The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 9 | Issue 18 | Number 1 | Article ID 3521 | May 02, 2011

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Japan, the Atomic Bomb, and the “Peaceful Uses of NuclearPower”　　日本、原爆、「原子力の平和利用」•Japanese translationavailable

Yuki Tanaka, Peter J. Kuznick

Japan, the Atomic Bomb, and the“Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Power”

Yuki Tanaka and Peter Kuznick

In this two part article Yuki Tanaka and PeterKuznick explore the relationship between theatomic bombing of Japan and that nation’sembrace of nuclear power, a relationship thatmay be entering a new phase with the 3.11earthquake, tsunami and nuclear catastropheat Fukushima.

A Japanese translation by Noa Matsushita isavailable here.

“The Peaceful Use of NuclearEnergy” and Hiroshima

Yuki Tanaka

The ongoing grave situation at the FukushimaNo. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, which continues tocontaminate vast areas of surrounding land andsea with high levels of radiation, forces us toreconsider the devastating impact of the so-called “peaceful use of nuclear energy” upon allforms of life, including human beings andnature. The scale of damage to human beingsand the environment caused by a majoraccident at a nuclear power plant, whereradiation is emitted either from the nuclearvessel or spent fuel rods, may be comparable tothat resulting from nuclear weapons. In this

sense, a nuclear power accident can be seen asan “act of indiscriminate mass destruction,”and thus “an unintentionally committed crimeagainst humanity.”

It is well known that the origin of “the peacefuluse of nuclear energy” was part of “Atoms forPeace,” a policy that U.S. President Dwight D.Eisenhower launched at the U.N. GeneralAssembly in December 1953.

Eisenhower addresses the UN GeneralAssembly, December 13, 1953

As Peter Kuznick concisely explains in thefollowing article, what the U.S. Governmentaimed at above all through this policy was to

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contain the power of the Soviet Union, thenation which carried out the world’s firsthydrogen bomb test in August that year. Atomsfor Peace was devised to assure that Westernnations accepted plans by the U.S. governmentand American capital for the provision ofnuclear fuel and technology. Japan was amongthe most important of these targeted nations,as U.S. government officials recognized that itwould be symbolically advantageous topromote “the peaceful use of nuclear energy”in the nation that had been the victim of theworld’s first atomic bombing. Yet, at the verymoment that the U.S. was preparing tointroduce this program into Japan, a Japanesefishing boat, the Lucky Dragon #5, wasshowered with radioactive fallout caused by theU.S. hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll inMarch 1954.

This incident stirred Japanese anti-nuclearsentiment, and a campaign against nucleartests spread throughout Japan. Among the 32million signers of the anti-nuclear petition wereone million from Hiroshima Prefecture. Thismovement gave rise to the first World CongressAgainst Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs held inHiroshima in August in 1955.

At a time of rapidly rising anti-nuclear

sentiment in Japan, ShorikiMatsutaro,president of the Yomiuri Newspaper and JapanTV Corporation, emerged to promote thebenefits of “the peaceful use of nuclearenergy.” Shoriki was elected as a member ofthe Lower House in the Diet in February 1955,and became the Minister in charge of NuclearEnergy in the Hatoyama cabinet in November.The following year he became the foundingDirector of the newly established Science andTechnology Agency, and vigorously promotednuclear energy in Japan, collaborating withother pro-nuclear politicians includingNakasone Yasuhiro, then chair of the NuclearEnergy Committee of the Lower House.

Hiroshima was a particular target forpromoting nuclear energy, as Peter Kuznickclearly explains. In the eyes of Americanofficials such as AEC Commissioner, ThomasMurray, this could help counter the negativeand gloomy images of atomic power. In January1955, Congressman Sidney Yates proposedbuilding Japan’s first nuclear power plant inHiroshima. Shoriki, with U.S. governmentsupport, organized the traveling exhibition on“The Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy” in Tokyoin November, and Hiroshima was selected asone of several host cities. For three weeks fromthe end of May 1956, the exhibition inHiroshima city attracted 110,000 people fromHiroshima and neighboring prefectures, manyof them children on school excursions.

Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Museumunder construction in 1955

Although in other cities the exhibition wassponsored exclusively by the Yomiuri with theassistance of the U.S. Information Service, inHiroshima co-sponsors also included theHiroshima City Council, Hiroshima Prefectural

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Government, Hiroshima University, and theChugoku Newspaper. Twenty local influentialpersons, including the Mayor of HiroshimaCity, the Governor of Hiroshima Prefecture, thePresident of Hiroshima University and thePresident of the Chugoku Newspaper, were onthe preparatory committee. All praised thepromotion and application of this new powerfulenergy. By contrast, many A-bomb survivorswere skeptical and cautious about this non-military application of nuclear power, claimingthat there was still no solution to the problemof managing radioactive materials produced byoperating nuclear power reactors.

