Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Nuclear Abolition

  • A Peace Message: On the fifty-fifth anniversaries of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

    The world changed dramatically in the 20th century, a century of unprecedented violence. We humans learned how to release the power of the atom, and this led quickly to the creation and use of nuclear weapons. At Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this terrible new power was unleashed at the end of a bloody and costly war. Tens of thousands of persons, including large numbers of women and children, were killed in the massive explosion and radiation release of these new tools of destruction. A new icon was born: the mushroom cloud. It represented mankind’s murderous prowess. In the years that followed, nuclear weapons multiplied in a mad arms race. We achieved the possibility of creating a global Hiroshima and ending most life on Earth.

    If, one hundred years from now, you read this message, humanity will probably have succeeded in freeing itself from the scourge of nuclear weapons. That will be a great triumph. It will mean that we have met the first great challenge to our survival as a species. It will mean that we have learned and applied the lesson that the hibakusha, survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, worked so diligently to teach us, that human beings and nuclear weapons cannot co-exist.

    There is an alternative possibility, that of no civilization or human beings left alive one hundred years from now. Such a future would mean that we failed completely as a species, that we could not put away our primitive and violent means of settling our differences. Perhaps we would have simply stumbled by a combination of apathy and arrogance into an accidental nuclear conflagration. It would mean that all the beauty and elegant and subtle thought of humans that developed over our existence on Earth would have vanished. There would be no one left to appreciate what was or might have been. No eyes would read this letter to the future. There would be no future and the past would be erased. Meaning itself would be erased along with humanity.

    We have a choice. We can end the nuclear weapons era, or we can run the risk that nuclear weapons will end the human era. The choice should not be difficult. In fact, the vast majority of humans would choose to eliminate nuclear weapons. Today, a small number of individuals in a small number of countries are holding humanity hostage to a nuclear holocaust. To change this situation and assure a future free of nuclear threat, people everywhere must exercise their rights to life and make their voices heard. They must speak out and act before it is too late. They must demand an end to the nuclear weapons era.

    If this message reaches one hundred years into the future it will mean that enough of my contemporaries and the generations that follow will have heard the messages of the hibakusha and will have chosen the paths of hope and peace. Humanity will have conquered its most terrible tools of destruction. If this is the case, I believe that your future will be bright.

  • It’s Time to End the Nuclear Weapons Threat

    The US and Russia have made progress in reducing nuclear weapons from their Cold War highs, but we still have a long way to go. There remain some 35,000 weapons in the world, and 4,500 of these are on “hair-trigger” alert.

    If a single nuclear weapon were accidentally launched, it could destroy a city but that’s not all. With current launch-on-warning doctrines, an accidental launch could end up in a full-fledged nuclear war. This would mean the end of civilization and everything we value – just like that. The men and women in charge of these weapons could make a mistake, computers or sensors could make a mistake – and just like that our beautiful world could be obliterated. We can’t let that happen.

    Along with Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Marian Wright Edelman, Mohammad Ali, Harrison Ford, and many others, I have signed an Appeal to World Leaders to End the Nuclear Weapons Threat to Humanity. This Appeal calls for some sensible steps, such as de-alerting nuclear weapons. Just this step alone would make the world and all of us much safer from the threat of an accidental nuclear war while we pursue a world free of nuclear weapons.

    President Clinton recently said, “As we enter this new millennium, we should all commit ourselves anew to achieving a world free of nuclear weapons.” I think the American people need to encourage the President and our representatives in Congress to assert US leadership in achieving such a world. We owe it not only to ourselves, but to our children, grandchildren and all future generations.

    But what should we do?

    First, the Russians have proposed cutting the number of US and Russian strategic nuclear weapons down to 1,000 to 1,500 each. We have responded by saying that we are only prepared to go to 2,000 to 2,500 weapons. But why? Isn’t it in the security interests of the American people to decrease the Russian nuclear arsenal as much as possible? We should move immediately to the lowest number of nuclear weapons to which the Russians will agree.

    Second, we should be upholding the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty instead of seeking to amend it. By limiting the number of defensive interceptor missiles, as the ABM Treaty does, we prevent a return to an offensive nuclear arms race. An effective missile defense system may work in the movies, but experts say it has very little chance of working or of not being overcome by decoys in real life. I certainly wouldn’t bet the security of my children’s future on building an expensive missile defense system that would violate the long-standing ABM Treaty.

    Third, we should declare a policy of No First Use of nuclear weapons. There is no conceivable reason for attacking first with nuclear weapons or any other weapon of mass destruction and that should be our policy.

    Fourth, we should be engaging in good faith negotiations with Russia and the other nuclear weapons states to achieve a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons. That’s what we promised in the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and recently reaffirmed at the 2000 Review Conference for this Treaty. If we want the non-nuclear weapons states to keep their part of the non-proliferation bargain and not develop nuclear weapons, we’d better keep our part of the bargain.

    When President Clinton goes to Moscow in early June to meet with President Putin, I’d like to see him come back with an agreement to dramatically reduce nuclear dangers by taking our respective nuclear arsenals off “hair-trigger” alert, by re-affirming the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, by agreeing on policies of No First Use of nuclear weapons, and by beginning negotiations in good faith on an international treaty for the phased elimination of nuclear weapons under strict and effective international control. If Presidents Clinton and Putin would take these steps, they would be real heroes of our time. And we could use some real life heroes.

     

  • Bubbles – Not Bombs

    This past month, I was in Washington D.C. at an international conference on human rights. Tired from a long morning of meetings and uninspiring speeches, I decided to slip away from the gathering early and play the role of tourist. Even though I have been to Washington on many occasions, I had never really had the opportunity to see some of the remarkable sights which the nation’s capital has to offer. My first stop was a tour of the White House, an international symbol of democratic government (and place of wrongdoings of more than one President). I approached the White House from Lafayette Park, the adjacent green area, which had been set aside by Thomas Jefferson, when the home of the President was built in the late 1700’s. Since 1984, Lafayette Park has been popularly known as “Peace Park” by many demonstrators, guides and media types from all over the world.

    That day, however, I never made it to my White House tour. On the edge of Lafayette Park and Pennsylvania Avenue stood a man with long hair, a scruffy beard and tie die clothes. He looked like the typical hippie who never quite made it out of the sixties. Strapped over his chest, was a cardboard sign with a message scribbled by a black magic marker. He was engaged in blowing bubbles from a large tub of soapy water next to him. Curious, I altered my path in order to walk towards him to find out just what he was doing, as he continued to blow bubbles and hand out leaflets. He saw me gaze inquisitively at him and looking in my direction, he said in a loud voice “Bubbles – not bombs!”. Confused, I sheepishly said “Excuse me?”. Once again he said, “Bubbles – not bombs!”. At this point, I realized that I was committed to a conversation and I walked over to speak to him.

    He introduced himself simply as John and I soon discovered that he had spent the last 20 years with his friends in front of the White House maintaining a vigil to promote the abolition of nuclear weapons. He explained that he has been helping to maintain the 365 days-a-year, 24 hours-a-day vigil for peace, which has been in effect since June 3rd, 1981. Perhaps you, yourself, have seen him or even spoken to him during a visit to the nations’ capital. Every night, John sleeps outside, braving frequently difficult climate conditions and occasional verbal abuse from the police. The only time that he leaves the area where he is encamped is when he showers at a near-by YMCA and when he buys food at a local grocery store. Even when he leaves, his friends stand guard of the site because of the real possibility that the police will confiscate their placards and materials.

