Word: ryukyu
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...RYUKYU ISLANDS...
Unlike previous conquerors, the U.S. has always declared its intention to hand Okinawa and the rest of the 73 islands it administers in the Ryukyu chain back to Japan. The question is, when? During 23 years of occupation, the U.S. has turned Okinawa into an American Gibraltar in the Pacific, a strategic forward base for nuclear-armed B-52 bombers and a logistics launching pad for the Viet Nam war. At the same time, the continued occupation has become the touchiest issue in Japanese politics-and virtually the only political cause that stirs the 952,000 Okinawans...
...Japanese colonists on the Bonins, which supplied Japan with fish and many of its winter vegetables, were evacuated during the war, when the large Bonins were turned into a part of Japan's island defense system. After the U.S. took them over, it made them and the Ryukyu chain (including Okinawa) bases for air and naval installations. While Okinawa has since become the major U.S. military base in the Western Pacific, the Bonin area installations are now only three small stations and a complement of only 75 men. Last November, as an omiyage (gift) to Japan's visiting...
...been clouded by the war, since Okinawa is America's major Western Pacific base, and a key way station for heavy bombers and troops headed for Viet Nam. The sooner the war in South east Asia ends, the sooner Japan will regain administrative control of Okinawa and the Ryukyu chain of which it is a part. With that in mind, perhaps, Sato offered last week to serve as best he could as a "third party" in seeking a negotiated...
...elections to the local legislature approached in the great Pacific bastion of Okinawa and 46 other islands of the Ryukyu chain, Washington officialdom had its fingers crossed. In the last elections in 1958, Red-lining anti-American candidates had shown alarming strength; five months ago when Dwight Eisenhower flew into Okinawa during his Asian tour, jeering agitators greeted him with placards reading I HATE IKE. Last week, when the ballots of 374,000 Ryukyu voters were finally tallied, Washington began rubbing its eyes in stunned but joyous surprise...