Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi pressed U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower at a summit in 1957 to consider setting a deadline for returning Okinawa, saying the Japanese public might otherwise become nervous about U.S. intentions, according to diplomatic records declassified Wednesday.
The talks, 15 years before Okinawa's 1972 return to Japan following U.S. rule after World War II, underscored Kishi's readiness to work for Okinawa in addition to revising the original Japan-U.S. security treaty that Tokyo had seen as unequal.
But Kishi endorsed the continuing presence of U.S. forces in Okinawa, saying they were "needed for the security of the Far East."