Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: nuclear weapons

  • Freeze the Nukes, Fund the Future

    Click here to urge your Representative to sign on to this letter to the Super Committee.


    Dear Members of the Super Committee:


    The Berlin Wall fell.  The Soviet Union crumbled.  The Cold War ended.  Yet 20 years later, we continue to spend over $50 billion a year on the U.S. nuclear arsenal.  This makes no sense.  These funds are a drain on our budget and a disservice to the next generation of Americans.  We are robbing the future to pay for the unneeded weapons of the past.  Now is the time to stop fighting last century’s war.  Now is the time to reset our priorities.  Now is the time to invest in the people and the programs to get America back on track.


    The Super Committee is best positioned to cut this outdated radioactive relic.  The Soviets are long gone, yet the stockpiles remain.  The bombs collect dust, yet the bills are with us to this day.  We call on the Super Committee to cut $20 billion a year, or $200 billion over the next ten years, from the U.S. nuclear weapons budget.  This cut will enable us to stay safe without further straining our budget.  This cut will improve our security.  This cut will allow us to continue funding the national defense programs that matter most.


    Consider how this savings compares to vital programs on which Americans rely.  We spend approximately $20 billion per year on Pell Grants to help students pay for college.  We spend $5 billion to ensure that Americans do not freeze in their homes during the winter.  We need to freeze our nuclear weapons, and fuel our stalled economy.


    The Ploughshares Fund estimates that the U.S. will spend over $700 billion on nuclear weapons and related programs over the next ten years.  Nuclear weapons and missile defense alone will consume over $500 billion.  We can no longer justify spending at these levels.  We can save hundreds of billions of dollars by restructuring the U.S. nuclear program for the 21st century.    


    Our current arsenal totals approximately 5,000 nuclear warheads.  This enormous stockpile will allow us to annihilate our enemies countless times.  At any one time there are up to 12 Trident submarines cruising the world’s seas.  Each submarine carries an estimated 96 nuclear warheads.  Each submarine is capable of destroying all of Russia’s and China’s major cities.  Why then do we need all of these weapons?  There is no good reason.  America no longer needs, and cannot afford, this massive firepower.


    The Super Committee should not reduce funding to vital programs relied upon by millions of Americans.  Cut Minuteman missiles.  Do not cut Medicare and Medicaid.  Cut nuclear-armed B-52 and B-2 bombers.  Do not cut Social Security.  Invest in the future, don’t waste money on the past.


    We do not need to maintain our current level of nuclear weapons to secure our country.  The President agrees.  The Senate agrees.  The New START treaty will reduce our level of deployed strategic warheads to 1,550.  This is a 25 percent cut from today’s levels.  Fewer nuclear weapons should equal less funding.


    We should not cut entitlement programs first.  We should not target our seniors, our children, and our sick first.  Instead we should target outdated and unnecessary nuclear weapons.  Let’s freeze the nukes so we can fund the future.


    Sincerely,

  • North Korean Delusions

    Martin HellmanReading the mainstream media, you’d be forgiven if you thought the only problems with North Korea’s nuclear weapons program were a direct result of that rogue nation’s “nut job” leaders. The most recent example is the coverage of a talk on nuclear proliferation given my friend and colleague, Dr. Siegfried Hecker. While he’s now a professor here at Stanford, in his former life, he was Director of Los Alamos from 1986 to 1997, so “when Sig talks, people listen.” The AP dispatch starts off as follows:



    A U.S. scientist who visited a secret North Korean nuclear site last year says Pyongyang may seek to launch a third atomic test to enable it to develop a small fissile warhead that can be carried by a missile.


    Nowhere in the article does it say what I’ve heard Hecker say many times before, and what is the essence of his advice on what to do about North Korea’s nuclear program: If we continue to make unilateral nuclear disarmament (by the North) a precondition to talks, they won’t talk. (Would we, if the tables were reversed?) If we don’t talk, they’ll build more bombs, better bombs, and export their nuclear technology.


    On the other hand, if we will temporarily put denuclearization aside and address some of their legitimate security concerns – we’ve threatened to attack them repeatedly, and Obama’s 2010 Nuclear Posture Review leaves open the possibility of our using nuclear weapons against them – Hecker is convinced by his seven visits there that we can get what he calls “three NO’s for one YES:” no more bombs, no better bombs, and no export in return for our treating them with some respect and reducing the level of threat that they feel from us and South Korea.


    When he gave a guest lecture in my seminar on “Nuclear Weapons, Risk and Hope,” Hecker told the class that many people in Washington agree with him, but tell him that his suggestions are impossible because of domestic politics. If the president were to treat North Korea with some respect and address their security concerns, he’d be accused of rewarding bad behavior. While there’s some truth in that perspective, isn’t that what nuclear deterrence is all about?


    Returning to the impossibility of rationally approaching North Korea’s nuclear program, what Hecker hears in D.C. makes clear that the solution lies not with our supposed leaders, who must follow the crowd, but with individual citizens like you and me. Until enough of us start demanding rational nuclear policies, we’ll live in a world where it is just a matter of time before the unthinkable happens. If we can find the courage to say that the nuclear emperor needs some new clothes, we could move to a world that not only is safe from nuclear annihilation, but also much safer in general. Please help by sharing this message with your friends and reading at least the home page of my related web site.

  • Time to Disband NATO: A Rogue Alliance

    Alice SlaterWhen the Cold War ended, many believed there would be a peace dividend, nuclear disarmament, and dismantling of the war machine with industrial conversion to peaceful technology. Instead, we’ve witnessed the aggressive expansion of NATO, to include the former Soviet Republics, right up to the Russian border, which should be a wake-up call to many living in the American Empire. Many people still labor under the apparently false impression that the US is exemplary in holding up the rule of law, the sanctity of the United Nations, and human rights. After all, Americans were the good guys who defeated Hitler and made the world safe for democracy. The NATO expansion took place despite promises made to Gorbachev after the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union with the fall of the Berlin Wall that if he dropped his objections to the admission of a unified Germany as a full-fledged, fully armed member of NATO, the western states would freeze NATO membership and not expand any further east. Russia lost 20 million people in World War II to the Nazi onslaught, and Russian wariness of a strengthened reunited Germany participating with their former NATO foe was certainly understandable.

