Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: Hiroshima

  • Unlike the Pandemic, Nuclear War Can Be Stopped Before it Begins

    Unlike the Pandemic, Nuclear War Can Be Stopped Before it Begins

    This article was originally published by Waging Nonviolence, and is reproduced here under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license

    Nuclear weapons have been posing a threat to humanity for 75 years — ever since the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

    These days, our focus is understandably on the COVID-19 virus and the threat it poses to human life. But as we commemorate the anniversary of these bombings, it is important to acknowledge that unlike the coronavirus, nuclear weapons can only be remediated with prevention. Millions of people could be killed if a single nuclear bomb were detonated over a large city, and the added threats of radiation and retaliation could endanger all life on Earth.

    As political and socioeconomic instabilities grow, the risk of nuclear conflicts and even a global nuclear war is growing by the day. In fact, the world’s nuclear-armed countries spent a record $73 billion on their arsenal of weapons of mass destruction last year, almost half of that sum represented by the United States, followed by China. Mobilizing global action for the abolition of nuclear weapons — to safeguard health, justice and peace — is more important now than ever.

    “When societies become more unstable, all forms of violence become more likely,” says Rick Wayman, CEO of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. “We, as individuals and as humanity, must overcome the root causes that have led to the past 75 years of nuclear weapons [development]. Absent this, we will continue to have national leaders that cling to nuclear weapons.”

    The dangerous choice that is still being made by some government leaders of nuclear-armed nations has been threatening the world’s population for decades. But the global health threat presented by nuclear war can be stopped before it begins. And the way to do it is through the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, or TPNW, which has been the focal point of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

    The road to nuclear disarmament

    Today, nine countries possess nuclear weapons — the United States, China, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea — and it is estimated that they possess almost 15,000 nuclear warheads in total. Yet another report shows that 22 countries currently have one kilogram or more of weapons-usable nuclear materials, compared to 32 nations six years ago.

    On July 7, 2017, the TPNW was adopted by the United Nations as a multilateral, legally-binding instrument for nuclear disarmament. However, the treaty will only enter into force and prohibit the development, testing and use of nuclear weapons worldwide once 50 nations have signed and ratified it. That’s what the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, or ICAN, is working hard to achieve.

    ICAN is a coalition of non-governmental organizations in over 100 countries that won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for its efforts to achieve a global nuclear weapons ban treaty. They have been working to raise public awareness about the catastrophic consequences of weapons of mass destruction, while persuading decision-makers and mobilizing citizens to pressure their governments to sign and ratify the TPNW — a treaty that they have managed to bring forward after years of advocacy meetings at the United Nations and in national parliaments.

    Daniel Högsta, ICAN’s campaign coordinator, says the TPNW is “the most promising new vehicle for changing attitudes and the political status quo around nuclear weapons.” He adds that residents and leaders of cities and towns “have a special responsibility and obligation to speak out on this issue” for nuclear disarmament, given that these places are the main targets of nuclear attacks.

    ICAN developed a Cities Appeal initiative and a #ICANSave online campaign, to encourage local authorities to lead the way in supporting the treaty, building momentum for national governments to sign and ratify it. This is usually done through council resolutions, official statement or press releases from municipal authorities communicating their support for the global ban treaty, sometimes including nuclear weapons divestment commitments.

    “We have been very excited by the positive responses from cities all around the world,” Högsta said. “We have just surpassed 300 cities and towns that have joined [the ICAN appeal], which includes municipalities of all sizes, from huge metropolitan areas like Los Angeles, Berlin, Sydney, Paris and Toronto, to small but nevertheless committed towns.”

    These steps are not only fast tracking the success of the TPNW, explains Högsta, but it is also challenging the assumption that local politicians cannot influence foreign policy decisions. In the United States, for example, many city leaders have joined the ICAN appeal and committed to divest public pension funds from nuclear weapons companies, although President Trump has not yet shown the same interest.

    The humanitarian appeal

    The cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were completely destroyed by the nuclear bombs dropped over Japan, which killed more than 200,000 people immediately and injured countless others. Those who survived suffered long-term health effects such as cancers and chronic diseases due to the exposure to radiation. Yet their story remains very much alive.

    Some hibakusha people — survivors of the atomic bombings from 75 years ago — have partnered with ICAN to share their testimonies and make sure the world does not forget about the catastrophic consequences of nuclear conflicts. Setsuko Thurlow, one of the survivors and an anti-nuclear activist, has been sending letters to government leaders worldwide to encourage them to join the TPNW. She sent a letter to Donald Trump last month.

    Doctors around the world have also been warning about the dreadful consequences of potential nuclear conflicts amid the coronavirus pandemic, given that health professionals and facilities are already overwhelmed. A recent study showed that a limited nuclear exchange between just two countries, like India and Pakistan, would be enough to cause a global disaster in food production and natural ecosystems. That’s why these weapons must not be used and countries should commit to banning them once and for all, before irreversible damage to humanity and the planet is done.

    Fortunately, this is close to being achieved. Chuck Johnson, director of nuclear programs at the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, ICAN’s founding organization, says that 82 nations have already signed the TPNW and 40 have ratified it. That means only 10 more ratifications are needed for the global ban treaty to enter into force.

    The world has never been so close to abolishing nuclear weapons and there’s hope this may be achieved by the end of this year. After all, the pandemic is teaching government leaders about the need to put humanity at the center of security plans.

    The role of peace education

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is a partner organization of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Yet their focus has been on training people in peace literacy.

    Wayman says that to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons — and free of other serious problems such as wars, mass shootings, racism and sexism — we need to look at the root causes of why our society continues to embrace these forms of violence. And it all comes down to non-physical human needs, such as belonging, self-worth and transcendence. “If people can’t find healthy ways of fulfilling them, they will find unhealthy ways,” Wayman said.

    He believes that peace literacy can give people “the tools they need to recognize, address and heal the root causes of these serious problems plaguing societies around the world.” That is crucial because if people do not confront the root causes of violence and engage in healthy and peaceful relations with themselves and others, nuclear weapons may not be entirely abolished.

    Take slavery for example. Most countries in the world passed laws to abolish slavery in the 19th or 20th centuries, but slavery-like working conditions and forced labor are still reported nowadays. That’s because racism and other unhealthy, violent forms of human relations have not ceased to exist and oftentimes are not discouraged by individuals, organizations or politicians.

    Therefore, passing laws to ban nuclear weapons is an important step, but it is probably not enough to end this public health threat. Educating people, across all levels of society, about the importance of doing no harm and practicing nonviolence is fundamental for building a future where peace, not war, is the status quo.

    Given the immense challenges our global society is facing today, especially in terms of health, it is time to mobilize for nuclear disarmament. As Setsuko Thurlow, a hibakusha, said in her letter to President Trump: “Every second of every day, nuclear weapons endanger everyone we love and everything we hold dear. Is it not yet the time for soul searching, critical thinking and positive action about the choices we make for human survival?”

  • Original Child Bomb: A Meditation on the Nuclear Age

    Original Child Bomb: A Meditation on the Nuclear Age

    In January 2020 I resolved to re-issue the documentary, ORIGINAL CHILD BOMB to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in 1945.

    Produced in 2004, prior to contemporary streaming norms, ORIGINAL CHILD BOMB has been recently digitized and technologically renewed.  It is now available for viewing on YouTube at this link.

