Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

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  • Statement of an Atomic Veteran 60 Years After the Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki

    My name is Eduardo Pablo Zaragoza and I am 79 years-old. I was born and raised in a coal mining community, Dawson, in Northern New Mexico. Life with my family was good. I had wonderful parents, and four sisters and two brothers, a harmonious family in every way. I liked school and excelled at sports.

    In January, 1945, when I was 17 years-old, I joined the Navy. I served in the South Pacific on the USS Wayne, an attack amphibious transport. Our first destination was Guam, where we unloaded Navy personnel and Marines who were replacement troops. We then went on to Saipan, where we picked up the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines of the 2nd Division, who were to be the occupation forces in Nagasaki.

    On September 23, 1945, we anchored in Nagasaki Harbor, then loaded small boats with Marine troops, and transported them onto land. I spent four days in Nagasaki. As our boat was landing, I saw steel ships, burned up and destroyed, in the water. Everywhere I looked everything was destroyed, melted. I also saw a horrible sight: many, many bloated bodies floating on the water. These were the bodies of dead Nagasaki citizens who had died in the days and weeks after the bomb was dropped. The Japanese people had disposed of them in the water. I could not believe what I saw! Even today I can still see the bloated bodies floating in the harbor.

    Once ashore in Nagasaki, we walked all over the place and we saw the devastation of the city and its inhabitants. I was numb. At 17 years of age, I could not take it all in! It was overwhelming. It didn’t help that we soldiers were in no way prepared by the Navy for what we would see there in Nagasaki. I walked all around. They allowed us to walk up to one mile from the hypocenter. Everything was burnt to the ground, burnt material everywhere. The only buildings I remember seeing left standing were a church and a hospital. Besides us U.S. military, there were also Japanese crews cleaning up the debris. As I looked around, I saw many imprints of bodies in the cement where charred bodies had been removed. I could smell flesh all over the place. To my amazement, I also saw the shadows of people who had been vaporized by the bomb. All over the city, Japanese vendors were selling rice balls with sardines to anyone who would buy it from them. I can still remember the smell of the rice with sardines.

    My first day in Nagasaki, I walked through the hospital there which housed the victims of the bomb. I walked through two wards: one for men and one for babies and children. It seemed to me they were all dying. The nurses were removing maggots from the patients’ burnt and rotting flesh. The men were crying out in agony, reaching out to me, moaning and pleading with me in their language, a language I did not know at all. All the time I was thinking, “They want me to help them. What can I do? I can do nothing!” I was shocked to see so many children badly burned and bandaged, in so much pain and dying. I have thought about this horrible scene over and over in my mind for 60 years. I try to forget it, but I can’t. I still see people in that hospital, even today remembering their faces, their burned bodies, reaching their hands out to me, as though it was yesterday.

    I was honorably discharged in 1966. I came back a changed man. I have experienced depression and PTSD my whole life since then. Ever since my discharge from the Navy, I have had awful nightmares, flailing my arms, thrashing in bed. I hear the children crying and I go outside the house to look for them, but they are not there. In other nightmares, I see the bodies all bloated in the water. And that has stayed with me all these years.

    The bomb on Nagasaki was a plutonium bomb. I have read much about the effects of radiation on the body, especially the lifelong effects of expose to Plutonium. I have experienced all of these medical conditions which are designated by the VA on their list of conditions caused by exposure to radiation: hemorrhaging nostrils (a few days after leaving Nagasaki), severe tonsillitis (2 years after Nagasaki), non-malignant thyroid disease, subcapsular cataracts, prostate cancer, diabetes, chronic fatigue and anemia.

    I have also read that Plutonium, an incredibly dangerous substance, settles in men’s testes. Doctors have told me that my wife, Lily’s illnesses could be attributed to the radiation I received in Nagasaki. She has experienced cervical cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and kidney shutdown. Lily suffered 3 miscarriages and we had one stillborn baby. Of our 4 children, all but one died at a young age. Jose Maria, our son, lived only 24 hours. The doctor said he had incredibly delicate skin. Our son, Ron, died at 32, ending his long ordeal with myasthenia gravis. Our daughter, Rita, also was afflicted with myasthenia gravis, and died at the age of 45. Our doctor told us that it is extremely rare for two members of the same family to have the disease. Our only living child, daughter, Theresa, has had thyroid cancer.

    To anyone who would say that our family just experienced more than our share of “bad luck” with all of these medical problems, I would point out that Lily’s and my parents lived to a ripe old age and there is no history of cancer, birth defects or serious disease in either of our families. Radiation is the weapon that keeps on killing through one’s lifetime, and our family sadly has found this to be true over these many years.

    What I want people to know about the atomic bombing of Nagasaki is that it never should have happened! I would like the people to know that it is so hard to live a happy life after you’ve gone through something like this. You have to actually see it to comprehend it. I went through it, I’ve lived it, and to this day, after 60 years, I still carry radiation in my body. As far as I know, there’s no medical cure for it.

    And I know the Japanese people have really suffered from these nuclear bombings that they experienced, up to today. There’s many, many Japanese who are worse off than I am. They have severe medical problems, cancers and so many different diseases that were caused by the radiation, and keloids from the horrible burns all over their bodies. The Japanese survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have really, really suffered, including those people who went back into the city to look for their relatives, and were contaminated by the radiation. Some of these people lived 1 year, 2 years, 5 years. And those who have survived, the Hibakusha, are still having medical problems caused by nuclear radiation 60 years ago.

    It seems to me that the Japanese now want the people all over the world to know how bad this experience was. The Japanese want people to unite to stop all of these governments from making any more nuclear weapons, because they know that most of the people in the world are for stopping the governments from making nuclear weapons.

    Right now, the United States has the biggest supply of bombs, and especially here in Albuquerque, where we have more than 2,400 nuclear bombs stored at Kirtland AFB. And Sandia and Los Alamos labs are thinking of making a more powerful bomb, a bomb that penetrates deep into the ground. What we have to do is unite and see if we can stop them from proceeding and getting these powerful, powerful bombs. And if we unite, I know that we can stop them.

    We want the United States government, and all governments, to stop producing any more weapons of mass destruction, because if they don’t, our future generations will suffer like the Hibakusha of Japan. It’s a crime to leave this inheritance for our children and our grandchildren. May they live in peace.

  • Sir Joseph Rotblat: A Legacy of Peace

    Joseph Rotblat was one of the great men of the 20th century. He was a man of science and peace. Born in Warsaw, Poland in 1908, he was one of those rare individuals who, like Rosa Parks or Nelson Mandela, comes to an intersection with history and courageously forges a new path. In Joseph’s case, the intersection with history arrived in 1944 while he was working on the Manhattan Project, the US project to develop an atomic bomb.

    Joseph had worked as a scientist toward the creation of an atomic weapon, first in the UK at the University of Liverpool and then at Los Alamos, New Mexico. When he learned in late 1944 that Germany would not succeed in developing an atomic bomb, he believed there was no longer reason to continue work on creating a US bomb. For him, there was only one reason to create an atomic weapon, and that was to deter the German use of such a weapon during World War II. If the Germans would not have an atomic weapon, then there was no reason for the Allies to have one. Joseph was the only scientist to leave the Manhattan Project on moral grounds.

