Nixon's 1953 trip to Okinawa and its lasting impact

American President Richard Nixon, in the context of U.S.-Japan-Okinawa relations, is most famous for having agreed in 1969 to the reversion of the island prefecture back to Japan, which was successfully accomplished in 1972.

But there are two more little known episodes that tie the late U.S. leader to Okinawa.

The first is his meeting with Prime Minister Eisaku Sato in 1965, done in a private capacity, during his trip to the region just after Sato himself visited Okinawa for the first time since taking office. Sato , no doubt, spoke to him about the trip.

The second, earlier episode is the subject of this essay, a visit by Nixon to Okinawa that took place 70 years ago on Nov. 20, 1953.

The American leader’s planning for his trip to Okinawa began in March 1953 when President Dwight D. Eisenhower suggested that Nixon, then the vice president, and his wife, undertake a major trip to Asia that summer and visit as many countries as possible. Nixon decided to include 19 countries, including Hong Kong and Okinawa.

According to Nixon’s memoirs, Eisenhower did not know Asia well and had felt the Harry S. Truman administration neglected the region. He wanted to remedy that while in office.

Nixon’s trip was meant to serve four specific purposes: First, it was intended to reassure friends and allies, particularly with an armistice likely in the Korean War; second, it would allow Nixon to directly explain to countries in the region, especially those that adopted a position of neutrality, U.S. policies; third, it would allow the vice president to see the rapidly developing situation in Indochina firsthand; and fourth, it would give Nixon the opportunity to assess Asian attitudes toward the emerging colossus of the People’s Republic of China.

Prior to the trip, Nixon underwent three days of briefings by the State Department. That, for Japan, was highly important — particularly the need for it to rearm and the importance of Okinawan bases in the context of the U.S.' strategy in the region. Nixon, who had built his political career on anti-communism, did not need any convincing.

The Nixons left the United States on Oct. 5 aboard a chartered aircraft and returned on Dec. 14. Overall, the pre-jet airline era trip was more than 70 days long.

It was in the late morning of Nov. 20 that the Nixons arrived in Okinawa after five days on Honshu, which included visits to Tokyo, Kyoto and Nara, the first-ever official guest of state in the postwar era.

His visit to Okinawa was only for two hours, but it was the first time for a senior official from the United States to visit there at that level. Interestingly, Nixon would not be the only person to visit Okinawa who would later become president. Eisenhower did so in 1946 as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army and John F. Kennedy, then a member of the House of Representatives, would do so in 1951.

Nixon wanted to do a few things during his stop-over on his way to the Philippines, including a military briefing, tour and meeting with an Okinawan farmer.

The U.S. civil administration in Okinawa was stressed about arrangements for Nixon’s visit. Brig. Gen. Charles E. Bromley, who was the civil administrator and had a hot temper, demanded Chief Executive Shuhei Higa find a farmer for Nixon to greet during his tour of the island. Higa, equally proud, was upset and later told the Japanese interpreter, “I have never been insulted like this before. Mr. Nixon may be the civil administrator’s vice president but he is not mine. While I am an appointed chief executive, the fact is I am still in charge of my own castle. I am resigning in 15 minutes.” Bromley apologized and the issue was forgotten.

Nixon did meet with the farmer in his field but trampled on his sweet potatoes on the way out to meet him. The farmer told Nixon off but the interpreter, diplomatically, decided to change the meaning.

The more significant act of the visit came when Nixon declared during his meetings with Higa and the leadership of the government of the Ryukyu Islands and representatives of the legislature that “the United States will control Okinawa so long as the communist threat exists.”

Prior to this, Nixon had met with Brig. Gen. David A. D. Ogden, the deputy governor of the Ryukyu Islands and commanding general of U.S. Army Forces in Okinawa. According to notes of the meeting in the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California, the two men discussed the possibility of leasing Okinawa for 99 years, with the money going to Japan.

Another officer attended the talks: Brig. Gen. Paul W. Caraway, Nixon’s military aide. A decade later he would serve as the high commissioner in Okinawa, a position created in 1957. Caraway pursued policies to limit Japan’s involvement with Okinawa, drawing the ire of the islanders and the U.S. State Department simultaneously.

Because the Amami Islands to the north were scheduled to revert by the end of the year (1953), there was some optimism that Okinawa might be returned too. Nixon’s comments, however, seemed to dash those hopes for residents and local leaders, including the members of the Association for the Reversion of the Okinawa Islands to the Fatherland, formed 10 days before Nixon’s visit.

Upon returning in mid-December, Nixon gave a radio address to the country and then gave a detailed report to the National Security Council in January. In his memoirs he states that the trip was “an undisputed success in that it accomplished its stated objectives and more,” adding that it had a “tremendously important effect on my thinking and on my career. ... It established my foreign policy experience and expertise in what was to become the most critical and controversial part of the world.”

He was not mistaken in that regard.

A decade and a half after his trip, Nixon would agree to Sato’s request in 1969 for the reversion of the islands — a decision his four predecessors had been unable to make.