    I visited the Soviet Union in 1989 on a delegation of the NY Professional Roundtable during the heady days of Gorbachev’s newly announced doctrine of glasnost and perstroika—openness and reconstruction. It seemed as though every man over sixty was sporting a chest covered with medals, commemorating their service in the Great War. On every other street corner in Moscow and Leningrad, there were memorials to the war dead. The Piskaryovskoye Cemetery at Leningrad, with acres of mass graves, anonymous mounds of over 500,000 buried there who perished in the 872 day siege of Leningrad, was a painful, searing vision which haunts me still. The siege resulted in the tragic deaths of up to 1,500,000 soldiers and civilians and the evacuation of 1,400,000 more, many of whom died due to starvation and bombardment. The guide for our delegation at one point asked me, “Why don’t you Americans trust us?” “Why don’t we trust you?” I exclaimed indignantly. “What about Hungary? What about Czechoslovakia? Why should we trust you?” He looked at me with a pained expression, “But we had to protect our borders from Germany!” I looked into his watery blue eyes and heard the fervent sincerity in his voice. At that moment, I felt betrayed by my government and the years of constant reminders about the communist threat. The land was flat as a table between Russia and Germany. There was no buffer against the German onslaught, except the mountains of Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The Russians were in a defensive posture as they built their military might. They were using Eastern Europe as a buffer against any repetition of the ravages of war they had experienced at the hands of Germany.

    And the huge multi-trillion dollar buildup of nuclear armaments and NATO forces—what were we defending? We had our forces amassed, including nuclear weapons parked in eight NATO countries on their continent. And when we were the only country on the planet in possession of the bomb—after Hiroshima and Nagasaki– we refused to turn it over to international control under UN auspices, which had been urged by Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the bomb. Instead President Truman insisted on an unfair advantage for the US in his Baruch plan—letting the American people think he was being reasonable, pretending to present fair terms for controlling the bomb which in reality impelled Stalin to get his own bomb—putting us into a tragic and costly arms race—imperiling our own national security and the entire fate of the earth.

    Nothing has changed. The Empire has no clothes. It has been revealed. Having unilaterally withdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia, the US is leading NATO to build a ring of missiles round Russia in Europe. It is globalizing its military forces and operations. An armada of missile-laden NATO war ships is deployed in oceans around the world with nearly 1,000 US military bases on every continent on the planet. Working in this expanded military capacity, NATO members and their allies are encircling China in the Pacific, just as we are surrounding Russia, while rejecting Russia and China’s repeated proposals to negotiate a ban on weapons in space. NATO is a lawless rogue alliance, determined to control the world’s oil and other scarce resources, by brute force.

    The US first led NATO into illegal action when it bombed Kosovo in the interests of “protecting” people, without the UN’s legally required authorization for any acts of warfare that are not taken in self-defense against an armed attack as required by the UN Charter. The US and its NATO allies refused to go to the UN for permission to enter into hostilities, as required under the UN Charter, because Russia was threatening to veto any such action in the Security Council to protect its ally, Serbia. Despite the lip service NATO gave to some sort of trumped up “responsibility to protect” Kosovo’s Albanians, (by bombing the Serbians to smithereens) Clinton was on the record saying: “If we’re going to have a strong economic relationship that includes our ability to sell around the world, Europe has got to be a key …. That’s what this Kosovo thing is all about.”1

    It’s beyond belief that NATO’s assault on Libya is only about “protecting civilians” while at the same time hundreds of civilians are being killed by NATO bombs and drones. Here too NATO’s old boy colonial network is seeking to secure Libya’s oil. NATO is now engaged in three wars in Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The US is also bombing blindly away in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia as well, with “pilots” sitting at their computers and playing with their joysticks, lawlessly targeting “terrorists” with their unmanned drones, raining death and destruction down on the unseen people below, assassinating those whom they suspect may be wishing to do harm, without evidence, trial, finding of guilt, along with a host of innocent men, women and children.

    It’s time to disband NATO. There will be a NATO summit meeting in Chicago, in May 2012. Grassroots activists are organizing around the world to gather at a counter summit in Chicago to restore the rule of law as a means of resolving international disputes and to voice a new vision of global security and peace. To sign on to this new Call for Action and make common cause with the movement to disband NATO, contact: Judith LeBlanc jleblanc@peaceaction.org or Joseph Gerson jgerson@afsc.org.

  • Kansas City Here It Comes: A New Nuclear Weapons Plant!

    This article was originally published on the History News Network.


    Lawrence WittnerShould the U.S. government be building more nuclear weapons?  Residents of Kansas City, Missouri don’t appear to think so, for they are engaged in a bitter fight against the construction of a new nuclear weapons plant in their community.


    The massive plant, 1.5 million square feet in size, is designed to replace an earlier version, also located in the city and run by the same contractor:  Honeywell.  The cost of building the new plant—which, like its predecessor, will provide 85 percent of the components of America’s nuclear weapons—is estimated to run $673 million.


    From the standpoint of the developer, Centerpoint Zimmer (CPZ), that’s a very sweet deal.  In payment for the plant site, a soybean field it owned, CPZ received $5 million.  The federal government will lease the property and plant from a city entity for twenty years, after which, for $10, CPZ will purchase it, thus establishing the world’s first privately-owned nuclear weapons plant.  In addition, as the journal Mother Jones has revealed, “the Kansas City Council, enticed by direct payments and a promise of ‘quality jobs,’ . . . agreed to exempt CPZ from property taxes on the plant and surrounding land for twenty-five years.”  The Council also agreed to issue $815 million in bond subsidies from urban blight funds to build the plant and its infrastructure.  In this lucrative context, how could a profit-driven corporation resist?


