The Reversion of Okinawa, 1969, Part 1

Abstract

On 26 November 1969 Satō returned to Tokyo following a meeting with American President Richard M. Nixon in Washington. In an emotional and heartfelt address to the nation, he announced that he had reached agreement on his long-cherished goal of securing the return of Okinawa to Japan. He also declared that nuclear weapons would be removed prior to reversion and that US military bases there would operate under the same restrictions as those in the rest of Japan.¹ It was Satō’s greatest achievement; however, it was marred by Nixon’s linkage of the Okinawa agreement with a backroom deal on reducing the volume of Japanese textile imports into the United States and on the reintroduction of nuclear weapons should an emergency require it. Despite Satō’s achievement, historians, loath to give him the credit he deserves, have focused on the shortcoming of the deal. Michael Schaller and Walter LaFeber, for example, fail to give adequate praise to Satō but are on firmer ground when they condemn Nixon for his woefully misjudged attempt to link agreement on Okinawa with a deal on textile imports.² John Welfield gives credit to the Satō administration for securing the return of Okinawa without incurring any new overseas defence obligations but argues that had the Japanese negotiated more firmly and been prepared to wait two years longer, they could have received more favourable terms, particularly with regard to the nuclear question.³