    The reason for the timing of this new release goes beyond the historic significance of the 75th anniversary of the two bombings.  January 22, 2020, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock* to 100 seconds to midnight.  The scientists warned that the world was at the highest level of risk since 1945 that nuclear weapons would be used. This grave assessment was the response to the scientists’ observation that there was worldwide governmental dysfunction in dealing with global threats. And that was before the global pandemic of Covid-19, the health care crisis in every country on Earth, and the economic chaos that ensued. The Doomsday Clock gives a chilling, macro view of the possibility and peril of nuclear weapons today.

    In contrast ORIGINAL CHILD BOMB reveals the human scale of the use of nuclear weapons. The film shows what actually happened to people when nuclear weapons targeted and bombed their cities. Using seldom seen 16mm archive film from Hiroshima and Nagasaki before and after the bombings, the viewer comes face to face with the complete destruction caused by these weapons of mass destruction. The film challenges the viewer’s naivete’ about the ‘history’ of the bombings. The film asks questions about present day nuclear arsenals. What time is it? What is going to happen? The film asks the viewer: How will you decide how to respond at this time to the gravest threat ever that nuclear weapons could be used to destroy human life on Earth?

    ORIGINAL CHILD BOMB is not a conventional historical documentary. It is inspired by and based on a poem by the Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, and has a meditative tone. It features, in addition to footage from Japan, a Japanese rapper and American high school students. A young girl tries to explain to herself the logic of mutually assured destruction. She cannot. Who can?

    While assembling the pieces to reissue the film, Black Lives Matter protests happened in countries around the world. I wondered – how can we take the time to focus on the possible use of nuclear weapons when millions of humans actually suffer threats and harm today?

    And then I saw the connection.

    When the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in a real sense the people of those two cities were simply collateral damage.  It was too bad that they died horrible deaths, but geopolitical power had to be maintained. The refusal to acknowledge that crime against Japanese men, women and children is a very deep shadow in the US psyche.

    Just so, when African men and women were brought to the US colonies to labor as slaves in plantations, they were collateral damage.  It was too bad that they were subjugated and seen as less than human. But the young nation needed goods and products in order for the economy to grow, and the bondage laborers assured that growth. The refusal to acknowledge and atone for the enslavement of Black Africans is a long-standing shadow in the US psyche.

    There is another connection in the hundreds of thousands of homeless men, women and children in the US today. Too bad that they have to live on the streets, but they are only collateral damage to our consumer culture that worships high tech, high-rises, and high living, if only for a small percentage of our citizens. That is a very current shadow in the US psyche.

    Shadows will not leave until we face them. It is way past time to face the shadow of racism. It is time now to face the shadow of homelessness, before it grows worse. And for the sake of human life on Earth, it is time to face the shadows of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    I invite you to watch ORIGINAL CHILD BOMB on YouTube at https://youtu.be/vKD6vAm0JJk

    If your heart is touched please share your concerns with others – in your family, workplace, church, temple, mosque or on social media. The more we talk to each other about what matters most – surviving and flourishing – the more courageous we will be about taking action. And, tell your government representatives that you don’t want any of your tax money spent on nuclear weapons. Period.

     

    *The Doomsday Clock is a design that warns the public about how close we are to destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making.  It is a metaphor, a reminder of the perils we must address if we are to survive on planet Earth.                                                                                                                                                                                          Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

  • This Summer in Nuclear Threat History

    July 1, 2019 – Julian Borger’s article in The Guardian, “U.S. Arms Control Office Critically Understaffed Under Trump, Experts Say,” two and a half years into the Trump Administration, reinforced for the umpteenth time what many mainstream and alternative media outlets had been reporting since January 2017, that Trump haphazardly and against all logic is attempting to permanently demolish established governmental administration while also minimizing and privatizing the U.S. federal system, which includes drastically deemphasizing diplomacy while enhancing military power.  Another example is David Atkins Nov. 12, 2017 article, “Trump and Tillerson Are Gutting the State Department – For No Good Reason,” in the Washington Monthly, which noted that cuts to the entire State Department of nearly 2,000 full-time professionals was just the tip of the iceberg.  Atkins’ story hit the nail on the head by remarking that, “And why? Because Donald Trump promised to ‘drain the swamp’ and level massive cuts across all non-defense departments without the foggiest clue what they do or why?”   But more recently, Borger’s article published on this date noted that a U.S. State Department office, The Office of Strategic Stability and Deterrence Affairs, a repository of decades-long expertise and institutional knowledge on the critical matter of bilateral and multilateral arms control which has long been tasked with negotiating and implementing nuclear disarmament treaties (resulting in cuts in global nuclear weapons levels from 70,000 to 14,000 warheads in the last 50 years), has been cut from 14 staffers at the start of the Trump Administration to four. What’s more under neo-con extremist National Security Advisor John Bolton (who, like an incredible number of Trump appointees, resigned or was fired in September of 2019) arms control focus shifted irrationally to appealing to non-nuclear states to “come up with measures to modify the security environment to reduce incentives for states to retain, acquire, or increase their holdings of nuclear weapons.”  Comments: The danger now realized under Trump, according to experts like former Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Frank Rose and many others inside and outside government, is that the State Department in no longer equipped to pursue arms negotiations to attempt to salvage the last domino that Trump is trying to knock off the board – the New START or Moscow Treaty which expires in February of 2021. In 2019, Vladimir Putin noted that Russia was in favor of a New START extension, but warned that time was running out, “If we do not begin talks now, it would be over because there would be no time even for formalities.”  Unfortunately this now seems likely as back in 2009-11 under President Obama, a strong supporter of nuclear arms control, it took 21 months from the start of negotiation to ratification for New START to take effect.  This represents just another of a plethora of highly paramount reasons why Donald Trump must not have a second term as President.  (Sources:  A variety of both mainstream and alternative news media sources.)