Yet, by the time the 2nd World CongressAgainst A & H Bombs was held in Nagasaki inAugust in 1956, just two months after theexhibition ended, the A-bomb survivors, too,had been heavily influenced by this nation-widebarrage of “Atoms for Peace.” Evenintellectual leaders of the A-bomb victims, suchas Moritaki Ichiro, a well-know philosopher andardent campaigner for the total abolition ofnuclear weapons, became supporters of nuclearenergy. In his speech at the inaugural meetingof Nippon Hidankyo (the Japan A-bomb VictimsAssociation) during the above-mentioned 2ndWorld Congress Against A & H Bombs inNagasaki, Moritaki stated ‘it is our sole wish todirect the use of nuclear energy – an energysource that could bring destruction andannihilation - for the purpose of happiness andprosperity of human beings.’

Two years later, the same exhibition was againpresented in Hiroshima by the city council, aspar t o f the Grand Exh ib i t i on o f theReconstruction of Hiroshima to celebrate therebirth of this city that had been totallydestroyed by the atomic bombing thirteenyears before. This exhibition, which lasted 50days from April 1, 1958, comprised 31 pavilionsincluding those for Electric Science and SpaceExploration. This time, the A-bomb Museumbuilding, completed in August 1955, was usedas the pavilion for the Peaceful Use of Nuclear

Energy. Thus, in the same building, exhibitsrelated to the devastation caused by the atomicbombing were displayed together with variousdream-like applications of nuclear energy. Such things as nuclear powered planes, shipsand trains, as well as medical, agricultural andindustrial uses of radioactive materials weredisplayed. In the Electric Science pavilion, thebenefits and advantages of electricitygenerated by nuclear reactors was alsopropagated. In all, 917,000 people visited theexhibition, and the pavilion of the Peaceful Useof Nuclear Energy was the second mostpopular after that ofSpace Exploration.

It appears that most people in Hiroshima,including many A-bomb survivors, now heldtwo implicitly contradictory views: that thecampaign against the use of nuclear weaponsmust continue; but nuclear energy for non-military purposes should be welcomed andpromoted. Likewise, at least until recently,many anti-nuclear weapon campaigners inother parts of Japan have shared these views.This explains why A-bomb victim organizations,such as Nippon Hidankyo, still maintain silenceconcerning the fatal accident at the FukushimaNo.1 Nuclear Power Plant, and why none of thepost-war mayors of Hiroshima has ever publiclycriticized nuclear power. Indeed, some formermayors are widely known as strong supportersof Chugoku Electric Power Company’s plan tobuild a nuclear power plant at Kaminoseki,about 80 kilometers from Hiroshima City.

It is now time to critically and honestly reviewthe history of the anti-nuclear movement inHiroshima and to explore ways to unite hithertodivided anti-nuclear and anti-nuclear weaponsand energy campaigns.

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J a p a n ' s n u c l e a r h i s t o r y i nperspective: Eisenhower and atomsfor war and peace

PETER KUZNICK

It is tragic that Japan, the most fiercelyantinuclear country on the planet, with itsPeace Constitution, three non-nuclearprinciples, and commitment to nucleardisarmament, is being hit with the mostdangerous and prolonged nuclear crisis in thepast quarter-century -- one whose damagemight still exceed that of Chernobyl 25 yearsago. But Japan's antinuclearism has alwaysrested upon a Faustian bargain, marked bydependence on the United States, which hasbeen the most unabashedly pro-nuclear countryon the planet for the past 66 years. It is in thestrange relationship between these two oddlymatched allies that the roots and meaning ofthe Fukushima crisis lay buried.

Japan embarked on its nuclear energy programduring the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower, aman now best remembered, ironically, forwarning about the rise of the very military-industrial complex he did so much to create.Eisenhower is also the only US president tohave criticized the atomic bombing ofHiroshima and Nagasaki. Fearing the bombingswould destroy the prospects for friendly post-war relations with Russia, at one point headvocated international control of atomicenergy and turning the existing US stockpileover to the United Nations for destruction.

Yet by the time he took office in 1953,Eisenhower's views on nuclear weapons hadchanged. Not wanting to see the United States"choke itself to death piling up militaryexpenditures" and assuming that any war withthe Soviet Union would quickly turn nuclear, heshifted emphasis from costly conventionalmilitary capabilities to massive nuclearretaliation by a fortified Strategic AirCommand. Whereas President Harry Truman

had considered nuclear arms to be weapons oflast resort, Eisenhower's "New Look" madethem the foundation of US defense strategy.

