The tragic rape of an Okinawan school girl in September 1995 touched off the current "Okinawa Problem" and shook the bilateral relationship. It also had the effect of highlighting the need to understand the complicated history of Okinawa in the post-war US-Japan relationship. Ironically, one of the least examined periods in this post-war history is the same period that would have the most dramatic impact on Okinawa's future status, namely the years up until 1952, when the Peace Treaty with Japan, signed the September before in San Francisco, would go into effect. Using a multinational and multi-archival approach to this diplomatic history study, Eldridge examines comprehensively and in great detail for the first time the origins of the so-called Okinawa Problem.