Top Secret in 1969
After WWII, the US occupied Okinawa.
Even after a peace treaty was signed by Japan and a majority of the allied nations, including the US, the US continued its occupation of Okinawa.
Okinawa Prefecture, consisting of scores of islands and situated in the south of the four major Japanese islands, was the only battle ground in the Japanese indigenous territory in the war between the Empire of Japan and the United States which was fought as part of WWII (1939-1945).
The Battle of Okinawa was waged from March to June of 1945. The Empire of Japan deployed 116,400 troops and the US (and other allied forces) mobilized 548,0000 soldiers. Eventually, more than 94,000 Japanese soldiers were killed (including 3,000 kamikaze soldiers); and more than 12,000 US soldiers died (72,000 wounded). What is worse, 94,000 Okinawa citizens were involved and killed.
So, the US would not return Okinawa to Japan even after the Peace Treaty of San Francisco was signed in 1951, since the US lost so many soldiers in the Battle of Okinawa. Besides, Okinawa is close to China and Taiwan, making it strategically valuable for the US.
But in 1969 then Japanese prime minister Eisaku Sato was determined to take back Okinawa. However there is one problem. The US had huge areas of American military bases in Okinawa. What is worse, the US military had nuclear weapons in Okinawa, while the Japanese Government had publicly declared that it would never allow existence of American nuclear weapons in Japan. Japan was the only nation in the world that suffered nuclear-bomb (atomic bomb) attacks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
The US had no intention to remove its nuclear weapons from Okinawa, as it was the era of the Vietnam War. So, a secret treaty was concluded by US President Nixon and Japanese Prime Minister Sato.
TOP SECRET
AGREED MINUTE TO JOINT COMMUNIQUE OF UNITED STATES PRESIDENT NIXON AND JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER SATO ISSUED ON NOVEMBER 21, 1969
United States President:
As stated in our Joint Communique, it is the intension of the United States Government to remove all the nuclear weapons from Okinawa by the time of actual reversion of the administrative rights to Japan; and thereafter the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security and its related arrangements will apply to Okinawa, as described in the Joint Communique.
However, in order to discharge effectively the international obligations assumed by the United States for the defense of countries in the Far East including Japan, in time of great emergency the United states Government will require the re-entry of nuclear weapons and transit rights in Okinawa with prior consultration with the Government of Japan. The united States Government would anticipate a favorable response. The United States Government also requires the standby retention and activation in time of great emergency of existing nuclear storage locations in Okinawa: Kadena, Naha, Henoko and Nike Hercules units.
Japanese Prime Minister:
The Government of Japan, appreciating the United States Government's requirements in time of great emergency stated above by the President, will meet these requirements without delay when such prior consultation takes place.
The President and the Prime Minister agreed that this Minute, in duplicate, be kept each only in the offices of the president and the Prime Minister and be treated in the strictest confidence between only the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Japan.
Washington,D.C., November 21, 1969
(signature) Richard Nixon
(signature) Eisaku Sato
One original sheet of this signed paper had been hidden in a desk of Sato in the prime minister office in Tokyo. When Sato resigned as PM in 1972, he had his desk carried to his home with the secret sheet in it.
Eisaku Sato died in 1975 after he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974. Then his wife died in 1987. At the time their son, a politician, found this secret agreement in a drawer of the desk.
His son, Shinji Sato. requested the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to take this paper and keep it properly. But bureaucrats of the Ministry refused to handle it for the reason that the paper was not official but personal between Sato and Nixon. They said that the Japanese Government had nothing to do with it. And afterwards, the secret pact sheet was long kept personally by the son of Eisaku Sato.
It was 2009 that Mr. Shinji Sato made public the secret arrangement between his father and Richard Nixon, since a regime change occurred in Japan in 2009 from the pro-US LDP, to which Satos belonged, to the liberal DPJ through a general election.
Everybody has already gone that was involved in preparation of this secret treaty, but Mr. Henry Kissinger is still alive. Mr. Kissinger was a major figure behind the scene in establishing this controversial treaty. Incidentally, Kissinger's counterpart on the Japanese side was Kei Wakaizumi, but he committed a suicide in 1996 after suffering some moral, ideological or political pains related to this secret nuclear-weapon treaty.
Finally the most importantly, it is said that Okinawa people feel that they were sacrificed in WWII because Okinawa was the last region in the Japanese Archipelago that was officially integrated into the Empire of Japan, since Okinawa had been nominally an independent kingdom (Ryukyu Kingdom) till the 19th century. It had even sent a tributary envoy to Chinese empires over the East China Sea over centuries. Okinawa is a very unique part of Japan still today.
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Joh 6:8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him,
Joh 6:9 There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many?
Joh 6:10 And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand.
Joh 6:11 And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would.
Joh 6:12 When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.
Joh 6:13 Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten.
Joh 6:14 Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.