Carter Memoir - Introduction

Unless a compromise is reached — there will be profoundly adverse effects on the future of U.S.-Japan relations....Prime Minister Fukuda has publicly called this a ‘life and death’ issue for Japan. [1]
                                    Mike Mansfield, Ambassador to Japan, August 13, 1977

Many foreign policy experts believe that the nuclear threat currently posed by North Korea is a bigger threat to national security than terrorism.  The tension over nuclear nonproliferation issues in Asia goes back many years and threatened to derail the relationship between the U.S. and Japan during the Carter Administration.  The diligent reader of former President Jimmy Carter’s memoirs Keeping Faith (New York, 1982) would probably be impressed with the many pages devoted to the describing of the Iran hostage crisis, the negotiation of the SALT II Treaty with the Soviet Union, or the ill-fated plan to withdraw American ground troops from South Korea.  U.S. relations with Japan hardly appear in Carter’s version of his presidency, almost as if they were nonexistent. The same can be said after reviewing Power and Principle (New York, 1983), the memoirs of Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski.  But was this really the case?

                  Long before the confrontation between the U.S. and North Korea in the 1990’s over nuclear energy facilities, a similar political battle was brewing between the Carter administration and its counterparts in Japan. Carter was committed to the principles of nuclear non-proliferation and was not about to see one of America’s key allies breech that precept. Japan’s leaders, on the other hand, saw the need for rapid construction and use of nuclear power facilities as vital to the economic interests of their nation, having been reminded of their energy vulnerability by the Arab oil embargo of 1973.

This paper focuses on how nuclear technology impacted the U.S.-Japan relationship during the Carter years, in particular how the Tokai reprocessing facility become a contentious issue during the first year of Jimmy Carter’s presidency. This issue threatened to cause "irreparable damage" [2] between the Carter administration and Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda. It will draw substantially on over 380 recently declassified documents obtained from the National Archive Records Administration and the Jimmy Carter Library.

                  In view of the fact that there is so little information concerning Japan in the memoirs of Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski, one might conclude that the Carter Administration’s relationship with the Government of Japan was without incident. The declassified documents however tell a very different story. [3] They reveal just how contentious this issues became and how Carter was forced to work out a compromise with his Pacific ally on the issue of nuclear non-proliferation concerning the Tokai nuclear reprocessing facility in Ibaraki Prefecture near Tokyo.

Some background information on Carter’s overall view towards nuclear energy is important to understand what went on during those first eight months of Carters presidency. While Governor of Georgia, Carter maintained strong ties in both the business and political arenas with the Japanese. Carter, a devoutly religious man, had close Japanese friends who had converted to Christianity. The first, Tadeo Yoshida, the President of the YKK Zipper Company, was a well-known philanthropist that invested heavily in the State of Georgia while Carter was Governor. The second was Masayoshi Ohira, the Prime Minister of Japan during the later part of Carter’s presidency before his untimely death in 1979. Ohira was a member of the Trilateral Commission during the Tokyo Summit in 1975 when he first met Carter. He would become one of three heads of state that Carter would feel the closest personal ties (the other two were Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Omar Torrijos of Panama.) [4]

In 1973, Carter was chosen to be part of the Trilateral Commission to bring together business, political and academic leaders from the three developed areas of the world, Western Europe, Japan and North America, to foster dialogue and cooperation on common problems. [5] In May 1975, Carter was scheduled to attend a meeting of the Trilateral Commission in Japan. At this point, he was already a candidate for the presidency and this trip was to be the only overseas trip of the campaign. [6]

On this trip Carter visited the Diet and was eager to meet with other government leaders, but they were not convinced it was worth their time to meet with him. Eventually Foreign Minister Masayoshi Ohira, Vice Premier Takeo Fukuda and Prime Minister Takeo Miki received him. The most important aspect of that trip was the opportunity it provided for Carter to enhance his relationship with his fellow commission members. [7] Carter had indeed built up good relationships with high-ranking Japanese businessmen and officials prior to his presidency.

One of the first things Carter did as President was to send Vice President Mondale on a trip to Asia. This was in line with one of the first goals of the new administration, to improve relations with Western Europe and Japan. The Vice President’s trip made significant improvements in the relationship with Japan that had floundered because of the Nixon shocks, the unilateral measures imposed by the United States on U.S. - Japan trade. [8]

One of the few references to Japan's nuclear energy policy in either Carter's or Brzezinski's memoirs was a reference by Brzezinski to a weekly report that he gave only to the President.  In his weekly report on March 18, 1977, he mentions Japan and reprocessing, “I want to alert you to the extreme sensitivity of the Japanese over the impact of our nonproliferation initiatives.  Our new policy has seriously complicated Japan's nuclear power planning and objectives.” [9]   Prior to this reference however, the secret documents revealed that a number of important discussions had already taken place.

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