Despite Japan's abhorrence of nuclear weapons, secret diplomatic records show that former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone gave Washington the go-ahead in 1970 to bring nuclear arms into this country. Declassified documents obtained by Asahi Shimbun and Japanese scholars that were marked ``secret'' or ``top secret'' show that Nakasone made a remark to allow nuclear weapons being brought into Japan despite Tokyo's ban on possessing, producing or allowing the introduction of nuclear weapons into this country.

At the time, Nakasone was director-general of the Defense Agency in the administration of Prime Minister Eisaku Sato. The documents record a meeting Nakasone had with U.S. Defense Secretary Melvin Laird.

It is already known from U.S. documents that Nakasone agreed during a September 1970 meeting with U.S. officials that Japan would allow nuclear weapons in times of emergency. But this is the first time official documents from both sides have come to light.

Nakasone acknowledged through his office to Asahi Shimbun that he ``may have made such a statement during my meeting with Laird.'' The documents include records kept by a Nakasone aide and U.S. accounts of two rounds of meetings between Nakasone and Laird as well as telegrams from the U.S. State Department reporting the outcome of sessions between Nakasone and U. Alexis Johnson, then U.S. undersecretary of state, to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo and to other U.S. government and military officials. The Japanese records show that Nakasone told Laird that Japan would not need to develop its own nuclear weapons as long as the U.S. nuclear deterrence was in place.

Nakasone also said that the introduction of nuclear weapons into Japan was an issue for prior consultation between Japan and the United States. He said the government later on should be given the option to decide whether to allow the United States to transport nuclear weapons to Japan. Meanwhile, U.S. records show that Nakasone indicated that Japanese defense policies should incorporate references to the U.S. readiness to provide nuclear protection for Japan, including the introduction of nuclear weapons into Japan.

To this, the U.S. side said it would deploy all types of weapons to help defend Japan in accordance with the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty. The introduction of nuclear weapons has long been a highly controversial topic in view of this country's experience of atomic warfare and its ban on nuclear weapons.

In a 1994 book, the late Kei Wakaizumi, a former professor at Kyoto Sangyo University who was a secret envoy for Sato during negotiations on Okinawa's reversion to Japan, disclosed that the leaders of Japan and the United States signed a secret memorandum in 1969 confirming the U.S. right to bring nuclear weapons into Okinawa in times of emergency.

Home Page