Freedom Riders
FREEDOM RIDERS is the powerful harrowing and ultimately inspirational story of six months in 1961 that changed
Deliberately violating Jim Crow laws, the Freedom Riders met with bitter racism and mob violence along the way, sorely testing their belief in nonviolent activism. Premiers on PBS May 16, 2011. (Monday)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/freedomriders/watch
2:16
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Hi. Here is a piece which is engaging and revelatory, sometimes shocking.
It clarifies an important history, still alive and sick. It’s one to save -Ed
From: BillTottenWeblog
Sent: Friday, May 13, 2011 4:58 AM
To: epearlag@earthlink.net
Subject: [R-G] []
Part Two -
for war and peace
by Peter Kuznick and Yuki Tanaka
In this two part article Yuki Tanaka and Peter Kuznick explore the
relationship between the atomic bombing of
of nuclear power, a relationship that may be entering a new phase with the
March 11th earthquake, tsunami and nuclear catastrophe at
It is tragic that
planet, with its Peace Constitution, three non-nuclear principles, and
commitment to nuclear disarmament, is being hit with the most dangerous
and prolonged nuclear crisis in the past quarter-century - one whose
damage might still exceed that of
antinuclearism has always rested upon a Faustian bargain, marked by
dependence on the
pro-nuclear country on the planet for the past 66 years. It is in the
strange relationship between these two oddly matched allies that the roots
and meaning of the
Dwight Eisenhower, a man now best remembered, ironically, for warning
about the rise of the very military-industrial complex he did so much to
create. Eisenhower is also the only
atomic bombing of
destroy the prospects for friendly post-war relations with
point he advocated international control of atomic energy and turning the
existing
Yet by the time he took office in 1953, Eisenhower's views on nuclear
weapons had changed. Not wanting to see the
death piling up military expenditures" and assuming that any war with the
conventional military capabilities to massive nuclear retaliation by a
fortified Strategic Air Command. Whereas President Harry Truman had
considered nuclear arms to be weapons of last resort, Eisenhower's "New
Look" made them the foundation of
Just like a bullet? On occasion, Eisenhower spoke almost cavalierly about
using nuclear weapons. In 1955, he told a reporter:
Yes of course they would be used. In any combat where these things can
be used on strictly military targets and for strictly military purposes, I
see no reason why they shouldn't be used just exactly as you would use a
bullet or anything else.
When Eisenhower suggested to Winston Churchill's emissary Jock Colville
that "there was no distinction between 'conventional' weapons and atomic
weapons: all weapons in due course become conventional",
recalled, horrified, "I could hardly believe my ears".
Eisenhower began transferring control of the atomic stockpile from the
Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to the military. Europeans were terrified
that the
threatened to do over
Taiwan Strait islands of Quemoy and
Eisenhower to show restraint.
Public revulsion at the normalization of nuclear war threatened to derail
the Eisenhower administration's plans. The minutes of a March 1953 meeting
of the National Security Council (NSC) stated:
... the President and Secretary [John Foster] Dulles were in complete
agreement that somehow or other the tabu [sic] which surrounds the use of
atomic weapons would have to be destroyed. While Secretary Dulles admitted
that in the present state of world opinion we could not use an A-bomb, we
should make every effort now to dissipate this feeling.
Atoms for Peace buried in radioactive ash
Eisenhower decided that the best way to destroy that taboo was to shift
the focus from military uses of nuclear energy to socially beneficial
applications. Stefan Possony, Defense Department consultant to the
Psychological Strategy Board, had argued: "the atomic bomb will be
accepted far more readily if at the same time atomic energy is being used
for constructive ends" (page 156). On December 8 1953, Eisenhower
delivered his "Atoms for Peace" speech at the United Nations. He promised
that the
way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to
his death, but consecrated to his life". He pledged to spread the benefits
of peaceful atomic power at home and abroad.
But the subsequent March 1954 Bravo test almost derailed those plans.
Fallout from the
and 23 Japanese fisherman aboard the Daigo Fukuryu Maru ("Lucky Dragon
Number Five"), which was 85 miles away from the detonation and outside the
designated danger zone. A panic ensued when irradiated tuna was sold in
Japanese cities and eaten by scores of people.