    July 16, 1945 – In the first-ever test of what Manhattan Project scientists referred to as the “Gadget”, a fission bomb designed as a plutonium implosion device, was detonated before dawn at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, 230 miles south of the town of Los Alamos, New Mexico in a remote area of the Jornada Desert.  The code name of the test, Trinity, was created by the Director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, J. Robert Oppenheimer – it was a reference to a poem by John Donne.  President Truman’s personal journal of July 25 recorded that, “We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world…An experiment in the New Mexico desert…caused the complete disintegration of a steel tower 60 feet high, created a crater six feet deep and 1,200 feet in diameter, knocked down a steel tower half a mile away and knocked down men 10,000 yards away.  The explosion was visible for more than 200 miles and audible for 40 miles and more.”  Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson’s report to the president noted that, “I estimate that the energy generated to be in excess of the equivalent of 15,000 to 20,000 tons of TNT…there were tremendous blast effects…there was a lighting effect within a radius of 20 miles equal to several suns in midday; a huge ball of fire was formed which lasted for several seconds.  This ball mushroomed and rose to a height of over 10,000 feet.”   Physicist Ernest O. Lawrence, an eyewitness to the blast, described his experience of a, “gigantic ball of fire rising rapidly from the earth…The grand, indeed almost cataclysmic proportion of the explosion produced a kind of solemnity in everyone’s behavior immediately afterwards.  There was a restrained applause, but more a hushed murmuring bordering on reverence in manner as the event was commented upon…”  The “Gadget,” which exploded with an estimated force of 15-20 kilotons, slightly more than the Hiroshima bomb, was a rehearsal for the August 6-9 atomic bombings of two Japanese cities and it represented the first of 1,030 nuclear tests conducted by the United States and one of over 2,050 such tests conducted by the nine Nuclear Weapons Club members in the last 75 years.   Before the blast, a wager was made by Manhattan Project scientist Enrico Fermi that the explosion would ignite the atmosphere and devastate New Mexico and possibly the whole of the planet’s biosphere.  Thankfully, Fermi lost his wager.  But that vision of deadly apocalypse came true for hundreds of thousands of people in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th who were vaporized, burned to death, blown into objects and buildings at horrific speed, lacerated, mutilated, and irradiated.  They suffered and some continue to suffer today from the unconscionable use of fission weapons on civilian noncombatants.  Comments:  While many U.S. military and scientific observers celebrated the beginning of the Nuclear Age, others realized that this event may have represented the beginning of the end of the human species.  (Sources:  Jeffrey Mason, Scriptwriter.  “Legacy of Hiroshima.” America’s Defense Monitor. Howard University Television and other PBS stations nationwide first broadcast on August 6, 1995; Jack Mendelsohn and David Grahame, editors.  “Arms Control Chronology.”  Washington, DC:  Center for Defense Information, 2002, pp. 5, 24; Gar Alperovitz.  “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb: And the Architecture of An American Myth.”  New York:  Alfred A. Knopf, 1995, pp. 250-251 and “Trinity Test – 1945.” Atomic Heritage Foundation.  June 18, 2014.  http://www.atomicheritage.org/history/Trinity-Test-1945 accessed March 30, 2020.)

    July 26, 1963 – A day after long-time diplomat and septuagenarian W. Averell Harriman, serving as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (drafted quietly by President Kennedy to single-handedly negotiate a treaty with the Soviets without working through hardliner national security channels of the CIA and Pentagon who in JFK’s first year in office proposed to him a highly confidential plan for a preemptive nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union), put his initials as JFK’s representative on the Limited Test Ban Treaty in Moscow on July 25, President Kennedy gave a surprise television address announcing the unprecedented first substantial nuclear arms treaty.  The 35th President announced on this date, “I speak to you tonight in a spirit of hope. Yesterday a shaft of light cut into the darkness.  Negotiations were concluded in Moscow on a treaty to ban all nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water…But the achievement of this goal is not a victory for one side – it is a victory for mankind. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”  And equally important was Nikita Khrushchev’s role in recognizing that he and Kennedy almost stumbled into a nuclear World War III nine months earlier during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.  The Soviet premier quickly circumvented hardliner opposition of his own and signed the treaty on August 5.  Despite vociferous right-wing and conservative criticism, the treaty was unexpectedly ratified on September 24, 1963 by the U.S. Senate in large part due to JFK’s embrace of a large-scale publicity and Congressional lobbying campaign for the treaty by Norman Cousins and the Citizens’ Committee for a Nuclear Test Ban.  Comments: It is a criminal travesty that the U.S. and Russia, Trump, Putin and other nuclear powers today have taken serious steps to unravel this and other critically important nuclear arms control treaties despite widespread global opposition to a renewed Cold War and nuclear arms race.  (Sources:  Lawrence S. Wittner. “Looking Back: Norman Cousins and the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963.” Arms Control Today. December 2012 http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2012-12/looking-back-norman-cousins-limited-test-ban-treaty-1963 and Peter Janney. “Mary’s Mosiac: The CIA Conspiracy to Murder JFK, Mary Pinchot Meyer and Their Vision for World Peace.” New York: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., 2012, pp. 262-274.)

    August 6, 1945 – Colonel Paul Warfield Tibbets piloted the 509th Composite Group’s B-29 Superfortress bomber named Enola Gay, in honor of the pilot’s mother, from Tinian in the Marianas chain of Pacific Ocean islands to Hiroshima, Japan where the enriched uranium-fueled fission bomb code named “Little Boy” was dropped over a city of a quarter million inhabitants at 8:15:17 a.m. local time.  43 seconds after release and 1,850 feet over the city, the bomb exploded (with a yield estimated to be 12-15 kilotons) registering an air temperature, for a fleeting millisecond of 100 million degrees.  In the city below, 5,400 degree temperatures vaporized thousands of human beings, melted granite, clay roof tiles, and gravestone mica for three-quarters of a mile in all directions from the explosion’s epicenter.  A blast wave of 1,100 feet-per-second blew down everyone and everything left standing that was not previously destroyed by the tremendous heat of the explosion.  The firestorm from the blast, as a result of a huge displacement of air, began to flow back to the epicenter at up to 200 miles-per-hour raising radioactive dust and debris into a mushroom cloud.  78,150 died, 13,983 were missing, and 37,425 injured as an immediate result of the blast.  But tens of thousands more would die of horrendous burns and associated direct radiation impacts within days and weeks and from longer-term radiation-caused cancers for decades afterward.  Two days later, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and launched a massive invasion of Manchuria and on August 9th hundreds of thousands more Japanese suffered a second atomic bombing (with a yield estimated to be 21 kilotons), from the plutonium-fueled “Fat Man” warhead, at Nagasaki.  Before the bombings, General and later President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, voiced misgivings about the use of these weapons against Japan, “It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing…”  More than two and a half months before the nuclear attacks, Leo Szilard and two other Manhattan Project scientists reported that Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, “did not argue that it was necessary to use the bomb against the cities of Japan in order to win the war…Mr. Byrnes’ view was that our possessing and demonstrating the bomb will make Russia more manageable in Europe.”   A few years after the bombings, Admiral William D. Leahy, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and previously chief of staff to President Roosevelt (1942-45) and President Truman (1945-49) publicly stated, “It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan.  The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender…in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages…wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”  (Sources:  Craig Nelson.  “The Age of Radiance:  The Epic Rise and Dramatic Fall of the Atomic Era.”  New York:  Scribner, 2014, pp. 211-220 and Gar Alperovitz.   “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb:  And the Architecture of An American Myth.”  New York:  Alfred A. Knopf, 1995, pp. 3-6, 15, 672.)