    He was the last living signer of the 1955 Russell-Einstein Manifesto, one of the great documents of the 20th century, and he often quoted its final passage: “We appeal, as human beings, to human beings: Remember your humanity and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open for a new paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”

    He was convinced that countries needed to abolish nuclear weapons and he devoted his life to achieving this goal, as well as the goal of ending war as a human institution. Just prior to his 90th birthday, he said that he still had two great goals in life. “My short-term goal,” he said, “is the abolition of nuclear weapons, and my long-term goal is the abolition of war.”

    Joseph was for many years the General Secretary of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, and later served as president of the Pugwash Conferences. In his work with Pugwash, he was instrumental in bringing together scientists from East and West, so that they could find common ground for ending the Cold War with its mad nuclear arms race. In 1995, Joseph and the Pugwash Conferences were joint recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize.

    He began his Nobel acceptance speech by saying, “At this momentous event in my life…I want to speak as a scientist, but also as a human being. From my earliest days I had a passion for science. But science, the exercise of the supreme power of the human intellect, was always linked in my mind with benefit to people. I saw science as being in harmony with humanity. I did not imagine that the second half of my life would be spent on efforts to avert a mortal danger to humanity created by science.”

    In his speech, he reasoned that a nuclear weapon-free world would be safer than a world with nuclear weapons, but the danger of “ultimate catastrophe” would still exist. He concluded that war must be abolished: “The quest for a war-free world has a basic purpose: survival. But if in the process we learn how to achieve it by love rather than by fear, by kindness rather than compulsion; if in the process we learn to combine the essential with the enjoyable, the expedient with the benevolent, the practical with the beautiful, this will be an extra incentive to embark on this great task.”

    When Joseph came to Santa Barbara in 1997 to receive the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Peace Leadership, I asked him, “What gives you hope for the future?” He responded, “My hope is based on logic. Namely, there is no alternative. If we don’t do this [eliminate nuclear weapons and engender more responsibility by scientists as well as citizens in general], then we are doomed. The whole existence of humankind is endangered. We are an endangered species now and we have to take steps to prevent the extinguishing of the human species. We owe an allegiance to humanity. Since there is no other way, then we must proceed in this way. Therefore, if we must do it, then there is hope that it will be done.”

    Earlier this year, Joseph made an appeal to the delegates to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, held in May at the United Nations in New York. “Morality,” he wrote, “is at the core of the nuclear issue: are we going to base our world on a culture of peace or on a culture of war? Nuclear weapons are fundamentally immoral: their action is indiscriminate, affecting civilians as well as military, innocents and aggressors alike, killing people alive now and generations as yet unborn. And the consequence of their use could bring the human race to an end.” He ended his appeal with his oft-repeated plea, “Remember your humanity.”

    I visited Joseph at his home in London just a few months ago. He had been slowed down by a stroke and was disturbed that he wasn’t able to be as active as he’d been accustomed. But his spirit was strong, and he was still smiling and looking forward. He was as committed as ever to his dual goals of achieving a world without nuclear weapons and without war – goals to which he had devoted the full measure of his energy, intellect and wisdom.

    Joseph has left behind a strong legacy of peace. It is our job now to pick up the baton that he carried so well and passionately for so long, and continue his legacy.

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org) and the Deputy Chair of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility (www.inesglobal.org).

  • The Political Rehabilitation of Joseph Rotblat

    By the time of his death, which occurred on August 31, 2005, Joseph Roblat was a revered figure. A top nuclear physicist, Rotblat received—among many other honors and awards–a British knighthood and, together with the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs (an organization that he had helped to found), the Nobel Peace Prize (1995). As the president of the Pugwash conferences recalled: “Joseph Rotblat was a towering figure in the search for peace in the world, who dedicated his life to trying to rid the world of nuclear weapons, and ultimately to rid the world of war itself.”

    But Rotblat’s steadfast support for nuclear disarmament and peace did not always receive such plaudits, as I discovered when I conducted two interviews with him and did extensive research in formerly secret British government records.

    Born in Warsaw in 1908, Rotblat moved to Britain in 1939, where he became a promising young physicist. During World War II, when he feared that Nazi Germany might develop the atomic bomb, he came to the United States to work on the Manhattan Project, America’s own atomic bomb program that he—like many other scientists—hoped would deter Germany’s launching of a nuclear war. But, in late 1944, when Rotblat learned that the German bomb program had been a failure, he resigned from the Manhattan project and returned to London to engage in nonmilitary work. This decision, taken for humanitarian reasons, plunged him into hot water with the authorities. Shortly after telling his U.S. supervisor of his plan to leave Los Alamos, he was accused by U.S. intelligence of being a Soviet spy. The charge, totally without merit, was eventually dropped.

    Back in Britain, Rotblat engaged in peaceful research and, in the postwar years, helped to organize the Atomic Scientists’ Association (ASA), which drew together some of that country’s top scientists. Much like America’s Federation of American Scientists, the ASA promoted nuclear arms control and disarmament. However, British government officials, then more interested in building nuclear weapons than in eliminating them, looked askance at its activities. In 1947-48, when the ASA organized an Atomic Train to bring the dangers of nuclear weapons (and the supposed benefits of peaceful nuclear power) to the attention of the British public, Prime Minister Clement Attlee objected strongly to plans for government cooperation with it. In March 1948, when Rotblat invited Attlee to visit the Atomic Train during its stay in London, the foreign secretary and the defense minister advised the prime minister to reject the offer, which he did.

    Rotblat’s relations with the British government continued on a difficult course in the 1950s. Working closely with the philosopher Bertrand Russell, Rotblat signed the Russell-Einstein Manifesto of July 9, 1955, which warned nations that if they persisted in their plans for nuclear war, civilization would be utterly destroyed. This venture, in turn, led to the Pugwash conferences—so named because they began in 1957 at a private estate in Pugwash, Nova Scotia. Designed to bring together scientists on both sides of the “iron curtain” for serious, non-polemical discussions of the nuclear menace, these conferences were low-key operations, with little publicity outside of scientific circles. Nevertheless, British officials were deeply suspicious of the Pugwash conferences and of Rotblat, who did most of the organizational work for them and, in 1959, became Pugwash secretary-general.

    Convinced that “the Communists” wanted to use the 1958 Pugwash conference “to secure support for the Soviet demand for the banning of nuclear weapons,” the British Foreign Office initially sought to promote an attitude of skepticism toward it. But, when Rotblat asked J.D. Cockcroft, a member of Britain’s Atomic Energy Authority, to suggest who might be invited to it, Cockcroft and the Foreign Office decided that a better strategy would be to go with the flow and arrange for the participation of a staunch proponent of the British government’s position in the meeting, which they did.

