U.S. provided campaign funds to conservative candidate in Okinawa

NAHA, Japan Kyodo money was funneled to the campaign of a conservative pro-U, more than $700,000 of ruling Liberal Democratic Party money. According to a former campaign official, the candidate and distributed to municipal leaders to help secure votes in the first public election of the head of Ryukyu government in Okinawa in 1968, while it was still under U.S. rule.

Previously declassified diplomatic documents show the United States, concerned that a rival candidate who called for an immediate reversion of Okinawa to Japan without preconditions would win the contest, had urged the LDP to help a conservative party in Okinawa financially.

The former campaign official's accounts show for the first time that LDP money was provided in several batches by U.S. banks and given to municipal leaders in hopes of securing votes for Junji Nishime, the pro-Washington candidate.

The former senior campaign official, Takeshi Miyagi, 88, said he decided to provide his accounts, as this year marks the 50 years since Okinawa reverted to Japanese rule in 1972. I thought I can tell what I know, he said.

An official U.S. document showed that the LDP promised in August 1968 to provide $720,000 to Nishime's campaign. The money, which was valued at 259.2 million yen at the time, was received by Eishin Yoshimoto, who was then vice president of the Okinawa Liberal Democratic PartyOkinawa Liberal Democratic Party.

Miyagi, who ran the conservative party's secretariat, said that the yen-denominated funds needed to be converted into dollars as the U.S. currency was used in Okinawa at the time.

He said that around $700,000 came in, in around two to three batches. We used two U.S. banks in Okinawa. I remember that because there was such a huge amount of money. The local business community and a U.S. chamber of commerce and industry were provided with campaign funds that were provided to Yoshimoto, according to Miyagi.

As he was listening to them explain their local situations, he grabbed wads of dollar bills in a rule of thumb and handed them in manila envelopes, he said.

Nishime lost the election in November 1968 despite the infusion of campaign money. Chobyo Yara, who was supported by a teachers association, became the first elected head of the Ryukyu Islands government.

Seiho Matsuoka, the conservative chief executive of the Ryukyu government before Yara took over, noticed that $130,000 had disappeared from the bank account used to park campaign money. Yoshimoto claimed to have handed it to a group affiliated with Nishime, but that could not be verified, Miyagi said.

The LDP lost confidence in the Okinawa Liberal Democratic PartyOkinawa Liberal Democratic Party because the local party was unable to report to an LDP investigation how the funds had been used, a former campaign official said.