Memo reveals secret US-Japan nuclear pact

Declassified reports show Washington enjoyed a secret pact with Tokyo to transport nuclear weapons through Japan.

Both the United States and Japan have neither denied nor confirmed the allegations, while rejecting any inquiry into the matter.

The hush-hush pact was disclosed after Japan's left-leaning government, which won last month's elections to end more than half a century of conservative rule, launched a probe into thousands of files to settle longstanding suspicions.

The Cold War agreements also reveal secret US dealings with the Koreas, Vietnam, the Soviet Union and China through Japan, where the US has had military bases since the end of World War II.

According to a 1960 confidential memo, released by the National Security Archive at George Washington University on Tuesday, the United States had signed a deal with Japan which would allow them to use Japanese soil 'as needed' in an emergency if communist neighbor North Korea launched an attack.

The typeface deal adds that the White House had a 'full understanding' with Japan over the issue.

This is while, according to a negotiated deal between then US president Richard Nixon and Japanese prime minister Eisaku Sato, Japan was not to possess, produce or allow nuclear weapons on its soil.

The so-called 'three principles' carried out by Sato granted the former premier the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974.

The revealed documents would charge Tokyo with hypocrisy.

The nuclear issue in Japan is highly sensitive, as the Pacific island nation is the only country to have suffered a nuclear attack and has long since campaigned for the worldwide abolition of the ultra-destructive weapons.

In 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing more than 210,000 civilians.