    Although one British diplomat noted that the conference “passed off quietly enough, and not too unsuccessfully from our point of view,” the British government remained on guard. Learning of plans for another Pugwash conference, in Vienna, the Foreign Office warned of the possibility “that this will be more dangerous from our point of view than its predecessors.” Communist participants might launch “a major propaganda drive against nuclear weapons,” and “the organizing committee consists of Lord Russell and Professor Rotblat.” From the British government’s standpoint, the Pugwash conferences were little better than “Communist front gatherings.”

    But British policy gradually began to shift, as the government grew more interested in nuclear arms controls. Asked by Rotblat if he would like to join the advisory body of the British Pugwash committee, Cockcroft referred the matter to the Foreign Office, which responded that he should do so, as it would help prevent Pugwash from “being exploited for propaganda purposes.” Although the Foreign Office did not think he should attend the next Pugwash conference, in Moscow, during 1960, it reversed course that summer and urged him to recruit additional politically reliable scientists to attend. Indeed, it now sought to take over the Pugwash movement for its own purposes. In response to a suggestion by Cockcroft, a Foreign Office official opined that “it would be most helpful if the Royal Society could be persuaded to sponsor British participation . . . and if this were to lead to the winding up of the present Pugwash Committee.”

    But the plans for a takeover failed. When the British government suggested topics for Pugwash meetings and more government officials who should be invited to them, Rotblat resisted, much to government dismay. In October 1963, a Foreign Office official complained that “the difficulty is to get Prof. Rotblat to pay any attention to what we think. . . . He is no doubt jealous of his independence and scientific integrity.” Securing “a new organizer for the British delegation seems to be the first need, but I do not know if there is any hope of this.”

    Nonetheless, despite lingering resentment at Rotblat’s independence and integrity, the British government had arrived at a positive appraisal of the Pugwash conferences. As a British defense ministry official declared in January 1962: Pugwash was “now a very respectable organization.” When the Home Office, clinging to past policy, advised that Pugwash was “a dirty word,” the Foreign Office retorted that the movement now enjoyed “official blessing.” Explaining the turnabout, a Foreign Office official stated that “the process of educating” Soviet experts is “bound to be of some use to us.” Furthermore, “we ourselves may pick up some useful ideas from our own scientists . . . and are not likely to be embarrassed by anything which they suggest.” Finally, “if there is ever to be a breakthrough, it is not inconceivable that the way might be prepared by a conference of this kind.”

    In fact, there soon was a breakthrough: the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963—a nuclear arms control measure that the Pugwash conferences played a key part in generating. The British government had no doubt about the connection, and in 1964 it honored Rotblat with a CBE—Commander of the British Empire—for his organization of the Pugwash conferences.

    And so it goes. Today’s dangerously peace-minded heretic is tomorrow’s hero. Abraham Lincoln—that staunch critic of the Mexican War—became America’s best-loved President. Robert LaFollette—reviled and burned in effigy for his opposition to World War I—emerged as one of this nation’s most respected senators. Martin Luther King, Jr.—condemned for his protests against the Vietnam War—is now honored as this country’s great peacemaker.

    Perhaps today, when governments promise us endless military buildups and wars, opposition politicians should take note of this phenomenon.

    Lawrence S. Wittner, a Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Associate, is Professor of History at the State University of New York at Albany. His latest book is Toward Nuclear Abolition: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1971 to the Present (Stanford University Press). He is a member of POTUS, HNN’s presidential history/politics blog.

  • A Declaration Of War

    The Bush administration has declared war on the world.

    The 450 changes that Washington is demanding to the action agenda that will culminate at the September 2005 United Nations summit don’t represent U.N. reform. They are a clear onslaught against any move that could strengthen the United Nations or international law.

    The upcoming summit was supposed to focus on strengthening and reforming the U.N. and address issues of aid and development, with a particular emphasis on implementing the U.N.’s five-year-old Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Most assumed this would be a forum for dialogue and debate, involving civil society activists from around the world challenging governments from the impoverished South and the wealthy North and the United Nations to create a viable global campaign against poverty and for internationalism.

    But now, there’s a different and even greater challenge. This is a declaration of U.S. unilateralism, uncompromising and ascendant. The United States has issued an open threat to the 190 other U.N. member states, the social movements and peoples of the entire world, and the United Nations itself. And it will take a quick and unofficially collaborative effort between all three of those elements to challenge the Bush administration juggernaut.

    The General Assembly’s package of proposed reforms, emerging after nine months of negotiations ahead of the summit, begins with new commitments to implement the Millennium Development Goals—established in 2000 as a set of international commitments aimed at reducing poverty by 2015. They were always insufficient, yet as weak as they are, they have yet to be implemented. The 2005 Millennium Plus Five summit intended to shore up the unmet commitments to those goals. In his reform proposals of March 2005, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called on governments north and south to see the implementation of the MDGs as a minimum requirement. Without at least that minimal level of poverty alleviation, he said, conflicts within and between states could spiral so far out of control that even a strengthened and reformed United Nations of the future would not be able to control the threats to international peace and security.

    When John Bolton, Bush’s hotly contested but newly appointed ambassador to the United Nations announced the U.S. proposed response, it was easy to assume this was just John Bolton running amok. After all, Bolton, a longtime U.N.-basher, has said: “There is no United Nations.” He has written in The Wall Street Journal that the United States has no legal obligation to abide by international treaties, even when they are signed and ratified. So it was no surprise when Bolton showed up three weeks before the summit, demanding a package of 450 changes in the document that had been painstakingly negotiated for almost a year.

    But, in fact, this isn’t about Bolton. This Bush administration’s position was vetted and approved in what the U.S. Mission to the U.N. bragged was a “thorough interagency process”—meaning the White House, the State Department, the Pentagon and many more agencies all signed off. This is a clear statement of official U.S. policy—not the wish- ist of some marginalized extremist faction of neocon ideologues who will soon be reined in by the realists in charge. This time the extremist faction is in charge.

    The U.S. proposal package is designed to force the world to accept as its own the U.S. strategy of abandoning impoverished nations and peoples, rejecting international law, privileging ruthless market forces over any attempted regulation, sidelining the role of international institutions except for the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, and weakening, perhaps fatally, the United Nations itself.

    It begins by systematically deleting every one of the 35 specific references to the Millennium Development Goals. Every reference to concrete obligations for implementation of commitments is deleted. Setting a target figure of just 0.7 percent of GNP for wealthy countries to spend on aid? Deleted. Increasing aid for agriculture and trade opportunities in poor countries? Deleted. Helping the poorest countries, especially those in Africa, to deal with the impact of climate change? Deleted.

    The proposal puts at great risk treaties to which the United States is already a party, including the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The U.N. Summit draft referred to the NPT’s “three pillars: disarmament, non-proliferation and the peaceful use of nuclear energy.” That means that states without nukes would agree never to build or obtain them, but in return they would be guaranteed the right to produce nuclear energy for peaceful use. In return recognized nuclear weapons states—the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia—would commit, in Article VI of the NPT, to move toward “nuclear disarmament with the objective of eliminating all such weapons.” The proposed U.S. changes deleted all references to the three pillars and to Article VI.

