Staff writer In August 1990, when then Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu telephoned U.S. President George Bush to offer a $1 billion contribution to the U.S.-led multinational forces in the Persian Gulf, Bush offered a disappointed-sounding "Thank you" before hanging up.
"We had thought we were offering a pretty good amount," said Nobuo Ishihara, then deputy chief Cabinet secretary, who was listening in on the telephone conversation. "There might have been a gap in the sense of crisis (between Tokyo and Washington) toward what was happening in the Persian Gulf."
The decade following the Gulf War saw tremendous changes in Japan's now 50-year-old security alliance with the U.S.