US urged Japan to delay NPT ratification

October 4, 2015

Nixon administration urged Japan to delay ratifying NPT

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201510040020

By TOSHIHIRO OKUYAMA/ Senior Staff Writer

Despite being the only nation victimized by an atomic bomb, Japan took six years to ratify the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in the 1970s due partly to diplomatic machinations started by U.S. President Richard Nixon.

Declassified documents in both the United States and Japan show Nixon urging Prime Minister Eisaku Sato to move slowly on ratifying the NPT, in part, because Washington was then in the process of normalizing relations with China.

The Nixon administration apparently felt that leaving open the possibility of Japan possessing nuclear weapons would be a form of pressure on Beijing that would be advantageous to Washington in the course of U.S.-China negotiations.

The early 1970s was a time when the United States and Soviet Union were in the midst of the Cold War, and Washington was trying to find a way out of the Vietnam War. With that as a backdrop, the Nixon administration also sought to improve ties with Beijing after many years of an antagonistic relationship.

Japan signed the NPT in February 1970 and the treaty went into effect the following month. However, it took another six years until Tokyo ratified it in 1976.

Among the key provisions of the NPT are limiting possession of nuclear weapons to the then five nuclear powers and allowing for the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Documents of the U.S. National Security Council show that when Nixon met with Sato on Jan. 7, 1972, in San Clemente, Calif., the president told the prime minister to delay ratifying the NPT because that would raise concerns among a potential enemy nation. Other documents related to Henry Kissinger, Nixon's national security adviser, show that the "potential enemy nation" referred to China.

Nixon later told Sato at that same meeting to "forget" that he made the comment about the NPT.

Records of a conversation held in the White House on July 9, 1974, also show Nixon taking a passive stance in promoting the NPT. Nixon was asked by James Hodgson, the newly appointed ambassador to Japan, about his real stance on the NPT.

Nixon, who would resign a month later due to the Watergate scandal, said the U.S. position was to only pose as a proponent of the NPT.

Records in connection with Kissinger also reinforce Nixon's passive stance on the NPT.

Conversation records of the White House and State Department show that in June 1972, about five months after the Sato-Nixon meeting in San Clemente, Kissinger was asked by State Department officials to tell Japanese officials that the U.S. government wanted Japan to ratify the NPT.

However, subsequent records show that after returning to Washington from a Japan visit, Kissinger informed Nixon that he told Sato and Foreign Minister Takeo Fukuda in Tokyo that the U.S. policy remained unchanged from what Nixon urged at San Clemente.

Other records show that Kissinger, who would go on to serve as both national security adviser and U.S. secretary of state under Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford, also felt Japan could be used as a diplomatic card in Washington's dealings with China.

In a March 11, 1974, meeting with Pentagon officials, Kissinger said that the Self-Defense Forces could become a source of concern for China, but would be an effective tool for the United States. Kissinger added his view that Japan could possess nuclear weapons within a decade and that Japan should be utilized to scare other nations.

The United States has long maintained a two-faced approach toward nuclear weapons.

After U.S. President Barack Obama called for a nuclear-free world in a 2009 speech in Prague, the 2010 NPT Review Conference approved a final document that included a specific plan for moving toward nonproliferation. However, no such final document could be agreed upon at the 2015 Review Conference because the United States opposed a Middle East proposal for a nuclear-free zone in that region.