    The U.S. deleted the statement that: “The use of force should be considered as an instrument of last resort.” That’s also not surprising given the Bush administration’s “invade first, choose your justifications later” mode of crisis resolution.

    Throughout the document, the United States demands changes that redefine and narrow what should be universal and binding rights and obligations. In the clearest reference to Iraq and Palestine, Washington narrowed the definition of the “right of self-determination of peoples” to eliminate those who “remain under colonial domination and foreign occupation.”

    Much of the U.S. effort aims to undermine the power of the U.N. in favor of absolute national sovereignty. On migration, for instance, the original language focused on enhancing international cooperation, linking migrant worker issues and development, and the human rights of migrants. The U.S. wants to scrap it all, replacing it with “the sovereign right of states to formulate and enforce national migration policies,” with international cooperation only to facilitate national laws. Human rights were deleted altogether.

    In the document’s section on strengthening the United Nations, the U.S. deleted all mention of enhancing the U.N.’s authority, focusing instead only on U.N. efficiency. Regarding the General Assembly the most democratic organ of the U.N. system—the United States deleted references to the Assembly’s centrality, its role in codifying international law, and, ultimately its authority, relegating it to a toothless talking shop. It even deleted reference to the Assembly’s role in Washington’s own pet project—management oversight of the U.N. secretariat—leaving the U.S.-dominated and undemocratic Security Council, along with the U.S. itself (in the person of a State Department official recently appointed head of management in Kofi Annan’s office) to play watchdog.

    The Bush administration has given the United Nations what it believes to be a stark choice: adopt the U.S. changes and acquiesce to becoming an adjunct of Washington and a tool of empire, or reject the changes and be consigned to insignificance.

    But the United Nations could choose a third option. It should not be forgotten that the U.N. itself has some practice in dealing with U.S. threats. President George W. Bush gave the U.N. these same two choices once before—in September 2002, when he threatened the global body with “irrelevance” if the U.N. did not embrace his call for war in Iraq. On that occasion, the United Nations made the third choice—the choice to grow a backbone, to reclaim its charter, and to join with people and governments around the world who were mobilized to say no to war. It was the beginning of eight months of triumph, in which governments and peoples and the U.N. stood together to defy the U.S. drive toward war and empire, and in doing so created what The New York Times called “the second super-power.”

    This time, as before, the United States has threatened and declared war on the United Nations and the world. As before, it’s time for that three-part superpower to rise again, to defend the U.N., and to say no to empire.

    Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, is the author of the forthcoming Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the U.N. Defy U.S. Power (Interlink Publishing, Northampton MA, October 2005)

  • Waiting for an Answer

    “My son died for nothing….” — Cindy Sheehan

    One brave mother, whose son died in war, had a burning question for the President.

    “What,” she asked, “was the noble cause my son died for?”

    While the mother waited for an answer, the President took naps.

    While she wilted in the harsh Texas sun, the President sped by in his caravan.

    While she felt the aching pain of her son’s death, the President went biking with Lance Armstrong.

    While the President enjoyed yet another war-time vacation, more mothers’ sons died in war.

    And more mothers began to ask, “What is the noble cause our children are dying for?”

    The President, who saves his charm for those in power, could only say, “I’ve got a life to live….”

    And so he does, while more sons and daughters are sacrificed to the god of war,

    and their grieving mothers await an answer.

  • White Flags and Cotton Grass

    In the town of Blue Hill on the coast of Maine, there is a field of small white flags, one flag placed for each soldier killed in the war in Iraq. Throughout the summer, I have walked past this piece of land located between the First Congregational Church and the public library and wondered who the land belongs to and who is responsible for keeping vigil, placing the flags, painting the rising numbers of dead in black on a white wooden sign: 1,873 American soldiers; 26,559 Iraqi civilians.
    I discovered the land belongs to Rufus Wanning, an arborist, known throughout Hancock County as the tree specialist who helped Blue Hill save the American elms that stand in the community like elders. Every week, Rufus would inspect each elm in town. When he saw the slightest sign or symptom of Dutch elm disease (a fungus transmitted by the elm bark beetle that plugs the vascular system of the tree, preventing the flow of water and nutrients), he would take his long clippers to the branch with wilting leaves, and in his neighbors words, “nip it in the bud.”
    The American elm, Ulmus americana, revered in the eastern United States for its majestic presence, can rise to almost 90 feet. They arch over city streets reminding one of ceilings found in gothic cathedral Since the 1930’s, however, when the pathogen infiltrated the elms from Europe, we have lost more than 100 million American elms in this country.
    In 1975, a federal inventory was taken to determine how many elms were growing in Blue Hill. They found 700 trees that measured 4″ or larger in diameter. In 2002 -2003, Rufus Wanning conducted another inventory. This time they found only 100 elms, with only 60 to 70 trees still alive from the 700 trees registered thirty years before. Now, most trees die before maturity at around 40 feet.
    A genetically modified elm tree named “The Liberty Elm” or ” America’s Freedom Tree” was developed in the 1960’s and has many scientists hopeful that it will be disease resistant.
    But the Liberty Elm is no substitute for the American Elm. That which is original cannot be soulfully cloned. Rufus Wanning said as hopeful as the Liberty Elm may be for replacing the classical elm, it does not have the same stature. American Elms have greater elevation.
    Last week, I had the privilege of meeting Wanning at a vigil on his land, the land he has given permission to the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center to use as a meditation and memorial to those who have died in the Iraq War. We gathered in support of Cindy Sheehan, the mother of Spc. Casey Austin Sheehan, who has simply asked to have a conversation with our president. Her son died in Iraq on April 4, 2004.
    Rufus Wanning stood to the side, quiet and anonymous to some, well known to others, a resident of the area since 1971.
    Robert Shetterly, an artist from Brooksville, who is engaged in a project of painting portraits called, “Americans Who Tell the Truth,” had just finished Cindy Sheehan’s portrait which he brought to the gathering. He spoke about the challenge of painting her eyes. “… the knowledge that she could not be intimidated or diverted, that the spin doctors and hate-mongers could belittle and disparage her to no avail. The eyes had no fear. They had a clarity of purpose that was at once sad, defiant, and calm.”
    Other members of the community stepped forward. Ann Ferrara spoke of three kinds of death: the one where breathing stops; the one where we are laid to rest; and the spiritual death that occurs when those we love are forgotten. She said, the first two cannot be stopped, the last one can. “We must not forget -”
    My eyes turned to the field of white flags and the magnificent elms that shaded them. I saw Rufus Wanning with his head bowed and his large hands clasped behind his back. In his humble stance, I thought about how his impulse to save trees is the same impulse to offer his land as a place of peace. And how the third death, the spiritual death that accompanies the act of forgetting must be extended to the remembrance of beloved lands as well as loved ones.
    For me, the white flags of the fallen became the white tufts of cotton grass blowing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. My eyes blurred. Boundaries blurred. What are we being asked to sacrifice in the name of greed, in the name of lies? What are we allowing to be buried if we fail to act out of our love and our outrage? There is no separation or compartmentalization when it comes to the sacred nature of life. The war in Iraq and the war on our environment is fueled by the same oil relationships.
    Any maintenance of peace and preservation of a just world, a world full of fragile beauty, will require a vigilance like the arborist of Blue Hill, Rufus Wanning and the fierce maternal voice of Cindy Sheehan. Peace will not become a forgotten casualty when members of our communities like Peter and Judy Robbins keep planting white flags as each soldier dies or as long as the artist Becky McCall respectfully kneels and paints the rising numbers of the dead in black on white.
    “I see people stopping at the memorial, looking and thinking.” Rufus says. “I think it’s having a remarkable accumulative effect.”
    In a sustained moment of silence, a late summer breeze was whispering through the canopies of American elms standing their ground in a small coastal town in Maine. I heard the voice of Edward Abbey, another American who told the truth, “Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.”

