Overview

This volume documents U.S. policy toward Japan during a period of increasing change in the relations between the two allies. Japan was fast becoming a major economic power while still relying on the United States for its security. A theme of the coverage, in fact, is the ongoing U.S. effort to encourage Japan to assume a greater role in its own military defense and to play a greater role on the world stage, especially in terms of the economic development of the rest of Asia. Another major theme is U.S. efforts to encourage the continuation of a moderate, pro-Western Japanese Government. The creation of a joint U.S.-Japanese economic planning group sought to coordinate the two economies. The eventual reversion of U.S. administered-Ryukyus to Japan was a goal of Japanese Governments, but it played out during this period in the successful effort by Japan to regain control in 1968 from the United States of the much less strategically significant Bonin Islands. A related theme was domestic Japanese opposition to the war in Vietnam and the use of U.S. bases in Japan to support the U.S. campaign in Vietnam. A final theme is the successful U.S. discouragement of closer Japanese-People’s Republic of China relations.