    August 7, 1938 – Dr. Helen Caldicott, the world’s foremost medical expert on the humanitarian impact of nuclear war and nuclear power, was born on this date in Melbourne, Australia. Also popularly identified as the single most articulate and passionate advocate of action by global citizenry to address the twin threats to humanity of nuclear war and climate change, the subtitle of her first of many books, “Nuclear Madness,” (1978, reissued as a 1980 paperback) says it all about her penultimate concerns – “The Choice Is Yours: A Safe Future Or No Future At All.”  Dr. Caldicott received her medical degree from the University of Adelaide Medical School in 1961, moved to Boston in 1966 where she became an instructor of pediatrics at Harvard medical School and served on the staff of the Children’s Medical Center there until she resigned in 1980 to work full-time on the prevention of nuclear war. Since then her more than four decades commitment to antinuclear and climate change causes has been unwavering.  Even with her busy schedule while working full-time in Boston, she became a citizens’ lobbyist convincing Australia to file lawsuits in 1971-72 against the French government for their nuclear testing in the South Pacific. In 1975, Dr. Caldicott worked with Australian trade unions to educate their members about the medical dangers of the nuclear fuel cycle, with a particular focus on uranium mining. While living in the United States from 1977 to 1986, she reignited the flame of antinuclear sentiment in a nonprofit group of more than 23,000 doctors – Physicians for Social Responsibility, which went on to play a prominent role in the Nuclear Freeze Movement.  In 1982, Dr. Caldicott also founded the Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND) in the U.S.  Travelling extensively abroad, she helped start other allied nonprofits or governmental medical organizations which led her international umbrella group (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) to win a Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. Her long-time global perspective led her to remark in 1982 that, “As a doctor as well as a mother and a world citizen, I wish to practice the ultimate form of preventive medicine by ridding the Earth of these technologies that propagate disease, suffering, and death.” Dr. Caldicott was one of the most prominent medical and scientific minds to recognize on a very timely basis the significance of the December 1983 TTAPS study that warned that the discharge of even a small portion of nuclear arsenals could trigger nuclear winter and not only the destruction of global civilization but possibly the end of our species and countless others on this planet.  Returning to her native Australia in 1987, she ran for the Federal Parliament but ultimately lost the election by the slimmest of margins, a mere 600 votes.  After moving back to the United States in 1995, she lectured at the New School for Social Research, hosted a talk show on WBAI in New York and founded Standing for Truth About Radiation (STAR) on Long Island.  The winner of many prizes and awards for her work including the Lannan Foundation’s 2003 Prize for Cultural Freedom, she also has earned over 20 honorary doctoral degrees and was named by The Smithsonian Institution and Ladies Home Journal as one of the most influential women of the 20th century.  In 2001 she established the U.S.-based Nuclear Policy Research Institute (NPRI) which eventually became Beyond Nuclear.  She has been the subject of several films including “Eight Minutes to Midnight,” which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1981, “If You Love This Planet,” which won an Academy Award in 1982 for Best Documentary, and the 2004 award-winning film “Helen’s War: Portrait of a Dissident.”  From 2010 to 2013, Dr. Caldicott hosted If You Love This Planet, a weekly radio that aired on many community and public radio stations internationally.  Currently, she is President of The Helen CaldicottFoundation/NuclearFreePlanet.org which organizes and runs symposiums and other educational programs to inform the public and media on the dangers of nuclear power and nuclear weapons and promote her foundation’s long-term goal of a nuclear-energy-free and weapons-free, renewable energy-powered world.  During a March 30, 2011 debate on the U.S.-based program Democracy Now, the world’s leading spokesperson for the antinuclear movement succinctly laid out the terrifying threat that every single individual on Earth is subject to because of our species’ illogical and irrational acceptance of nuclear deterrence and nuclear power as necessary and unchangeable paradigms, “If you inhale a millionth of a gram of plutonium (half-life: 24,000 years), the surrounding cells receive a very, very high dose.  Most die within that area, because it’s an alpha emitter.  The cells on the periphery remain viable. They mutate, and the regulatory genes are damaged.  Years later, that person develops cancer.  Now, that’s true for radioactive iodine that goes to the thyroid; cesium-137, that goes to the brain and muscles; strontium-90 goes to the bone, causing bone cancer and leukemia.”  Dr. Calicott’s life-long mission to prevent the unthinkable has successfully resonated with millions of global citizenry who have acted on her words and will continue to fight against these insane doomsday weapons and the stark threat they represent, “The massive quantities of radiation that would be released in a war fought with nuclear weapons might, over time, cause such great changes in the human gene pool that following generations might not be recognizable as human beings.”  (Sources: “Helen Caldicott Biography.” http://www.faqs.org/health/bios/59/Helen-Caldicott.html, “Helen Caldicott, M.D.” http://www.helencaldicott.com/about/

    Helen Caldicott. “How Nuclear Apologists Mislead the World Over Radiation” The Guardian. April 11, 2011, http://www.theguardian.com/environmental/2011/apr/11/nuclear-apologist-radiation which were all accessed April 10, 2020 and other mainstream and alternative media sources.)

    September 3, 2017 – North Korea conducted its sixth and most recent nuclear test, which they claimed was a hydrogen or fusion bomb but many global experts speculated the bomb was a boosted fission bomb, with a magnitude estimated by various international authorities including U.S. intelligence officials to be in the range of 70 to 280 kilotons, approximately four and a half to 18 times as powerful as the bomb dropped by the U.S. on Hiroshima in 1945.  The test, North Korea’s most powerful nuclear blast, took place over a kilometer underground at the Punggye-ri Test Site on this date.  Comments:  The testing of over 2,050 nuclear devices over the last seven decades by the nine nuclear weapons states has inflicted extremely harmful short- and long-term health impacts to global populations especially native peoples and hundreds of thousands of military “participants.”  Increased cancer rates, groundwater contamination, destruction of land and ocean ecosystems, and other detrimental health and environmental impacts still plague large numbers of people today due to nuclear testing.  So despite the few tests it has undertaken, North Korea along with the other eight nuclear weapons states faces legitimate international criticism for its role in adding to the global total of nuclear weapons tests.  But of course, the response to North Korea’s actions must be measured and wielded through the medium of diplomacy.  Such is not the case with the U.S. response to these tests and North Korea’s status as a relatively new nuclear power.  President Donald Trump, whose nuclear saber-rattling has included unprecedented rhetorical threats to use the U.S. nuclear arsenal to destroy entire nations and their populations, went on Twitter to condemn the North Koreans, “Their words and actions continue to be very hostile and dangerous to the United States.”  But consistent with the historical precedent that has seen the U.S. only avoid regime change for Third World challengers to its hegemony in cases where those nations possess nuclear weapons, no military intervention was undertaken (although nuclear threats were made both before and during the Trump administration) against Kim Jong Un’s regime in retaliation for its January 10, 2003 withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its subsequent development of these weapons of mass destruction.  And while President Trump did meet personally with the North Korean ruler three times, at the Singapore Summit in June 2018, in Vietnam in February 2019, and at the DMZ separating North and South Korea in late June 2019, there has not been any significant progress in formally ending the seventy year old Korean conflict and denuclearizing the Korean peninsula.  While some would say that Trump has made more progress with North Korea than recent presidents, his overall disregard and rejection of a plethora of successful bilateral and multilateral nuclear arms control treaties (including the New START or Moscow Treaty which will expire in February of 2021) combined with his numerous destabilizing and irrational public statements that see nuclear weapons, especially lower yield ones, as legitimate and useful parts of U.S. military power make him too dangerous to continue as U.S. commander-in-chief.  It is clear from a wide range of both conservative and progressive governmental and independent global scholars and military experts that the risk of nuclear war has increased significantly since 45 took office.  Hopefully, his actions in mismanaging the U.S. response to the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, his impeachment, the economic downturn, and his general incompetence and political inexperience (as revealed by one of his own top-level administration officials) along with the unprecedented nuclear threat he represents will result in the election of a 46th President on November 3, 2020.  (Sources:  Padraig Collins. “North Korea Nuclear Test: What We Know So Far.” The Guardian. September 3, 2017 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/03/north-korea-nuclear-test-what-we-know-so-far, Josh Lederman and Hans Nichols. “Trump Meets Kim Jung Un, Becomes First Sitting U.S. President to Step Into North Korea.” NBC News. June 30, 2019, Anonymous. “A Warning: A Senior Trump Administration Official.” 2019 book and other mainstream and alternative news media sources.)