    Kansas City residents, however, had greater misgivings.  They wondered why the U.S. government, already possessing 8,500 nuclear weapons, needed more of them.  They wondered what had happened to the U.S. government’s commitment to engage in treaties for nuclear disarmament.  They wondered how the new weapons plant fit in with the Obama administration’s pledge to build a world free of nuclear weapons.  And they wondered why they should be subsidizing the U.S. military-industrial complex with their tax dollars.


    Taking the lead, the city’s peace and disarmament community began protests and demonstrations against the proposed nuclear weapons plant several years ago.  Gradually, Kansas City PeaceWorks (a branch of Peace Action) pulled together the local chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, religious groups, and others into a coalition of a dozen organizations, Kansas City Peace Planters.  The coalition’s major project was a petition campaign to place a proposition on the November 8, 2011 election ballot that would reject building a plant for weapons and utilize the facility instead for “green energy” technologies.


    The significance of the Kansas City nuclear weapons buildup was also highlighted by outside forces.  In June 2011, against the backdrop of the Obama administration’s plan to spend $185 billion for modernization of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex over the next ten years, the U.S. Council of Mayors voted unanimously for a resolution instructing the president to join leaders of the other nuclear weapons states in implementing U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s five-point plan for the elimination of all nuclear weapons by the year 2020.  It also called on Congress to terminate funding for modernization of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex and nuclear weapons systems.  Addressing the gathering, the U.N. leader declared that “the road to peace and progress runs through the world’s cities and towns,” a statement that drew a standing ovation.


    Even more pointedly, Archbishop Francis Chullikatt, the Vatican’s ambassador to the United Nations, appeared in Kansas City in July 2011.  According to the National Catholic Reporter, Chullikat “came to this Midwestern diocese because it is the site of a major new nuclear weapons manufacturing facility, the first to be built in the country in thirty-three years.”  In his address, the prelate remarked:  “Viewed from a legal, political, security and most of all—moral—perspective, there is no justification today for the continued maintenance of nuclear weapons.”  This was the moment, he declared, to address “the legal, political and technical requisites for a nuclear-weapons-free world.”  Highlighting Chullikatt’s speech, the National Catholic Reporter declared, cuttingly:  “The U.S. trudges unheedingly down the nuclear path.  Now more than ever we need to attend to the messages of the often marginalized peacemakers in our midst.”


    Actually, peace activists in Kansas City looked less and less marginalized.  Nearly 5,000 Kansas City residents signed the petition to place the proposition rejecting the nuclear weapons plant on the ballot, giving it considerably more signatures than necessary to appear before the voters.


    Naturally, this popular uprising came as a blow to the Kansas City Council, which put forward a measure that would block the disarmament initiative from appearing on the ballot.


    At an August 17 hearing on the Council measure, local residents were irate.  “You cannot divorce yourselves from the hideously immoral purpose of these weapons,” one declared, comparing the city’s subsidy for the weapons plant to financing Nazi gas chambers “for the sake of ‘jobs.’”  Referring to the Council’s charter, which provided for the appearance of propositions on the ballot when they secured the requisite number of signatures, the chair of PeaceWorks asked:  “Are we a government of laws or of . . . corporations and special interests?”


    Since then, the situation has evolved rapidly.  On August 25, the City Council voted 12 to 1 to bar the proposition from the ballot.  The next day, the petitioners went to court to block Council interference.  Honeywell, CPZ, and their friends dispatched a large legal team to Kansas City to fight against the citizens’ initiative, securing a court decision that might delay redress for years.  In response, Peace Planters seems likely to speed up the process by crafting a new petition—one that would cut off city funding for the plant.


    Whatever the outcome, the very fact that such a struggle has emerged indicates that many Americans are appalled by plans to throw their local and national resources into building more nuclear weapons.

  • Bringing Purpose to Bear on Nuclear Arms

    David KriegerRecently, a friend sent me a copy of Admiral Hyman Rickover’s 1982 Morgenthau Memorial Lecture.  The lecture, given under the auspices of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, was entitled, “Thoughts on Man’s Purpose in Life.”  In the lecture, Rickover, who died in 1986 but remains widely respected for his role in building the US nuclear navy, spoke of “some basic principles of existence, propounded by thinkers through the ages….”  Among these, he focused on responsibility, perseverance, excellence, creativity and courage, and he called for these to be “wedded to intellectual growth and development.” 


    I agree with the admiral on his choice of principles to give purpose to one’s life.  If one can live by these principles, his or her life is likely to be purposeful.  Yet, I think that Admiral Rickover missed an important point, which is: what one does with one’s life matters.  Rickover chose to focus his professional activities on the development of a nuclear navy.  In the questions following his speech, he was asked: “How can we equate nuclear weapons and warfare with moral and ethical values?” 


    He had a ready answer:


    “I do not know why you point at nuclear weapons alone when moral and ethical issues are involved.  Weapons of themselves are neither moral nor amoral; it is their use that raises the moral and ethical issue.  In all wars man has used the best weapons available to him.  Gunpowder made wars more deadly.  Nuclear weapons are merely an extension of gunpowder.  Therefore, it is not the weapon, but man himself.  One can be just as dead from an axe as from a bomb.  The issue is whether man is willing to wage war to carry out the moral, ethical, or other values he lives by.  If history has any meaning for us, it shows that men will continue to use the best weapons they have to win.  Throughout history, even when men have established leagues to prevent war, they have nevertheless resorted to it.  Utopia is still beyond the horizon.  Above all, we should bear in mind that our liberty is not an end in itself; it is a means to win respect and dignity for all classes of our society.”


