Office of the Historian

103. Memorandum of Conversation0

Tokyo, October 28, 1959, 8:45 a.m.

UNDER SECRETARY’S VISIT TO TOKYO

October 25–November 2, 1959

PARTICIPANTS

SUBJECT

  • Administrative Agreement

The Finance Minister referred to his discussions with Secretaries Dillon and Herter1 about the Administrative Agreement and made the [Page 230] point that, from the Japanese point of view, the Administrative Agreement must be parallel in its terms to that between the United States and Germany. In this connection, there has been some difficulty with regard to the furnishing of facilities by Japan to the U.S. Armed Forces. Specifically, the method of computing claims and how much cost the Government of Japan is actually bearing is a problem which remains unsolved. Mr. Dillon said that he thought that the U.S. efforts to solve the still unagreed items in accordance with the German formula had been successful. The Ambassador pointed out that when Secretary McElroy had visited Japan, further attention had been given to the problem and that our understanding had been that the suggestions put forward at that time had been successful in meeting the problem.

The Minister then stated that he had discussed with Secretary Herter the basic idea to make the customs arrangements strictly parallel with those prevailing in Germany. However, it appears that some problems remain to be solved. The Minister, therefore, suggested that he hoped it would be possible to work these out by means of setting up some special conversations to deal with them. At this point the Ambassador pointed out that there seemed to be some confusion about this. In his opinion, the matters raised by Mr. Sato should not be injected into the Ambassador’s discussion with Foreign Minister Fujiyama on the Administrative Agreement. The problems of claims to which the Minister had referred involved interpretation under the Agreement, rather than basic policies involved in the Agreement itself. These matters are under study at the Joint Committee and this is the proper channel for their resolution. If the Joint Committee is unable to reach a mutually satisfactory solution of the problems, the proper step would be for the Foreign Office to bring them to the attention of the Ambassador. The Ambassador indicated that he is quite ready at any time to discuss these problems with the Foreign Ministry. Minister Sato did not press the matter and agreed with the views expressed by the Ambassador.

[Here follows discussion of GARIOA, included in the Supplement.]

  1. Source: Department of State, Conference Files: Lot 64 D 560, CF 1508. Confidential. Drafted by Blaser and approved by Dillon on October 31.↩
  2. See Document 98 and telegram 801 from Tokyo, October 3, in the Supplement. (Department of State, Central Files, 794.5–MSP/10–359)↩