    John began to tell me his story. Twenty years ago, he was a successful business man with a large house in a typical American middle class suburb. He had two cars, a mortgage and a well paying job. One day, he woke up and began to question himself and his life. He asked himself if he wanted to continue to be a slave to his material possessions. He had become angry that many of the decisions our governments made were threatening our futures and the well being of our children. He had grown more and more concerned that we were living in a society very much threatened by weapons of mass destruction. His thoughts along these lines resulted in a decision to sell his house and possessions to simply begin walking. John wanted to walk across the United States to become more in tune with “real people” and to protest the fact that the American government was building a formidable arsenal of weaponry that could destroy all of humanity.

    John’s meandering eventually brought him to Washington. He arrived at the White House and he has been there ever since. He told me that nearly 3 million people come to this landmark every year and that he thought that his actions were an effective way to educate America about the absolute necessity of abolition of nuclear weapons. In 1988, he was arrested for “camping” and recently charged with having a sign which was ¼ inch larger than the permitted dimensions for protest materials. His efforts, however, have helped in the recent introductions of Proposition One into Congress, which calls upon the American government to “disable and dismantle all nuclear weapons and refrain from replacing them at any time with any weapons of mass destruction”.

    I was amazed at his dedication and commitment. I was inspired by his story and taken aback that he would give up all that he had worked so hard for in order to live a life of protest. I shared with him a famous quote from Gandhi, one of my heroes. Gandhi, once asked by a reporter if he had a message for people in the industrialized countries, simply replied, “my life is my message”.

    Struck by the fact that I was speaking to a man who has been camped outside of the White House for nearly two decades, I did a quick mental calculation in my head and realized that he has been in front of the same building in a five square foot area since I was three years old. I asked him how long he planned on being out there. He replied, “I will be here until there are no more nuclear weapons”.

    Fate is a strange thing. If I had not left the conference early that day, to take a tour of the White House, I would never had met this truly remarkable individual and be moved by his overwhelming desire to have peace in the world. A world free from nuclear weapons was never something that I was concerned about while growing up. When I first became involved in social issues at the age of 13, my interest was in helping the environment, protecting human rights and providing meals to the homeless. I soon came to realize, however, that all of these social issues are interconnected. Nuclear weapons threaten our world, our species, our natural surroundings and are an abuse of our most basic human rights. It is for these reasons that I believe that we must all raise our voices to let decision makers know that we demand to live in a world free of nuclear weapons. We also need to support the actions of those individuals who are courageous enough to stand up and speak out against maintaining weapons of mass destruction. Young people, especially, have an important role to play in creating a world devoid of the possibility of nuclear annihilation. Youth must to ensure that adults follow John’s suggestion and make bubbles, not of bombs.

    In April, I hosted a peace leadership training in Santa Barbara under the auspices of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and made possible by the generosity of Mr. Pierre (Clysons). Over the two-day session, forty young people, from all walks of life, came together to be taught valuable communication, interpersonal and fundraising skills in order to help further their social involvement. The participants learned, for example, how to write and deliver a speech, work with the media, fundraise and inspire others. If we are to achieve a world free from nuclear weapons, we need the involvement of young people. Youth have energy, enthusiasm and many good ideas to share. Most importantly, however, it is young people who will be inheriting the problems which have been left to them by the generations past.

    This issue of Waging Peace is one which I believe is very exciting. We have asked a number of outstanding young people to write articles, share their stories, outline their social involvement and provide their views from the future. Three young people have contributed to the journal, including Dianna English, a young woman from Connecticut, who became involved in helping her peers in Kosovo without leaving her home town; Lorissa Rienhart, a Santa Barbara resident who recently addressed hundreds of people, including royalty, in a rally for peace and Ishmael Beah, a former child solider from Sierra Leone who now speaks out on behalf of children in armed conflict. I hope that the words and actions of these youth will inspire you as much as they motivate me. It is through examples of individuals like Dianna, Lorissa and Ishmael that more and more adults are coming to realize that young people are not simply potential leaders of tomorrow. Many, indeed, are in fact the leaders of today. Give young people a chance, our generation may just surprise you!

     

  • The Irrationality of Deterrence: A Modern Zen Koan

    “The sound of one finger pressing the button is the sound of a deeper silence, brought about by unrelenting apathy”

    What is the sound of one hand clapping? What is the sound of one finger pressing the button? Surely the concept of deterrence is more enigmatic and perplexing than a Zen Koan!

    The concept of deterrence, which underlies the nuclear weapons policies of the United States and other nuclear weapons states, presupposes human rationality in all cases. It is based upon the proposition that a rational person will not attack you if he understands that his country will be subject to unacceptable damage by retaliation.

    What rational person would want his country to be exposed to unacceptable damage? Perhaps one who miscalculates. A rational person could believe that he could take action X, and that would not be sufficient for you to retaliate. Saddam Hussein, for example, believed that he could invade Kuwait without retaliation from the United States. He miscalculated, in part because he had been misled by the American Ambassador to Iraq who informed him that the US would not retaliate. Misinformation, misunderstanding, or misconstruing information could lead a rational person to miscalculate. We don’t always get our information straight, and we seldom have all of the facts.

    Deterrence is a Fool’s Game

    Even more detrimental to the theory of deterrence is irrationality. Can anyone seriously believe that humans always act rationally? Of course not. We are creatures who are affected by emotions and passions as well as intellect. Rationality is not to be relied upon. People do not always act in their own best interests. Examples abound. Almost everyone knows that smoking causes terrible diseases and horrible deaths, and yet hundreds of millions of people continue to smoke. We know that the stock markets are driven by passions as much as they are by rationality. The odds are against winning at the gambling tables in Las Vegas, and yet millions of people accept the odds, believing that they can win despite the odds.

    Nuclear deterrence is based on rationality — the belief that a rational leader will not attack a country with nuclear weapons for fear of retaliation. And yet, it is clearly irrational to believe that rationality will always prevail. Let me put it another way. Isn’t it irrational for a nation to rely upon deterrence, which is based upon humans always acting rationally (which they don’t), to provide for its national security? Those who champion deterrence appear rational, but in fact prove their irrationality by their unfounded faith in human rationality.

    With nuclear deterrence, the deterring country threatens to retaliate with nuclear weapons if it is attacked. What if a country is attacked by nuclear weapons, but is unable to identify the source of the attack? How does it retaliate? Obviously, it either guesses, retaliates against an innocent country, or doesn’t retaliate. So much for deterrence. What if a national leader or terrorist with a nuclear weapon believed he could attack without being identified? It doesn’t matter whether he is right or wrong. It is his belief that he is unidentifiable that matters. So much for deterrence. What if a leader of a country doesn’t care if his country is retaliated against? What if he believes he has nothing more to lose, like a nuclear-armed Hitler in his bunker? So much for deterrence!

    It takes only minimal analysis to realize that nuclear deterrence is a fool’s game. The unfortunate corollary is that those who propound nuclear deterrence are fools in wise men’s garb. The further corollary is that we have entrusted the future of the human species to a small group of fools. These include the political and military leaders, the corporate executives who support them and profit from building the weapons systems, and the academics and other intellectuals like Henry Kissinger, who provide the theoretical underpinnings for the concept of deterrence.

    The Immorality of Nuclear Weapons

    Eleven years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, we continue to live in a world in which a small number of nations rely upon the theory of deterrence to provide for their national security. In doing so, they threaten to kill tens of millions or perhaps hundreds of millions of innocent people by retaliation should deterrence fail. To perhaps state what should be obvious, but doesn’t appear to our leaders to be: This is highly immoral. It also sets an extremely bad example for other states, whose leaders just might be thinking: If the strongest nations in the world are continuing to rely upon nuclear weapons for their national security, shouldn’t we be doing so also? Fortunately, most leaders in most countries are concluding that they should not.

    There is only one way out of the dilemma we are in, and that is to begin immediately to abolish nuclear weapons. This happens also to be required by international law as stated in Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and as decided unanimously in the 1996 opinion of the International Court of Justice: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”

    Morality, the law, and rationality converge in the need to rid the world of nuclear weapons. This is the greatest challenge of our time. The will of the people on this issue is being blocked by only a few leaders in a few countries. As the world’s most powerful nation, leadership should fall most naturally to the United States. Unfortunately, the policies of the United States have been driven by irrationality to the detriment of our own national security and the future of life on our planet. This is unlikely to change until the people of the United States exercise their democratic rights and demand policies that will end the nuclear threat to humanity. These include: negotiating a multilateral treaty for the phased elimination of nuclear weapons under strict and effective international control; de-alerting nuclear weapons and separating warheads from delivery vehicles; making pledges of No First Use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances; stopping all nuclear testing and ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; reaffirming the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty; and applying strict international safeguards to all weapons-grade fissile materials and agreeing to no further production of such materials.

    A Call to Action

    The sound of one hand clapping is silence. That is the sound of most people in most places in response to the nuclear weapons policies of the nuclear weapons states. While they do not applaud these policies with both hands, they also do not raise their voices to oppose them.

    The sound of one finger pressing the button is the sound of a deeper silence, brought about by unrelenting apathy. It is the sound of the silence before a more final silence. It is an unbearable silence `for its consequences are beyond our power to repair. It is a silent death knell for humanity. We must raise our voices now with passion and commitment to prevent this pervasive silence from becoming the sound of our world.

  • How Countries Can Work Together to Rid the World of Its Greatest Danger

    The US and Russia each have about 2,000 powerful nuclear weapons set for hair-trigger release. The enormous nuclear overkills of these weapons present the greatest danger to all countries.1 While groups working to rid the world of nuclear weapons such as Abolition 2000 are growing in size and number of supporters, still, much more remains to be done to achieve a nuclear free world. Hopefully, as more nations whose leaders become aware of what is the greatest danger to all countries, then the more they will work toward eliminating nuclear weapons. Their leadership could be invaluable.

    Nuclear Weapons Overkills

    The US and Russia each maintain enormous nuclear weapons overkills. A massive nuclear attack, whether intentional or accidental, by Russia or the US or both, could destroy all countries by turning the world into a dark, cold, silent, radioactive planet. Russia and the U.S. have more than 90 percent of the world’s strategic nuclear weapons.2

    Explosive Power – A nuclear warhead can be far more destructive than is generally realized. One average size U.S. strategic nuclear warhead on an Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles is:

    • Equal to 250,000 tons of dynamite (250 kilotons).3
    • Or 50,000 World War II type bombers each carrying 5 tons of bombs.
    • Or 20 Hiroshima size nuclear warheads.
    • One average size Russian strategic nuclear warhead has an explosive power equal to 400,000 tons of dynamite or 80,000 bombers each carrying 5 tons of bombs. The terrorists’ truck bombs that exploded at the NY World Trade Center and in Oklahoma City each had an explosive force equal to about 5 to 10 tons of dynamite.4

    Out Of Touch With Reality – When General Lee Butler (USAF Ret.1994) first became head of the US Strategic Air Command, he went to the Omaha headquarters to inspect the list of targets in the former Soviet Union. Butler was shocked to find dozens of warheads aimed at Moscow (as the Soviets once targeted Washington). At the time that the target list was contrived, US planners had no grasp of the explosions, firestorms and radiation effects from such an overkill. We were totally out of touch with reality. Butler said, “The war plan, its calculations, and consequences never took into account anything but cost and damage. Radiation was never considered.” 5

    If one average sized strategic nuclear bomb hit Washington DC today, in a flash it could vaporize Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, the Pentagon, and destroy many federal programs like Social Security. If another nuclear bomb hit New York City, it could vaporize the United Nations headquarters, international communication and transportation centers, the New York Stock Exchange, etc. And that would only take two of the more than 2,000 warheads that Russia has ready for hair-trigger release.

    One Percent Is Too Much – General Butler said, “..it is imperative to recognize that all numbers of nuclear weapons above zero are completely arbitrary; that against an urban target one weapon represents an unacceptable horror; that twenty weapons would suffice to destroy the twelve largest Russian cities with a total population of twenty-five million people — one-sixth of the entire Russian population; and therefore that arsenals in the hundreds, much less in the thousands, can serve no meaningful strategic objective.” 6

    Twenty nuclear warheads is less than one percent of the nuclear weapons that the US has set for hair-trigger release.

    Nuclear Winter – A nuclear exchange between Russia and the U.S. could destroy all 192 nations in the world by filling the sky with very dense smoke and fine dust thereby creating a dark, cold, hungry, radioactive planet. The late Dr. Carl Sagan and his associates estimated that a nuclear winter could be created with a nuclear explosive force equal to 100 million tons of dynamite. Such a force could ignite thousands of fires.7

    The US and Russia each have a nuclear explosive force many times more powerful than that needed to create a very dark, global nuclear winter. Nuclear explosions can produce heat intensities of 3,000 to 4,000 degrees Centigrade at ground zero. Nuclear explosions over cities could start giant flash fires leaving large cities and forests burning with no one to stop them. Nuclear explosions can lift an enormous quantity of fine soil particles into the atmosphere, more than 100,000 tons of fine, dense, dust for every megaton exploded on a surface.8

    Why Nuclear Overkill

    It is hard to believe that nations would build a defense on something as crazy as the huge nuclear overkills that exist. One factor that allows the creation of suicidal overkills is that most people do not like to think about the possibility of mass destruction. While this reluctance is readily understandable, it allows the following factors to dictate humanity’s drift toward extinction: building and maintaining nuclear weapons provides profits and wages; nuclear weaponry is a complex technical subject; much of the nuclear weapons work is done in secrecy; and the end of the Cold War has given some the idea that the danger is past.

    Hopefully, if the leaders of governments and their staff start widely discussing the danger, and progress is made in getting rid of nuclear weapons, the world will be glad to join in supporting further agreements to rid the world entirely of nuclear weapons.

    Accidental Nuclear War

    The danger of launching based on a false warning could be growing. During a major part of each day Russia’s early warning system is no longer able to receive warnings. It has so decayed that Moscow is unable to detect US intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launches for at least seven hours a day, US officials and experts say. Russia also is no longer able to spot missiles fired from US submarines. At most, only four of Russia’s 21 early-warning satellites were still working.

    This means Russian commanders have no more than 17 hours — and perhaps as little as 12 hours — of daily coverage of nuclear-tipped ICBMs in silos in Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota and Wyoming. Against Trident submarines, the Russians basically have no warning at all.9

    What makes the current situation so dangerous is that in the heat of a serious crisis Russian military and civilian leaders could misread a non-threatening rocket launch or ambiguous data as a nuclear first strike and launch a salvo.

    There have been at least three times in the past that the US and Russia almost launched to false warnings. Each time they came within less than 10 minutes of launching before learning the warnings were false. In 1979, a US training tape showing a massive attack was accidentally played.10 In 1983, a Soviet satellite mistakenly signaled the launch of a US missile.11 In 1995, Russia almost launched its nuclear missiles because a Norwegian rocket studying the northern lights was mistakenly interpreted as the start of a nuclear attack.12

    False warnings are a fact of life. During an 18-month period in 1979-80, the US had 147 false alarms in its strategic warning system. Two of those warnings lasted three minutes and one lasted six minutes before found to be false.13 How is Russia handling false alarms today? There is no certain nor reassuring answer.

    Low Awareness of the Danger

    There is a great need to increase public awareness of the danger in order to provide broad, long-term understanding and support for arms agreements that would rid the world of nuclear weapons. The following actions by the US and Russia show low awareness of the current danger. Only 71 out of 435 US Congressional representatives signed a motion calling for nuclear weapons to be taken off of hair-trigger alert.14 Former President Boris Yeltsin said on Dec. 10, 1999 when pressured about the Chechnya conflict, “It seems Mr. Clinton has forgotten that Russia is a great power that possesses a nuclear arsenal.”15 The US Senate rejected ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in October 1999.16 Moscow leaders say that the US arguments for changing the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty will provoke an arms race.17

    Despite US and Russian nuclear weapons presenting the greatest danger to all nations, reference to them in the mass media is not commensurate with the magnitude of the danger. Acting Russian President Putin signed into law a new national security strategy in January that lowers the threshold on first-use of nuclear weapons.18 And at arms control talks in Geneva this January, the US opposed a Russian suggestion that each country cut the size of its nuclear arsenal to 1,500 warheads. James Runis, a US State Department spokesman, said a lower warhead figure would meet opposition from US generals, who would have to adjust their nuclear doctrine.19

    How confident should we be with defense planners who have not taken into consideration the self-destructive consequences of their current strategies?

    Drawing Attention To The Danger

    One way to draw the world’s attention to overkill danger is for the leaders of nations to ask the following questions of the US and Russia:

    “Why does Russia and the U.S. each maintain far more nuclear weapons than either can use without destroying all countries including their own?”

    “Can they refute any of the consequences of nuclear weapons use described above?”

    “If not, what are they doing to reduce the possibility of the accidental destruction of all?”

    The more that countries ask the US and Russia these questions, the more difficult it will be for the US and Russia to ignore them. This could be especially so if each nation’s leaders share copies of their questions and the answers they receive with the news media.

    General George Lee Butler has said that the world can immediately and inexpensively improve security by taking nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert.20This action could also stop sending the message that we do not trust each other and could provide a better atmosphere for reaching an agreement in all nuclear arms reduction talks.
    ——————————————————————————–

    Reference and Notes

    1.Blair, Bruce C., Feiveson, Harold A. and Huppe, Frank.. “Taking Nuclear Weapons off Hair-Trigger Alert,” Scientific American, Nov 97, p.78.

    2. Norris, Robert S. and Arkin, William, “U.S. Nuclear Weapons Stockpile,” Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists, July/Aug 96. (The percent of all nuclear weapons that belong to the U.S. and Russian was calculated from this source.)

    3. Ibid.

    4. Babst, Dean. “Preventing An Accidental Armageddon,” Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Santa Barbara, California, Sep 99.

    5. Grady, Sandy. “Can Nuclear Genie Be Stuffed Back In The Bottle,” San Jose Mercury News, Dec.8, 1996.

    6. Butler, Lee. Talk at the University of Pittsburgh, May 13, 1999, p. 12.

    7. Sagan, Carl. The Nuclear Winter, Council for a Livable World Education Fund, Boston, MA, 1983. 8. Ibid

    9. Russia Update, The Sunflower No. 32 Feb 00, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Santa Barbara, Calif..

    10. Phillips, Alan E. “Matter of Preventive Medicine,” Peace Research, August 1998, p 204.

    11. “Twenty Minutes From Nuclear War,” The Sunflower, No. 17 Oct 98, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Santa Barbara, Calif.

    12. Blair, Op. Cit.

    13. Hart, Senator Gary and Goldwater, Senator Barry; Recent False Warning Alerts from the Nation’s Missile Attack Warning System, a report to the Senate Armed Forces Committee, 9 October 1980, pp. 4&5.

    14. The Sunflower, No. 31 Jan 00, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Santa Barbara, Calif.

    15. Burns, Robert. “U.S., Russian relations get chillier,” Contra Costa Times, Dec. 10, 1999.

    16. The Sunflower, No. 31 Jan 00, Op. Cit.

    17. Gordon, Michael R. “Russia rejects call to amend ABM treaty,” Contra Costa Times, Oct. 21, 1999.

    18. “New Russian Defense Plan Lowers Threshold for First Use,” The Sunflower No. 32 Feb 00, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Santa Barbara, Calif.

    19. “U.S. Opposes Extra Russian Arms Cut, ” Reuters News Service, Jan. 28, 2000.

    20. Schell, Jonathan, “The Gift Of Time,” The Nation, Feb. 9, 1998, p. 56.

     

  • The Most Important Moral Issue of our Time

    There are many reasons to oppose nuclear weapons. They are illegal, undemocratic, hugely expensive, and they undermine rather than increase security. But by far the most important reason to oppose these weapons is that they are profoundly immoral.

    Above all, the issue of nuclear weapons in our world is a deeply moral issue, and for the religious community to engage this issue is essential; for the religious community to ignore this issue is shameful.

    I have long believed that our country would become serious about providing leadership for the elimination of nuclear weapons in the world only when the churches, synagogues and mosques became serious about demanding such leadership.

    The abolition of nuclear weapons is the most important issue of our time. I do not say this lightly. I know how many other important life and death issues there are in our world. I say it because nuclear weapons have the capacity to end all human life on our planet and most other forms of life. This puts them in a class by themselves.

    Although I refer to nuclear weapons, I don’t believe that these are really weapons. They are instruments of mass annihilation. They incinerate, vaporize and destroy indiscriminately. They are instruments of portable holocaust. They destroy equally soldiers and civilians; men, women and children; the aged and the newly born; the healthy and the infirm.

    Nuclear weapons hold all Creation hostage. In an instant they could destroy this city or any city. In minutes they could leave civilization, with all its great accomplishments, in ruins. These cruel and inhumane devices hold life itself in the balance.

    There is no moral justification for nuclear weapons. None. As General Lee Butler, a former commander in chief of the US Strategic Command, has said: “We cannot at once keep sacred the miracle of existence and hold sacrosanct the capacity to destroy it.”

    That nuclear weapons are an absolute evil was the conclusion of the President of the International Court of Justice, Mohammed Bedjaoui, after the Court was asked to rule on the illegality of these weapons.

    I think that it is a reasonable conclusion – the only conclusion a sane person could reach. I would add that our reliance on these evil instruments debases our humanity and insults our Creator.

    Albert Einstein was once asked his opinion as to what weapons would be used in a third world war. He replied that he didn’t know, but that if there was a third world war a fourth world war would probably be fought with sticks and stones. His response was perhaps overly optimistic.

    Controlling and eliminating these weapons is a responsibility that falls to those of us now living. It is a responsibility we are currently failing to meet.

    Ten years after the end of the Cold War there are still some 36,000 nuclear weapons in the world, mostly in the arsenals of the US and Russia. Some 5,000 of these weapons remain on hair-trigger alert, ready to be launched on warning and subject to accident or miscalculation.

    Today arms control is in crisis. The US Senate recently failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the first treaty voted down by the Senate since the Treaty of Versailles. Congress has also announced its intention to deploy a National Missile Defense “as soon as technologically feasible.” This would abrogate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a cornerstone of arms control. The Russian Duma has not yet ratified START II, which was signed in 1993.

    Efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons are also in crisis. There is above all the issue of Russian “loose nukes.” There is no assuredness that these weapons are under control. There is also the new nuclear arms race in South Asia. There is also the issue of Israel possessing nuclear arms — with the implicit agreement of the Western nuclear weapons states — in their volatile region of the world.

    The Non-Proliferation Treaty is also in crisis. This will become more prominent when the five year Review Conference for the treaty is held this spring. Most non-nuclear weapons states believe that the nuclear weapons states have failed to meet their obligations for good faith negotiations to achieve nuclear disarmament. More than 180 states have met their obligations not to develop or acquire nuclear weapons. The five nuclear weapons states, however, have failed to meet their obligations for good faith efforts to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

    The US government continues to consider nuclear weapons to be “essential” to its security. NATO has referred to nuclear weapons as a “cornerstone” of its security policy.

    Russia recently proposed that the US and Russia go beyond the START II agreement and reduce their strategic nuclear arsenals to 1,500 weapons each. The US declined saying that it was only prepared to go down to 2,000 to 2,500 weapons each. Such is the insanity of our time.

    Confronting this insanity are four efforts I will describe briefly.

    • The New Agenda Coalition is a group of middle power states – including Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Sweden and South Africa — calling for an unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapons states for the speedy and total elimination of their nuclear arsenals. UN Resolutions of the New Agenda Coalition have passed the General Assembly by large margins in 1998 and 1999, despite lobbying by the US, UK and France to oppose these resolutions.
    • A representative of the New Agenda Coalition recently stated at a meeting at the Carter Center: “A US initiative today can achieve nuclear disarmament. It will require a self-denying ordnance, which accepts that the five nuclear weapons states will have no nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future. By 2005 the United States will already have lost the possibility of such an initiative.” I agree with this assessment. The doors of opportunity, created a decade ago by the end of the Cold War, will not stay open much longer.
    • The Middle Powers Initiative is a coalition of eight prominent international non-governmental organizations that are supporting the role of middle power states in seeking the elimination of nuclear weapons. The Middle Powers Initiative recently collaborated with the Carter Center in bringing together representatives of the New Agenda Coalition with high-level US policymakers and representatives of civil society. It was an important dialogue. Jimmy Carter took a strong moral position on the issue of nuclear disarmament, and you should be hearing more from him in the near future.
    • Abolition 2000 is a global network of more than 1,400 diverse civil society organizations from 91 countries on six continents. The primary goal of Abolition 2000 is a negotiated treaty calling for the phased elimination of nuclear weapons within a timebound framework. One of the current efforts of Abolition 2000 is to expand its network to over 2000 organizations by the time of the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference this spring. You can find out more about Abolition 2000 at www.abolition2000.org
    • A final effort I will discuss is the establishment of a US campaign for the elimination of nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has hosted a series of meetings with key US leaders in the area of nuclear disarmament. These include former military, political, and diplomatic leaders, among them General Lee Butler, Senator Alan Cranston, and Ambassador Jonathan Dean.

    I believe that we have worked out a good plan for a Campaign to Alert America, but we currently lack the resources to push this campaign ahead at the level that it requires. We are doing the best we can, but we are not doing enough. We need your help, and the help of religious groups all over this country.

    I will conclude with five steps that the leaders of the nuclear weapons states could take now to end the nuclear threat to humanity. These are steps that we must demand of our political leaders. These are steps that we must help our political leaders to have the vision to see and the courage to act upon.

    • Commence good faith negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention requiring the phased elimination of nuclear weapons, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement.
    • De-alert all nuclear weapons and de-couple all nuclear warheads from their delivery vehicles.
    • Declare policies of No First Use of nuclear weapons against other nuclear weapons states and policies of No Use against non-nuclear weapons states.
    • Ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and reaffirm commitments to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
    • Reallocate resources from the tens of billions of dollars currently being spent for maintaining nuclear arsenals to improving human health, education and welfare throughout the world.

    The future is in our hands. I urge you to join hands and take a strong moral stand for humanity and for all Creation. We do it for the children, for each other, and for the future. The effort to abolish nuclear weapons is an effort to protect the miracle that we all share, the miracle of life.

    Each of us is a source of hope. Will you turn to the persons next to you, and tell them, “You give me hope,” and express to them your commitment to accept your share of responsibility for saving humanity and our beautiful planet.

    Together we will change the world!

     

  • A Twelve Step Program to End Nuclear Weapons Addiction

    The following steps should be taken by the nuclear weapons states to assure a full commitment to ending the nuclear weapons threat that now hangs over the heads of all humanity and clouds our future:

    1. Commence good faith negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention requiring the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement.

    2. Publicly acknowledge the weaknesses and fallibilities of deterrence: that deterrence is only a theory and is clearly ineffective against nations whose leaders may be irrational or suicidal; nor can deterrence assure against accidents, misperceptions, miscalculations, or terrorists.

    3. Publicly acknowledge the illegality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons under international law as stated by the International Court of Justice in its 1996 opinion, and further acknowledge the obligation under international law for good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.

    4. Publicly acknowledge the immorality of threatening to annihilate millions, even hundreds of millions, of people in the name of national security.

    5. De-alert all nuclear weapons and de-couple all nuclear warheads from their delivery vehicles.

    6. Declare policies of No First Use of nuclear weapons against other nuclear weapons states and policies of No Use against non-nuclear weapons states.

    7. Establish an international accounting system for all nuclear weapons and weapons-grade nuclear materials.

    8. Sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, cease laboratory and subcritical nuclear tests designed to modernize and improve nuclear weapons systems, cease construction of Megajoule in France and the National Ignition Facility in the US and end research programs that could lead to the development of pure fusion weapons, and close the remaining nuclear test sites in Nevada and Novaya Zemlya.

    9. Re-affirm the commitments to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and cease efforts to violate that Treaty by the deployment of national or theater missile defenses, and cease the militarization of space.

    10. Support existing nuclear weapons free zones, and establish new ones in the Middle East, Central Europe, North Asia, Central Asia and South Asia.

    11.Set forth a plan to complete the transition under international control and monitoring to zero nuclear weapons by 2020, with agreed upon levels of nuclear disarmament to be achieved by the NPT Review Conferences in 2005, 2010 and 2015.

    12. Begin to reallocate the billions of dollars currently being spent annually for maintaining nuclear arsenals ($35 billion in the U.S. alone) to improving human health, education and welfare throughout the world.

  • The New Millennium: The Past As Prologue

    It is perhaps a peculiar quality of human beings that we like to count things, and we seem to become particularly excited when our numbers end up with several zeros at the end. Such is the case with the year 2000, even though it is not exactly the turning of the millennium, which will take place as the year turns from 2000 to 2001. It is close enough, however, and it has its own set of problems, which have been characterized by the expression “Y2K.” I will return to that, but first I would like to offer a few observations to provide perspective on the past as a prologue to our current situation.

    First, life has existed on Earth for some 4 billion years.

    Second, humans have existed on Earth for only some 3 million years, less than 1/1000th of the existence of life on Earth.

    Third, civilization and recorded history have existed for only some 10,000 years, barely a tick on the geological clock.

    Fourth, the Nuclear Age began only some six decades ago with the first controlled fission reaction that was sustained under the bleachers of the stadium at the University of Chicago.

