A former senior U.S. official ruled out deploying nuclear weapons in Okinawa after the territory's return to Japanese administration in 1972, saying there was no strategic value in doing so, according to diplomatic records declassified Wednesday.
As part of the arrangements for Okinawa's return, Prime Minister Eisaku Sato and President Richard Nixon had agreed that the United States would remove its nuclear arsenal from military bases on the islands.
The agreement, reached in November 1969, was made necessary by public sentiment in Japan going back to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as Sato's adoption of the three nonnuclear principles of not possessing, not producing and not permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons.