The principles were outlined by Prime Minister Eisaku Satō in a speech to the House of Representatives in 1967 amid negotiations over the return of Okinawa from the United States.
[1] During Eisaku Satō's first term as prime minister, this opposition became a major obstacle to his campaign pledge to end the U.S. occupation of Okinawa, returning the island to Japanese control.
As a compromise, Satō appeased the United States by bringing Japan into the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in exchange for a nuclear-free, Japan-controlled Okinawa.
In the years leading up to this agreement, Satō was forced to appease public concerns that his administration might favor a nuclear weapons program; to this end, he introduced the Three Non-Nuclear Principles in a December 11, 1967, address to the Diet.
In his Nobel Lecture (on the seventh anniversary of his original statement to the Diet), Satō reiterated and discussed the Three Non-Nuclear Principles and expressed hope and confidence that future governments would adopt them as well.