Just like a bullet? On occasion, Eisenhowerspoke almost cavalierly about using nuclearweapons. In 1955, he told a reporter: "Yes ofcourse they would be used. In any combatwhere these things can be used on strictlymilitary targets and for strictly militarypurposes, I see no reason why they shouldn't beused just exactly as you would use a bullet oranything else." When Eisenhower suggested toWinston Churchill's emissary Jock Colville that" there was no d i s t inc t i on be tween'conventional' weapons and atomic weapons: allweapons in due course become conventional,"Colville recalled, horrified, "I could hardlybelieve my ears."

Eisenhower began transferring control of theatomic stockpile from the Atomic EnergyCommission (AEC) to the military. Europeanswere terrified that the United States wouldstart a nuclear war, which Eisenhowerthreatened to do over Korea, over the SuezCanal, and twice over the Taiwan Strait islandsof Quemoy and Matsu. European allies beggedEisenhower to show restraint.

Public revulsion at the normalization of nuclearwar threatened to derail the Eisenhoweradministration's plans. The minutes of a March1953 meeting of the National Security Council(NSC) stated: "the President and Secretary[John Foster] Dulles were in completeagreement that somehow or other the tabu [sic]which surrounds the use of atomic weaponswould have to be destroyed. While SecretaryDulles admitted that in the present state ofworld opinion we could not use an A-bomb, weshould make every effort now to dissipate thisfeeling."

Atoms for Peace buried in radioactive ash.Eisenhower decided that the best way todestroy that taboo was to shift the focus frommilitary uses of nuclear energy to socially

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beneficial applications. Stefan Possony,Defense Department consultant to thePsychological Strategy Board, had argued: "theatomic bomb will be accepted far more readilyif at the same time atomic energy is being usedfor constructive ends" (p. 156). On December 8,1953, Eisenhower delivered his "Atoms forPeace" speech at the United Nations. Hepromised that the United States would devote"its entire heart and mind to find the way bywhich the miraculous inventiveness of manshall not be dedicated to his death, butconsecrated to his life." He pledged to spreadthe benefits of peaceful atomic power at homeand abroad.

But the subsequent March 1954 Bravo testalmost derailed those plans. Fallout from theUS hydrogen-bomb test contaminated 236Marshall Islanders and 23 Japanese fishermanaboard the DaigoFukuryuMaru ("Lucky Dragonno. 5"), which was 85 miles away from thedetonation and outside the designated dangerzone. A panic ensued when irradiated tuna wassold in Japanese cities and eaten by scores ofpeople.

Bravo test at Bikini

The international community was appalled bythe bomb test. Belgian diplomat Paul-HenriSpaak warned, "If something is not done torevive the idea of the President's speech -- theidea that America wants to use atomic energyfor peaceful purposes -- America is going to besynonymous in Europe with barbarism andhorror." Indian Prime Minister JawaharlalNehru declared that US leaders were"dangerous self-centered lunatics" who would"blow up any people or country who came inthe way of their policy."

Eisenhower told the NSC in May 1954,"Everybody seems to think that we are skunks,saber-rattlers, and warmongers." Dullescomplained, "Comparisons are now being madebetween ours and Hitler's military machine."

Criticism was fiercest in Japan. In Tokyo'sSuginami ward, housewives began circulatingpetitions to ban hydrogen bombs. Themovement caught on across the country. By thenext year, an astounding 32 million people, orone-third of Japan's population, had signedpetitions against hydrogen bombs.

Long-suppressed rage over the 1945 atomicbombings, squelched by US occupationauthorities' total ban on discussion of thebombings, had finally erupted. The OperationsCoordinating Board of the NSC recommendedthat the United States contain the damage bywaging a "vigorous offensive on the non-war

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uses of atomic energy" and even offer to buildJapan an experimental nuclear reactor. AECCommissioner Thomas Murray concurred,proclaiming, "Now, while the memory ofHiroshima and Nagasaki remain so vivid,construction of such a power plant in a countrylike Japan would be a dramatic and Christiangesture which could lift all of us far above therecollection of the carnage of those cities."

Selling the peaceful atom in Japan. TheWashington Post applauded Murray's idea as away to "divert the mind of man from his presentobsession with the armaments race." "ManyAmericans are now aware … that the droppingof the atomic bombs on Japan was notnecessary . … How bet ter to make acontribution to amends than by offering Japanthe means for the peaceful utilization of atomicenergy. How better, indeed, to dispel theimpression in Asia that the United Statesregards Orientals merely as nuclear cannonfodder!"

