WORLD> Asia-Pacific
Tokyo sought US nuke shield in '65
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-23 07:46

Japan's longest-serving prime minister - a Nobel Peace laureate - asked the US in 1965 to deploy nuclear weapons against China if war broke out between the Asian rivals, according to newly declassified government files obtained by Kyodo news agency.

During his first trip to Washington as the Japanese leader, Eisaku Sato told then-US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara that American military forces could launch a nuclear attack on China by sea if needed, Kyodo said yesterday.

Under its post-World War II constitution, Japan renounces war as a sovereign right and prohibits the use of force in international conflicts.

But the new details of Sato's discussions with the US reveal a more complicated picture behind his strong public stance against nuclear weapons as well as his distrust of China.

His comments came a day after his talks with President Lyndon Johnson on Jan 12, 1965, during which he sought to reconfirm a US promise to defend Japan under the US-Japan security treaty, according to Kyodo. The documents show that Johnson assured the Japanese leader of Washington's commitment to the pact.

China tested its first atomic bomb on Oct 16, 1964.

Sato, in office from 1964 to 1972, also told McNamara that although Japan was technically capable of building atomic weapons, it had no intention of doing so, according to documents that were routinely declassified by Japan's foreign ministry after 30 years and obtained by Kyodo.

It was Sato who introduced in 1967 Japan's "Three Non-Nuclear Principles," which has guided the country's nuclear policy since then.

His efforts were recognized by the Nobel committee in 1974, when he shared the peace prize with Irish human rights crusader Sean MacBride.