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The relevant fact is the United States maintained first direct military rule and then quasi military-civilian rule of Okinawa for twenty-seven years (1945 to 1972). Though debate raged in the late 1950s for reversion to occur then, elements within the United States Government were unwilling to deprive themselves of direct control over a critical staging point for conventional military forces and a potential site for nuclear weapons.

Chalmers Johnson, ed. Okinawa: Cold War Island. Cardiff, California: Japan Policy Research Institute, 1999.