Historical Dictionary of United States-Japan ... - Bakumatsu Films

208 • PRIOR CONSULTATION
Grew received support from Secretary of War Henry Stimson,
who revealed himself “inclined to agree with giving the Japanese a
modification of the unconditional surrender formula.” Truman vacillated,
although by early July a committee made up of representatives
from the State, War, and Navy Departments had drafted a declaration
that included direct reference to the continued postwar existence of a
“constitutional monarchy.” Grew submitted this draft to the new secretary
of state, James F. Byrnes, although mindful of Byrnes’s disinclination
to modify the unconditional surrender policy, Grew
lamented that the text would probably be “ditched on the way over.”
In one aspect he was correct: the Potsdam Declaration made no mention
of the Japanese monarchy. The Japanese government subsequently
indicated its intention to “ignore” the Potsdam Declaration,
and Washington responded by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. The Soviet Union simultaneously entered the war
against Japan. Tokyo then accepted the Potsdam Declaration in its entirety
although, immediately after its surrender, it indicated that it
saw no contradiction between the terms of surrender and retention of
the monarchy. See also PACIFIC WAR; WORLD WAR II.
PRIOR CONSULTATION. Under a special arrangement stipulated in
an exchange of official notes at the time the U.S.–Japan Security
Treaty was amended in 1960, Washington assumed the following obligation:
Before the United States makes an important change in the
military alignment or equipment of U.S. forces stationed in Japan, or
before it conducts military operations that require use of its military
bases located in Japan, the U.S. government should engage in prior
consultations with the Japanese government. The primary reason for
the prior consultation is to secure Japan’s right to have a voice in the
use of U.S. military bases located in Japan. President Dwight D.
Eisenhower assured Japanese Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi that
the United States had no intention of conducting any kind of military
operation that would go against the wishes of the Japanese government
expressed in any prior consultation.
However, no prior consultation precedent has ever been established,
partly because the official note exchange left the following
important loophole: The United States would have to carry out prior
consultation with Japan only when U.S. forces found it necessary to
conduct sorties directly from U.S. bases in Japan. U.S. forces sta-