U.S. gave campaign money to conservative candidate

More than $700,000 of ruling Liberal Democratic Party money was given to the campaign of a conservative pro-U. S. candidate was 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, according to a former campaign official.

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 election, 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 the hope 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 50 years since Okinawa reverted to Japanese rule in 1972. I thought I could tell what I know, he said.

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

Miyagi, who headed 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.

In about two to three batches, about $700,000 came in, he said. We used two U.S. banks in Okinawa. I remember that because there was a huge amount of money. The campaign funds, which included donations from the local business community and the U.S. chamber of commerce and industry, were provided to Yoshimoto's leaders, according to Miyagi.

He listened to them explain their local situations, grabbed rough handfuls of wads of cash 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 backed by a teacher's 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 hold campaign money. Yoshimoto claimed that it was handed over 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 it was unable to report to an LDP investigation how the funds had been used, a former campaign official said.