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Withdrawal of US Marines Blocked by Japan in the 1970s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Yara Tomohiro
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After the Vietnam War, the US Department of Defence considered withdrawing the Marine Corps from Okinawa to the mainland US. However, the Japanese government, unable to stand alone in terms of defence policy, intervened to stop it. Observing this, the US State Department thought that it could use the Marine Corps as a lever in its policy towards Japan.

These historical facts become clear from documents in the Australian Archives discovered by Nozoe Fumiaki, lecturer at Okinawa International University. Preserved in the Australian Archives are reports from Australian diplomats on what they had heard from State Department officials.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 11 , Issue 47 , November 2013 , e4
Creative Commons
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2013

References

Notes

1 For the Nozoe text, see: Nozoe Fumiaki, “Okinawa Beigun kichi no seiri shukusho o meguru Nichibei kyogi, 1970-1974 nen” (US- Japan talks over reduction of US Bases in Okinawa, 1970-1974), Kokusai anzen hosho, vol. 41, No. 2, 2013, pp. 99-115. Nozoe elaborated on his argument in the following paper delivered on 9 November 2013 to Okinawa Hosei gakkai, ““Okinawa Beigun kichi no seiri shukusho mondai - rekishi teki shiten kara.” (copy provided by author)

2 Robert MacCallum, Asian desk officer in the Office of International Security Operations of the State Department's Bureau of Politico- Military Affairs, discussion on 6 October 1972, Embassy of Australia, “United States Force Deployments in Asia,” Secret, Memorandum 2652/72, 9 October 1972.

3 Memorandum Number 4840, Embassy of Australia, Washington, to Department of Foreign Affairs, May 1973, in Nozoe.

4 US National Security Archive, ed., Japan and the United States: diplomatic, security, and economic relations, 1960-1976, Bell and Howell Information and Learning, 2000, quoted in Nozoe.

5 [Thomas P.] Shoesmith to [Richard L.] Sneider, deputy Assistant Secretary of State, in US National Archives (quoted in Nozoe).

6 Sources in Nozoe, November 2013 paper, cited in Note 1 above.