U.S. had nuclear weapons on Iwojima, Chichijima

Japan Policy & Politics, Dec 20, 1999

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 Kyodo

The United States deployed nuclear weapons on the islands of Iwojima and Chichijima from 1956 until shortly before the islands were returned to Japan in 1968, so U.S. submarines could be reloaded in the event of a protracted nuclear war, according to a report by a group of U.S. scientists Sunday.

In the latest issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, three researchers also revealed that Tokyo and Washington signed a secret accord in 1968 enabling the U.S. to store nuclear weapons the islands in the event of an emergency, despite Japan's espoused triple nonnuclear principle.

The researchers concluded that a nonnuclear Japan -- the three principles of not producing, possessing, or introducing nuclear weapons -- was a "sentiment, not a reality."

Robert Norris, William Arkin, and William Burr of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit group monitoring nuclear weapons, had reported on the deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons during the Cold War in the October issue of the Bulletin.

Based on declassified U.S. government documents and independent research, the three determined the location of 25 of 27 locations outside the United States where nuclear weapons were kept, including Japan's southernmost prefecture Okinawa, where nuclear weapons were deployed until Okinawa reverted to Japan in 1972.

Two locations, known only as "I" and "C" because a government censor had blacked out all but the first letters of their names, remained unknown until a series of tips and other supporting evidence later led them to believe the two islands, which the U.S. controlled from the end of World War II until 1968, were host to nuclear weapons.

According to a declassified memorandum of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, nuclear bombs with their fissile cores were first deployed on Chichijima, 890 kilometers south-southeast of Tokyo, and on Iwojima, 1,100 km from Tokyo, in February 1956, the report said.

The two islands were to serve as secret "recovery and reload" bases for submarines in the event that the major U.S. bases in Okinawa and Guam were destroyed in a nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union or China. The two islands would serve as a base for relaunching an offensive in the event of a protracted nuclear conflict.

An unknown number of nuclear weapons, including warheads for use in Regulus submarines and in surface-to-air Talos missiles, were deployed on Chichijima island until 1965, while "nonnuclear" bombs -- bombs without their fissile material -- remained on Iwojima until 1966.

Nuclear bombs were removed from Iwojima in December 1959.

In addition, U.S. State Department records show Japan agreed with the U.S. to allow the storage of nuclear weapons on the islands in the event of an emergency. The agreement, the exact wording of which remains classified, was reached April 10, 1968, shortly before the islands were returned to Japan in June that year, according to the report.

The confidential pact was arranged between Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato and U.S. President Lyndon Johnson under strong pressure from the U.S. military, the researchers said, citing State Department documents obtained at the National Archives.

The agreement became an "important precedent for a similar nuclear storage arrangement reached in 1972 when the U.S. returned control of Okinawa to Japan," Burr said.

The report also said the State Department feared the possibility that the "U.S.-oriented" ruling Liberal Democratic Party would collapse if the secret arrangements on nuclear deployment were leaked.

The council also quoted the declassified 1956-1957 Far East Command's "Standing Operating Procedures for Atomic Operations" as saying that "13 separate locations in Japan had nuclear weapons or components, or were earmarked to receive nuclear weapons in times of crisis of war."

The researchers said it was possible that bombs without their fissile cores were stored at U.S. bases on the main islands of Japan, including bases in Misawa, Atsugi, Iwakuni, Komaki, and Iruma.

It also pointed out that nuclear-armed ships were stationed in Sasebo and Yokosuka in Japan during the Cold War.

Norris said that the U.S. military never had nuclear deployment rights for mainland Japan, however.