    September 15, 1980 – On this date a B-52H bomber (as part of the U.S. Strategic Air Command’s commitment to have nuclear-armed aircraft fueled and ready to go at any hour of the day according to its ‘alert status’ to launch nuclear strikes against the Soviet Union or Soviet bloc nations including China), manned by a crew of six airmen assigned to the 319th Bomb Wing was sitting on the tarmac at Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota.  That evening the aircraft was armed with eight AGM-69A SRAMs (Short Range Attack Missiles) each carrying a W69 warhead with a yield of 170-200 kilotons and four B28 nuclear gravity bombs with a yield of 70 kilotons to 1.45 megatons.  Around 9 p.m. that evening during a routine engine start, the plane’s number five engine burst into flames.  The crew evacuated and firefighters battled the blaze for three hours before getting it under control – 35 mile-per-hour winds extended the time required to put out the fire.  Despite the U.S. Air Force’s initial public position that the fire was very unlikely to trigger a possible nuclear accident, years later in 1988, Dr. Robert Batzel, the director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a key U.S. nuclear weapon research and development facility, indicated during closed door testimony before a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense that this incident had actually come very close to being “worse than Chernobyl.”  A redacted transcript of Batzel’s testimony eventually became public knowledge.  In that testimony, he indicated that a disaster was narrowly avoided telling the Subcommittee that if the wind had been blowing in any other direction, then the intense fire would have been virtually impossible to extinguish resulting in the incineration of the aircraft and the nuclear weapons inside its bomb bays – causing the rocket motors in the SRAMs as well as the conventional triggering explosives jacketing the W69 warheads to explode.  Batzel specifically said that a nuclear explosion would not have resulted but that the blast would have thrown a plume of highly radioactive plutonium into the atmosphere which easily would have impacted a sixty square mile area which including parts of North Dakota and Minnesota and affecting at least 70,000 people living within 20 miles of Grand Forks as well as contaminating water aquifers in the region. While the military and nuclear weapons laboratories have become aware of some of the dangers of Cold War era nuclear weapons and pushed successfully for their removal from the stockpile, consistent with the political decisionmaking of past U.S. presidents, other weapons with perhaps unknown or acceptable defects remain in the U.S. nuclear arsenal or are being added to it in the near future.  Comments:  However more recently Stephen Schwartz, a long-time nuclear weapons analyst and author of the book “Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940” has noted that in fact a thermonuclear explosion could easily have resulted from this 1980 accident.  Schwartz discovered that a design flaw in the B-28 1.45 megaton bomb meant that if exposed to prolonged heat, two wires located too close to the casing of the warhead could short circuit, arm the bomb, trigger an accidental explosion of the high explosives jacketing the core and set off a nuclear blast that would have spread a deadly radioactive cloud 250 miles northeast into Minnesota and Canada.  In January 1983 this scenario almost occurred, a fire that completely destroyed a B52G bomber at Grand Forks Air Force Base and killed five maintenance personnel.  Most fortunately however, this particular aircraft was not carrying nuclear weapons.  Schwartz recently reiterated that “There have been thousands of accidents involving U.S. nuclear weapons.  In most cases, we can thank good engineering or smart personnel decisions for keeping things from becoming catastrophic.”   But his dire warning that our luck might run out someday soon is chilling when we consider that all nine nuclear weapons states are planning or already have started to build more “improved” doomsday machines, “The more nuclear weapons we have and the more we have on alert (a reference to the current “hair-trigger” alert status of U.S. and Russian land-based ICBMs), the greater the risk of accidents.  We were extremely lucky during the Cold War that no nuclear weapons ever accidentally exploded and no crises got completely out of hand.”  But of course, all it takes is one such incident which could trigger nuclear Armageddon and the destruction of our global civilization and possibly the demise of our entire species. (Sources:  Michael Peck.  “How A Burning B-52 Bomber Almost Triggered Nuclear Catastrophe.” National Interest. Sept. 25, 2019 http://www.nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/how-burning-b-52-bomber-almost-triggered-nuclear-catastrophe-83296 and Joseph Treithick. “The Time When A Burning B-52 Nearly Caused A Nuclear Catastrophe Worse Than Chernobyl.” The War Zone.com. September 20, 2019 http://thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29945/the-time-when-a-burning-b-52-nearly-caused-a-nuclear-catastrophe-worse-than-chernobyl/

    September 28, 1980 – Premiere of the first (The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean) of thirteen episodes of the KCET Los Angeles PBS-produced television series “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage,” hosted by astrophysicist and renowned science popularizer Carl Sagan (a cowriter of the series along with Ann Druyan and Steven Soter).  Over the last 40 years since it first aired, it has become the most popular PBS series in the world with viewership in over 60 nations, winning two Emmys and a Peabody Award after its initial run.  In addition to documenting the history of scientific thought relating to the study of the universe, the series looked at the origins of life on Earth and presented a unique and most valuable speculative perspective about our species’ place in the universe.  Critically, the series also addressed the threats facing humanity, specifically the threat of nuclear war, “The global balance of terror pioneered by the United States and the Soviet Union holds hostage all the citizens of the Earth…But the balance of terror is a delicate balance with very little margin for miscalculation. And the world impoverishes itself by spending a trillion dollars a year on preparations for war and by employing perhaps half the scientists and high technologists on the planet in military endeavors…From an extraterrestrial perspective our global civilization is clearly on the edge of failure in the most important task it faces – preserving the lives and well-being of its citizens and the future habitability of the planet. But if we’re willing to live with the growing likelihood of nuclear war, shouldn’t we also be willing to explore vigorously every possible means to prevent nuclear war? …A new consciousness is developing which sees the Earth as a single organism and recognizes that an organism at war with itself is doomed.”  Sagan, who just a few years later went on with his scientific colleagues, the TTAPS Group, to prove that not only does nuclear war represent an unprecedented catastrophe but in fact, it is the means, through their nuclear winter study, to trigger the mass extinction of most species on Earth including ours.  Nuclear winter, no longer a theory but fact as verified by more recent studies by Rutgers University Professor Alan Robock and colleagues, illustrates that a nuclear war is misnamed, for a large nuclear weapons exchange will instead result in nuclear omnicide or at least the end of our global civilization.  While “Cosmos” provided viewers with a stark warning, it also provided an uplifting alternative of possible human futures, “It is well within our power to destroy our civilization and perhaps our species as well.  If we capitulate to superstition, greed, or stupidity, we can plunge our world into a darkness deeper than the time between the collapse of classical civilization and the Italian Renaissance.  But we’re also capable of using our compassion and our intelligence, our technology, and our wealth to make an abundant and meaningful life for every inhabitant of this planet – to enhance enormously our understanding of the universe and to carry us to the stars.” (Sources: Various mainstream and alternative news media sites and The Carl Sagan Portal at carlsagan.com)

  • 2019 Sadako Peace Day

    2019 Sadako Peace Day

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2019 Sadako Peace Day took place on August 6, 2019.

    Click here for images from the event.

