62. Letter From the Ambassador in Japan (Allison) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Robertson)1
Dear Walter: I enclose a letter2 which I hope may be of use to you on the Bonin question. For a few Department eyes only I would like to add the following:
The basic difficulty is and always has been the rooted determination of the Navy to keep foreigners, particularly Japanese, out of the islands they administer. Radford has personally been committed to this for years. The Navy simply dug in right after the war and has fought tooth and nail ever since to hold the line. This makes me suspect that alleged “security” considerations are really rationalizations in defense of Navy policy, rather than reasons on which national policy should logically be decided. One line of thought which I imagine is present though seldom if ever put on paper is: returning residents to former Japanese islands promotes reversionism and is therefore an entering wedge for eventual loss of control whereas the islands might some day be valuable to us.3 If so, the argument should be frankly laid on the table by the Navy, specifying what they want the islands for and when. Then these purposes could be weighed against our other national objectives.
[Page 143]In addition, so many of the arguments which are adduced, like the one mentioned in the enclosed letter, are so obviously flimsy that the whole subject needs airing before an impartial tribunal. I would like to suggest the OCB for this purpose. It is unusually well adapted for short-circuiting obstructions in the Pentagon. Also it could effectively handle one of the cleverest of the Navy’s stratagems—the interest of another agency in the Bonins, which is sometimes cited.
Indications from the recent visit of the Zablocki Study Mission4 are that some support should be available on the Hill for a reasonable attitude on the Bonins. During a briefing in which high ranking military participated, several questions were asked by Congressmen in a way which implied that they felt more evidence was needed if a case is to be made for continued exclusion of the former residents. Replies from the military briefers did nothing to supply such evidence.5
Sincerely,
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 794C.022/12–1455. Secret; Official–Informal; No Distribution Outside Department.↩
- Not found in Department of State files.↩
In a memorandum of a conversation held April 17, 1956, with Hiroto Tanaka, First Secretary of the Japanese Embassy, James Martin wrote in part:
“Mr. Martin said that in view of the relative unimportance of the claim of a few thousand Islanders it would seem that the Japanese Government had some other motive in urging for repatriation. Mr. Tanaka replied that repatriation was all the Japanese Government wished at the present time but that it wished to make good its claim for the future to both the Ryukyus and the Bonins and would very much like the United States Government to announce that the Ryukyus and the Bonins would be returned to Japan in the future.” (Department of State, Central Files, 794.5/4–1756)
↩- A Special Committee of the House Armed Services Committee, headed by Congressman Clement J. Zablocki, visited a number of Asian countries in October and November.↩
In a January 9 reply, Robertson wrote:
“On the basis of my separate talks in recent months with both the Japanese Bonin evacuees and the four-man delegation from Chichi Jima, it was apparent that the Japanese found our emphasis on ‘security’ hard to understand, while the present-day residents unabashedly based their opposition to the return of the Japanese on understandable arguments of economic self-interest plus the fears of reprisals growing out of testimony they gave in war crimes trials. It was clear that the Japanese could not understand why the return of prewar residents who were not of Western descent should constitute a security threat when the return of those of Western descent did not constitute such a threat. They were frank in stating that the difference in treatment seemed to them to be racial discrimination. It was of interest talking with Chichi Jima representatives to note from their account of daily life in the Bonins that ‘security’ does not seem to inhibit them at all as far as their personal lives are concerned.” (Department of State, Central Files, 794C.022/12–1455)
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