26, 1958, Kanrenbunsho 1–8, MOFA; 7gatsu 30nichi fujiyamadaijin zaikyō beitaishi kaidanroku [Memcon, Foreign Minister Fujiyama-U.S. Ambassador to Japan], July 30, 1958, Kanrenbunsho 1–9, MOFA.
80. Beigun no haibi oyobi shiyō ni kansuru nihongawa shokan an [Japanese Positions Regarding the Deployment and the Use of U.S. Forces], July 2, 1958, Hōkokutaishōbunsho 1–1, MOFA; Beigun no haibi oyobi shiyō ni kansuru nihongawa shokan an, August 13, 1958, Kanrenbunsho 1–10, MOFA.
81. Anzenhosho ni kansuru tōmen no shomondai ni tsuite (daijin setsumei an) [Briefing Paper, Current Issues in National Security], July 26, 1958, Kanrenbunsho 1–8, MOFA.
82. Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security Record of Discussion, January 6, 1960, in Hōkokutaishōbunsho 1–3, April 13, 1963, MOFA.
83. Position Paper for Secretary Hurter, January 12, 1960, 00021, J-US, DNSA.
84. The Record of Discussion, January 6, 1960, attached to Sōbi no jyuyō na henkō ni kansuru jizenkyōgi no ken [Prior Consultations Regarding Major Changes in the Equipment of U.S. Forces], January 27, 1968, Hōkokutaishōbunsho 1–5, MOFA.
85. Yukinori Komine, Negotiating the U.S.-Japan Alliance: Japan Confidential (New York: Routledge, 2017), 33–38.
86. Memo from Reischauer to Secretary Rusk, April 4, 1963, NSA; Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, Record of Discussion, 1959, 00016, J-US, DNSA.
87. Komine, Negotiating the U.S.-Japan Alliance, 34–35.
88. State103616, January 24, 1968, Box252, Japan, Country Files (CF), National Security Files (NSF), Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library (LBJL).
89. Tokyo4991, January 24, 1968, Box252, Japan, CF, NSF, LBJL; Kaku mochikomi ni tsuite [Regarding the Introduction of Nuclear Weapons], August 29, 1977, Hōkokutaishōbunsho 1–15, MOFA.
90. 5gatsu 14 ka yamadajikan zaikyo beitashi kaidan ni kansuru keii [Records of Meeting, Vice-Minister Yamada-U.S. Ambassador in Japan], May 14, 1959, Kanrenbunsho 1–56, MOFA.
91. Kakutōsai kisen no nihon kikō mondai no keii [Records of the Issue of Port Callings in Japan by U.S. Vessels Carrying Nuclear Weapons], June 11, 1985, Kanrenbunsho 1–115, MOFA.
92. The June 1957 Eisenhower-Kishi joint communique reaffirmed the U.S. acknowledgement of Japan’s ‘residual sovereignty’ over the Ryukyus and Bonins (Okinawa and Ogasawara). U.S. policy-makers were concerned about a possible connection between the revision of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty and the rise of increased demands within Japan for an earlier reversion of Okinawa and Ogasawara. Accordingly, the communique specified that ‘so long as the conditions of threat and tension exist’ in East Asia, the U.S. would find it ‘necessary to continue the present status’. These expressions reflected the U.S. military’s interest in the continued unlimited use of its bases on the islands. Memcon, Dulles-Kishi, June 21 1957, FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol.XXIII, 409; Memcon, Eisenhower-Kishi, June 21, 1957, Ibid., 411.
93. Sato sōridaijin enzetsushu [Collections of Prime Minister Sato’s Addresses], A-2-46, KC, J-DAC; Minoru Kusuda, Kusuda Minoru Nikki (Tokyo: Chūōkōronshinsha, 2001), 159.
94. Gaimudaijin kanbō chōsabu kikakuka, Kokkai tōben wo chushin to suru hikakusangensoku shiryōshu [Records of Diet Statements Regarding the Three Non-Nuclear Principles], May 1, 1975, Miki-docs, J-DAC.
95. Secret, Draft, March 19, 1968, 6738–04, Miki-docs, J-DAC; Kei Wakaizumi, Tasaku nakarishi wo shinzemu to hotsu (Tokyo: Bungeishunjū, 1994); Komine, Negotiating the U.S.-Japan Alliance, 134–8; Yukinori Komine, ‘Okinawa Confidential, 1969: Exploring the Linkage between the Nuclear Issue and the Base Issue’, Diplomatic History, 37, no. 4 (2013): 807–40. Prime Minister Sato’s confidential emissary, Kei Wakaizumi, kept handwritten notes of the development of the Okinawa nuclear secret agreement. ‘Okinawa henkan no kakumitsuyaku, nichibeishunō kaidan no shinario mitsukaru wakaizumikeishi jikihitsuka’, Ashahi Shimbun, January 4, 2023.
