Ex-US president Nixon and Japan agreed to deny existence of secret deal to place nuclear weapons in Okinawa, documents show

Memorandum uncovered from presidential library of late US leader sheds further light on long-rumoured agreement between Washington and Tokyo

Retaining the right to store the weapons in the prefecture was a condition America laid out before agreeing to return it to Japanese control in 1971

Reading Time:5 minutes

Former US president Richard Nixon welcomes then Japanese prime minister Eisaku Sato to the White House in 1969. Photo: AP

Published: 5:00am, 20 Nov 2019Updated: 4:55pm, 20 Nov 2019

Former US president Richard Nixon described a secret agreement with Japan that permitted the US military to store nuclear weapons in Okinawa as “very satisfactory”, according to a document recently discovered in the presidential library of the late leader.

The memorandum, dated November 24, 1969, was uncovered in California by Masaaki Gabe, a professor at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa. It indicates that Nixon and his government intended to deny that any deal existed on nuclear weapons should Washington or Tokyo be questioned.

Retaining the right to have the weapons in Okinawa was a condition the US laid out before agreeing to return the prefecture to Japanese control in 1971, 26 years after Japan’s defeat in World War II.

The Japanese government of the day, headed by prime minister Eisaku Sato, was desperate to take back control of the prefecture but was aware that officially permitting the US military to place nuclear weapons on Japanese soil was unacceptable to the people of a nation that was the first to be the target of an atomic bomb.

The memorandum, dated November 24, 1969, was uncovered in California by Professor Masaaki Gabe.

To this day, Tokyo refuses to confirm or deny that any agreement existed – written or unwritten.