    Fifth, less than 55 years ago, the first nuclear weapons were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, utterly destroying those cities and killing over 200,000 of their inhabitants.

    Sixth, throughout the latter half of the 20th century, the United States and the former Soviet Union engaged in a nuclear arms race that at its height saw the deployment of some 80,000 nuclear weapons, many of which were thousands of times more powerful than those that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    Seventh, plutonium, which is the principal ingredient in nuclear weapons and did not exist as such until specifically created for nuclear weapons, will remain dangerous to humans and other forms of life for some 250,000 years. Even a microgram of plutonium, if inhaled, will lead to lung cancer, and we have created thousands of tons of plutonium by the fissioning of uranium for weapons and nuclear power.

    Eighth, at the present time, ten years after the end of the Cold War, eight countries have a total of some 35,000 nuclear weapons, most of them in the arsenals of the United States and Russia. Due to the conditions of social disintegration in the former Soviet Union, there is increased concern that nuclear weapons or weapons-grade nuclear materials might fall (or might already have fallen) into the possession of additional countries or criminals or terrorists.

    From this very quick walk through time, we can reach some interesting conclusions.

    First, in a relatively short period of time, humans have devised a means for their own annihilation.

    Second, we have created radioactive poisons, such as the thousands of tons of plutonium, that will be a danger to humanity for some 25 times longer than civilization has existed.

    We are now an endangered species, endangered by our own cleverness in taming the atom and using the power of the atom for weapons of mass destruction.

    With our new knowledge has come the need for far higher levels of responsibility to prevent our self-destruction. As a species, we have done a poor job of accepting this responsibility.

    Let us look at what we have done in the relatively recent past to try to deal with the challenge of nuclear weapons.

    Nearly 30 years ago the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons entered into force. In that treaty, the non-nuclear weapons states promised not to develop or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons. In return, the nuclear weapons states promised to engage in good faith negotiations on nuclear disarmament. In other words, this treaty was a trade-off: non-proliferation for nuclear disarmament. For the most part, the non-proliferation part of the bargain has been kept. The nuclear disarmament part of the bargain has been arrogantly pushed aside by the nuclear weapons states.

    Five years ago, the parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty held a Review and Extension Conference, as called for by the terms of the treaty. At that conference the treaty was extended indefinitely, although many states argued that an indefinite extension was equivalent to a blank check which should not be given to the nuclear weapons states to continue to flout the treaty provisions. At that time, certain additional promises were made: to achieve a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) by 1996, to negotiate a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, and to “a determined pursuit” of systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally with the ultimate goal of their elimination.

    A Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was signed in 1996, but has yet to be ratified by the US, Russia, China, India or Pakistan. There has been no progress on a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, and there has been a noticeable lack of “determined pursuit” of nuclear disarmament. The START II agreement has not been ratified by the Russian Duma. In fact, Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin agreed to move back the date for completing START II reductions from the beginning of 2003 to the end of 2007. There has been no progress on START III. The US and Russia still maintain dangerous postures of launch on warning. Some 5,000 nuclear weapons remain on hair-trigger alert, ready for immediate launching.

    The US still considers its nuclear arsenal to be the “cornerstone” of its security policy. It has fought against a NATO review of nuclear policy. It has fought against consideration of nuclear disarmament in the UN Conference on Disarmament. It has refused to consider a No First Use policy. Further, it has promoted policies such as the expansion of NATO and the development of a National Missile Defense system that have made the Russians feel more threatened and rely more heavily on their nuclear arsenal.

    In 1996 the International Court of Justice said that any threat or use of nuclear weapons that would violate international humanitarian law would be illegal. This means that nuclear weapons cannot be threatened or used if they would fail to distinguish between combatants and civilians, or if they would cause unnecessary suffering to combatants. Since it would be impossible to use nuclear weapons in any manner that would not either grossly injure non-combatants or cause unnecessary suffering to combatants, any threat or use of nuclear weapons would be illegal. This ruling by the World Court has been largely ignored by the nuclear weapons states.

    The Court also pointed out in its opinion that the effects of the use of nuclear weapons cannot be controlled in either time or space. We know, for example, that today people are continuing to suffer and die as a result of the radiation releases from the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons that took place for four decades until the mid-1980s.

    At the 1995 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference, a group of Non-Governmental Organizations from around the world lobbied for greater progress on nuclear disarmament. Disappointed by the outcome of the conference, they formed a global network, which is called Abolition 2000, to work for the total elimination of nuclear weapons. Abolition 2000 is a citizens movement, which is now composed of some 1,400 citizen action groups in 89 countries. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is the International Contact for this global network.

    Abolition 2000 has called for an international treaty to be concluded by the end of the year 2000 which would lead to the total elimination of nuclear weapons. Its goal is to enter the 21st century with a treaty in place providing a firm commitment on the part of the nuclear weapons states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. As the year 2000 is approaching rapidly, this may seem like an unrealizable goal. But this is not necessarily the case.

    Democracies respond to overwhelming citizen pressure. If such pressure were forthcoming in the United States, it could turn the tide. If we have continued complacency, then we will enter the 21st century with inertia and perhaps we will have to wait until a nuclear weapon destroys another city or many cities somewhere in the world before there is action to eliminate nuclear weapons. On the other hand, if Americans were to say, “Enough is enough,” and demand leadership from our government to obtain a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons, it could be done and it could be done rapidly.

    At the present time our national security is based upon the illegal threat of nuclear weapons use that could result in the murder of hundreds of millions of innocent people. We are all accomplices to this illegal threat. Were this threat ever to be carried out, we would be accomplices, willing or unwilling, to what the president of the World Court has described as the “ultimate evil.” If nuclear weapons are ever used again, by accident or design, it will be a greater crime than that committed by the Nazis during World War II. The German people were rightly terrified to challenge the Nazis. The American people have no such excuse. Nor can we claim ignorance. We are all parties to the threatened crime. And, as we learned at Nuremberg, superior orders do not constitute a defense.

    Someone recently said to me, “I’m glad you’re working on this because I have other priorities.” That was not comforting. No one person is going to turn this country around. It will take all of us together. And all of us together can do it. As Jody Williams, the co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for the Landmines Campaign, said, “We are the new superpower.” She didn’t mean the United States or any other powerful nation alone. She meant us – you, me, and millions like us. Together we are the new superpower, but only if we make our voices heard.

    I encourage you to write to the President and your representatives in Congress and to raise the issue of nuclear threat in every campaign setting in the upcoming elections. Ask that nuclear weapons be taken off alert status (if for no other reason than to avoid the problems associated with Y2K). Ask that the US adopt a policy of No First Use. Ask that the US take leadership in negotiating an international treaty, a Nuclear Weapons Convention similar to what we already have for chemical and biological weapons, setting forth the steps for the total elimination of nuclear weapons. Make the candidates discuss these issues. Make them declare where they stand on these issues.

    In the final analysis, nuclear weapons are not weapons at all. They are the most terrible instruments of mass annihilation yet created by men. They are portable incinerators. They are illegal, immoral, and undemocratic. They have cost us some $6 trillion since the beginning of the Nuclear Age. More damaging still, they have cast a dark shadow over our consciences and our souls. I urge each of you to make your voice heard and to demand an end to the outrage of relying upon nuclear weapons for what they can never give to us — security.

