Published on September 7, 2019.
As a reposting of a chapter originally published on June 3, 2018, this essay is based on Masayuki Takayama’s “Notes of the Seasons” column in the monthly magazine Sound Argument, and discusses the Okinawa reversion, Sato Eisaku, the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, the Nishiyama Taikichi case, and the reporting on the TV Asahi female reporter and the vice finance minister sexual-harassment issue.
It criticizes newspaper reporting that shifts the Okinawa reversion secret-agreement issue into a criticism of state power, the problem of Nishiyama Taikichi’s failure to protect his source, and reporting practices that deviate from journalistic ethics.

September 7, 2019.
They lead the matter to the conclusion that state power is always a liar.
That argument is absurd.
Buying back territory with money was a splendid diplomatic achievement, was it not?
Keeping the transaction secret was consideration for the United States.
Perhaps through a honey trap, some good tidbit might slip out.
The television station side is also sordid.
This is a chapter I sent out on June 3, 2018, under that title.
The following is from this month’s installment of “Notes of the Seasons,” the serialized column that Masayuki Takayama publishes at the beginning of the monthly magazine Sound Argument.
This month’s issue of Sound Argument, too, is filled from the opening pages onward with must-read essays…all of them are genuine essays that one could never read no matter how carefully one read the Asahi Shimbun after paying a monthly subscription fee of about 5,000 yen…and yet the issue costs 840 yen.
The emphases in the text are mine.
Asahi Shimbun editorial writer Komano Tsuyoshi wrote in the morning edition that “Sato Eisaku received the Nobel Peace Prize” because he “realized the reversion of Okinawa.”
There was neither a correction nor an apology, but this is a great mistake.
Eisaku received the prize for the Three Non-Nuclear Principles.
However, the significance of the reversion of Okinawa is so great that even the ignorant Komano may be excused for being mistaken.
In general, history teaches that territory taken in war can only be recovered by war.
Japan was able to recover it without crossing swords.
It was a feat fully worthy of the Peace Prize.
However, from there the column jumps to the story of Nishiyama Taikichi of the Mainichi Shimbun.
Behind the reversion of Okinawa, four million dollars had been transferred from the Japanese government to the United States.
Although he exposed it, the secret agreement was denied, and he was brought down as guilty.
They lead the matter to the conclusion that state power is always a liar.
That argument is absurd.
Buying back territory with money was a splendid diplomatic achievement, was it not?
Keeping the transaction secret was consideration for the United States.
At that time, the United States, with the Vietnam War as well, was carrying a large fiscal deficit.
It was also difficult simply to feed 800,000 Okinawan residents.
The prefectural people were also at fault.
High Commissioner Caraway tried to provide funds and develop infrastructure because he wanted to make this place the richest place.
But the prefectural people were all Governor Onaga.
Pharmaceuticals were diverted to the mainland, and the funds were divided among the Ryukyu yangban, who fattened their own pockets.
The High Commissioner’s words, “Okinawan self-government is a myth,” led Nixon to decide on “returning only the people while keeping the bases as they were,” the so-called reversion of administrative rights.
Nishiyama did not understand such circumstances.
He approached a female official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, got her drunk, and had sexual relations with her.
Up to this point, let us set that aside, but what came after was unacceptable.
Nishiyama took advantage of the weakness of a married woman and made her take out classified documents more than a dozen times.
His treatment of the woman during this period was nothing but rude, and when she returned to Saitama late at night, he gave her only 500 yen for taxi fare.
What is even more unforgivable is that he did not turn the valuable material into an article.
Far from it, he took it to Yokomichi Takahiro of the Socialist Party and tried to turn it into a political issue.
Moreover, he did not even try to protect his source.
The woman’s name was exposed, and she divorced.
Revealing one’s source and causing trouble to that source are iron rules that a reporter must absolutely never violate.
He was unfit as a human being, and on top of that he broke several rules of newspaper reporters.
He was also unfit as a reporter.
This column desperately defends such a man and goes on about state power this and that.
It lines up fantasies as if to say that Japan has a state power like North Korea.
It is all right to be ignorant; reporters should first study, and then become honest about matters.
The same can be said of the TV Asahi female reporter’s vice finance minister sexual-harassment case.
She had eaten alone with the vice minister several times.
Some preliminary knowledge is needed here.
First, bureaucrats do not pay money.
They do not pay even at high school class reunions.
They are stingy.
In addition, since the no-panty shabu-shabu scandal, they have had no connection with Ginza hostesses.
Taking that into account, the television station prepared a beautiful female reporter and entertained him with a car included.
Perhaps through a honey trap, some good tidbit might slip out.
The television station side is also sordid.
The female reporter knew that the vice minister had a habit of telling erotic stories.
So she met him, but there was no result.
But she secretly recorded the erotic talk on tape.
When she suggested airing that entrapment material on the program, the station shook its head.
Naturally.
It violates the rules of reporting.
So she sold it to a weekly magazine.
It is the same as Nishiyama taking his material to the opposition party and turning it into a political issue.
As a reporter, she is far too frivolous and malicious.
There are people who liken her actions to the “#MeToo” movement of sexual-harassment accusations.
However, sexual harassment, in the U.S. federal Civil Rights Act where it originated, is defined as occurring “in the workplace.”
For example, the requirement is that a superior makes sexual remarks to a subordinate and thereby “worsens the workplace environment.”
It is difficult to define the vice minister as her superior and the restaurant as the workplace when it was one-on-one, and moreover at a place where the television station side was entertaining him.
Finance Minister Aso asked, “Is there a crime of sexual harassment?” and “What are the constituent requirements?”
That is correct.
Does the tone of newspapers that attack the minister solely with emotional arguments not resemble Korean newspapers far too much?
This article continues.