The Origins of the Bilateral Okinawa Problem: Okinawa in Postwar US-Japan Relations, 1945-1952

The tragic rape of an Okinawan school girl in September 1995 touched off the current "Okinawa Problem" and shook the bilateral relationship. It also had the effect of highlighting the need to understand the complicated history of Okinawa in the postwar U.S.-Japan relationship. Ironically, one of the least examined periods in this postwar history is the same period that would have the most dramatic impact on Okinawa's future status, namely the years up until 1952, when the Peace Treaty with Japan, signed the September before in San Francisco, would go into effect. Using a multi-national and multi-archival approach to this diplomatic history study, the author examines comprehensively and in great detail for the first time the origins of the so-called Okinawa Problem. The first half of the book explores the formation of Okinawa policy within the U.S. government starting in 1942, highlighting the clash over diplomatic-political considerations and military-strategic requirements that existed between theState Department and the U.S. military, and demonstrating that many individuals in the U.S. government sought Okinawa's return to Japan. In the second half of the study, the effect that this clash within the U.S. Government had on the U.S.-Japan relationship is also examined by exploring the Japanse government's planning for a peace treaty, its views on Okinawa's territorial status, its strong desire to see the islands returned, and its attempts to express those views to the United States and Allies, disproving Okinawas fate at the time of the treaty. Also inlcludes four maps.