Opinion Principle Four By DOUGLAS LUMMIS	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
4つ目の原則 4つ目の原則 核兵器を積んだアメリカ船の日本への入港が 1963年に日本の外相によって 許可されていたことが先日報じられ 話題を呼んでいるが 核兵器が持ち込まれていたかどうかより もっと重要なことがある…。

The Japanese government has a policy called "the three non-nuclear principles." According to this, the manufacture, possession and introduction of nuclear weapons are prohibited in this country.

At the same time, under the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, Japan is "protected" under the U.S. "nuclear umbrella." But I consider the umbrella metaphor inappropriate, because nuclear weapons don't stop attacks the way umbrellas stop rain. The nuclear umbrella means that whatever country attacks Japan risks being nuked by the United States.

This means the three non-nuclear principles are hypocritical insofar as they don't include principle four: prohibition of the use of nuclear weapons. If the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty is Japanese government policy, then the nuclear umbrella — that is, the use of nuclear weapons — is also Japanese government policy. How much, then, does it matter whether the umbrella-nukes are in Yokota Base, or on U.S. warships in the Pacific?

We have long known that the U.S. government considers principle three (nonintroduction) to be meaningless and does not honor it. Every now and then some U.S. official mentions this, and the Japanese media react with shock, behaving as though they were hearing it for the first time.

In 1981, no less a personage than Edwin Reischauer said in an interview that when he was U.S. ambassador here (1961-1966) U.S. ships carrying nuclear weapons routinely entered Japanese ports. Typically, Japanese newspapers responded with articles about the "Reischauer shock."

Now today's newspaper (Japan Times, Aug. 1) tells us the Japanese government has known about and consented to the United States bringing nuclear weapons into Japan since 1963.

A telegram written by Reischauer in that year reveals that he explained to then-Foreign Minister Masayoshi Ohira that the United States did not consider "nonintroduction" to mean that U.S. warships carrying nuclear weapons could not enter Japanese ports. It goes on to say that Ohira assured Reischauer that the government agreed to this interpretation.

This interpretation, of course, uses the logic of the swindler. Are we supposed to believe that the nukes haven't entered Japan until they have passed through customs? The Maritime Safety Agency doesn't use the same logic with regard to foreign vessels.

As I mentioned above, I am writing on the day the Reischauer telegram was revealed in the newspapers. By the time you read this, presumably the Japanese government will have made some response. I don't know if they will deny having accepted this interpretation or defend it.

It will be hard to deny, because Reischauer is a reliable source. And it will be hard to defend because its reasoning is absurd. More impotantly, if the Japanese government truly believed that this interpretation (i.e., that bringing nukes into Japanese ports is not "introduction") was reasonable, why did it keep its reasoning a secret from the public for 36 years?

But what is most in need of discussion is principle four. For so long as the use of nuclear weapons is part of national policy, where those weapons are located is a matter of secondary importance.

Shukan ST: Aug. 20, 1999

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