50 years of Japan-U.S. Alliance

Japan Press Weekly

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50 years of Japan-U.S. Alliance
Illusion of ‘equality’ - Part IV

Resentment at U.S. high-handedness

Former Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Mamoru did not want the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty to allow the presence of U.S. military bases in Japan. However, since this was rejected by the U.S. State Department, the then Japanese government stopped asking for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Japan. In contrast, people began struggling against the United States throughout the country because Japan was being treated as a U.S. colony. This increasing public anger threatened the viability of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty.

U.S. forces seize Japanese people’s lands

Requested by the U.S., the Japanese government tried to forcibly take over people’s lands throughout Japan in order to construct U.S. military facilities. On July 21, 1955, Procurement Agency Head Fukushima Shintaro at a House of Councilors Budget Committee meeting stated that the United States had demanded that Japan prepare 478 sites for the U.S. military and that the Japanese government had actually provided 129 areas within two years for the use by the U.S. military in the early 1950’s.

In protest against these forced takeovers, people launched campaigns across Japan, including the Uchinada Struggle in which people stood up against the plan to construct a U.S. live-fire testing site on the coast of Uchinada Town in Ishikawa Prefecture and the Sunagawa Struggle which was an action in opposition to the expansion plan of the U.S. Tachikawa base in Tokyo associated with the introduction of U.S. fighter jets to the base.

On July 8, 1957, a group of demonstrators protesting the expansion plan of the Tachikawa base was indicted for trespassing and for violating the Act on Special Measures Concerning Criminal Cases under the Japan-U.S. Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security. However, the Tokyo District Court on March 30 in 1959 ruled that the U.S. military presence based on the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty was unconstitutional. Presiding Judge Date Akio found the seven defendants not guilty.

Being shocked at the so-called “Date Judgment”, the government directly appealed to the Supreme Court without going to a high court and succeeded in having the “Date Judgment” overturned in December 1959. However, declassified U.S. documents later revealed that then U.S. Ambassador to Japan Douglas MacArthur had put pressure on the Supreme Court chief justice to overturn the “Date Judgment”.

Okinawa and anti-nuclear weapons movement

On January 30, 1957, at the Somagahara shooting range in Gunma Prefecture (currently the Ground SDF Somagahara Garrison), a Japanese housewife was collecting spent rifle cartridges in order to sell them as scrap metal. William S. Girard, an enlisted man, gestured to the housewife to come closer and then shot her to death.

The U.S. Army first claimed its right to exercise exclusive jurisdiction under the Japan-U.S. Administrative Agreement on the grounds that Girard had been on duty. However, the state of inequality drew strong criticism in Japan. The United States in the end was forced by public outrage to turn the case over to Japanese courts, but a secret promise was made to discretely commute the sentence given to Girard.

In the meantime, Okinawans launched a struggle in opposition to the U.S. forces using “bayonets and bulldozers” to seize Okinawans’ lands. In 1956, Senaga Kamejiro of the Okinawa People’s Party (1959-1972) was elected Naha City mayor.

On March 1, 1954, a major incident occurred. The Japanese tuna fishing boat Daigo Fukuryumaru (Lucky Dragon Number Five) and its crewmembers were exposed to radioactive fallout from the U.S. H-Bomb test explosion at Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific. This incident prompted calls for the abolition of nuclear weapons. In 1955, the initial World Conference against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs was held in Hiroshima. This event gave further momentum to peace and anti-nuclear weapons movements. The bringing-in of nuclear weapons by U.S. vessels or aircraft into Japan came under severe public scrutiny.

The United States had refused to revise the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, but gradually became concerned by the fact that the public sentiments against the inequality in regard to Japan-U.S. relations were growing.

On January 7, 1957, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Walter S. Robertson, who was in charge of Far Eastern affairs, sent a memorandum to the Secretary of State to point out the possibility that Japan may have evolved into a neutralist state. Robertson in the memo proposed that the U.S. place “security arrangements with Japan on a durable basis of mutuality and self-interest rather than the present one-sided arrangement.”

Subsequently both governments began to take steps towards a “revision” of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty.
(To be continued)