Public sentiment was profoundly complicated. Japanese people protested base expansions, but they also protested plans by the United States to remove its servicemen, since the bases were vital sources of employment. In polls from 1958 to 1966, most respondents registered disapproval of the bases. Yet their responses grew more ambivalent over time, with increasing numbers confessing that they weren’t sure how they felt. Even a leader in the campaign to end the occupation of Okinawa acknowledged the “contradiction”: Okinawans had little interest in helping the United States fight in Vietnam, but
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