Japan PM knew of secret nuclear pact in 1960 treaty talks: document+

TOKYO, June 25 Kyodo -
Then Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi and Foreign Minister Aiichiro Fujiyama were
aware, when negotiating the revised Japan-U.S. security treaty in 1960, that a
diplomatic record to allow U.S. nuclear-armed vessels to enter Japanese ports
without prior consultation amounted to a secret agreement, a newly discovered
U.S. document showed Friday.
Akira Kurosaki, associate professor of international politics at Fukushima
University, found the document at the U.S. National Archives. It is the first
time such a document has been found.
The Confidential Record of Discussion, forged by Fujiyama and the U.S. side,
had a clause reflecting the U.S. preference for excluding transits and port
calls by U.S. vessels carrying nuclear weapons from requiring prior
consultation under the security treaty.
The newly found document -- a confidential letter exchanged between U.S.
officials in Tokyo and Washington in 1963 -- states Kishi and Fujiyama
''clearly understood'' the meaning of the document, challenging a recent
conclusion reached by a panel of experts commissioned by the Japanese Foreign
Ministry.
In a report on secret nuclear pacts released in March, the panel stopped short
of acknowledging the Confidential Record of Discussion as direct evidence of a
secret agreement.
The panel concluded that, at the time of revising the security treaty, Japan
and the United States ''intentionally'' avoided pursuing whether the entry of
U.S. vessels into Japanese ports would be subject to prior consultation so as
not to disrupt their alliance.
Such a tacit agreement, or ''secret pact in a broad sense,'' became fixed after
U.S. Ambassador to Japan Edwin Reischauer told Foreign Minister Masayoshi Ohira
in 1963 that Washington did not consider the port calls as subject to prior
consultation.
But the newly found document contradicts the panel's conclusion.
In a letter dated March 15, 1963, Earle Richey, first secretary of the U.S.
Embassy in Tokyo, told Robert Fearey, officer in charge of Japanese affairs at
the U.S. State Department's Office of East Asian Affairs, that ''the meaning of
paragraph 2c. of the Confidential Record of Discussion was clearly understood
by Kishi and Fujiyama at the time of the Treaty negotiations,'' quoting
Fearey's statement in his letter of Feb. 12, 1962.
Paragraph 2c. stipulated that existing procedures concerning transits and port
calls by U.S. vessels and aircraft -- which had been in place before the treaty
revision -- would be excluded from prior consultation requirements.
The U.S. side had taken the view from the beginning that U.S. nuclear-armed
vessels were included. The newly discovered document suggests that Kishi and
Fujiyama had accepted such an interpretation.
In the letter, Richey also wrote to Fearey, who was deeply involved in the
treaty revision, that the embassy went over files on the treaty negotiations
but was unable to locate any record on bilateral consultation on the matter.
The diplomat went on to conclude that ''any discussions held with the GOJ
(Government of Japan) were strictly between (U.S. Ambassador to Japan Douglas)
MacArthur and Kishi and Fujiyama and that no record was ever made of it''
because the matter concerning nuclear weapons placed aboard U.S. Seventh Fleet
vessels and aircraft was ''politically delicate'' at the time.
The prior consultation rule required Washington to consult with Tokyo in
advance on the ''introduction'' of nuclear weapons, given the strong
antinuclear sentiment among the Japanese public following the U.S. atomic
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
But the existence of the tacit agreement has revealed that Japan's principles
of not possessing, producing or allowing nuclear weapons on its territory were
a mere facade.
Wednesday marked the 50th anniversary of the ratification of the revised
security treaty, which committed the United States to helping defend Japan if
it came under attack and which has provided bases and ports for U.S. forces in
Japan.
Kishi resigned the same day the treaty was ratified on June 23, 1960.
==Kyodo
2010-06-25 21:23:27


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