沖縄おきなわ返還へんかんで核かく持ち込もちこみ「密約みつやく」の若わか泉いずみ敬たかし氏し 遺書いしょが沖縄おきなわ県けん寄贈きぞうへ

International political scientist Takeshi Wakaizumi, who was involved in secret negotiations with the American side over the reversion of Okinawa and took part in creating a secret agreement regarding the introduction of nuclear weapons, left a will two years before his death expressing his intention to take his own life out of a sense of guilt towards Okinawa. This will is set to be donated to Okinawa Prefecture this year, the 80th year since the end of the war.

Mr. Kei Wakaizumi, a native of Echizen City, Fukui Prefecture, acted as a secret envoy for then-Prime Minister Eisaku Sato ahead of the 1972 reversion of Okinawa, conducting secret negotiations with the United States independently of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and making the reversion possible. However, in his book published in 1994, two years before his death, he revealed the details of these negotiations, disclosing the existence of a “secret agreement” allowing the reintroduction of nuclear weapons in the event of an emergency.

According to Echizen City and others, the will being donated to Okinawa this time was kept at the home of a man in Fukui Prefecture who was acquainted with Mr. Wakaizumi in his later years, and it was written to coincide with Okinawas Memorial Day in 1994, the year Mr. Wakaizumi published his book.

Mr. Wakaizumi is said to have felt a strong sense of personal responsibility for the current situation in Okinawa, where U.S. military bases remain concentrated even after the reversion. In his five-page suicide note addressed to the people of Okinawa, he wrote things such as, I will take my heavy responsibility for the consequences to history and end my own life.

This year marks 80 years since the end of the war, and the man who had kept the farewell letter offered to donate it. It will be donated to the Okinawa Prefectural Archives and made public after September this year.