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Government allowed U.S. warships to bring nuclear weapons into Japan
Akahata editorial

When the Japanese and U.S. governments agreed in November 1972 to use Yokosuka Port (Kanagawa Prefecture) in Tokyo Bay as the homeport of the U.S. aircraft carrier Midway, the Japanese government also allowed U.S. warships to bring nuclear weapons into the port. It was revealed by Niihara Shoji, an expert on international affairs, who obtained a declassified U.S. government document (a secret telegraph sent by then U.S. secretary of state to the U.S. embassy in Japan on April 19, 1973).

This has serious bearing on Japan's peace and sovereignty.

Extension of 'secret nuclear agreement'

In the talks for the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, the two governments made a secret agreement on January 6, 1960 that states transit of U.S. warships loaded with nuclear weapons will not be subject to "prior consultation."

The prior consultation agreement set under the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty requires the U.S. Forces to have prior consultation with the Japanese government when it plans to make major changes in deployment and equipment as well as plans to conduct military combat operations. However, unlike the case of nuclear weapons deployed to U.S. bases on land, prior consultation is not applied to the case of nuclear weapons carried by warships to Japanese ports. Thus, U.S. warships are allowed to bring nuclear weapons into Japan.

In the latest-revealed telegraph, then Secretary of State William Rogers stated, "GOJ has accepted USG position that 'homeporting' is not 'stationing' and that visits by homeported CVA (as well as cruiser and other homeported warships) or by any other U.S. navy ship will come under transit arrangement, thus obviating necessity of prior consultations."

It means that, in the first application of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty to the use of a Japanese port as a home-port for a U.S. aircraft-carrier, the Japanese government accepted the U.S. government interpretation that home-porting is a type of transit and does not amount to bringing in nuclear weapons. This was a stretched application of the 1960 secret agreement between Japan and the United States.

However, providing a U.S. aircraft-carrier with home-port services can not be classified as transit. For a Japanese port to serve as a home port means that it will become a base for military operations of U.S. aircraft-carriers and other vessels. Their port calls are not just temporary calls. They imply that Japan ensures the U.S. 7th Fleet the use of Yokosuka Port as a foothold to engage in regional conflicts throughout the world.

In order to enable rapid deployment of carrier strike groups anywhere in the world, the U.S. government was seeking a home port abroad which a U.S. aircraft-carrier can enter and exit without unloading their nuclear weapons. This is why the U.S. government put pressure on the Japanese government to accept provision of home-port services and the stretched application of the secret agreement on nuclear weapons.

A letter of June 17, 1972 from U.S. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird to Secretary of State William P. Rogers, which was disclosed by then Japanese Communist Party Chair Fuwa Tetsuzo in 2000, showed how the U.S. policy on negotiating with Japan needs to be adjusted. Arguing that the prior consultation clause is not to be applied to the entry of ships loaded with nuclear weapons, the U.S. government called for covert consultations with Japan over the application of the secret arrangement on nuclear weapons.

The Japanese government defended the home-porting, by stating in the Diet that the port is just a residence for the families of crew members of an aircraft-carrier and is therefore not a major change in deployment requiring prior consultation. It must not be condoned that the Japanese government is at the beck and call of the U.S. government in maintaining the secret arrangements with the United States.

Immediately dump secret pact

Japan as the only atomic-bombed country has been in the vanguard of the movement calling for nuclear weapons to be eliminated. The Japanese government has advocated maintaining the Three Non-Nuclear Principles (not to produce, possess, and allow nuclear weapons to be brought in). The U.S. Bush administration, however, is strengthening its preemptive attack strategy with the use of nuclear weapons as its centerpiece. These nuclear weapons will be targeted at countries having no nuclear weapons. It is highly likely that cruise missiles and other nuclear weapons have already been brought into Japan.

There is no justification in allowing Japan to be used by the United States as a base to use nuclear weapons. Secret arrangements on nuclear weapons should be immediately abandoned. -- Akahata, August 17, 2005