Jeffrey LewisJapan Releases NCND Documents

The United States has long had a policy to “neither confirm nor deny” the presence of nuclear weapons on US ships in foreign ports (NCND). There has always been an interesting question about the degree to which foreign governments understood, until early 1992, many US warships calling on their ports were loaded with nuclear weapons.

To date, our case studies on the theory and practice of the “neither confirm nor deny” policy have been concerned Iceland, Norway and Denmark. (Some of Hans Kristensen’s very best work has been on the question of NCND with respect to his native Denmark. Here is a short article by Hans on what that work means for Japan.)

As a result of Japan’s ongoing debate about its nuclear history, Japan’s Foreign Ministry has released an official report on “secret nuclear agreements”, backed up with a treasure trove of documents — which unfortunately (for me at least) is almost entirely in Japanese.

Here is my initial attempt at an English guide to what the Japanese have released. There is a general introductory page, with several links including one to the main page on the March 9 announcement. The principal documents appear to be:

Ministry of Foreign Affairs internal report

Report by the Expert Committee

Historical Documents, including

List of documents

Documents related to the 1960 Security Treaty

Documents related to the 1960 Security Treaty

Documents related to the 1972 Okinawa Reversion

Documents related to the 1972 Okinawa Reversion

Other relevant documents

List list other relevant documents

✓ Other Documents related to the 1960 Security Treaty (Volumes 1, 2, 3, and 4)

✓ Other documents related to the 1960 Security Treaty (Korea) (Volumes 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5)

✓ Other documents related to the 1972 Okinawa Reversion (Volumes 1 and 2)

Other documents related to the 1972 Okinawa Reversion

I can’t speak a word of Japanese, so I welcome efforts by Japanese speakers to begin making sense of what is a treasure trove of documents.

Comments

  1. Daryl Kimball (History)

    … thanks for digging these up, which are important for the historical record and for Japan’s effort to escape its old, schizophrenic relationship with nuclear weapons.

  2. Julia