Huge protest rallies throughout Japan on international antiwar day, October 21, demanded the removal of U.S. nuclear weapons and the cancellation of Ford’s scheduled November 18 visit. The sponsoring organizations, which included the Communist and Socialist parties and the major trade unions, reported that 2.2 million persons had taken part in 456 demonstrations.

A rally in Meiji Park in central Tokyo was attended by 70,000 demonstrators. Speakers at the rally repeatedly pointed to the massive protests in 1960 that forced the cancellation of President Eisenhower’s visit. A Communist party speaker called for “an even larger-scale movement” to block Ford’s visit.

The mounting opposition to the presence of U.S. nuclear weapons in Japan – the country that experienced the world’s only atomic bombings – has been given a further boost by new revelations that confirm the existence of a secret agreement between Washington and Tokyo permitting the United States to move nuclear weapons through the country.

Citing “authoritative Japanese sources,” New York Times correspondent Richard Halloran reported October 27 that the agreement was made in 1960 by Aiichiro Fujiyama, then Japan’s foreign minister, and Douglas MacArthur II, the U.S. ambassador.

The secret agreement was concluded without a Japanese text so that the Japanese government could deny its existence without fearing that a copy of the document might be leaked. Only U.S. officials recorded the agreement.

“The sources,” reported Halloran, “said Japanese politicians at that time did not wish to confront the nuclear transit issue in detail because it was too sensitive in domestic politics. Thus Japanese officials said to American officials, in effect, ‘Go ahead and do it, but don’t tell us or the Japanese people about it.’“

In a dispatch to the October 22 New York Times that appears to have been colored by a little wishful thinking, Halloran described the response at the Tokyo rally as “tepid.”

“With the rather lighthearted, carnival atmosphere that prevailed tonight,” he said, “It seemed doubtful that they [the sponsoring organizations] had made much headway toward their objective” of forcing the cancellation of Ford’s visit.

However, three weeks before Eisenhower’s planned visit in 1960, the New York Times made a similar effort to play down the seriousness of the opposition. “Students and Adults Chant in Carnival Spirit Against Visit by Eisenhower” was the subhead on an article by Robert Trumbull in the May 27, 1960, New York Times reporting demonstrations by more than two million persons throughout Japan.

The “carnival spirit” in 1960 forced the Japanese government to cancel Eisenhower’s visit and led to the resignation of Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi a month later. The current wave of protest – sparked initially by the congressional testimony of retired Rear Admiral Gene LaRocque that U.S. warships carrying nuclear weapons do not unload them before entering Japanese ports – might be just as far-reaching in its effects.

When LaRocque’s testimony was made public in Japan on October 7, 15,000 persons demonstrated at Sasebo, near Nagasaki, until the guidedmissile frigate Warden and the destroyer Gurke left. The next day the nuclear-powered attack submarine Pogy left Yokosuka, and when the aircraft carrier Midway returned to Yokosuka Bay October 10, it was met by about 1,000 demonstrators.

As more and more evidence emerged showing that the U.S. was in fact bringing nuclear weapons into Japan, Tokyo continued to issue denials. Foreign Minister Toshio Kimura told parliament October 14 that there was no secret transit agreement with Washington, and said he believed there were no nuclear weapons aboard U.S. warships in Japanese ports.

“As in the past,” the October 15 Washington Post reported, “he stressed the official belief that the United States abides by what he described as a nuclear-free policy with respect to Japanese installations....”

“Japan’s antinuclear ‘three principles’ – refusal to manufacture, maintain or permit the introduction of nuclear weapons – are not contradictory to the country’s reliance on the U.S. nuclear shield in Asia, the foreign minister maintained.”

Crew members from the U.S. aircraft carrier Midway were able to give specific details of the nuclear weapons the ship brought into Japanese ports. The October 14 Washington Post reported that “seamen with firsthand knowledge of the Midway’s armaments and cargo said the white or silver nuclear bombs with red-painted noses are kept in ‘special ammunition’ magazines under 24-hour guard by armed U.S. Marines.”

The bombs were aboard when the carrier left California a year ago, they said, and more were brought aboard at Subic Bay in the Philippines in February. Since then only one bomb had been removed, after it reportedly failed a “safety test.” One crewman, quoted by a Socialist member of the Japanese parliament on October 21, claimed the Midway was carrying at least fifteen nuclear bombs.

Even after all this, Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka still stuck to his denials. “I am convinced that nuclear weapons have not been brought into Japan,” he said October 22. He claimed that Washington had told the Japanese government that it would not bring nuclear weapons into the country.

According to a public-opinion poll taken toward the end of September by a leading daily, the Mainichi Shimbun, only 18 percent of the Japanese people support Tanaka’s administration. Coming on top of disclosures this month about Tanaka’s crooked financial dealings, the current storm of protest over nuclear weapons could seriously weaken his government.

Source: https://www.themilitant.com/Intercontinental_Press/1974/IP1239.pdf#page=3&view=FitV,35