In the 1960s, the vision of a global marketplace was still in blueprint form. We were decades away from a telecommunications revolution that would link the world's businesses. We were years away from plausibly imagining a world with a personal computer in every home. And the World Wide Web? Try using that phrase in the 1960s, and someone would think you were discussing Cold War espionage.

Japan was no economic giant then, but a nation in the midst of transforming itself — from a military power crippled by war into an economic power fueled by technology. It would be years before most Japanese brand names would become household words in America — and years before Japanese electronics would find a place in every retail showroom from Wall Street to Main Street.

As it entered the 1970s, Japan still considered itself a developing nation and sought to protect its trade. And so the U.S.-Japan Income Tax Treaty was negotiated, providing Japan with a necessary tax buffer to help its own manufactured products gain ground with its Japanese consumers.