    Let us enter the 21st century with a commitment in place to abolish nuclear weapons. And if we cannot do it in the year 2000, let us recommit ourselves for the next year and as long as it takes to rid the world of this evil. In doing so, we will keep faith with all humanity that has preceded us and with all generations to follow. Perhaps most important, we will keep faith with ourselves and be, in the words of the great French writer, Albert Camus, “neither victims nor executioners.”

    * David Krieger is the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Interview with Hiro Takeda

    “… as hibakusha I think I have the responsibility inform people of the danger of the bomb, the radiation and the effect it has on human beings, because there are a lot of people still in Hiroshima who have suffering from the radiation. And as for my self I haven’t had anything serious but I have been going to the doctor ever since the dropping of the bomb.” (Hiro Takeda)

    Mr. Takeda was born in 1919. He was living with his mother and brother on the outskirts of Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped there on August 6, 1945. He is a hibakusha, a Hiroshima survivor. Stefania Capodaglio is the 1999 Ruth Floyd Human Rights intern at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation office in Santa Barbara. She spoke with Mr. Takeda during August 1999 about his experiences during and after the bombing of Hiroshima. Mr. Takeda is a US citizen and lives now in Southern California.

    Stefania Capodaglio: One thing that struck me about your description of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing at the Sadako Peace Day event in Santa Barbara this year is the vivid memory that you have of those days. I imagine it is a difficult process for you to awake to those memories. Please tell me a bit about what you remember of those days and what did you and your family do immediately after the dropping of the bomb.

    Hiro Takeda: In my memory it was one of my most frightful and horrendous experience I ever had in my life. Because when they bomb fell there was a big BOOM and then a flash in the BOOM. That is what they call PIKADUN (PIKA means flash). We did not know what kind of bomb was dropped and it was very, very powerful. Fortunately injured because I was sleeping and it pushed the ceiling up, it pushed the walls up. Fortunately we did not loose any windows because my mother had all the windows open because it was a very hot day. But the neighbors who had all the windows closed, the windows shattered and it blew the glass across the room. There were sliding doors and a lot of people got hurt on their head. We were lucky . We thought maybe the when the bomb fell we thought: What happened? Then towards afternoon, towards evening the whole city was in flame so I said: My God what is that! Then there was this awesome sight I ever seen : the whole city was all in flame and we just couldn’t comprehend , what was going on. And that evening my brother and I, we turned on the radio, the “Philco Radio” that we took with us from here (US) and it was a small radio with a short wave on that, but we never used that until we have used that radio because we were afraid , because if we were caught with the short wave being American who knew what would have happened.

    That night, on August 6th, my brother and I, were very very anxious of what was going on, so we turned on the radio and then we caught one of the stations in Australia, we caught the news and then they announced it was an A-bomb that was dropped over Hiroshima and we never heard about A-bomb and radiation. And then I understand ……will grow in the city… we were kind of shocked and just speechless. So what we did the following day, we saw a lot of people coming in a way from (away from) Hiroshima city. They were men all worried about their relatives, friends, and neighbors. So I got my mother on the back of my bicycle and we went out to the city. The first place we went to was the temple because they told us that all the victims were in the temples, shrines and schools. So this was the first place where we went to was the temple, and when we saw all these people they were languishing and disfigured, well my mother and I, we couldn’t even stand, we couldn’t even go forward, we were just frozen dead and we couldn’t believe what we saw and I don’t know, it was one of the most frightful sight I ever seen in a They were all just burned and I saw many many We went to the next place. It was the shrine and it was the same thing and then the school ground. There were 100 and 1000 of people all in classrooms all way along that of course almost all the buildings were quiet damaged because of the blast, but then there were in this room we went to, this room was full of dead people, and then in the other room there were people who were dying, we saw many of them dying in front of our eyes. Some of these things is something that hit me really hard, and still we couldn’t believe….I do not know how to say that!! Have we known that the radiation effect was dangerous we would have maybe been afraid to go even to the city, but we didn’t know anything about that. A-bomb, radiation, nothing! We never heard about that thing, so we were desperate trying to look for relatives, friends, and neighbors. And one of the next sight I saw and I think I have already mentioned that on August 6 Peace Day : a young lady standing, she was just standing with her burned skin that was peeling and she was…. I do not know how to describe her. The next thing that really hurt me, even now when I think about it and I cry is this young boy. I do not know how old he was but I couldn’t recognize him because his face was blown and it was just like a balloon. He was just crying “Mammy, Mammy” and then “water, water”, and then that pitiful and painful voice and I can’t still…..I’ll never forget that little boy!! And we didn’t know what to do, we wanted to do something but we just didn’t know what to do! And this was one of the most frightful experience I ever had: seeing a 100 a 1000 people all around the school ground. Some of the people were disfigured and when I saw them I thought they were in great pain. The people who died without having been identified by their relatives were cremated in the school ground. And these are sights that I think I’ll never forget as long as I live. I saw many movies about Hiroshima and the dropping of the A-bomb, but they were nothing compared to what I actually witnessed. A lot of people aren’t quite aware yet of how dangerous and harmful the story behind is.

    SC: The United States dropped the A-bomb on your country on August 6th, 1945. Do you hate the US for what it did to your country?

    HT: I don’t hate countries for doing that, but I have a grudge against President Truman for ordering that. But then an other thing is why did they have to drop the bomb knowing that 100 of thousands of innocent people would have died? Why couldn’t they drop the bomb in some place in a remote area to show them what powerful weapon they had instead of killing 140,000 innocent people? I know of a friend of mine, his sun whose name was Kasu (Kaso), they could never find him! And we lost quite a few of our neighbors. Five or six days later my brother and I went to look for our teacher who was like a second father. We were so concerned about him! To go to our teacher we had to cross the whole city and we had to go through the epicenter. We spent the whole day to go through the epicenter and the stench of death was all over the place, and finally, I don’t know how we ever managed to cross some of the bridges that were all destroyed, but somehow we managed to find the house. Of course it was completely destroyed, and the daughter was there at the house by herself and she said that her father died three days ago and he was cremated.

    SC: Do you believe that your personal witness could influence people and make them reflect more seriously about the atrocities committed with the dropping of the bomb?

    HT: I would think so! When I talked to the people about what I went through and all that, they were quiet astonished. Well when I talk to the people they try to understand or realize , and of course it is hard for them to even visualize or imagine what effect it had on the human being. They can say it was awful, horrible, but this doesn’t describe anything because there is no words in a dictionary to describe what I saw. They cannot imagine what happened, there are no words to describe what happened. When I tell people about that thing they say: Oh, this is awful!! This is something that we should be aware of and then try to prevent a nuclear war. And this is the only thing they can really do or say. So I have these wishes: at least try get along to each other and prevent war as much as we can. But this is something really difficult. Even right now there are some countries making nuclear warheads and I think about my grandson who have to through all that.

    SC: How do you think your memories and stories can best be shared with students and young people in order to increase their understanding of the need to eliminate nuclear weapons?

    HT: I made speeches at school, even in Japan, at the University in Tokushima and then at the Grammar School in Koku Kopu) and here in SB and I even made a speech in LA. I made these speeches at least to make them aware of how awful an A-bomb is, and of course a lot of students were shocked. But the students at the University in Tokushima they didn’t even know about the A-bomb and this was something surprising to me. I’m sure they heard about it but they didn’t know how much destructive it was or how much effect it had on human beings. So I believe that educating people in extent is a good I idea.