    In this statement, I think Rickover is wrong.  Weapons are not morally neutral, particularly those that kill indiscriminately and cause unnecessary harm.  Nuclear weapons, which are capable of massive infanticide, genocide and the ultimate transgression, omnicide, the death of all, go far beyond an extension of gunpowder.  They are a threat to the continuation of civilization and advanced life on the planet, including human life.  This is why we cannot be satisfied with projecting the past (history) into the future.  We must radically change our approach to security and create a future in which human survival is assured. 


    When asked if he had any regrets “for helping create a nuclear navy,” Rickover replied: “I do not have regrets.  I believe I helped preserve the peace for this country.  Why should I regret that?  What I accomplished was approved by Congress—which represents our people.  All of you live in safety from domestic enemies because of the police.  Likewise, you live in safety from foreign enemies because our military keeps them from attacking us.  Nuclear technology was already under development in other countries.  My assigned responsibility was to develop our nuclear navy.  I managed to accomplish this.”


    However, in testimony the same year before Congress, Rickover said:


    “I do not believe that nuclear power is worth it if it creates radiation. Then you might ask me why do I have nuclear powered ships. That is a necessary evil. I would sink them all. I am not proud of the part I played in it. I did it because it was necessary for the safety of this country. That’s why I am such a great exponent of stopping this whole nonsense of war. Unfortunately limits — attempts to limit war have always failed. The lesson of history is when a war starts every nation will ultimately use whatever weapon it has available.”


    Admiral Rickover further remarked: “Every time you produce radiation, you produce something that has a certain half-life, in some cases for billions of years. I think the human race is going to wreck itself, and it is important that we get control of this horrible force and try to eliminate it.” (Economics of Defense Policy: Hearing before the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, 97th Cong., 2nd sess., Pt. 1 (1982))


    Jimmy Carter said in a 1984 interview with Diane Sawyer that Admiral Rickover had told him:


    “I wish that nuclear power had never been discovered….  I would forego all the accomplishments of my life, and I would be willing to forego all the advantages of nuclear power to propel ships, for medical research and for every other purpose of generating electric power, if we could have avoided the evolution of atomic explosives.”


    Of course, we did not avoid “the evolution of atomic explosives,” but this does not mean that we are condemned to live with these weapons forever.  That is up to us.  I believe that a purposeful life, in Admiral Rickover’s terms (but not in his actions), would bring responsibility, perseverance (more than one would think necessary), excellence, creativity and courage to bear upon the most serious threat confronting humanity, that of nuclear annihilation.  Humans in the past have risen to the challenge of abolishing slavery.  Now a common purpose of humanity must be to abolish nuclear weapons before they abolish us.  This will require replacing ignorance and apathy with focused concern and active engagement.

  • 2011 Sadako Peace Day

    This is a transcript of David Krieger’s speech at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2011 Sadako Peace Day commemoration.


    David KriegerWelcome to the 17th annual Sadako Peace Day commemorating the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 


    We are very pleased to have with us today our principal speaker, Dr. Jimmy Hara, a Los Angeles medical doctor who has been a leader in the struggle for a nuclear weapons-free world.  We are also honored to have with us Shigeko Sasamori, a survivor of Hiroshima, who will accept the Foundation’s World Citizen Award on October 9th on behalf of the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.  We will also have with us for that occasion Tadatoshi Akiba, the distinguished former mayor of Hiroshima.


    Today is the 66th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.  Three days ago, on August 6th, was the 66th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.  We have now lived under the threat of nuclear annihilation for two-thirds of a century.
     
    We come together to share in remembrance, reflection and resistance. 


    Remembrance of the tragedies that befell the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the massive death and destruction caused by these powerful new weapons. 


    Reflection on the power of our technologies for good or evil and on the only force capable of controlling our powerful weaponry and turning it to constructive ends – the human spirit.


    Resistance to the continued reliance upon these weapons of mass annihilation by a small number of states and to the unconscionable allocation of public resources to war and its preparation.


    We remember so as not to repeat the tragedy.  We reflect to place the tragedy within the context of our lives and our time.  We resist to fulfill our human responsibility to ourselves, to each other and to those who will follow us on this planet.


    We are a community committed to ending the threat of nuclear annihilation, and we are linked to other communities sharing this commitment across the globe. 


    We are linked to Sadako of the thousand cranes and to other innocent victims of war and nuclear annihilation.  Sadako wrote on the wings of a paper crane she folded, “I will write peace on your wings, and you will fly all over the world.”  Her cranes have indeed reached across oceans – to us here in Santa Barbara and to many other parts of the world.


    I’d like to read you an excerpt of the Nagasaki Peace Declaration, which was shared earlier today in that city:



    “Do we still believe that the world is safer thanks to nuclear deterrence? Do we still take it for granted that no nuclear weapons will ever be used again? Now seeing how the radiation released by an accident at just a single nuclear power station is causing such considerable confusion in society, we can clearly understand how inhumane it is to attack people with nuclear weapons.


    “We call upon all people in the world to simply imagine how terrifying it would be if a nuclear weapon hundreds of times more powerful than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs were to be exploded in the sky above our cities.


    “While intense heat rays would melt human beings and anything else nearby, horrific blast winds would fling buildings through the air and crush them instantly. A countless number of charred bodies would be scattered among the ruins. Some people would hover between life and death, while others would suffer from their injuries. Even if there were survivors, the intense radioactivity would prevent any rescue efforts. Radioactive substances would be carried far away by the wind to all corners of the world, resulting in widespread contamination of the earth’s environment, and in affecting people with a plague of health effects for generations to come.


    “We must never allow anyone in the future to experience such agony. Nuclear weapons are never needed. No reason can ever justify human beings possessing even one nuclear weapon.”