Murray and Rep. Sidney Yates (Democrat ofIllinois) suggested locating the first electricity-producing nuclear power plant in Hiroshima. Inearly 1955, Yates introduced legislation to builda 60,000-kilowatt generating plant there thatwould "make the atom an instrument forkilowatts rather than killing." By June, theUnited States and Japan had signed anagreement to work together on research anddevelopment of atomic energy.

But selling this idea to the Japanese peoplewould not be so easy. When the US Embassy,US Information Service (USIS), and CIAlaunched their vigorous campaign to promotenuclear energy in Japan, they turned toShorikiMatsutaro, the father of Japanesebaseball, who ran the Yomiuri Shimbunnewspaper and the Nippon Television Network.After two years' imprisonment as a Class-A warcriminal, Shoriki had been released withouttrial; his virulent anti-communism helpedredeem him in American eyes (see Tetsuo

Arima, "Shoriki's Campaign to Promote NuclearPower in Japan and CIA PsychologicalWarfare," unpublished paper presented atTokyo University of Economics, November 25,2006). Shoriki's newspaper agreed to co-sponsor the much-hyped US exhibit welcomingthe atom back to Japan on November 1, 1955with a Shinto purification ceremony in Tokyo.The US ambassador read a message fromEisenhower declaring the exhibit "a symbol ofour countries' mutual determination that thegreat power of the atom shall henceforward bededicated to the arts of peace."

After six weeks in Tokyo, the exhibit traveled toHiroshima and six other cities. It highlightedthe peaceful applications of nuclear energy forgenerating electricity, treating cancer,preserving food, controlling insects, andadvancing scientific research. Militaryapplications were scrupulously avoided. Thenuclear future looked safe, abundant, exciting,and peaceful . The turnout exceededexpectations. In Kyoto, the USIS reported,155,000 people braved snow and rain to attend(p. 176).

The steady spate of films, lectures, and articlesproved enormously successful. Officialsreported, "The change in opinion on atomicenergy from 1954 to 1955 was spectacular …atom hysteria was almost eliminated and by thebeginning of 1956, Japanese opinion wasbrought to popular acceptance of the peacefuluses of atomic energy" (p. 179).

Such exultation proved premature. Antinuclearorganizing by left-wing political parties andtrade unions resonated with the public. AnApril 1956 USIS survey found that 60 percentof Japanese believed nuclear energy wouldprove "more of a curse than a boon to mankind"and only 25 percent thought the United Stateswas "making sincere efforts" at nucleardisarmament. The Mainichi newspaper blastedthe campaign: "First, baptism with radioactiverain, then a surge of shrewd commercialism in

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the guise of 'atoms for peace' from abroad."The newspaper called on the Japanese peopleto "calmly scrutinize what is behind the atomicenergy race now being staged by the 'whitehands' in Japan."

But intensified USIS activities over the comingyears began to bear fruit. A classified report onthe US propaganda campaign showed that in1956, 70 percent of Japanese equated "atom"with "harmful," but by 1958, the number haddropped to 30 percent. Wanting their countryto be a modern scientific-industrial power andknowing Japan lacked energy resources, thepublic allowed itself to be convinced thatnuclear power was safe and clean. It hadforgotten the lessons of Hiroshima andNagasaki.

In 1954, the Japanese government beganfunding a nuclear research program. InDecember 1955, it passed the Atomic EnergyBasic Law, establishing the Japan AtomicEnergy Commission (JAEC). Shoriki becameminister of state for atomic energy and firstchair of the JAEC. Japan purchased its firstcommercial reactor from Britain but quicklyswitched to US-designed light water reactors.By mid-1957, the government had contracted tobuy 20 additional reactors.

In the United States, the AEC aggressivelymarketed nuclear power as a magic elixir thatwould power vehicles, feed the hungry, lightthe cities, heal the sick, and excavate theplanet. Eisenhower unveiled plans for anatomic-powered merchant ship and an atomicairplane. In July 1955, the United Statesgenerated its first commercial nuclear power.In October 1956, Eisenhower informed theUnited Nations that the United States hadagreements with 37 nations to build atomicreactors and was negotiating with 14 more.