    Click here for audio of the event.

  • Hiroshima Unlearned: Time to Tell the Truth About US-Russia Relations and Finally Ban the Bomb

    Hiroshima Unlearned: Time to Tell the Truth About US-Russia Relations and Finally Ban the Bomb

    This article was originally published by InDepth News.

    August 6 and 9 mark 74 years since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where only one nuclear bomb dropped on each city caused the deaths of up to 146,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 people in Nagasaki. Today, with the U.S. decision to walk away from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) negotiated with the Soviet Union, we are once again staring into the abyss of one of the most perilous nuclear challenges since the height of the Cold War.

    With its careful verification and inspections, the INF Treaty eliminated a whole class of missiles that threatened peace and stability in Europe. Now the U.S. is leaving the Treaty on the grounds that Moscow is developing and deploying a missile with a range prohibited by the Treaty. Russia denies the charges and accuses the U.S. of violating the Treaty. The U.S. rejected repeated Russian requests to work out the differences in order to preserve the Treaty.

    The US withdrawal should be seen in the context of the historical provocations visited upon the Soviet Union and now Russia by the United States and the nations under the US nuclear “umbrella” in NATO and the Pacific. The US has been driving the nuclear arms race with Russia from the dawn of the nuclear age:

    — In 1946 Truman rejected Stalin’s offer to turn the bomb over to the newly formed UN under international supervision, after which the Russians made their own bomb;

    — Reagan rejected Gorbachev’s offer to give up Star Wars as a condition for both countries to eliminate all their nuclear weapons when the wall came down and Gorbachev released all of Eastern Europe from Soviet occupation, miraculously, without a shot;

    — The US pushed NATO right up to Russia’s borders, despite promises when the wall fell that NATO would not expand it one inch eastward of a unified Germany;

    — Clinton bombed Kosovo, bypassing Russia’s veto in the UN Security Council and violating the UN Treaty we signed never to commit a war of aggression against another nation unless under imminent threat of attack;

    — Clinton refused Putin’s offer of cutting massive nuclear arsenals to 1000 bombs each and call all the others to the table to negotiate for their elimination, provided we stopped developing missile sites in Romania;

    — Bush walked out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and put the new missile base in Romania with another to open shortly under Trump in Poland, right in Russia’s backyard;

    — Bush and Obama blocked any discussion in 2008 and 2014 on Russian and Chinese proposals for a space weapons ban in the consensus-bound Committee for Disarmament in Geneva;

    — Obama’s rejected Putin’s offer to negotiate a Treaty to ban cyber war;

    — Trump now walked out of the INF Treaty;

    — From Clinton through Trump, the US never ratified the 1992 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) as Russia has, and has performed more than 20 underground sub-critical tests on the Western Shoshone’s sanctified land at the Nevada test site. Since plutonium is blown up with chemicals that don’t cause a chain reaction, the US claims these tests don’t violate the Treaty;

    — Obama, and now Trump, pledged over one trillion dollars for the next 30 years for two new nuclear bomb factories in Oak Ridge and Kansas City, as well as new submarines, missiles, airplanes, and warheads!

    What has Russia had to say about these US affronts to international security and negotiated treaties? Putin at his State of the Nation address in March 2018 said:

    I will speak about the newest systems of Russian strategic weapons that we are creating in response to the unilateral withdrawal of the United States of America from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the practical deployment of their missile defence systems both in the US and beyond their national borders.

    I would like to make a short journey into the recent past. Back in 2000, the US announced its withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM)Treaty. Russia was categorically against this. We saw the Soviet-US ABM Treaty signed in 1972 as the cornerstone of the international security system.

    Under this Treaty, the parties had the right to deploy ballistic missile defence systems only in one of its regions. Russia deployed these systems around Moscow, and the US around its Grand Forks land-based ICBM base.

    Together with the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the ABM Treaty not only created an atmosphere of trust but also prevented either party from recklessly using nuclear weapons, which would have endangered humankind, because the limited number of ballistic missile defence systems made the potential aggressor vulnerable to a response strike.

    We did our best to dissuade the Americans from withdrawing from the Treaty.  

    All in vain. The US pulled out of the Treaty in 2002. Even after that we tried to develop constructive dialogue with the Americans. We proposed working together in this area to ease concerns and maintain the atmosphere of trust.

    At one point, I thought that a compromise was possible, but this was not to be. All our proposals, absolutely all of them, were rejected. And then we said that we would have to improve our modern strike systems to protect our security. 

    Despite promises made in the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that the five nuclear weapons states – US, UK, Russia, France, China – would eliminate their nuclear weapons while all the other nations of the world promised not to get them (except for India, Pakistan, and Israel, which also acquired nuclear weapons), there are still nearly 15,000 nuclear bombs on the planet. All but 1,000 of them are in the US and Russia, while the seven other countries, including North Korea, have about 1000 bombs between them.

    If the US and Russia can’t settle their differences and honor their promise in the NPT to eliminate their nuclear weapons, the whole world will continue to live under what President Kennedy described as a nuclear Sword of Damocles, threatened with unimaginable catastrophic humanitarian suffering and destruction.

    To prevent a nuclear catastrophe, in 2017, 122 nations adopted a new Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). It calls for a ban on nuclear weapons just as the world had banned chemical and biological weapons. The ban Treaty provides a pathway for nuclear weapons states to join and dismantle their arsenals under strict and effective verification.

    The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which received the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts, is working for the Treaty to enter into force by enrolling 50 nations to ratify the Treaty. As of today, 70 nations have signed the Treaty and 24 have ratified it, although none of them are nuclear weapons states or the US alliance states under the nuclear umbrella.

    With this new opportunity to finally ban the bomb and end the nuclear terror, let us tell the truth about what happened between the US and Russia that brought us to this perilous moment and put the responsibility where it belongs to open up a path for true peace and reconciliation so that never again will anyone on our  planet ever be threatened with the terrible consequences of nuclear war.

    Here are some actions you can take to ban the bomb:

    – Support the ICAN Cities Appeal to take a stand in favor of the ban Treaty

    – Ask your member of Congress to sign the ICAN Parliamentary Pledge

    – Ask the US Presidential Candidates to pledge support for the Ban Treaty and cut Pentagon spending

    – Support the Don’t Bank on the Bomb Campaign for nuclear divestment

    – Support the Code Pink Divest From the War Machine Campaign 

    – Distribute Warheads To Windmills, How to Pay for the Green New Deal, a new study addressing the need to prevent the two greatest dangers facing our planet: nuclear annihilation and climate destruction.

    – Sign the World Beyond War pledge and add your name to this critical new campaign to make the end of war on our planet an idea whose time has come!

  • With Nukes Back as a Global Danger, Time to Remember Hiroshima

    With Nukes Back as a Global Danger, Time to Remember Hiroshima

    Saikoji, a small temple of the Jodo Shinshu school of Buddhism to which a majority of Hiroshima’s citizens belong, stands just across the street from the Atomic Bomb Dome. It often displays selected words of wisdom at the entrance—this month, to mark the 74th anniversary of the atomic bombing of August 6, 1945, the plaque simply read “There is no border in life. There is no difference in race. ‘Gassho’ (prayer) for all the victims.”

    So much truth about nuclear weapons, in just three short sentences.

