Escaping through the networks of trust: the US deserter support movement in the Japanese Global Sixties

Abstract

This essay explores the development of the US deserter support movement in the Japanese Global Sixties. Between 1967 and 1970, eighteen American deserters escaped from Japan to Europe through local, national, and transnational trust networks generated by the Japanese civic group Beheiren (Peace for Vietnam! Committee). Deserters were symbolized as “cosmopolitan agency” which extends beyond the logic of nation-state. The author argues that sending out deserters overseas through civic transnational trust networks without support from the state was a rare but substantial event where Japanese New Left’s volition to surmount the Cold War structure was put into practice.