A policy document from over half a century ago lays out details of a secret Japan-U.S. pact signed by Prime Minister Eisaku Sato and President Richard Nixon allowing the United States to bring nuclear weapons to Okinawa Prefecture after it reverted to Japanese sovereignty in 1972.

The terms were crafted in 1969 by Kei Wakaizumi, a professor of international politics at Kyoto Sangyo University who served as a special envoy to Sato for top secret negotiations with the United States regarding the return of Okinawa.

It would have been disastrous if word got out that bringing nuclear weapons into Japan was part of the deal.

Sato in 1967 became the first prime minister to specifically enunciate what has since been known as the three non-nuclear principles of not possessing, manufacturing or bringing nuclear weapons into Japan.

Under the revised 1960 Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, an agreement was reached that Washington would consult with Tokyo prior to bringing nuclear weapons into Japan. Sato had sought to extend the three non-nuclear principles to Okinawa when it reverted to Japanese sovereignty.

While U.S. officials agreed to remove nuclear weapons from Okinawa upon its return to Japan, they insisted on being allowed to re-introduce them during an emergency. That led to the talks over the secret pact.

Diplomats from the two nations failed to hammer out details of an arrangement satisfactory to both sides, so it came down to a summit at the White House between Sato and Nixon over a three-day period from Nov. 19, 1969.

One of the instructions to Sato from Wakaizumi was to not even mention the topic of bringing nuclear weapons to Okinawa during his talks with Nixon, an indication that the issue was of an extremely confidential nature. Instead, Wakaizumi used the codeword “meeting minutes” when referring to the secret pact.

The document added that only a very small number of individuals would even know about the secret agreement, and that even the U.S. secretaries of state and defense would not be privy to that knowledge.

Wakaizumi wrote out an action plan based on negotiations held in secret with Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s national security adviser, on the return of Okinawa. Wakaizumi was not in Washington when Sato met Nixon.

The script laid out what would occur prior to the signing of the secret pact by Sato and Nixon.

Sato was instructed to wait until Nixon invited him to an anteroom to view photographs he had brought to the White House from his home in San Clemente, California.

Sato was told to leave the interpreters behind when he entered, and that Kissinger would be waiting with Nixon. The policy brief said roughly three minutes would be needed for the two leaders to initial the pact.

Wakaizumi’s instructions to initial the agreement was one of the few items not obeyed. Instead, the two leaders signed their full names to the pact.

Sato later told Wakaizumi that Nixon used his full name in signing the agreement, so he followed suit.

Wakaizumi’s instructions also extended to the years that would follow the summit meeting. He told Sato to categorically deny the existence of a secret deal if asked by reporters about such an arrangement. Sato was also encouraged to maintain that stance forever more.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

The two leaders released a joint communique regarding the return of Okinawa that said the three non-nuclear principles also extended to Okinawa. Sato won the 1974 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his diplomatic efforts.

Sato was instructed by Wakaizumi to state that the joint communique covered every aspect of the summit meeting with Nixon if he was pestered by reporters about the true nature of the talks.

In a 1994 memoir, Wakaizumi described his secret talks with Kissinger as well as the existence of the secret pact.

But successive Liberal Democratic Party administrations continued to deny any such arrangement existed.

In 2009, Shinji Sato, the second son of the former prime minister and a former LDP lawmaker, released the top-secret document signed by his father and Nixon regarding the nuclear weapons arrangement for Okinawa.

Wakaizumi included the document containing the instructions in a letter he wrote in 1994 to Shinji Sato. In spring 2010, Shinji Sato showed those documents to his son-in-law, Masashi Adachi, an LDP Upper House member.

Adachi also followed the advice of his father-in-law and made copies of the letter from Wakaizumi as well as the instructions. A copy of that scenario was shown to The Asahi Shimbun.

Adachi explained that with 2022 marking the 50th anniversary of the return of Okinawa to Japan, he felt it was the appropriate time to release the document to show how Eisaku Sato struggled to win the return of Okinawa while trying to stick to his principles and the work made by Wakaizumi to support that diplomatic effort.

Takashi Shinobu, a specially appointed professor of international politics at Nihon University in Tokyo who has written a book about Wakaizumi’s role in reaching the secret agreement, called the latest disclosure a “first-rate historical document” that described in detail the plan for how the secret agreement was signed.

“It was clearly written by Wakaizumi and shows how carefully matters were undertaken regarding the re-introduction of nuclear weapons to Okinawa after it was returned to Japan,” Shinobu said.

In 2010, when the Democratic Party of Japan was in control of the government, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada ordered an investigation into documents related to the secret pact.

But as no such records were found in the ministry’s archives, Okada concluded that its officials were not involved in the secret pact. He also noted that as the policy was never passed down through subsequent administrations, the agreement was no longer considered valid.

Subsequent LDP governments have maintained that stance.