The Keys to the Kingdom

The already rancorous U.S.-Japan trade relationship was exacerbated in the late '70s, when research entrepreneur Ryozo Tsutsui launched a campaign to revive his country's once-great aircraft industry through an experimental fighter called the FS-X. Shear's well-researched study reports on the advocacies of and oppositions to codevelopment of the plane both in Tokyo and Washington, punctuated by Tsutsui's blunt declaration that Japan could build a better fighter faster and more cheaply alone. American officials began to understand that the Japanese were threatening to surpass the U.S. in aircraft manufacture, one of the last areas of American high-tech dominance. Yet the U.S. handed over to Japan massive amounts of sophisticated aircraft technology. Freelance journalist Shear recounts in detail the complex, appalling story of why and how this was allowed to happen. (Sept.)