    SC: What do you think about Japanese and American military expenditures for conventional weapons and other sophisticated weapon’ technologies? Do you believe they are still useful after what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

    HT: If they could avoid using them it would be the best thing, but to prevent that is an other question. Because there is Pakistan, India, China and Korea that are still building them. To prevent an other country to launch a missile in a certain way is necessary, but to spend all that money on nuclear weapons is ridiculous because there are so many people who need to be helped, a lot of people who suffer for hunger. Why cannot they use the money towards helping the people instead of building arms? So sometimes I wonder if this is the right way to go!! But then when you see other countries building something like that because they are trying to attack or something like that, well it is a necessity, but then I hope they have at least something to prevent that thing to happen.

    SC: How do you see your role as an “hibakusha”?

    HT: Well I tried not to spread that I’m an hibakusha, but as hibakusha I think I have the responsibility inform people of the danger of the bomb, the radiation and the effect it has on human beings, because there are a lot of people still in Hiroshima who have suffering from the radiation. And as for my self I haven’t had anything serious but I have been going to the doctor ever since the dropping of the bomb. But I was lucky to be able to still survive and be able to tell people of my experience and I think this is one of my responsibilities.

    SC: If there is one lesson you could share with the next generation, what would it be?

    HT: Well I will simply tell them the truth and tell them how terrible the A-bomb is! I would like to tell them to have good relations with other countries, starting with their neighbors. And build friendship and understanding and prevent all these arguments. That’s all I have to say about this! I have been telling my children about the A-bomb and I’m sure they heard something else from their friends, so in this way you can make people aware of the danger of the A-bomb and then I’m sure they will do everything possible to work towards peace instead of trying to create more walls between countries.

    SC: What effect the bomb had on your family: your mother, your brother ..?

    HT: As far as the health my brother and my sister did pretty well, of course my sister she had some problems but then she is O.K.! It hurt my mother more than anything and I think my mother died because of the radiation. Because right after the A-bomb all the people were in the school and my mother used to go and help to cook and nurse these people not knowing the danger of the radiation and she was there every day. So it may affect her health in this way and of course she was very sad that she lost a very good friend in the A-bomb.

  • Abolition 2000 at the Year 2000

    Abolition 2000 is rapidly approaching the year 2000, a moment of truth for the global Network. General Lee Butler, a powerful advocate of abolition, offered these observations: “Turning specifically to the agenda, tactics and timetable of the abolition community, I see a widening gulf between its aspirations and their prospects, especially in the near term. That disparity is most immediately obvious in the disjunction between the name of the umbrella organization, ‘Abolition 2000,’ and the self-evident reality that its implied goal is not yet in sight, much less in hand. That is a real Y2K problem that must be addressed to ensure that the vitality of the ongoing work of the organization is not diminished by the intimations of a failed strategic objective.”

    When Abolition 2000 was initiated in 1995, it seemed reasonable to set as our primary goal a treaty by the year 2000 calling for the phased elimination of nuclear weapons. The goal was never to achieve the total elimination of nuclear weapons by the year 2000, but rather to achieve an international treaty leading to the total elimination of these weapons by early in the 21st Century.

    Abolition 2000 was born at the 1995 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review and Extension Conference. It came about as a result of disappointment by many NGOs with the apparent blank check given to the nuclear weapons states when the treaty was extended indefinitely. The extension was given without regard for the widely perceived failure of the nuclear weapons states to act on their Article VI obligations for good faith negotiations on nuclear disarmament. Abolition 2000 sought in some respects to be the conscience of the international community by demanding that Article VI obligations be upheld in the aftermath of the indefinite extension.

    Abolition 2000 began with the drafting of a common Statement by some 60 peace and disarmament NGOs at the 1995 NPT Conference. Supporters of the Statement quickly expanded to about 300 NGOs. Over the past nearly five years, the number of supporters has expanded to 1,358 organizations in 88 countries. As the year 2000 approaches, questions arise as to what will become of Abolition 2000 and its global Network. If an international treaty to ban nuclear weapons is not achieved by the end of the year 2000, will the Network have failed? Will it lose its credibility? Will the Network continue after the year 2000?

    The Network made a bold decision at the outset by adopting the name Abolition 2000. It was prepared to press the issue of moving forward with a nuclear weapons abolition agenda, setting a timeframe for tangible progress. It was not content to leave the timeframe open-ended. It refused to accept vague declarations by the nuclear weapons states that they were for the “ultimate” goal of eliminating their nuclear arsenals. While it may be perceived that it would have been safer for the Network to choose a name that did not force a timeframe for success, the choice of the name serves an important function by making clear that an agreement to abolish nuclear weapons is a matter of urgency. Abolition cannot be put off to some indefinite future time whenever the nuclear weapons states decide they are ready to act.

    Inherent in the name Abolition 2000 is the understanding that we should not cross the threshold into a new century and millennium without a clear commitment to the global elimination of nuclear weapons. Abolition 2000 has taken a stand on the side of morality, legality, and democracy, and has given a voice to the opinion of most of the world’s nations. Abolition 2000 has spoken truth to power.

    The problem is that power, in the form of the governments of the nuclear weapons states, have responded by stonewalling and a continuation of business as usual. These governments seem locked into a Cold War mentality based on the theory of deterrence, despite the fact they can no longer identify who it is they are deterring or from what they are deterring them.

    Since the initiation of Abolition 2000, the Network has opposed continued nuclear testing of all kinds, including sub-critical and laboratory testing. It has called for ending the nuclear threat by taking specific steps such as de-alerting nuclear forces and agreeing to policies of No First Use. It has not only called for a treaty to ban nuclear weapons, but has participated in drafting a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention which Costa Rica has introduced in the United Nations. Abolition 2000 has also mobilized citizen actions throughout the world in favor of abolishing nuclear arms, including the gathering of over 13 million signatures in Japan alone. The Network has also encouraged prominent individuals and municipalities to declare themselves committed to the abolition of nuclear weapons.

    After nearly five years, Abolition 2000 remains committed to the only outcome that can safeguard humanity’s future. But it faces powerful opposing forces in the form of the governments of the nuclear weapons states, the wall of secrecy that surrounds their nuclear policies, and the wall of complacency that engulfs large segments of the public throughout the world.

    Abolition 2000 can help to remind the people of the world that they have choices. They don’t need to leave the fate of humanity in the hands of a small number of leaders of nuclear weapons states. They do not need to sit by while countries such as India and Pakistan test and deploy nuclear weapons, repeating the mistakes made by the five declared nuclear weapons states. They do not need to continue to feed the defense contractors and politicians that remain eager to develop and deploy the Ballistic Missile Defenses – defenses that have little likelihood of working and will actually make the world far more dangerous as other nuclear armed countries respond with stronger offensive capabilities.

    With such dangers as the deployment of Ballistic Missile Defenses on the horizon in the United States, Abolition 2000 is needed more than ever. The year 2000 will be a year of focused actions for the Network throughout the world. The Network has set as goals for itself to grow to 2000 organizations; to identify 2000 prominent supporters of abolishing nuclear weapons; to engage in a week of education and advocacy from March 1-8, 2000; to have a strong and vocal presence at the 2000 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference; and to join in millennial events throughout the world.

    Abolition 2000 will not simply fade away. Its international symbol is the sunflower. Like the sunflower, it has given birth to a thousand seeds of peace, which will be carried by the wind, take root and grow in many places. These seeds will be borne by the winds of change. They will cross boundaries and will be carried over walls of indifference. Abolition 2000 may not fulfill its goal of a treaty to ban nuclear weapons in the year 2000. But it is critical that this grassroots movement stay the course and continue to grow until its goal is achieved.