    Terry Tempest Williams is a writer who divides her time between Utah and Maine. She is the author of “Refuge” and most recently, “The Open Space of Democracy,” and is the 2005 recipient of the Wallace Stegner Award given by the Center for the American West.

  • A Responsible US Nuclear Weapons Policy

    It is good to be back at All Saints. This church represents what a Peace Church should be. I appreciate that Reverend Bacon has gone to Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas in support of Cindy Sheehan and in opposition to the illegal war in Iraq.

    We are still in the season of Hiroshima. Sixty years ago that city was devastated by a single US nuclear weapon, and three days later the city of Nagasaki was devastated by another US nuclear weapon.

    What most Americans don’t know is that in between those two bombings, which took place on August 6th and 9th, 1945, the US and the other Allied powers in World War II agreed to hold the Nuremberg Tribunals at which they held the Axis leaders to account for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Between these two great crimes of slaughtering civilian populations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we agreed to the Nuremberg Tribunals. The most basic principle of these Tribunals is that no one stands above international law, no matter how high his or her position – not presidents, not prime ministers, no one.

    We Americans have a lot of ambiguity about nuclear weapons. We somehow think that they protect us, but they don’t. They make us more vulnerable. So long as the US continues to rely upon nuclear weapons for security, other countries will do so as well, and new countries will find it in their national interests to follow our example. If the most powerful country in the world demonstrates by its policies that it needs nuclear weapons, other countries will choose this route as well.

    The greatest threat, though, lies with terrorists. If they get their hands on a nuclear weapon – a possibility made more likely by our policies of retaining large numbers of these weapons – they will not hesitate to use them against us. Extremist groups cannot be deterred by nuclear threats. You cannot deter those you cannot locate and you cannot deter those who are suicidal. Deterrence has major flaws, and it has zero value against extremist groups.

    The US has not fulfilled its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Back in 1968, we promised good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament. Those negotiations have yet to take place. We still have some 10,000 nuclear weapons in our arsenal. We and the Russians still have some 2,000 nuclear weapons each on hair trigger alert, ready to be fired in moments. It is 15 years since the end of the Cold War. Our continued reliance on nuclear weapons is insane. It looks like the reflection of a “death wish” for the planet.

    In the year 2000, the US, along with all other parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, agreed to 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament. This would be a great step forward, except for the fact that the US has fulfilled none of these, and is now the major obstacle to nearly all of them. The Bush administration does not like to even see mention of nuclear disarmament in international documents. They held up agreement on the agenda for the 2005 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference for some ten days because they did not want to see reference to these 13 Practical Steps, nor of any of the components, such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, a verifiable Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, and the promise of an unequivocal undertaking to achieve total nuclear disarmament – all points to which the US had previously agreed.

    A Responsible US Nuclear Weapons Policy

    It’s long past time for a responsible US nuclear weapons policy, not only to fulfill our legal obligations and to uphold reasonable moral standards, but also to enhance the security of the US and the world. I would suggest that, at a minimum, a responsible US nuclear policy would include the following Ten No’s and a Yes.

    Ten No’s

    1. No new nuclear weapons
    2. No research and development of new nuclear weapons.
    3. No new plutonium pit production.
    4. No resumption of nuclear testing.
    5. No use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states.
    6. No first use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances.
    7. No maintaining nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert.
    8. No strategy of launch on warning.
    9. No nuclear weapons on foreign soil.
    10. No double standards.

    And a Yes

    Provide affirmative leadership to achieve existing obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament set forth at the treaty’s 2000 Review Conference. Above all, initiate good faith negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, as called for in Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty for the phased elimination of nuclear weapons under strict and effective international control within a reasonable period of time.

    This does not mean unilateral disarmament. It means multilateral disarmament for all states with US leadership. It would constitute a major change of direction in US policy.

    Who Are We?

    I’ve thought a lot about the relationship of the war in Iraq to US nuclear weapons policies. I think what they have in common are these points: arrogance, double standards, disrespect for international law (and therefore the international community), and unilateralism. These characteristics are undermining what is decent and just about us. They are destroying us, and they have the potential to destroy the world.

    We need to ask ourselves the question: Who are we? Have we become people of the bomb? Is the bomb more important to us than our humanity? The Russell-Einstein Manifesto in 1955, emphasized: “Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.” We need to return to our roots and regain our souls. The starting point is remembering our humanity.

    Take Action

    We can’t just recognize the problems intellectually. We must do something about them. We must all become part of the force for change. We can’t just sit back while illegal and immoral actions are committed in our names. We need to take heart and take action. We need to become involved and do our part.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has some resources that may be helpful at our www.wagingpeace.org website.

    First, you can sign up there for our free monthly e-newsletter, The Sunflower. It will keep you up-to-date on nuclear issues and provide action alerts.

    Second, at the website you can become involved in our Turn the Tide Campaign, and send letters to your elected representatives on key nuclear issues.

    Third, we have an excellent Speakers’ Bureau that can help you get the word out.

    Above all, use your creativity and your special talents to help others “remember their humanity” and take part in turning around US nuclear policy.

    Choose Hope

    There are times when the world looks pretty bleak, but we can take heart from all the great peace leaders who have preceded us. Here is my list of Fifty-One Reasons for Hope. I’m sure you can add to it, and I hope that you will.

    1. Each new dawn.

    2. The miracle of birth.

    3. Our capacity to love.

    4. The courage of nonviolence.

    5. Gandhi, King and Mandela.

    6. The night sky.

    7. Spring.

    8. Flowers and bees.

    9. The arc of justice.

    10. Whistleblowers.

    11. Butterflies.

    12. The full moon.

    13. Teachers.

    14. Simple wisdom.

    15. Dogs and cats.

    16. Friendship.

    17. Our ability to reflect.

    18. Our capacity for joy.

    19. The Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and Oscar Romero.

    20. The gift of conscience.

    21. Human rights and responsibilities.

    22. Our capacity to nurture.

    23. The ascendancy of women.

    24. Innocence.

    25. Our capacity to change.

    26. Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin.