    We appreciate your being here and hope you will enjoy the program of music, poetry and contemplation.  We invite you to join us in working for a more peaceful world, free of nuclear weapons and nuclear threat.


    I’d like to conclude with a poem from my book, God’s Tears.  It begins with a quote by General Eisenhower.




    EISENHOWER’S VIEW


    “It wasn’t necessary to hit them
    with that awful thing    ”
    — General Dwight D. Eisenhower
     
    We hit them with it, first
    at Hiroshima and then at Nagasaki –
    the old one-two punch.


    The bombings were tests really, to see
    what those “awful things” would do.


    First, of a gun-type uranium bomb, and then
    of a plutonium implosion bomb.


    Both proved highly effective
    in the art of obliterating cities.


    It wasn’t necessary.


     

  • 2011 Nagasaki Peace Declaration

    Tomihisa TaueThis March, we were astounded by the severity of accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station operated by the Tokyo Electric Power Company, Inc., after the occurrence of the Great East Japan Earthquake and ensuing tsunami. With some of the station’s reactors exposed to the open air due to explosions, no residents are now to be found in the communities surrounding the station. There is no telling when those who have been evacuated because of the radiation can return home. As the people of a nation that has experienced nuclear devastation, we continued the plea of “No More Hibakusha!” How has it come that we are threatened once again by the fear of radiation?


    Have we lost our awe of nature? Have we become overconfident in the control we wield as human beings? Have we turned away from our responsibility for the future? Now is the time to discuss thoroughly and choose what kind of society we will create from this point on.


    No matter how long it will take, it is necessary to promote the development of renewable energies in place of nuclear power in a bid to transform ourselves into a society with a safer energy base.


    Many people once believed the myth of the safety of nuclear power plants, from some moment in the past to the occurrence of the nuclear power station accident in Fukushima.


    What about the more than 20,000 nuclear weapons in the world?


    Do we still believe that the world is safer thanks to nuclear deterrence? Do we still take it for granted that no nuclear weapons will ever be used again? Now seeing how the radiation released by an accident at just a single nuclear power station is causing such considerable confusion in society, we can clearly understand how inhumane it is to attack people with nuclear weapons.


    We call upon all people in the world to simply imagine how terrifying it would be if a nuclear weapon hundreds of times more powerful than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs were to be exploded in the sky above our cities.


    While intense heat rays would melt human beings and anything else nearby, horrific blast winds would fling buildings through the air and crush them instantly. A countless number of charred bodies would be scattered among the ruins. Some people would hover between life and death, while others would suffer from their injuries. Even if there were survivors, the intense radioactivity would prevent any rescue efforts. Radioactive substances would be carried far away by the wind to all corners of the world, resulting in widespread contamination of the earth’s environment, and in affecting people with a plague of health effects for generations to come.


    We must never allow anyone in the future to experience such agony. Nuclear weapons are never needed. No reason can ever justify human beings possessing even one nuclear weapon.


    In April 2009, President Barack Obama of the United States of America stated in his speech in Prague, the Czech Republic, that the U.S. will seek “a world without nuclear weapons.” Such a concrete goal presented by the most powerful nuclear weapons state raised expectations all over the world. While some positive results have certainly been achieved, such as the conclusion of an agreement between the U.S. and Russia on the reduction of nuclear weapons, no significant progress has been observed since. In fact, there has even been a regressive trend, such as the implementation of new nuclear simulation tests.


    We call for U.S. President Obama to demonstrate his leadership toward realizing “a world without nuclear weapons,” and to never disappoint the people in the atomic-bombed cities or anywhere throughout the world.


    The time has come for international society, including the nuclear weapons states of the U.S., Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China, to launch efforts toward the conclusion of the Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC), which aims for complete abolishment of all nuclear weapons. As the government of the only nation to have endured atomic bombings, the Japanese government must strongly promote such efforts.


    We urge once again that the Japanese government act in accordance with the ideals of peace and renunciation of war prescribed in the Japanese Constitution. The government must work on enacting the Three Non-Nuclear Principles into law and establishing the Northeast Asian Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone to ensure complete denuclearization of Japan, South Korea and North Korea. The Japanese government must also enhance relief measures that correspond with the reality for aging atomic bomb survivors.


    This year, at the United Nations Office in Geneva, the city of Nagasaki will exhibit materials concerning the catastrophes of the atomic bombings, in cooperation with the United Nations, the Japanese government and the city of Hiroshima. We hope that many people around the world learn about the atrocity and cruelty of the devastation by the atomic bombings.


    We encourage all of you who seek “a world without nuclear weapons” to also organize an atomic bombing exhibition, even if it is a small-scale event, in your own cities in cooperation with Nagasaki. We look forward to photography panels of the atomic bombings being exhibited in streets all over the world. It is our hope that you join hands with people from the atomic-bombed cities and extend the circle of peace so all people can live a humane life.


    On August 9, 1945 at 11:02 a.m., Nagasaki was destroyed by an atomic bomb. From the ruins, we have accomplished our restoration as a city of peace. We hope that people in Fukushima will never give up and that people in the affected areas of eastern Japan never forget that across the world are friends who will always be behind them. We sincerely hope that the affected areas will be restored and that the situation with the nuclear power plant accident settles down as soon as possible.


    We offer our sincere condolences on the deaths of all the victims of the atomic bombings and the Great East Japan Earthquake, and together with the city of Hiroshima, pledge to continue appealing to the world for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.

  • The Decision to Bomb Hiroshima

    This article was originally published by CounterPunch.


