220. Memorandum From Peter Rodman of the NSC Staff to Secretary of State Kissinger, Washington, April 6, 1976.1 2
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
ACTION
April 6, 1976
MEMORANDUM FOR: SECRETARY KISSINGER
FROM: PETER
RODMAN [PR initialed]
SUBJECT: Message from Miki through his Confidential
Adviser
Mr. Kazushige Hirasawa, Miki’s confidential adviser whom you saw on March 5, called me from New York. He is in this country through Thursday April 15th but will not be coming to Washington. He read me the following personal message for you:
“The Prime Minister has asked me to convey his deep appreciation of the present understanding and cooperation on the Lockheed affair. The arrangement for the exchange of materials is proceeding in a satisfactory manner. The Prime Minister also asked me to communicate to the President through Dr. Kissinger with the utmost confidentiality his grave concern that despite these arrangements, the Lockheed and more recent CIA allegations are now being used politically in Japan to poison Japanese-American relations and to paralyze the political process in Japan. It is not too strong to state that the Prime Minister fears that the mounting political crisis in Japan, unless it is resolved decisively and soon, may do irreparable harm to the alliance and lasting injury to Japanese democracy.
“The Prime Minister therefore asked me to convey to the Secretary with a sense of utmost urgency that before taking decisive political action in this matter, he [the Prime Minister] must know in advance in trusted confidence whether still-secret Lockheed allegations directly implicate (a) the former Prime Minister, (b) any member of the present Cabinet, or (c) the Secretary General of the governing party. Depending on the answers to these questions, the Prime Minister may decide to exercise the unprecedented option of going to the people, [Page 2] independently of the Cabinet and party leadership, with non-partisan reform proposals intended to resolve the political crisis strengthen multiparty democracy and protect the Japanese-American relationship of friendly cooperation. It is the Prime Minister’s sincere hope that the Secretary will fully appreciate the dangers to the alliance and to Japanese democracy which the present crisis holds, and that he will find it possible to accede to the Prime Minister’s urgent personal request.
“The manner of communicating this privileged information should be at the discretion of the Secretary, perhaps by sending an appropriate U.S. Cabinet officer to Tokyo or by inviting a Cabinet level representative of the Prime Minister to Washington. In either case, the Prime Minister will personally guard the information and will be privately guided by it in choosing the course which will best preserve Japanese democracy and strengthen Japanese-American friendship and understanding.
Hirasawa added: “However, because of the urgency of the situation, I wonder whether I could convey to the Prime Minister any implications regarding his personal request.”
Hirasawa says that the Prime Minister would hope for a reply by April 10th, because that is a crucial date in the Diet debate over the budget. (Miki must decide by then whether to ask for another 40-day extension of the budget, if no budget is yet passed.) Hirasawa plans call me again Thursday afternoon from Atlanta to see if I have any further information.
RECOMMENDATION:
You may want to convene your experts again (Leigh, Habib, Ingersoll).
Approve
Disapprove
You will have to decide how to communicate back to Miki. If you choose to do it through Hodgson or an emissary, I can simply tell Hirasawa we are going directly to Miki. We could invite Hirasawa to stop in Washington, but he is worried about being spotted by the Japanese press.
- Source: Ford Library, National Security Adviser, Presidential Country Files for East Asia and the Pacific, Box 7, Country File, Japan [10]. Secret. Sent for action. Kissinger did not mark either of the options.↩
- Rodman informed Kissinger of Miki’s desire for information on whether powerful Japanese politicians were implicated in the Lockheed scandal.↩