    27. The internet.

    28. War resisters.

    29. Everyday heroes.

    30. Lions, tigers, bears, elephants and giraffes.

    31. Conscientious objectors.

    32. Tolstoy, Twain and Vonnegut.

    33. Wilderness.

    34. Our water planet.

    35. Solar energy.

    36. Picasso, Matisse and Miro.

    37. World citizens.

    38. Life.

    39. The survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    40. The King of Hearts.

    41. Rain.

    42. Sunshine.

    43. Pablo Neruda.

    44. Grandchildren.

    45. Mountains.

    46. Sunflowers.

    47. The Principles of Nuremberg.

    48. A child’s smile.

    49. Dolphins.

    50. Wildflowers.

    51. Our ability to choose hope.

    It is our ability to choose hope, even in dark times, that can keep us going. I urge you to never stop fighting for a more decent world. We will not attain peace by making war, and we will not end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity by continuing to rely upon these most destructive and cowardly of all weapons for our security.

    Nothing will change if we are complacent and accept the status quo. We need to rise to our full stature as human beings, and exert our full human powers to change the world and create a more decent future for ourselves and for those who follow us on this miraculous life-supporting planet.

    David Krieger is the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is the author of a recent book of anti-war poetry, Today Is Not a Good Day for War.

  • Overcoming the Obstacles to a Nuclear Weapons-Free World

    As we gather in this historic location to observe the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, my first thoughts turn to the hibakusha. I pay my respect to these brave people who have suffered so much and who have taught the world. The stories of the hibakusha must never be lost. Future generations must understand the reality of nuclear weapons. They must continue to learn from these brave people who overcame Armageddon and chose the path of life. The hibakusha rejected retaliation and embraced reconciliation as their guiding force. That is a lesson for the ages.

    I also wish to pay my deepest respect to Mayor Akiba for his world-wide leadership in building Mayors for Peace into a vibrant organization in the campaign to rid the world of nuclear weapons. The 20/20 Vision Campaign, articulated so brilliantly by Mayor Akiba, has provided new hope for all those who desire to live in a nuclear weapons-free world. I congratulate the people of Hiroshima for having selected such an outstanding world figure to represent their interests. I pledge today the continuing support of the Middle Powers Initiative for Mayor Akiba and the Mayors for Peace campaign.

    * * *

    The framework for a nuclear weapons-free world is coming into view even as the daily news seems discouraging. It is perhaps paradoxical that a light can be seen, by those with vision, even in the darkness of the moment.

    My experience tells me that it is reasonable to hope for, and to work for, a world beyond the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As a parliamentarian, diplomat and educator, I have worked on nuclear disarmament issues for more than 30 years. I understand the lassitude and obstinacy of governments all too well. But I also see the developments taking place in civil society where increasing numbers of highly informed and deeply committed activists are cooperating with like-minded governments to get things done to improve human security. The Anti-Personnel Landmines Treaty, the International Criminal Court, and the new surge of government commitment to Official Development Assistance have come about because of civil society’s input into government machinery.

    We stand on the threshold of the construction of a viable plan for a nuclear weapons-free world resulting from the active cooperation of knowledgeable leaders of civil society working with those politicians and officials of like-minded governments who truly want to move forward.

    The day will arrive when either nuclear weapons abolition takes effect or the world will be devastated by a nuclear attack. One or the other will happen. No person, informed on the gravity of the situation, can deny it.

    * * *

    Dear friends, the eyes of the world are on Hiroshima today. It is our task to ensure that political decision-makers stay focused on solving the problems at the epicenter of Hiroshima. We must have national policies that ban the production, deployment and use of nuclear weapons by countries in all circumstances for all time. There can be no more equivocation. We must project our message for all to hear: nuclear weapons are immoral, they are illegal, they are the ultimate evil. No civilized person can any longer defend the possession of nuclear weapons. They must be banished from the face of the earth.

    We who are assembled here today must gather new energy for our struggle. It is not yet too late to prevent a nuclear catastrophe – the third use of nuclear weapons. But the hour is late. The nuclear weapons States refuse to negotiate the elimination of their nuclear arsenals. Proliferation of nuclear weapons is occurring. Nuclear weapons have become part of war-fighting strategies. Terrorists seek nuclear weapons. The Second Nuclear Age has begun. This is the message we must get out to all those who think the nuclear weapons problems went away with the end of the Cold War.

    Let us take heart as we renew our work today. We who stand for the abolition of nuclear weapons are not some isolated minority. Unthinking politicians may try to marginalize us. But we are part of a growing majority. An international poll of citizens in 11 countries showed that 86 percent of people either strongly agree or agree to some extent that all nations should sign a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. In Japan, the figure was 97 percent. The people of Japan want the abolition of nuclear weapons. We must tell the Government of Japan to work harder to obtain what the Japanese people so ardently desire.

    In the United States, 76 percent of the people favour a treaty to ban all nuclear weapons. Yet the government of the United States stands today as the biggest obstacle to nuclear disarmament. I make that statement as a Canadian, a next-door neighbour of the United States, one who has lived among and loves the American people. But my parliamentary and diplomatic experience has shown me how the present Administration of the U.S. is undermining the rule of law. By refusing to accept today the commitments made in 1995 and 2000 to strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the government of the U.S. is weakening the non-proliferation regime. They have the ill-conceived idea that they can reserve to themselves the right to continued possession of nuclear weapons while proscribing their acquisition by other countries.

    We must say clearly to the U.S.: you cannot have a two-class world on nuclear weapons. You owe it to humanity to work with other countries in a constructive manner to negotiate the complete elimination of all nuclear weapons. As Chairman of the Middle Powers Initiative, I approach this work in a positive and constructive spirit, not one of recrimination. I want to help the U.S. understand that, together, the world community can build the architecture to provide security in a nuclear weapons-free world.

    I am announcing today that the Middle Powers Initiative will sponsor an “Article VI Forum” for like-minded States to start work on identifying the legal, political and technical requirements for the elimination of nuclear weapons. We will invite senior representatives of 28 countries to a special meeting in early October at the United Nations to specify steps that could be taken unilaterally, bilaterally, regionally and multilaterally to enhance security without relying on nuclear weapons. This process may well produce the outline of how negotiations, as called for in Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and reinforced by the International Court of Justice, can proceed. A framework for negotiations could be started. The Article VI Forum, with its ongoing work, will, of course, pay attention to non-proliferation issues, but the focus will be principally on nuclear disarmament issues, which are at the true center of the nuclear weapons crisis.

    The MPI cordially invites the Government of Japan to join the Article VI Forum. Membership in the Forum, in the opening stages, will be confined to like-minded non-nuclear weapons States. They need to spend some time working together and allow their creativity and commitment to surface. At some point in the new deliberations, the nuclear weapons States interested in joining a new process to fulfil their Article VI commitments could be invited to join.

    All of this work is intended to strengthen the Non-Proliferation Treaty so that negotiations for the elimination of nuclear weapons will not only be pursued but concluded. I see this work as a direct contribution to the Mayors for Peace campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Convention to come fully into effect by 2020. The immediate steps of Mayors for Peace to stimulate productive work at the United Nations First Committee and to get talks started early in 2006 is highly commendable. Governments must begin to work together on specific issues leading to nuclear disarmament, as Mayors for Peace has stated. It is the duty of middle power states to lead the way. The Article VI Forum would help them to fulfil this function.