96. Gaimudaijin kanbō chōsabu kikakuka, Kokkai tōben wo chushin to suru hikakusangensoku shiryōshu [Records of Diet Statements Regarding the Three Non-Nuclear Principles], May 1, 1975, Miki-docs, J-DAC; Yukinori Komine, “Virtual Nukes: The Formulation of Japan’s Non-nuclear Weapons Security Policy,” The International History Review, Vol.46 Issue 1, (2024), 18-40.
97. Komine, Negotiating the U.S. Japan Alliance, 204–15.
98. Kristensen, “The Neither Confirm nor Deny Policy: Nuclear Diplomacy at Work”, 3–6.
99. Sōbi no jyuyōna henkō ni kansuru jizenkyōgi no ken [Prior Consultations Regarding Major Changes in the Equipment of U.S. Forces], January 27, 1968, Hōkokutaishōbunsho 1–5, MOFA.
100. Prior consultations have never officially been held since they were established. During the 1994 Korean nuclear crisis, U.S. officials were very close to initiating prior consultations with their Japanese counterparts. However, it never occurred, as former President Jimmy Carter made a negotiated settlement with Kim Il-Sung to end the crisis. ‘Washington was on brink of war with North Korea 5 years ago’, CNN, October 4, 1999; Yoichi Funabashi, Domeihyōryu (Tokyo: Iwanamishoten, 2006), 107–12.
101. Memo, MacArthur to Robertson, April 18, 1958, FRUS 1958–1960, Vol.XVIII, 27.
102. Telegram from State to U.S. Embassy in Japan, September 29,1958, Ibid., 89.
103. The Exchanged Notes between Prime Minister Kishi and Secretary of State Herter Regarding Exchanged Notes between Prime Minister Yoshida and Secretary of State Acheson, January 19, 1960, MOFA.
104. Revision of the U.S.-Japan Security Arrangements, 1960, 00020; Memorandum for the President, January 13, 1960, 00024, J-US, DNSA.
105. Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security Record of Discussion, January 6, 1960, Hōkokutaishōbunsho 1–3, MOFA.
106. Anzenhoshō ni kansuru tōmen no shomondai ni tsuite (daijin setsumei an) [Briefing Paper, Current Issues in National Security], July 26, 1958, Kanrenbunsho 2–7, MOFA.
107. Sōri, gaimudaijin, zaikyō bei taishi kaidanroku [Memcon, Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, and U.S. Ambassador to Japan], October 4, 1958, Kanrenbunsho 2–17, MOFA.
108. Oboe [Memo], October 18, 1958, 0611–2010-0791-01, H220327, MOFA.
109. Anzenhoshō chōsei ni kansuru kihonhōshin (an) [A Basic Plan Regarding the Adjustment of Security Issues], October 2, 1958, Kanrenbunsho 2–15, MOFA; Nichibei anzenhoshō ni kansuru shinjyōyaku ni tsuite no kihonteki kangaekata [A Basic Thinking Regarding A New Treaty for Japan-U.S. Security], October 9, 1958, Kanrenbunsho 2–20, MOFA.
110. Yoshida-Acheson kōkan kōbun ni kansuru ken [Regarding the Yoshida-Acheson Exchange of Notes], May 4, 1959, Kanrenbunsho 2–54; 5gatsu 8 ka Fujiyama daijin zaikyō bei taishi kaidanroku [Memcon, Foreign Minister Fujiyama-U.S. Ambassador to Japan], May 8, 1959, Kanrenbunsho 2–55, MOFA.
111. Jyōyaku no dai6jyō no jisshi ni kansuru kōkan kōbun (an) [Regarding the Exchange of Notes for the Implementation of Article VI of the Treaty], June 26, 1959, Kanrenbunsho 2–64, MOFA.
112. President’s Far Eastern Trip, June 4, 1960, 00044, J-US, DNSA.
113. 7gatsu 6 ka sōri gaimudaijin zaikyōbeitaishi kaidanroku [Memcon, Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, and U.S. Ambassador to Japan], July 6, 1959, Hōkokutaishōbunsho 2–1, MOFA.
