ABSTRACT
Immediately after Japan signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951 to
conclude the American occupation of its country, Okinawans began to
petition en masse for a reversion to Japanese sovereignty. The day that the
treaty was signed is referred to as the ‘‘Day of Shame’’ by Okinawans, for,
as John Dower has explained, ‘‘both the Japanese government and Imperial
Household were willing from an early date to trade away true sovereignty
for Okinawa in exchange for an early end to the Occupation in the rest of
Japan.’’1 The reversion movement in the 1950s and 1960s was extremely popular, with greater than 70 percent of the Okinawan electorate supporting a
reunification with Japan. Protests mounted against the protracted occupa-
tion in Okinawa during the Vietnam War when the island served as a stra-
tegic staging ground. Calls for reversion became more strident in Okinawa,
and great numbers of mainland Japanese, including public intellectuals such
as O - e Kenzaburo-, who opposed the conflict in Vietnam, rallied in support
of the reversion movement. In December 1969, Prime Minister Sato-Eisaku
and President Richard Nixon agreed to Okinawa’s return to Japanese prefectural status, which took place, at last, on May 15, 1972.
