Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"Prime Minister Sato's goal was one of economic growth and national unity based on material affluence. By pursuing 'consensus politics,' and encouraging forgetfulness of Japan's militarist and colonialist past, he was able to stay in office for eight years, 1964 to 1972, longer than any other prime minister. . . . In the mid- and late 1960s President Lyndon Johnson was beginning to escalate the war in Vietnam, and protesting Japanese students were focusing on the American bases in Okinawa from which B-52s were taking off to bomb North Vietnam. Sato fully supported the American aggression against North Vietnam. As the war intensified, the importance of both Japan and Okinawa to the United States increased. In October 1964 China tested its first atomic bomb. . . . During Sato's tenure in office, Hirohito moved into a new, scaled-down palace (1964), participated in the hosting of the Olympic Games in Tokyo (also in 1964), the staging of the 'Meiji Centennial' ceremonies (1968), which celebrated a century of 'successful modernization,' and the World Exposition in Osaka, where he and the empress twice made appearances (1970)." [Hirohito, p. 670-2]