    The MPI work in building some momentum through having like-minded States concentrate on preparing the way for a nuclear weapons-free world and the Mayors for Peace work in driving the First Committee work forward go hand-in-hand. Together, the Middle Powers Initiative and Mayors for Peace can contribute to progress. We can show all the nuclear weapons States that the world can work together in addressing this greatest of all security problems. However, MPI and M4P cannot do this alone. Much will depend on public backing and political support for these new initiatives. A rising public demand for nations to get on with negotiating and implementing a Nuclear Weapons Convention to ban the production and deployment of all nuclear weapons may take hold in the future. The work of Mayors for Peace, with its growing and extensive network around the world, could stimulate that demand.

    It can be expected that one or more of the nuclear weapons States will resist and continue to claim that it still needs nuclear weapons. But such claims would have less and less credibility in a world where the architecture for security without nuclear weapons became better understood and where the universal norm against the possession of nuclear weapons was growing in stature.

    * * *

    Let us always remember: we have the historical momentum for the abolition of nuclear weapons on our side. The Non-Proliferation Treaty, the International Court of Justice, the votes of the majority of nations are all calling for an “unequivocal undertaking” and systematic progress towards the elimination of nuclear weapons. The proponents of nuclear weapons have been reduced to ridiculous arguments to justify nuclear retention. Not only are nuclear weapons immoral and illegal, they are devoid of any intellectual standing. Those who defend nuclear weapons should be laughed at – as one day they will, when humanity discovers it has the strength to overcome the merchants of evil. Future generations will look back on our time and say without hesitation that nuclear weapons were an anachronism, the obsession of old men trapped in the past. It will be a source of wonder to future generations how humanity ever tolerated the means to its own mass destruction.

    It is our job to work towards this future of enlightenment. The people of the world want us to succeed in building true human security. We must feel confident that we can do the job. We must know that we can respond to our historical calling. We must be forever determined to build a nuclear weapons-free world. Hiroshima gives me that strength and hope.

    Hon. Douglas Roche, O.C., a former Canadian Senator, is Chair of the Middle Powers Initiative and serves on the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Advisory Council. Hon. Douglas Roche, O.C. is the recipient of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2005 Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Peace Leadership.

  • Remembering Normand Brissette

    Normand Brissette died 60 years ago on Aug. 19, 1945. But who was Normand Brissette, and why should anyone pause to remember his death?

    On the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, Brissette, a 19-year-old Navy airman from Lowell, was one of 11 American POWs being held at Chugoku Military Police Headquarters in the center of Hiroshima. All were members of Air Force B-24 or Navy dive-bomber crews who had been captured after parachuting when their planes were shot down by Japanese anti-aircraft fire on July 28.

    The prison was about 1,300 feet from ground zero. Like everyone killed at Hiroshima, these men could never have imagined the force that was about to annihilate them when the first atomic bomb ever used against a human population exploded in an airburst above them exactly 45 seconds after it had been released from the Enola Gay at 8:15 a.m.

    Most of the American POWs must have perished almost instantly, but Brissette and another man, Air Force Sergeant Ralph Neal, didn’t die at once. They suffered severe radiation burns and were somehow moved to a different location, where other American POWs futilely tried to look after them. Brissette and Neal survived in torment for 13 days and died on Aug. 19.

    Even today, most Americans are unaware that American POWs were also victims of the atomic bombs.

    At Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in Missouri, there is a symbolic common grave at Section 82, Gravesite 156, that lists eight of their names. Brissette’s is not among them, though Neal’s is.

    There is no memorial plaque stating who these men were or how they died. Only the death date listed on their common grave, Aug. 6, 1945, might make a passerby pause to wonder about them.

    Even the national cemetery official at Jefferson Barracks with whom I spoke had no idea of the significance of this gravesite until I explained it to him. None of this is an accident. We cannot remember Brissette if we never knew he existed. Like the bomb, secrecy is a potent weapon.

    For at least 35 years after the war ended, these Hiroshima POW deaths were kept secret by the US government. Not even immediate family members were informed how their loved ones died. It wasn’t until the 1980’s that researchers using the Freedom of Information Act began to uncover the stories of these atomic ”friendly fire” victims.

    There were almost certainly additional American POWs killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, along with hundreds of Allied POWs from Australia, the Netherlands, and Great Britain. Between 1,000 and 2,000 Japanese-Americans trapped in Japan by the war were killed. Thousands of slave laborers from China, Manchuria, the Philippines, and conquered European colonies in South Asia were killed. About 30,000 Korean slave laborers were killed.

    In all, some 200,000 to 250,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were killed instantly or within three months. Of these, 35,000-50,000 were non-Japanese.

    These numbers don’t draw attention from the enormous suffering of the Japanese. Instead, they reveal how all humanity became fused as victims of these first two nuclear blasts.

    While the 11 American POWs killed in Hiroshima are a tiny fraction of all victims, they bear ghostly witness to the still unlearned lesson that nuclear weapons are not only weapons of mass destruction, but weapons of self-destruction as well.

    There are only two memory points for these POWs on American soil. One is Common Gravesite 156. The other is a memorial plaque at the National POW Museum in Andersonville, Georgia, which names 9 of the 11, including Normand Brissette.

    But a Japanese historian named Shigeaki Mori, himself a survivor of the Hiroshima A-blast, has worked almost single-handedly since the 1970s to memorialize the 11 American POWs killed in Hiroshima. In 1998, he dedicated a memorial plaque honoring these men on the site where they died. He has also led efforts to get their names added to official listings of A-bomb victims, contacting American family members when possible.

    In 2002, Mori succeeded in getting Brissette’s name added to the official list of Hiroshima Atomic Bomb victims.

    When reporters for Stars and Stripes Pacific Edition contacted Normand’s sister, Connie Provencher in Dracut regarding Mori’s efforts, she said, ”It’s gratifying to me that they are recognizing my brother. He was only 19 when he died fighting for his country. He died from the bomb’s radiation and it was an excruciating death. My brother will be forever young because he gave us all his tomorrows.”

    David Rubin is a retired faculty member from the College of Public and Community Service at UMass-Boston.

    s death?

    On the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, Brissette, a 19-year-old Navy airman from Lowell, was one of 11 American POWs being held at Chugoku Military Police Headquarters in the center of Hiroshima. All were members of Air Force B-24 or Navy dive-bomber crews who had been captured after parachuting when their planes were shot down by Japanese anti-aircraft fire on July 28.

    The prison was about 1,300 feet from ground zero. Like everyone killed at Hiroshima, these men could never have imagined the force that was about to annihilate them when the first atomic bomb ever used against a human population exploded in an airburst above them exactly 45 seconds after it had been released from the Enola Gay at 8:15 a.m.

    Most of the American POWs must have perished almost instantly, but Brissette and another man, Air Force Sergeant Ralph Neal, didn’t die at once. They suffered severe radiation burns and were somehow moved to a different location, where other American POWs futilely tried to look after them. Brissette and Neal survived in torment for 13 days and died on Aug. 19.