    Cascading bad news such as the unravelling of the Iran nuclear deal, and the collapse of the checks and balances painstakingly put in place over decades to manage the nuclear Damocles Sword over our collective necks, seemed on everyone’s mind this August 6 in Hiroshima—a palpable sense if not of outright despair, then certainly of gloom. As a pelting rain swept across the Peace Memorial Park where 50,000 people had gathered, the usually calm and restrained Governor of Hiroshima, Hidehiko Yuzaki, voicing the sentiments of many, poignantly asked, ‘Why are some countries allowed to possess nuclear weapons that can inflict a trauma that remains incurable for 74 years or more? Why are they allowed to threaten other countries to use their nuclear arsenals?’ Is it really permissible to cause such a catastrophe?’

    The nuclear genie, brought out of the bottle at Alamogordo in New Mexico on July 16, 1945, has been devouring in recent years and one by one most of our collective defenses against it. As Ernest J. Moniz and Sam Nunn write chillingly in this month’s Foreign Affairs, there is a ‘deliberate and accelerating breakdown of the arms control architecture that for decades provided restraint, transparency, and predictability for each side’s conventional and nuclear forces.’ They convincingly argue that decaying agreements and mind sets, with ever more sophisticated weapons, cyber technologies and AI make our era one of the more dangerous in the planet’s history. Other global crisis, especially climate change, can but exacerbate the fragile balance.

    The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) has estimated that even a small-scale limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan for example, one that would involve only 0.03% of the world’s nuclear weapon capacity, could risk the starvation of almost two billion people, notably in the Indian subcontinent and China. For her part the essayist Elaine Scarry, in a lecture at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation earlier this year, raised the mortifying thought of how just a small handful of people—to be really stark, maybe just nine—have their finger on the nuclear button, and therefore on our collective destiny. No parent can sleep peacefully after reading this.

    Time is not on our side. The 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), or the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty, championed by the International Coalition to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and supported by a few enlightened states and the United Nations, is steadily building momentum, but is still only half way to entry into force—24 of the required 50 states have ratified. Unlike most other global issues, nuclear weapons remain the quasi monopoly of states (for now). This is true not just in countries with little democratic checks and balances like China, Russia or North Korea, but even in democracies like the US, UK, France, India, Pakistan and Israel. If so, then surely the case must be taken more urgently to the seemingly distracted but potentially powerful global citizenry?

    The UN, ICAN and others groups like the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) are trying. The ICRC has produced one of the shortest and most effective videos to date on the impact of a nuclear war —in just 1:51 minutes the film does more for the anti-nuclear cause than many pious declarations. More, much more is needed however. We must cease to be distracted by trivia, and refocus laser-like on humanity’s most urgent threat, mobilizing the talents of the best and the brightest—the most creative film makers and artists, scholars, inventors and business leaders around the world, from whichever ‘side’ they may be—to make the case for a nuclear-free world. We must find ways to do so as meaningfully in Beijing as in Moscow, in Washington, New Delhi or Islamabad.

    ICAN has done well too, by mobilizing the young, and by going for the jugular—i.e. tracing the money. In 2012 it had estimated that worldwide nuclear weapons cost a hefty US $300 million a day (considering how opaque most nuclear-weapon budgets are, this is most likely below the real cost). Meanwhile ICAN’s Don’t Bank on the Bomb campaign is picking momentum, pressuring corporations, banks, pension funds and the like to drop out of the bomb business. In democratic countries it is also easier to identify and expose companies benefitting from the macabre nuclear trade.The lion’s share of nuclear weapon development contracts in the United States for example is held by just a handful of corporations. Aggressive divestment campaigns, and strategies to expose and shame non-ethical companies, could put them on the defensive.

    The sheer number and power of nuclear weapons today can make the bombs that plunged Hiroshima and Nagasaki into nuclear hell 74 years ago seem almost benign. But as the Governor said even here we glimpse merely the outward expressions of grief—we will never know the reality of nuclear horror and the suffering behind the dignified exteriors of survivors. Many hibakusha dedicated their lives to remembering the calamity of that day and its aftermath, so that we may not forget. Now they watch the crumbling of all they worked for, their dreams for a non-nuclear world.

    My friend the Hiroshima architect Akio Nishikiori often describes his childhood memories of the pre-WWII Hiroshima, something of a small Venice with its many rivers and taxi-gondolas. On summer nights his family would eat at cafés along the river and stroll the bustling streets of Nakajima district, then the central shopping and entertainment center. All that vanished with the bomb when Akio was eight. His sister Hisako, who was 14, was killed and Hiroshima almost disappeared into the dark side. The erudite and humanist Akio has dedicated his life to rebuilding his city, and now almost 82, continues to fight for peace every day. But Akio and other citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki alone cannot save us from nuclear annihilation. We must step up, all of us, now—this is by far our most urgent mission.

  • 2018 Sadako Peace Day: Reflection and Renewal

    2018 Sadako Peace Day: Reflection and Renewal

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    Our 24th annual Sadako Peace Day took place on August 6, 2018. It was the first public event at La Casa de Maria since the catastrophic mudslides that devastated the retreat center and many other places in Montecito in January 2018. Twenty-three lives were lost in the disaster. This year, we reflected on our local situation in addition to remembering the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and all innocent victims of war.

    Sadako Sasaki was a two-year-old girl living in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the morning the atomic bomb was dropped. Ten years later, she was diagnosed with radiation-induced leukemia. Japanese legend holds that one’s wish will be granted upon folding 1,000 paper cranes. Sadako folded those 1,000 cranes, saying, “I will write peace on your wings, and you will fly all over the world.” Sadly, Sadako never recovered from her illness. Students in Japan were so moved by her story, they began folding paper cranes, too. Today the paper crane is a symbol of peace and a statue of Sadako stands in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.

    Click here to download the full audio of the event.

    All photos on this page are by Rick Carter.

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    Event Photos

    A selection of photos from our 2018 Sadako Peace Day event are on our Flickr page. All photos by Rick Carter.

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    Kissing Joy as it Flies

    Bob Nyosui Sedivy on the shakuhacki, the ancient Japanese bamboo flute. Audio file.

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    Welcome

    Rick Wayman is NAPF’s Deputy Director. Audio file. Transcript.

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    Original Poems by David Krieger

    NAPF President David Krieger read two original poems: “In Our Hubris” and “Another Hiroshima Day Has Arrived.” Audio file.

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    Sadako’s Cranes Return

    Original poem by Perie Longo, Chair of the NAPF Poetry Committee and Santa Barbara’s Poet Laureate from 2007-09. Audio file. Transcript.

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    Peace Beneath Our Wings

    Original dance interpretation of the peace crane by NAPF intern Maranda Jory-Geiger, with Bob Sedivy on the shakuhachi. Video coming soon.

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    Peace in the Ethers

    Original poem by Enid Osborn, Santa Barbara’s current Poet Laureate. Audio file. Transcript.

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    Walking on Water, Pyramid Lake

    Original poem by Paul Willis, Professor of English at Westmont College and a former Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara. Audio file. Transcript.

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    God was Sleeping and Tractor for a Cab

    Original songs by Hal Maynard and NAPF Director of Communications Sandy Jones. Audio file.

