Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Volume XIX, Part 2, Japan, 1969-1972

116. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Washington, April 3, 1972, noon.

PARTICIPANTS

• Mr. Robert S. Ingersoll, U.S. Ambassador to Japan
• Mr. Henry A. Kissinger, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
• Mr. John H. Holdridge, Senior Staff Member

SUBJECT

• Mr. Kissinger’s Discussion with Ambassador Ingersoll on His Role in Japan and Related Matters

Mr. Kissinger began by outlining in some detail the role which Ambassador Ingersoll should play as the President’s personal representative in Japan. Although Ambassador Ingersoll had previously been unknown to either the President or to Mr. Kissinger he, the Ambassador, came highly recommended by people such as George Shultz. Mr. Kissinger wanted Ambassador Ingersoll to know that the President had full trust and confidence in him. He should consider himself free to report back to the President directly whenever instructions from elsewhere in the bureaucracy seem to be in conflict with what he understood the President’s policy toward Japan to be.

Ambassador Ingersoll urged Mr. Kissinger to try to the maximum extent possible to have him, Ambassador Ingersoll, present in Mr. Kissinger’s forthcoming meetings with the top Japanese leaders.² This would make life much better, and would assure that he would not be by-passed by the Japanese, as had been the case with Armin Meyer. Mr. Kissinger assured Ambassador Ingersoll that he would not be by-passed. Every effort would be made to provide Ambassador Ingersoll with the maximum visibility possible during Mr. Kissinger’s visit to Japan. He would probably have private meetings with at least Sato, but Sato was on the way out anyway; Sato had been trying for at least three months to have a private meeting in his house with Mr. Kissinger. Assuredly Ambassador Ingersoll would be present at dinners or luncheons involving the Japanese leaders.

Continuing, Mr. Kissinger said that he would do his damndest to get Ambassador Ingersoll in with Fukuda, whose only interest was to succeed to the Prime Ministership. If this didn’t work, Mr. Kissinger noted, he would make a strong statement emphasizing that the President had full trust and confidence in Ambassador Ingersoll. It would certainly be possible to get the Ambassador in with Fukuda and high Foreign Ministry officials, and at the dinner at which Tanaka, Fukuda, and others would be present. Mr. Kissinger’s interest in building Ambassador Ingersoll up was not indirect—the reason that we had gone to such lengths to put Ambassador Ingersoll in Japan was to get our man there.

Mr. Kissinger gave his assessment of U.S. relations with the Japanese, saying that the problems were due to the fact that they were essentially a tribal society with a peculiar lack of understanding of the opinions of anyone else. The survival and glory of the Japanese leaders had been through their ability to maintain this tribal identity. Although these people did not understand social complexities elsewhere, they had a remarkable ability to mobilize opinion in Japan. This was done through a process of social consensus. It took a long time for them to make a decision, but once it was made it was carried through very effectively.

Mr. Kissinger observed that the Japanese were now moving in the direction of greater assertiveness in foreign policy. This he considered a desirable thing, unlike some people in State who still clung to the idea that the Japanese could be induced to shoulder a greater share of the U.S. economic burden without involving themselves politically. The “Nixon shock” had encouraged this trend, and in this respect had had a good effect. Anyway, it couldn’t be undone. We had tried in innumerable ways to brief them, but they seemed to want to use the “Nixon shock” as an excuse to get a more autonomous position. We were not, however, opposed to a more autonomous Japanese position.

Mr. Kissinger stressed that he didn’t know what precise conclusions should be drawn from this situation. It was essential for us to maintain our alliance with Japan. He did not believe, though, that we should keep going around apologizing to the Japanese over the alleged slight that we had given them regarding the China initiative. Rather, we should play up the position that they were our key ally and that we would certainly not sell out our relationship with Japan for the sake of opening up China. Mr. Kissinger remarked again that the Japanese would inevitably assume a more autonomous position, and that they would play a bigger role in political affairs. Paradoxically, the closer were our ties with Japan, the better our relations with Peking would be.

Ambassador Ingersoll asked Mr. Kissinger for his views on the remilitarization of Japan, to which Mr. Kissinger said that he personally felt that some remilitarization of Japan would be useful because it would keep the Chinese worried, especially with respect to Japan going nuclear. This, of course, was not the State view. Regarding cables, our line was not as soft as the State line.

Mr. Kissinger described Tokyo as one of the two or three posts in the world where it was worth being ambassador, and where it made a difference who was the ambassador. He suggested to Ambassador Ingersoll that the latter should not be too apologetic in dealing with the Japanese, nor butter them up too much or be obsequious. They themselves had made a profession out of being obsequious to us in the 50’s and 60’s because they needed us to build them up, but they didn’t need us now.

Ambassador Ingersoll asked how Mr. Kissinger felt about a possible effort on our part to make Japan a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Mr. Kissinger declared that this was inevitable in his opinion. Both Japan and India ought to be permanent members. However, as of the present moment he knew of no particular effort on our part in this direction.

Ambassador Ingersoll raised the question of economic policy with respect to Japan—could there be conflicting guidelines between State and Treasury? Mr. Kissinger assured Ambassador Ingersoll that this problem, if it developed, could be handled. He personally was of the opinion that economic consideration should be subordinate to political considerations.

1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 537, Country Files, Far East, Japan, Vol. VII, Jan–Apr 1972. Secret; Sensitive. Holdridge sent this memorandum to Kissinger under an April 4 covering memorandum. (Ibid.) Kissinger approved the memorandum of conversation with no further distribution. In an April 10 letter to Sato, Nixon introduced Ingersoll as follows: “I wanted my personal representative in Japan to be someone who reflected the paramount importance which I place on continued friendly relations between our countries. It was therefore a great pleasure to me when Mr. Ingersoll, whom I have known for over 25 years, agreed to lay aside his heavy responsibilities as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of the Borg-Warner Corporation to take up this most important diplomatic post.” Nixon also wrote: “Please feel free, Mr. Prime Minister, to rely on Ambassador Ingersoll to bring to my personal attention any particular problem you may have at any time.” (Ibid., Box 757, Presidential Correspondence File 1969–1974, Japan (Sato Corr) 1969–8 Jul 1972) Ingersoll was nominated Ambassador to Japan on February 29 and presented his credentials on April 12.
2. On June 7, Ingersoll telegraphed Kissinger at the White House and declared his appreciation of the “telephone message from General Haig that you wish to have me accompany you on all visits while you are in Japan except for the meeting with Prime Minister Sato and part of the meetings with other ministers.” Ingersoll further explained, “I personally not concerned about you having private meetings with Foreign Minister and other ministers but believe it would not be desirable for status of Embassy here to exclude me from any part such meetings. However, you and I can discuss this on way from airport Friday night.” (Backchannel message 130 from Ingersoll to Kissinger; ibid., Kissinger Office Files, Box 21, HAK Trip Files, HAK’s Japan Visit Jun 1972 [3 of 3])