114. 5gatsu 14 ka yamadajikan zaikyōbeitaishi kaidan ni kansuru ken [Records of Meeting, Vice Administrative Minister Yamada-U.S. Ambassador in Japan], May 14, 1959, Kanrenbunsho 2–57, MOFA.
115. Nichibei sōgokyōryoku oyobi anzenhosho jyōyaku kōshōkeii [Records of Japan-U.S. Negotiations regarding the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security], June 1960, Hōkokutaishōbunsho 1–2, MOFA.
116. Minutes for Inclusion in the Record of the First Meeting of the Security Consultative Committee, January 6, 1960, Hōkokutaishōbunsho 2–3, MOFA.
117. Gijiroku [Minutes], January 6, 1960, Hōkokutaishōbunsho, 2–2, MOFA.
118. Minutes for Inclusion in the Record of the First Meeting of the Security Consultative Committee, January 6, 1960, Hōkokutaishōbunsho 2–3, MOFA.
119. Joint Statement Following Discussions with Prime Minister Sato of Japan, November 21, 1969, The American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/joint-statement-following-discussions-with-prime-minister-sato-japan (accessed May 15, 2021); Japan-U.S. Joint Announcement to the Press by President Gerald R. Ford and Prime Minister Takeo Miki, The World and Japan Database, IASA, The University of Tokyo, http://www.ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~worldjpn/documents/texts/JPUS/19750806.O1E.html (accessed May 15, 2021)
120. John Prados and Jack Cheevers, USS Pueblo: LBJ Considered Nuclear Weapons, Naval Blockade, Ground Attacks in Response to 1968 North Korean Seizure of Navy Vessel, Documents Show, 2014, Electronic Briefing Book No. 453, NSA; Jack Cheevers, Act of War: Lyndon Johnson, North Korea, and the Capture of the Spy Ship Pueblo (New York: NAL Caliber, 2013); James Bamford, Body of Secrets (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 272–82.
121. Smyser to Kissinger, Use of U.S. Bases in Japan in the Event of Aggression in Korea, June 7, 1974, Box3, Country File, NSC East Asia Pacific File, 1973–6, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library; Komine, Negotiating the U.S.-Japan Alliance, 119–20, 141–2; Komine, ‘Okinawa Confidential, 1969,’ 821–2, 837.
122. National Security Decision Memorandum 251, The Termination of the U.N. Command in Korea, March 29, 1974, Box H-208, NSC Institutional Files, Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library.
123. National Security Decision Memorandum 262, Use of U.S. Bases in Japan in the Event of Aggression Against South Korea, July 29, 1974, Ibid.
124. Iwayuru ‘mitsuyaku’ mondai ni kansuru yushikisha iinkai hōkokusho, March 9, 2010, 56, MOFA.
125. Togo, Nichibei kaikō sanjyūnen, 99.
126. Joint Communique of U.S. President Eisenhower and Japanese Prime Minister Kishi, January 19, 1960, Public Papers of the Presidents: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960 (Washington U.S: Government Printing Office, 1960), 113–6.
127. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (New York: Penguin Books, 1972), 402.
128. “Kaku mitsuyaku, seifukenkai seisaku he – abe shushō, hikōkai machigai”, Jijitsushin, January 31, 2014.
129. ‘Japan’s State Secrets Law: Hailed By U.S, Denounced By Japanese,’ NPR, December 31, 2013.
130. In the April 2023 Washington Declaration, U.S. President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol agreed to allow the periodical entry of U.S. Navy nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines into Korean ports. This public signalling is likely intended as a deterrent against North Korea and China, and simultaneously provides reassurances of security for Japan. “US and South Korea agree key nuclear weapons deal,” BBC News, April 27, 2023.
131. Regarding the roots of the Senkaku security issue, see Yukinori Komine, “Rocks in the East China Sea: Explaining the Origins of the Senkaku Security Problem,” Journal of Cold War Studies (in press); Yukinori Komine, “Exploring Divergent Perceptions: The Senkaku/Diaoyu Security Problem in the U.S.-Japan-China Triangular Politics 1978,” Journal of Cold War Studies, (in press).
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Yukinori Komine
Yukinori Komine, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of International Relations and Global Security at the American Public University. Dr. Komine is also an Associate in Research with the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University and a Center Associate in the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. Komine is the author of books, Secrecy in U.S. Foreign Policy: Nixon, Kissinger and the Rapprochement with China (2008) and Negotiating the U.S.-Japan Alliance: Japan Confidential (2017). His other scholarly works have also been published in Diplomacy & Statecraft, Diplomatic History, The International History Review, and The Journal of Cold War Studies.