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    Nana korobi ya oki

    Sarah Witmer, NAPF Director of Development, spoke about this Japanese proverb, which translates “fall down seven times, get up eight.” Audio file. Transcript.

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    La Casa de Maria

    Stephanie Glatt, Director Emerita of La Casa de Maria, spoke about the meaning of holding Sadako Peace Day in the garden this year. Audio file.

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    Impermanence

    Bob Nyosui Sedivy on the shakuhachi. Audio file.

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  • Sadako Peace Day 2018: Welcome

    Sadako Peace Day 2018: Welcome

    Good evening. My name is Rick Wayman. I’m the Deputy Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and it is my pleasure to welcome you to the 24th annual Sadako Peace Day commemoration.

    It is good to be back here today. Thank you so much to the staff of La Casa de Maria for your outstanding efforts to make this year’s event possible. Thank you to the staff, volunteers, and donors who are giving everything they can to rebuild this special place.

    As humans, we face two clear existential threats: nuclear weapons and climate change. For the first 23 Sadako Peace Days, we remembered the victims of nuclear weapons: the hundreds of thousands who were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the countless people around the world who have been impacted by nuclear weapons development and testing. We also remember all innocent victims of war.

    This year, we find ourselves standing in Sadako Peace Garden at an unexpected ground zero of climate change. So today, we also remember those who lost their lives in the debris flow back in January.

    In our community, we have been living through radical uncertainty from forces of nature amplified by manmade climate change. NAPF President David Krieger wrote about this in The Hill.

    He wrote, “Death and destruction did not discriminate. Nature only did what nature does. It was mostly beyond our control.”

    He continued, “But we also live daily with the radical uncertainty of nuclear survival, which is not a force of nature, but rather a man-made threat. It is a threat entirely of our own making, and it can be remedied by facing it and doing something about it.”

    It is inspiring to see the determination and resilience here at La Casa de Maria and throughout Montecito to recover from an inconceivable tragedy.

    A friend and role model, Setsuko Thurlow, was 13 years old when the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on her city of Hiroshima. As an adult, she has dedicated her life to working for the abolition of nuclear weapons so that no one would ever again have to experience what she did. In December 2017, Setsuko was on the stage in Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. She, like so many hibakusha, refuse to accept the idea that nuclear weapons and humanity can co-exist. She is determined, she is resilient, and it is inevitable that her goal – our goal – of a nuclear weapons-free world will be achieved.

    With both climate change and nuclear weapons, we have individual and collective responsibilities to change our behavior. At NAPF, we offer many ways for you to stand up, speak out, and join in the movement to abolish nuclear weapons. Please visit our information table after this evening’s program to find out what you can do, including adding your voice in support of a forthcoming Santa Barbara City Council resolution to make Santa Barbara a nuclear-free zone.

    Thank you for being here this evening. And thank you for demonstrating the determination and resilience of our community.

  • 2018 Hiroshima Peace Declaration

    2018 Hiroshima Peace Declaration

    Kazumi Matsui, Mayor of Hiroshima, delivered this speech on August 6, 2018, the 73rd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

    It’s 73 years ago and a Monday morning, just like today. With the mid-summer sun already blazing, Hiroshima starts another day. Please listen to what I say next as if you and your loved ones were there. At 8:15 comes a blinding flash. A fireball more than a million degrees Celsius releases intense radiation, heat, and then, a tremendous blast. Below the roiling mushroom cloud, innocent lives are snuffed out as the city is obliterated. “I’m so hot! It’s killing me!” From under collapsed houses, children scream for their mothers.

    “Water! Please, water!” come moans and groans from the brink of death. In the foul stench of burning people, victims wander around like ghosts, their flesh peeled and red. Black rain fell all around. The scenes of hell burnt into their memories and the radiation eating away at their minds and bodies are even now sources of pain for hibakusha who survive.

    Today, with more than 14,000 nuclear warheads remaining, the likelihood is growing that what we saw in Hiroshima after the explosion that day will return, by intent or accident, plunging people into agony.

    The hibakusha, based on their intimate knowledge of the terror of nuclear weapons, are ringing an alarm against the temptation to possess them. Year by year, as hibakusha decrease in number, listening to them grows ever more crucial. One hibakusha who was 20 says, “If nuclear weapons are used, every living thing will be annihilated. Our beautiful Earth will be left in ruins. World leaders should gather in the A-bombed cities, encounter our tragedy, and, at a minimum, set a course toward freedom from nuclear weapons. I want human beings to become good stewards of creation capable of abolishing nuclear weapons.” He asks world leaders to focus their reason and insight on abolishing nuclear weapons so we can treasure life and avoid destroying the Earth.

    Last year, the Nobel Peace Prize went to ICAN, an organization that contributed to the formation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Thus, the spirit of the hibakusha is spreading through the world. On the other hand, certain countries are blatantly proclaiming self-centered nationalism and modernizing their nuclear arsenals, rekindling tensions that had eased with the end of the Cold War.

    Another hibakusha who was 20 makes this appeal: “I hope no such tragedy ever happens again. We must never allow ours to fade into the forgotten past. I hope from the bottom of my heart that humanity will apply our wisdom to making our entire Earth peaceful.” If the human family forgets history or stops confronting it, we could again commit a terrible error. That is precisely why we must continue talking about Hiroshima. Efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons must continue based on intelligent actions by leaders around the world.

    Nuclear deterrence and nuclear umbrellas flaunt the destructive power of nuclear weapons and seek to maintain international order by generating fear in rival countries. This approach to guaranteeing long-term security is inherently unstable and extremely dangerous. World leaders must have this reality etched in their hearts as they negotiate in good faith the elimination of nuclear arsenals, which is a legal obligation under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Furthermore, they must strive to make the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons a milestone along the path to a nuclear-weapon-free world.

    We in civil society fervently hope that the easing of tensions on the Korean Peninsula will proceed through peaceable dialogue. For leaders to take courageous actions, civil society must respect diversity, build mutual trust, and make the abolition of nuclear weapons a value shared by all humankind. Mayors for Peace, now with more than 7,600 member cities around the world, will focus on creating that environment.

    I ask the Japanese government to manifest the magnificent pacifism of the Japanese Constitution in the movement toward the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons by playing its proper role, leading the international community toward dialogue and cooperation for a world without nuclear weapons. In addition, I hereby demand an expansion of the black rain areas along with greater concern and improved assistance for the many people suffering the mental and physical effects of radiation, especially the hibakusha, whose average age is now over 82.

    Today, we renew our commitment and offer sincere consolation to the souls of all A-bomb victims. Along with Nagasaki, the other A-bombed city, and with much of the world’s population, Hiroshima pledges to do everything in our power to achieve lasting world peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons.

  • Another Hiroshima Day Has Arrived

    Another Hiroshima Day Has Arrived

    And there are still nuclear weapons in the world.

    They are still on hair-trigger alert, weapons
    with no concern for you or me or anyone.

    They are weapons with steel hearts.
    There is no bargaining with them.

    They have nothing to say or perhaps
    they speak in another language.
    They do not speak our language.

    They have only one battle plan
    and that is utter destruction.

    They have no respect for the laws of war
    or any laws, even those of nature.

    Another Hiroshima Day has arrived
    and the shadow of the bomb still darkens
    the forests of our dreams.