    Even today, most Americans are unaware that American POWs were also victims of the atomic bombs.

    At Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in Missouri, there is a symbolic common grave at Section 82, Gravesite 156, that lists eight of their names. Brissette’s is not among them, though Neal’s is.

    There is no memorial plaque stating who these men were or how they died. Only the death date listed on their common grave, Aug. 6, 1945, might make a passerby pause to wonder about them.

    Even the national cemetery official at Jefferson Barracks with whom I spoke had no idea of the significance of this gravesite until I explained it to him. None of this is an accident. We cannot remember Brissette if we never knew he existed. Like the bomb, secrecy is a potent weapon.

    For at least 35 years after the war ended, these Hiroshima POW deaths were kept secret by the US government. Not even immediate family members were informed how their loved ones died. It wasn’t until the 1980’s that researchers using the Freedom of Information Act began to uncover the stories of these atomic ”friendly fire” victims.

    There were almost certainly additional American POWs killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, along with hundreds of Allied POWs from Australia, the Netherlands, and Great Britain. Between 1,000 and 2,000 Japanese-Americans trapped in Japan by the war were killed. Thousands of slave laborers from China, Manchuria, the Philippines, and conquered European colonies in South Asia were killed. About 30,000 Korean slave laborers were killed.

    In all, some 200,000 to 250,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were killed instantly or within three months. Of these, 35,000-50,000 were non-Japanese.

    These numbers don’t draw attention from the enormous suffering of the Japanese. Instead, they reveal how all humanity became fused as victims of these first two nuclear blasts.

    While the 11 American POWs killed in Hiroshima are a tiny fraction of all victims, they bear ghostly witness to the still unlearned lesson that nuclear weapons are not only weapons of mass destruction, but weapons of self-destruction as well.

    There are only two memory points for these POWs on American soil. One is Common Gravesite 156. The other is a memorial plaque at the National POW Museum in Andersonville, Georgia, which names 9 of the 11, including Normand Brissette.

    But a Japanese historian named Shigeaki Mori, himself a survivor of the Hiroshima A-blast, has worked almost single-handedly since the 1970s to memorialize the 11 American POWs killed in Hiroshima. In 1998, he dedicated a memorial plaque honoring these men on the site where they died. He has also led efforts to get their names added to official listings of A-bomb victims, contacting American family members when possible.

    In 2002, Mori succeeded in getting Brissette’s name added to the official list of Hiroshima Atomic Bomb victims.

    When reporters for Stars and Stripes Pacific Edition contacted Normand’s sister, Connie Provencher in Dracut regarding Mori’s efforts, she said, ”It’s gratifying to me that they are recognizing my brother. He was only 19 when he died fighting for his country. He died from the bomb’s radiation and it was an excruciating death. My brother will be forever young because he gave us all his tomorrows.”

    David Rubin is a retired faculty member from the College of Public and Community Service at UMass-Boston.

  • Think Outside the Bomb

    Ladies and Gentlemen:

    My name is Evelyn Ralpho. I am from Rongelap Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

    On behalf of the People of Rongelap, our Local Government, our Traditional Leaders, I am honored to be here and thank the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, the organizers and sponsors of this Conference, and especially my mom, Lijon Eknilang.

    In between 1946 and 1958, the United States exploded 67 nuclear weapons on Bikini and Enewetak in the Marshall Islands. The total yield of these tests is equal to exploding one and a half Hiroshima size bombs every day for twelve years.

    The March 1, 1954 hydrogen test, code named Bravo was the most powerful and harmful of the Marshall Island nuclear tests. Bravo was one thousand times as powerful as the nuclear explosion at Hiroshima.

    Bravo caused radioactive fallout to cover the People and Lands of my home.

    The day of Bravo, March 1, 1954 was my mother’s eighth birthday. Like all the residents of Rongelap, my mother was exposed to radiation. The fallout caused radiation burns to all the residents of Rongelap.

    Since that time, my mother has had thyroid surgery. All the Rongelapese who were children at the time of the Bravo explosion have had thyroid surgery.

    Last month, the National Academy of Science released an update on radiation risks. This update, known as BEIR VII, indicates that women are almost 40% more likely to die from radiation cancers, and 50% more likely to have radiation tumors then men. According to BEIR VII, the risks to children are even greater than to women.

    The BEIR VII Report also states that there is no evidence of harm to human offspring from exposure of parents to radiation.

    Having grown up among the Rongelapese, I can attest to the harm that radiation causes to the children of the exposed. As a daughter of Rongelap – the daughter of a survivor, I have personally witnessed the birth problems and birth defects experienced by the women of Rongelap.

    My mother’s health problems are recounted in Dr. Arjun Makajani’s book, Radioactive Heaven and Earth. In that book, she says that she has had seven miscarriages, one of which was severely deformed and had only one eye.

    As bad as the health problems are, recently released documents suggest that the United States scientists conducted human radiation experiments on the Rongelapese. These experiments, known as Project 4.1, were planned before the Bravo blast contaminated my Island. This leads me to believe that the contamination of the Rongelapese was done on purpose.

    After the Bravo test, the Rongelapese were removed from their Island. In 1957, the United States returned my People to Rongelap to live in a highly contaminated environment. The United States scientists came to monitor our uptake of radiation every year.

    Because we no longer wanted to live on a radioactive island, in 1985, the People of Rongelap abandoned our home. We currently reside in exile, scattered throughout the Marshall Islands and the United States.

    Although the United States stopped testing nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands, they continue to use it as a military testing ground.

    Kwajalein Atoll, where I grew up on the island of Ebeye, is where the United States currently tests its Star Wars Defense Systems. Missiles fired from the United States are targeted for Kwajalein. Missiles from Kwajalein are launched to intercept the missiles sent from the United States.

    The affects of the Star Wars testing programs on the Marshallese are like the nuclear tests that happened 50 years ago.

    People are displaced from their home islands. Ebeye Island, where the labor force for the Star Wars military base lives, is about 40 acres, and home to about twelve thousand Marshallese.

    On Ebeye, the living conditions are what most Americans would call a slum. Ebeye lacks good sanitation, water, power and medical facilities. The nearby military base has all modern conveniences that are not available to Marshallese citizens.

    The Star Wars tests, like the nuclear tests, continue to contaminate the Marshall Islands with toxic chemicals and depleted uranium.

    The legacy of Bravo and the Marshall Islands nuclear testing lives on in the lives of the children of those who survived exposure to radiation. The disruption that the nuclear testing program caused continues to haunt the lives of the offspring of the survivors of the nuclear testing program.

    As a daughter of Rongelap – a daughter of a survivor, my determination to seek justice on behalf of all people who have been exposed to radiation is strong. My elders sought justice. Now it is time for the sons and daughters of the exposed to seek and fight for justice wherever it may be found.

    That is our quest. That is our goal. That is my promise. With your help, and the help of people everywhere, with the blessing of God, we shall prevail.

    Thank you.