JAL’s fifth freedom flight out of the U.S. started in 1967 (昭和４２年) when JAL started Round the World route using newly acquired DC-8. Flight took place twice week and the route was:

Tokyo-Honolulu-San Francisco-New York-London-Paris or Frankfurt-Rome-Cairo-Teheran-Delhi-Bangkok-Hong Kong-Tokyo

Passenger could fly New York-London only. Then Brazil flight started via U.S. I think initially it was Tokyo-Fairbanks-New York-Miami or San Juan then on to South America. The flight changed to via LAX then back to via JFK and the U.S.-Brazil passengers were allowed on the flight. JAL’s Mexico flight went NRT-YVR-MEX never via the U.S. and back then JAL was only carrier flying YVR-MEX. Whatever reasons back then no Canadian or Mexican carrier flew YVR-MEX. I heard JAL did well on YVR-MEX segment when there was no competition.

The point is that JAL did have fifth freedom flight out of the U.S. but number of fifth freedom flights out of the U.S. awarded were very limited compare with how much fifth freedom flights PanAm and Northwest enjoyed out of Tokyo.

One argue that due to geographical and passenger flow, there were very little fifth freedom route out of the U.S. JAL could make use out of. But the point Japanese government (back then JAL was government owned entity so Japanese government includes JAL) had is that back in 1980s before All Nippon Airways started scheduled international flights, something like 80% of passenger traffic between Japan and the U.S. were carried by the U.S. carrier. Japan wanted to make thing more even. But route authorities awarded back in the U.S. occupations days after WWII had JAL in disadvantage compare with PanAm and Northwest. Back in 1980s finally the U.S. started the talk with Japan regarding air route authority to make things more even between the U.S. and Japan.