7. Editorial Note
On January 21, 1969, Secretary of State Rogers received NSSM 5, in which President Nixon directed the NSC Interdepartmental Group for East Asia to prepare a study “on US policy toward Japan for consideration by the NSC,” (see Document 2). Two days later he passed this request on to William Bundy, the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, who became chairman of the East Asian and Pacific Interdepartmental Group. (Memorandum from Rogers to Bundy, January 23; National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files NSC Institutional Files (H-Files), Box H–128, National Security Study Memoranda, NSSM 5, [2 of 2])
On March 27, Chairman Bundy sent an Interdepartmental Group paper on U.S. Policy toward Japan to President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs Kissinger, the Chairman of the National Security Council Review Group, with an additional comment by the IG representative of the Treasury. (Ibid.) The Treasury representative commented that “this paper does not give adequate attention to the relative sharing of [Page 27] costs and benefits of the U.S.-Japanese partnership and incorrectly assesses the trends as ʽincreasingly valuableʼ to the United States.” Instead, the Treasury representative argued that President Nixon should pursue U.S. goals regarding balance of payments and trade in return for concessions on Okinawa. (Treasury Comment on NSSM 5, March 24; ibid.)
When Morton Halperin and Richard Sneider of the National Security Council staff reviewed the response to NSSM 5, they stated that Bundy’s group had produced “an excellent paper” that “can go to the NSC essentially as it is.” The NSC staffers noted, however, that because the paper is “quite long,” they had prepared a summary paper, which Kissinger approved, to facilitate discussion at the Review Group and NSC meetings. The NSC sent this paper to the members of the Review Group before the meeting. (Halperin and Sneider note to Kissinger, undated; ibid.)
No minutes of the April 25 Review Group meeting have been found, but a Department of Defense talking paper for a subsequent NSC meeting summarizes the discussion: The participants agreed “that the NSC should focus on Okinawa reversion as the most serious potentially disruptive issue facing the US-Japan relationship and that decisions were required in regard to the timing of reversion, U.S. nuclear storage rights, and the right to undertake military combat operations in the post-reversion period.”
They also decided that “the Security Treaty should be continued without change . . . . We should reduce the base structure gradually to overcome major political irritants while retaining essential base functions . . . . We should continue to encourage moderate increases and qualitative improvements in Japanese defense forces; Treasury preferred the option of pressing for substantially larger defense forces. Economic issues including trade and balance of payments, were an integral part of Japan policy, but it would not be possible to address these fully at this time.” (Talking paper for the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in preparation for the NSC meeting of April 30; Washington National Records Center, RG 330, OSD Files: FRC 330–75–0103, Box 12, Japan, 092)
Following the April 25 Review Group meeting, NSC Executive Secretary Davis sent out the summary paper, and requested immediate agency comments. (Davis to the NSC, April 28; National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, NSC Institutional Files (H-Files), Box H–128, National Security Study Memoranda, NSSM 5, [2 of 2].) The next day, April 29, Davis sent out the revised summary, which is printed as Document 8, in anticipation of the NSC meeting on April 30.