The Effects of the Chinese Nuclear Test

On October 16, 1964, the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) successfully tested a 22-kiloton atomic bomb at the Lop Nur site. The balance of power in Asia clearly tilted toward Beijing. The government of India began to reconsider its non-nuclear posture, and eventually tested its own bomb a decade later—an option denied to Japan by Article 9 of its postwar constitution that prohibited the development of nuclear weapons. Instead the press and officials in Tokyo emphasized the loss of prestige suffered at the expense of a third-world communist country, and suggested that a robust space program would be a valu­able technological antidote that could save national pride.18 Indeed, as one lead­ing politician and space advocate put it in 1966, “[I]f Mainland China should succeed in launching a satellite ahead of Japan, the sense of hopelessness of the Japanese will be so great that no one will have the heart to see it. It is the national responsibility of the leaders of our country,” Yasuhiro Nakasone went on, “to take the initiative so that this national confidence cannot be lost, even a little.”19 The risks of nuclear proliferation to nonaligned countries led the State Department to plan for an appropriate response even before the explosion occurred at Lop Nur. The imminent Chinese test, the State Department sug­gested, provided “an opportunity to demonstrate U. S. cooperation in sharing of advanced technology with countries of Asia.” Granted the strict limits on nuclear collaboration with Japan, an alternative like “full and active cooperation with the Japanese in such outer space endeavors as space communications and the launching of a Japanese space satellite” suggested themselves.20 This was not going to be easy, however, as officials in the American Embassy in Tokyo pointed out after China had tested its bomb. The Japanese would not leap at the opportunity to collaborate with the United States since there was “a feeling among Japanese space officials that independent development of a successful space program is important to Japan’s prestige, especially in view of the recent ‘Chicom’ [State Department abbreviation for the PRC] successes in the nuclear field.”21 Certainly the prime minister wanted to see a Japanese satellite aloft to counter the impact of the PRC’s nuclear test, and to demonstrate Japan’s advanced scientific and technological capability. What is more, “Assistance from the U. S. in tracking and communicating with such a satellite would be well received in Japan and would contribute to U. S.-Japan relations.” However, the Embassy emphasized, granted Japanese sensibilities, “[t]he position of the U. S. was to remain one of cooperation and assistance, rather than guidance or domi­nation, if the political objectives of the Japanese were to be met.”22 Too much engagement would obviously expose Tokyo to a propaganda onslaught from Beijing for being dependent on the United States.

In September 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson suggested to NASA administrator James Webb that the American space program “should have more visibility abroad and should yield more return to American foreign pol­icy objectives.”23 Assisting the Europeans and the Japanese with their space programs would help strengthen the alliance within the capitalist bloc and assure greater American involvement in those nations. By helping its allies, the United States could also impress them with its technological superiority vis-a-vis the Soviets. Following up on this, Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, who was also chairman of the Space Council, visited Japan late in December 1965. There he suggested that the two countries work together on a major project akin to the Helios mission that the American president had proposed to German chancellor Erhard just a few days before (chapter 2). “We in the U. S. have watched Japan’s remarkable advance into this field with interest and admiration. We look to your country,” Humphrey went on, “for a major con­tribution on the leadership role as the world crosses the threshold into the space age.” Hence the value of cooperating on “major space projects which none of us can do alone.”24

This high-level willingness to collaborate constructively with Japan was thwarted by Itokawa’s determination to remain autonomous, and his con­tempt for his competitors. Itokawa made official statements beginning in 1964 calling for Japan to launch a satellite in 1966. He wanted his country to be the fourth nation to orbit a satellite after the United States, USSR, and France. However, he insisted that his group achieve the feat alone and without help from foreign countries, unlike Canadian and European scien­tists who had sought US assistance in launching their satellites. He chose the three-stage Mu series rocket to launch a Disturbed Ionosphere Patrol Satellite (DIPS) or an All-Wave Radio Noise Receiving Satellite. He viewed both the satellites as a distinctly Japanese contribution to space science and as an exten­sion of the experiments with Japanese instruments sent up in NASA sounding rockets from Wallops Island. Responding to critics who argued that “lack of coordination might result in duplication of effort within Japan,” he said he saw “no harm in duplication.” He also dismissed all efforts by the NSAC to rationalize the program by discrediting the Council: “[T]here are no space scientists among the members of the NSAC,” said Itokawa, “and its chair­man Kaneshige could hardly be called a space scientist. His field was textile machinery.”25