    Gar AlperovitzToday is the 66th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Though most Americans are unaware of the fact, increasing numbers of historians now recognize the United States did not need to use the atomic bomb to end the war against Japan in 1945. Moreover, this essential judgment was expressed by the vast majority of top American military leaders in all three services in the years after the war ended: Army, Navy and Army Air Force. Nor was this the judgment of “liberals,” as is sometimes thought today. In fact, leading conservatives were far more outspoken in challenging the decision as unjustified and immoral than American liberals in the years following World War II.


    By the summer of 1945 Japan was essentially defeated, its navy at the bottom of the ocean; its air force limited by fuel, equipment, and other shortages; its army facing defeat on all fronts; and its cities subjected to bombing that was all but impossible to challenge. With Germany out of the war, the United States and Britain were about to bring their full power to bear on what was left of the Japanese military. Moreover, the Soviet Union—at this point in time still neutral—was getting ready to attack on the Asian mainland: the Red Army, fresh from victory over Hitler, was poised to strike across the Manchurian border.


    Long before the bombings occurred in August 1945—indeed, as early as late April 1945, more than three months before Hiroshima—U.S. intelligence advised that the Japanese were likely to surrender when the Soviet Union entered the war if they were assured that it did not imply national annihilation. An April 29 Joint Intelligence Staff document put it this way: “If at any time the U.S.S.R. should enter the war, all Japanese will realize that absolute defeat is inevitable.”


    For this reason—because it would drastically shorten the war—before the atomic bomb was successfully tested (on July 16, 1945) the U.S. had strongly and repeatedly urged the Soviet Union to join the battle as soon after the defeat of Hitler as possible. A target date of three months after Germany’s surrender was agreed upon—which put the planned Red Army attack date at roughly August 8, the war in Europe having ended on May 8. (In late July the date was temporarily extended by a week.)


    Nor was there any doubt that the Soviet Union would join the war for its own reasons. At the Potsdam Conference in July (before the successful atomic test) President Truman entered the following in his diary after meeting with Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin on July 17: “He’ll be in the Jap War on August 15. Fini Japs when that comes about.”


    The next day, July 18, in a private letter to his wife, the President wrote: “I’ve gotten what I came for—Stalin goes to war August 15 with no strings on it…I’ll say that we’ll end the war a year sooner now…”


    The President had also been urged to offer assurances that the Japanese Emperor would be allowed to remain in some form of powerless figurehead bomb garrole by many top advisers—including, importantly, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, the man who oversaw the development of the atomic bomb. Before the bomb was used he explicitly urged the President that in his judgment the war would end if such assurances were given—without the use of the atomic bomb.


    Nor were there insuperable political obstacles to this approach: Leadings newspapers like the Washington Post, along with leaders of the opposition Republican Party were publically demanding such a course. (Moreover, the U.S. Army wanted to maintain the Emperor in some role so as to use his authority both to order surrender and to help manage Japan during the occupation period after war’s end—which, of course, is what, in fact, was done: Japan still has an Emperor.)


    As the President’s diary entry and letter to his wife indicate, there is little doubt that he understood the advice given by the intelligence experts as to the likely impact of the upcoming Russian attack. Further evidence is also available on this central point: The American and British Joint Chiefs of Staff—the very top military leaders of the two nations—also met at Potsdam to consolidate planning for the final stages of the war in the Pacific. General Sir Hastings Ismay, Chief of Staff to the British Minister of Defence, summarized the latest (early July) combined US-UK intelligence evidence for Prime Minister Churchill this way: “[W]hen Russia came into the war against Japan, the Japanese would probably wish to get out on almost any terms short of the dethronement of the Emperor.”


    The July joint intelligence finding, of course, for the most part simply restated what had been the essential view of American intelligence and many of the President’s top advisers throughout the spring and summer months leading up to the July meeting at Potsdam.


    Among the many reasons the shock of Soviet entry was expected to be so powerful were: first, that it would directly challenge the Japanese army in what had been one of its most important strongholds, Manchuria; second, it would signal that there was literally no hope once the third of the three Great Powers was no longer neutral; and third, and perhaps even more important, with the Japanese economy in disarray Japanese leaders were extremely fearful that leftist groups might be powerfully encouraged, politically, if the Soviet Union were to play a major role in Japan’s defeat.


    Furthermore, U.S. intelligence had broken Japanese codes and knew Japanese leaders were frantically hoping against hope as they attempted to arrange some form of settlement with Moscow as a mediator. Since their strategy was so heavily focused on what the Russians might or might not do, this further underscored the judgment that when the Red Army attacked, the end would not be far off: the illusory hope of a negotiation through Moscow would be thoroughly dashed as Soviet tanks rolled into Manchuria.


    Instead, the United States rushed to use two atomic bombs at almost exactly the time that an August 8 Soviet attack had originally been scheduled: Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9. The timing itself has obviously raised questions among many historians. The available evidence, though not conclusive, strongly suggests that the atomic bombs may well have been used in part because American leaders “preferred”—as Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Martin Sherwin has put it—to end the war with the bombs rather than the Soviet attack. Impressing the Soviets during the early diplomatic sparring that ultimately became the Cold War also appears likely to have been a significant factor.


    Some modern analysts have urged that Japanese military planning to thwart an invasion was much more advanced than had previously been understood, and hence more threatening to U.S. plans. Others have argued that Japanese military leaders were much more ardently committed to one or more of four proposed ‘conditions’ to attach to a surrender than a number of experts hold, and hence, again, would likely have fought hard to continue the war.


    It is, of course, impossible to know whether the advice given by top U.S. and British intelligence that a Russian attack would likely to produce surrender was correct. We do know that the President ignored such judgments and the advice of people like Secretary of War Stimson that the war could be ended in other ways when he made his decision. This, of course, is an important fact in its own right in considering whether the decision was justified, since so many civilian lives were sacrificed in the two bombings.


