Documents show scenes behind bumpy Japan-U.S. textile talks in 1969-70+

TOKYO, Nov. 27 Kyodo -
Japan and the United States once reached deadlock in 1970 in negotiating over a
U.S. demand that Japan curb its cheap textile exports because Japanese
diplomats did not know about an earlier secret pact between the nations'
leaders, declassified diplomatic documents showed Friday.
The bilateral textile talks began after Prime Minister Eisaku Sato and U.S.
President Richard Nixon secretly reached a basic accord during their summit in
November 1969 to settle the dispute by the end of the year, but were protracted
until 1971 as the diplomats had no knowledge of the pact until a U.S.
presidential aide apparently told a Japanese envoy about it in 1970, according
to the documents.
Some diplomatic analysts say the prolonged talks worsened relations between the
United States and Japan and caused the so-called Nixon shock to be taken
seriously in Japan as the unilateral cancellation of the dollar's direct
convertibility to gold subsequently buoyed the yen, hurting the Japanese
economy. Nixon's 1972 visit to China was also arranged without consulting
Tokyo.
Records on Japan-U.S. textile talks were among 582 files of diplomatic
documents that the Foreign Ministry declassified Friday after more than 30
years.
The declassified files include those concerning Japan-U.S. talks leading to the
1972 reversion of Okinawa.
At the 1969 summit talks, Sato and Nixon agreed on the return of Okinawa to
Japan and that nuclear weapons would not be stationed there, but they signed a
separate secret pact to allow the United States to bring nuclear weapons to
Okinawa in the event of a contingency.
The existence of the two secret pacts had been presumed by experts as U.S.
documents and a memoir by Kei Wakaizumi(1930-1996), who was an emissary of
Sato, showed secret preparatory negotiations between Wakaizumi and U.S.
presidential aide Henry Kissinger, bypassing career diplomats.
While Sato (1901-1975), who was in power from 1964 to 1972 and won the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1974 in recognition of his contribution to peace in Asia, placed
top priority on Okinawa's reversion, Nixon (1913-1994) won the 1968
presidential election with a pledge to control textile imports
Kissinger, Nixon's right-hand man, tactfully linked the textile issue with the
Okinawa reversion as the U.S. textile industry was sluggish due mainly to an
influx of cheap overseas products.
Among the newly declassified documents are some showing that Kissinger informed
Japanese Ambassador to Washington Takeso Shimoda of the pact on textiles in
March 1970, prompting the Japanese envoy to drop his opposition to accepting
the U.S. demand for curbs shortly afterward.
In the textile talks that began in November 1969, the U.S. side pressed Japan
to impose comprehensive controls on its textile exports to the Untied States.
According to the declassified documents and other documents separately obtained
by Nihon University professor Takashi Nobuo, Shimoda (1907-1995) advised
Foreign Minister Kiichi Aichi (1907-1973) in a message dated Dec. 19, 1969 to
reject the U.S. demand.
In February 1970, Japan proposed concluding a multilateral pact as an
alternative option to a bilateral accord, saying that controls could not be
imposed without agreement from the manufacturers and dealers involved.
But U.S. Undersecretary of State Alexis Johnson turned down the Japanese
proposal and accused Japan of ignoring developments at the summit level,
according to Shimoda's official telegram dated Feb. 14, 1970.
On March 13 that year, Kissinger told Shimoda that he was disappointed by the
Japanese proposal, noting developments in the summit talks, and Shimoda advised
Aichi in a telegram two days later that Japan should change its stance, saying
no promises by a nation to another country are more important than one made by
the government leader himself.
Japan finally gave in to U.S. pressure and agreed to impose voluntary controls
on textile exports in 1971.
Shimoda was as a career diplomat who served as vice foreign minister and
ambassador to the United States. He later became a Supreme Court justice and
Nippon Professional Baseball commissioner.
The newly declassified documents also showed that in 1967, Robert McNamara
(1916-2009), who served as U.S. defense secretary during the Vietnam War, told
the then governor of Okinawa that the U.S. military bases in Okinawa were not
as important as Japan believed.
He indicated the possibility of the United States reducing the scale of the
Okinawa bases with the progress of military technology and enhancement of
nuclear weapons capacity, the documents showed.
As the current bilateral plan to relocate the U.S. Marines Corps' Futenma Air
Station within Okinawa is facing intensifying local opposition, McNamara's
remark could influence the debate about the role of U.S. forces in Japan, some
analysts say.
The declassified documents were made public at the Diplomatic Record Office in
Tokyo on Friday morning.
In May, the Foreign Ministry decided to enhance disclosure of diplomatic
documents under then Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada. Friday's declassification
was the second under the new rules, following the release of documents in July.
Okada took the step following a scandal over the so-called Japan-U.S. secret
pact on the introduction of nuclear weapons in which key documents were
suspected to have been discarded.
The new rules call for strictly enforcing the principle of declassifying
diplomatic records after 30 years, saying sections of documents to remain
classified ''should be kept to the minimum necessary.''
Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara said last week he supports the idea of making
classified documents public after a certain amount of time.
The ministry is also scheduled to release some classified diplomatic papers in
December.
==Kyodo
2010-11-27 01:01:45