ABSTRACT
The first of the Shimoda conferences took place in 1967, the fourth in 1977. During those ten years, Japanese-US relations changed dramatically. The changed view is the result of change not only in relative economic weight but also in the world environment at large. The conference was punctuated by meetings with Okinawan delegations, reporters, and experts, and the issue was on everybody’s mind. In 1967 the Korean question scarcely stirred a ripple in the flow of the discussion. The Korean question tied back into the base problem because it was quite obvious that an effective US defense of South Korea would require backup support from bases in Japan, and particularly Okinawa. The United States was heavily involved in Indochina, Thailand had just become the newest addition to the United States’s string of bases in Asia, and many Japanese were worried about the use of Japanese bases for conducting the Indochinese war.