    Moreover, many leading historians who have studied both the U.S. and Japanese records carefully (including, among others, Barton Bernstein and Tsuyoshi Hasegawa) have concluded that Japan was indeed in such dire straits that–as U.S. and British intelligence had urged long before the bombings–the war would, in fact, have likely ended before the November invasion target date once the Russians entered.


    It is also important to note that there was very little to lose by using the Russian attack to end the war. The atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and August 9. There were still three months to go before the first landing could take place in November. If the early August Russian attack did not work as expected, the bombs could obviously have been used anyway long before any lives were lost in the landing.


    (Since use of the atomic bombs and Russia’s entry into the war came at almost exactly the same time, scholars have debated at great length which factor influenced the surrender decision more. This, of course, is a very different question from whether using the atomic bomb was justified as the only way to end the war. Still, it is instructive to note that speaking privately to top Army officials on August 14 the Japanese Emperor stated bluntly: “The military situation has changed suddenly. The Soviet Union entered the war against us. Suicide attacks can’t compete with the power of science. Therefore, there is no alternative…” And the Imperial Rescript the Emperor issued to officers and soldiers to make sure they would lay down their arms stated: “Now that the Soviet Union has entered the war, to continue under the present conditions at home and abroad would only result in further useless damage… Therefore…I am going to make peace.”)


    The most illuminating perspective, however, comes from top World War II American military leaders. The conventional wisdom that the atomic bomb saved a million lives is so widespread that (quite apart from the inaccuracy of this figure, as noted by Samuel Walker) most Americans haven’t paused to ponder something rather striking to anyone seriously concerned with the issue: Not only did most top U.S. military leaders think the bombings were unnecessary and unjustified, many were morally offended by what they regarded as the unnecessary destruction of Japanese cities and what were essentially noncombat populations. Moreover, they spoke about it quite openly and publicly.


    Here is how General Dwight D. Eisenhower reports he reacted when he was told by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson that the atomic bomb would be used:



    “During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.”


    In another public statement the man who later became President of the United States was blunt: “It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.”


    General Curtis LeMay, the tough cigar-smoking Army Air Force “hawk,” was also dismayed. Shortly after the bombings he stated publically: “The war would have been over in two weeks. . . . The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.”


    Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, went public with this statement: “The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. . . . The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan.”


    I noted above the report General Sir Hastings Ismay, Chief of Staff to the British Minister of Defence, made to Prime Minister Churchill that “when Russia came into the war against Japan, the Japanese would probably wish to get out on almost any terms short of the dethronement of the Emperor.” On hearing that the atomic test was successful, Ismay’s private reaction was one of “revulsion.”


    Shortly before his death General George C. Marshall quietly defended the decision, but for the most part he is on record as repeatedly saying that it was not a military decision, but rather a political one. Even more important, well before the atomic bombs were used, contemporary documents record show that Marshall felt “these weapons might first be used against straight military objectives such as a large naval installation and then if no complete result was derived from the effect of that, he thought we ought to designate a number of large manufacturing areas from which the people would be warned to leave–telling the Japanese that we intend to destroy such centers….”


    As the document concerning Marshall’s views suggests, the question of whether the use of the atomic bomb was justified turns not only on whether other options were available, and whether top leaders were advised of this. It also turns on whether the bombs had to be used against a largely civilian target rather than a strictly military target—which, in fact, was the explicit choice since although there were Japanese troops in the cities, neither Hiroshima nor Nagasaki was deemed militarily vital by U.S. planners. (This is one of the reasons neither had been heavily bombed up to this point in the war.) Moreover, targeting was aimed explicitly on non-military facilities surrounded by workers’ homes. Here we can gain further insight from two additional, equally conservative military leaders.


    Many years later President Richard Nixon recalled that



    “[General Douglas] MacArthur once spoke to me very eloquently about it, pacing the floor of his apartment in the Waldorf. He thought it a tragedy that the Bomb was ever exploded. MacArthur believed that the same restrictions ought to apply to atomic weapons as to conventional weapons, that the military objective should always be limited damage to noncombatants. . . . MacArthur, you see, was a soldier. He believed in using force only against military targets, and that is why the nuclear thing turned him off.”


    Although many others could be cited, here, finally, is the statement of another conservative, a man who was a close friend of President Truman’s, his Chief of Staff (as well as President Roosevelt’s Chief of Staff), and the five star Admiral who presided over meetings of the Combined U.S.-U.K. Chiefs of Staff during the war—William D. Leahy:



    “[T]he 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. . . . [I]n being the first to use it, we . . . adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”

  • 2011 Hiroshima Peace Declaration

    Kazumi MatsuiSixty-six years ago, despite the war, the people of Hiroshima were leading fairly normal lives. Until that fateful moment, many families were enjoying life together right here in what is now Peace Memorial Park and was then one of the city’s most prosperous districts. A man who was thirteen at the time shares this: “August fifth was a Sunday, and for me, a second-year student in middle school, the first full day off in a very long time. I asked a good friend from school to come with me, and we went on down to the river. Forgetting all about the time, we stayed until twilight, swimming and playing on the sandy riverbed. That hot mid-summer’s day was the last time I ever saw him.”


    The next morning, August sixth at 8:15, a single atomic bomb ripped those normal lives out by the roots. This description is from a woman who was sixteen at the time: “My forty-kilogram body was blown seven meters by the blast, and I was knocked out. When I came to, it was pitch black and utterly silent. In that soundless world, I thought I was the only one left. I was naked except for some rags around my hips. The skin on my left arm had peeled off in five-centimeter strips that were all curled up. My right arm was sort of whitish. Putting my hands to my face, I found my right cheek quite rough while my left cheek was all slimy.”