By 1958, the United States was becomingalmost giddy with the prospect of planetaryexcavation under the AEC's Project Plowshare,which proposed to use peaceful nuclear blasts

to build harbors, free inaccessible oil deposits,create huge underground reservoirs, andconstruct a bigger and better Panama Canal.Some wanted to alter weather patterns byexploding a 20-megaton bomb alongside theeye of a hurricane. One Weather Bureauscientist proposed a plan to accelerate meltingof the polar icecaps by detonating 10-megatonbombs. Only Eisenhower's reluctance tounilaterally break a Soviet-initiated nuclear testmoratorium halted this sheer folly.

Still, Project Plowshare achieved its goals.Lewis Strauss, chairman of the AEC, admittedthat Plowshare was intended to "highlight thepeaceful applications of nuclear explosivedevices and thereby create a climate of worldopinion that is more favorable to weaponsdevelopment and tests."

Atoms for Peace masks nuclear weaponsbuildup. Under the cover of the peaceful atom,Eisenhower pursued the most rapid andreckless nuclear escalation in history. The USarsenal went from a little more than 1,000nuclear weapons when he took office toapproximately 22,000 when he left. But eventhat figure is misleading. Procurementsauthorized by Eisenhower continued into the1960s, making him responsible for the levelsreached during the Kennedy administration --more than 30,000 nuclear weapons. In terms ofpure megatonnage, the United States amassedthe equivalent of 1,360,000 Hiroshima bombsin 1961.

Few know that Eisenhower had delegated totheater commanders and other specifiedcommanders the authority to launch a nuclearattack if they believed it mandated bycircumstances and were out of communicationwith the president or if the president had beenincapacitated. With Eisenhower's approval,some of these theater commanders had in turndelegated similar authority to lowercommanders (I am grateful to Dan Ellsberg forthis information). And given the fact that there

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were then no locks on nuclear weapons, manymore people had the actual power, if not theauthority, to launch a nuclear attack, includingpilots, squadron leaders, base commanders,and carrier commanders.

In 1960, Eisenhower approved the first SingleIntegrated Operational Plan, which stipulateddeploying US strategic nuclear forces in asimultaneous strike against the Sino-Sovietbloc within the first 24 hours of a war. TheJoint Chiefs were subsequently asked toestimate the death toll from such an attack.The numbers were shocking: 325 million deadin the Soviet Union and China, another 100million in Eastern Europe, 100 million fromfallout in Western Europe, and up to another100 million from fallout in countries borderingthe Soviet Union -- more than 600 million intotal.

The price of denial. While Americans werepreparing for nuclear annihilation, theJapanese were living in their own form ofdenial. From its shaky beginnings in the 1950s,the Japanese nuclear power industry flourishedin the 1960s and 1970s and continued to growthereafter. Prior to the tsunami-precipitatedFukushima accident last month, Japan had 54functioning nuclear power reactors thatgenerated 30 percent of its electricity; someprojected it would not be long before Japanreached 50 percent. But the terrible nuclearcatastrophe in Fukushima has forced theJapanese to deal for a third time with thenightmarish side of the nuclear age and thefact that their nuclear program was born notonly in the fantasy of clean, safe power, butalso in the willful forgetting of Hiroshima andNagasaki and the buildup of the US nucleararsenal.

A reckoning with Japan's nuclear legacy is now

taking place. Hopefully, the Japanese will moveforward from this tragedy to set a path towardboth green energy and repudiation ofdeterrence under the US nuclear umbrella,much as they blazed a path with their PeaceConstitution and antinuclearism following thehorrors of World War II.

Peter Kuznick wrote this article for The Bulletinof Atomic Scientists, April 13, 2011.

Peter Kuznick is associate professor of historyat American University and director of theNuclear Studies Institute. Kuznick founded theCommittee for a National Discussion of NuclearHistory and Current Policy and co-founded theNuclear Education Project. He is the author ofBeyond the Laboratory: Scientists as PoliticalActivists in 1930s America, co-editor ofRethinking Cold War Culture, and co-author ofRethinking the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshimaand Nagasaki: Japanese and AmericanPerspectives (in Japanese, 2010). Currently, heis co-authoring a 12-part documentary filmseries and book with Oliver Stone titled TheForgotten History of the United States, whichis scheduled to air on Showtime in November.

Yuki Tanaka is Research Professor, HiroshimaPeace Institute, and a coordinator of The Asia-Pacific Journal. He is the author most recentlyof Yuki Tanaka and Marilyn Young, eds.,Bombing Civilians: A Twentieth CenturyHistory as well as of Japan's Comfort Womenand Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes inWorld War II.

Recommended citation: Yuki Tanaka and PeterKuznick, Japan, the Atomic Bomb, and the“Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Power,” The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 18 No 1, May 2,2011.

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