Hostile Send-Off

As he arrives in Washington this week for talks with President Nixon, Japanese Premier Eisaku Sato has one item at the top on his agenda: Okinawa. Because of intense antiwar sentiment and rising nationalism the island has become an explosive issue in Japan. Sato hopes to get back Okinawa and the entire Ryukyu island chain, which the U.S. captured from Japan in 1945.

Aware of Sato's domestic difficulties, the U.S. is prepared to offer to turn the islands over to Japan by 1972, giving up the U.S. right to store nuclear weapons there but retaining the bases, which are vital to the American defense system in the Pacific. Such an agreement will not satisfy Sato's foes at home. Demanding nothing less than the immediate and unconditional return of Okinawa, 146 Japanese and Okinawan leftist intellectuals charged that Sato's trip was a cover-up for a U.S. military buildup on the island.

As a warning to Sato not to accept the U.S. proposal, Japanese students and workers threw bombs at U.S. installations, battled police in clashes that left at least one dead, 40 injured and more than 400 arrested. In an attempt to prevent Sato's plane from taking off, the demonstrators converged on Tokyo from all over the country, forcing the government to assign 22,000 riot and special police to guarantee that the Premier could take off safely for his flight to the U.S.

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