    Their community and lives ravaged by an atomic bomb, the survivors were stunned and injured, and yet, they did their best to help each other: “Suddenly, I heard lots of voices crying and screaming, ‘Help!’ ‘Mommy, help!’ Turning to a voice nearby I said, ‘I’ll help you.’ I tried to move in that direction but my body was so heavy. I did manage to move enough to save one young child, but with no skin on my hands, I was unable to help any more. …‘I’m really sorry.’ …”


    Such scenes were unfolding not just here where this park is but all over Hiroshima. Wanting to help but unable to do so—many also still live with the guilt of being their family’s sole survivor.


    Based on their own experiences and carrying in their hearts the voices and feelings of those sacrificed to the bomb, the hibakusha called for a world without nuclear weapons as they struggled day by day to survive. In time, along with other Hiroshima residents, and with generous assistance from Japan and around the world, they managed to bring their city back to life.


    Their average age is now over 77. Calling forth what remains of the strength that revived their city, they continue to pursue the lasting peace of a world free from nuclear weapons. Can we let it go at this? Absolutely not. The time has come for the rest of us to learn from all the hibakusha what they experienced and their desire for peace. Then, we must communicate what we learn to future generations and the rest of the world.


    Through this Peace Declaration, I would like to communicate the hibakusha experience and desire for peace to each and every person on this planet. Hiroshima will pour everything we have into working, along with Nagasaki, to expand Mayors for Peace such that all cities, those places around the world where people gather, will strive together to eliminate nuclear weapons by 2020. Moreover, we want all countries, especially the nuclear-armed states, including the United States of America, which continues its subcritical nuclear testing and related experiments, to pursue enthusiastically a process that will abolish nuclear weapons. To that end, we plan to host an international conference that will bring the world’s policymakers to Hiroshima to discuss the nuclear non-proliferation regime.


    The Great East Japan Earthquake of March eleventh this year was so destructive it revived images of Hiroshima 66 years ago and still pains our hearts. Here in Hiroshima we sincerely pray for the souls of all who perished and strongly support the survivors, wishing them the quickest possible recovery.


    The accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station and the ongoing threat of radiation have generated tremendous anxiety among those in the affected areas and many others. The trust the Japanese people once had in nuclear power has been shattered. From the common admonition that “nuclear energy and humankind cannot coexist,” some seek to abandon nuclear power altogether. Others advocate extremely strict control of nuclear power and increased utilization of renewable energy.


    The Japanese government should humbly accept this reality, quickly review our energy policies, and institute concrete countermeasures to regain the understanding and trust of the people. In addition, with our hibakusha aging, we demand that the Japanese government promptly expand its “black rain areas” and offer more comprehensive and caring assistance measures to all hibakusha regardless of their countries of residence.


    Offering our heartfelt condolences to the souls of the A-bomb victims, reaffirming our conviction that “the atomic bombing must never be repeated” and “no one else should ever have to suffer like this,” we hereby pledge to do everything in our power to abolish nuclear weapons and build lasting world peace.

  • Remembrance, Reflection and Resistance

    David KriegerWe remember the horrors of the past so that we may learn from them and they will not be repeated in the future.  If we ignore or distort the past and fail to learn from it, we are opening the door to repetition of history’s horrors.

    In August, we remember the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which took place on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively. Both were illegal attacks on civilian populations, violating long-standing rules of customary international humanitarian law prohibiting the use of indiscriminate weapons (as between combatants and non-combatants) and weapons that cause unnecessary suffering.

    In a just world, those who were responsible for these attacks, in violation of the laws of war, would have been held to account and punished accordingly.  They were not.  Rather, they were celebrated, as the atomic bombs themselves were celebrated, in the false belief that they brought World War II to an end.

    The historical record is clear about these facts: First, at the time Hiroshima and Nagasaki were leveled, each with a single atomic bomb, Japan had been trying to surrender. Second, the US had broken the Japanese codes and knew that Japan had been trying to surrender. Third, prior to the use of the atomic bombs, the only term of surrender offered to Japan by the US was “unconditional surrender,” a term that left the Emperor’s fate in US hands.  Fourth, the precipitating factor to Japan’s actual surrender, as indicated by Japanese wartime cabinet records, was not the US atomic bombs, but the Soviet Union’s entry into the war against them.  Fifth, when Japan did surrender, after the atomic bombings, it did so contingent upon retaining the Emperor, and the US accepted this condition.

    The US drew a self-serving causal link from the bombings, which was: we dropped the bombs and won the war.  In doing so, we reinforced the US belief that it can violate international law at times and places of its choosing and that US leaders can attack civilians with impunity.

    Following the victory in Europe, the Allied powers held the Nazi leaders to account at the Nuremberg Tribunals for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity.  The Charter creating the Nuremberg Tribunals was signed by the US on August 8, 1945, two days after it had dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima.  One day after signing the Charter, the US would drop a second atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki.  Both atomic bombings were war crimes that, if they had been committed by Nazi leaders, most certainly would have been universally denounced and punished at Nuremberg.

    Upon reflection, we must come to understand Hiroshima and Nagasaki as war crimes, if such crimes are not to be repeated.  We must resist the double standard that makes crimes committed by our enemies punishable under international law, while the same crimes committed by our leaders are deemed to be acceptable.  We must resist nuclear weapons themselves. They are city-destroying weapons whose possession should be considered prima facie evidence of criminal intent.

    It has been two-thirds of a century since Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by atomic bombs.  There remain over 20,000 nuclear weapons in the world.  We must resist the tendency to normalize these weapons and consign them to the background of our lives. They reflect our technological skills turned to massively destructive ends and our failed responsibility to ourselves and to future generations.

    Looking back at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, General Eisenhower said that the bombings were not necessary because Japan was already defeated; and Admiral William Leahy, Truman’s chief of staff, compared us to barbarians of the Dark Ages and said that he was not taught to make war by destroying women and children.  Einstein said that, looking forward, we must change our modes of thinking or face unparalleled catastrophe.  Changing our modes of thinking begins with remembrance, reflection and resistance.