Japan: Time to Confess

Nuclear "lie"strains U.S. ties

Since the 1950s, Japan's Liberal Democratic government has solemnly and repeatedly affirmed three basic principles about nuclear weapons: not to make them, possess them or allow them into the country. In 1960, with the signing of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, Washington agreed not to "introduce" nuclear weapons into Japan. Two weeks ago, however, former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Edwin O. Reischauer revealed that the two countries have ever since been living a convenient lie. In an interview with Tokyo's Mainichi Shimbun, Reischauer asserted that U.S. naval vessels carrying nuclear weapons have routinely visited Japanese ports—with Tokyo's tacit...

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