Surprised?

I think not.

Asahi Shimbun reports on its website that, for 49 years, the Government of Japan has had a naughty little secret.

Never mind the fact that the United States let the cat out of the bag in 2000. Successive governments in Tokyo have vigorously denied the secret's very existence.

The secret?

Way back in 1960, Japan and the United States agreed that the US could bring nuclear weapons into Japanese territory without prior consultation based on conditions.

Okay, war is a good condition - you can't stop when time's a-wasting.

But it's no longer a secret, so why continue to deny it? There's only so much that bureaucratic inertia can do, you know.