In exchanges with State Department officials in April and May 1966 Kaneshige confirmed that the internal strife that so struck Barnes and Frutkin was damag­ing the Japanese space program. The chairman of the NSAC remarked on the “lack of a good program,” and said that “the fact that Japan has not yet suc­ceeded in integrating its two space programs—the Itokawa program sponsored by the Ministry of Education and the Program of the Science and Technology Agency—[was] causing embarrassment.” According to Kaneshige, the prime minister was making policy with regard to space, but “there [was] nobody now who can speak for the Japanese space program.” He amplified this statement by claiming that no one (presumably other than the prime minister) was even authorized to request American tracking assistance in the event of the launching of a Japanese satellite. Kaneshige believed that Japan might ultimately establish some sort of national space agency, a “little NASA,” though he felt that it was first essential to work out a sensible, long-range plan for space research.26

Kaneshige’s gloom led him to pour cold water on every suggestion made by senior State Department official Herman Pollack for closer collaboration between the two countries, no matter how tentative. A memo summarizing an exchange between the two men, in which Pollack emphasized how much store he placed on collaborating with Japan, concluded that Kaneshige’s replies “in general carried the impression that until Japan’s internal problems with its space program are settled by the Japanese themselves, Japan would find it difficult to discuss with the U. S. the details regarding a useful program of international cooperation in space.”27

To sum up, during the 1960s NASA collaborated sporadically, and with difficulty with Japan. Absent a coherent national space program and a single government-sponsored organization to serve as interlocutor, there was no reli­able point of contact in Tokyo. Frutkin was emphatic that he would not deal with individuals unless they were empowered by their national authorities. Itokawa’s strident nationalism and public misrepresentation of NASA’s launcher policy ruled him out as a partner. Kaneshige’s intentions were sound but he was not able to rein in his rival, a man who enjoyed wide public visibility and who contemptuously dismissed him as a meddling bureaucrat. Relations with the United States were further soured by provocative remarks by Itokawa that may have struck a popular chord at home but that only increased consterna­tion in Washington. The Chinese nuclear test particularly irked the head of ISAS. In 1964 the State Department reported that Itokawa had said that “some Japanese scientists had been considering the possibility of publicizing Japan’s potential to produce nuclear weapons if it so chose, as a means to counteract any claims about the superiority of Chinese Communist science in connec­tion with its nuclear program.”28 ISAS’s work on solid propellant research also raised eyebrows. It was noted, for example, that the Mu series of rockets, which were being developed by ISAS in collaboration with firms like Nissan and Mitsubishi, had the potential to evolve incrementally to an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM). Under these circumstances NASA could not but tread cautiously, above all in the domain of launchers, and notably since NSAM334 of July 1965 specifically prohibited technological assistance to foreign entities that might enable them to acquire independent access to the geostationary orbit for comsats (chapter 3).

That said, it is all the more remarkable that in 1969 the two governments signed an agreement to provide Thor Delta technology to Japan. The steps taken by the president and the State Department to draw closer to Tokyo after the Chinese nuclear test in 1964 planted the seeds of this agreement. Those initial contacts, however, were limited to discussions of what might be done at a general level to foster space collaboration between the countries. The narrowing down of the field to one major project required a determined push by senior officials in the State Department against the wishes of NASA and other arms of the admin­istration. This episode is important enough to merit a study of its own, and is handled in depth in chapter 10.