Bravo test at
The international community was appalled by the bomb test. Belgian
diplomat Paul-Henri Spaak warned, "If something is not done to revive the
idea of the President's speech - the idea that
energy for peaceful purposes -
with barbarism and horror". Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru
declared that US leaders were "dangerous self-centered lunatics" who would
"blow up any people or country who came in the way of their policy".
Eisenhower told the NSC in May 1954, "Everybody seems to think that we are
skunks, saber-rattlers, and warmongers". Dulles complained, "Comparisons
are now being made between ours and Hitler's military machine".
Criticism was fiercest in
began circulating petitions to ban hydrogen bombs. The movement caught on
across the country. By the next year, an astounding 32 million people, or
one-third of
bombs.
Long-suppressed rage over the 1945 atomic bombings, squelched by US
occupation authorities' total ban on discussion of the bombings, had
finally erupted. The Operations Coordinating Board of the NSC recommended
that the
on the non-war uses of atomic energy" and even offer to build
experimental nuclear reactor. AEC Commissioner Thomas Murray concurred,
proclaiming, "Now, while the memory of
vivid, construction of such a power plant in a country like
a dramatic and Christian gesture which could lift all of us far above the
recollection of the carnage of those cities".
Selling the peaceful atom in
idea as a way to divert the mind of man from his present obsession with the
armaments race ... Many Americans are now aware ... that the dropping of
the atomic bombs on
contribution to amends than by offering
utilization of atomic energy. How better, indeed, to dispel the impression
in Asia that the
fodder!
Murray and Representative Sidney Yates (Democrat of Illinois) suggested
locating the first electricity-producing nuclear power plant in
In early 1955, Yates introduced legislation to build a 60,000-kilowatt
generating plant there that would "make the atom an instrument for
kilowatts rather than killing". By June, the
signed an agreement to work together on research and development of atomic
energy.
But selling this idea to the Japanese people would not be so easy. When
the US Embassy, US Information Service (USIS), and CIA launched their
vigorous campaign to promote nuclear energy in
Shoriki Matsutaro, the father of Japanese baseball, who ran the Yomiuri
Shimbun newspaper and the Nippon Television Network. After two years'
imprisonment as a Class-A war criminal, Shoriki had been released without
trial; his virulent anti-communism helped redeem him in American eyes (see
Tetsuo Arima, "Shoriki's Campaign to Promote Nuclear Power in
CIA Psychological Warfare", unpublished paper presented at
co-sponsor the much-hyped
November 1 1955 with a Shinto purification ceremony in
ambassador read a message from Eisenhower declaring the exhibit "a symbol
of our countries' mutual determination that the great power of the atom
shall henceforward be dedicated to the arts of peace".
After six weeks in
cities. It highlighted the peaceful applications of nuclear energy for
generating electricity, treating cancer, preserving food, controlling
insects, and advancing scientific research. Military applications were
scrupulously avoided. The nuclear future looked safe, abundant, exciting,
and peaceful. The turnout exceeded expectations. In
reported, 155,000 people braved snow and rain to attend (page 176).
The steady spate of films, lectures, and articles proved enormously
successful. Officials reported, "The change in opinion on atomic energy
from 1954 to 1955 was spectacular ... atom hysteria was almost eliminated
and by the beginning of 1956, Japanese opinion was brought to popular
acceptance of the peaceful uses of atomic energy" (page 179).
Such exultation proved premature. Antinuclear organizing by left-wing
political parties and trade unions resonated with the public. An April
1956 USIS survey found that sixty percent of Japanese believed nuclear
energy would prove "more of a curse than a boon to mankind" and only 25
percent thought the
disarmament. The Mainichi Newspaper blasted the campaign: "First, baptism
with radioactive rain, then a surge of shrewd commercialism in the guise
of 'atoms for peace' from abroad". The newspaper called on the Japanese
people to "calmly scrutinize what is behind the atomic energy race now
being staged by the 'white hands' in
But intensified USIS activities over the coming years began to bear fruit.
A classified report on the
seventy percent of Japanese equated "atom" with "harmful", but by 1958,
the number had dropped to thirty percent. Wanting their country to be a
modern scientific-industrial power and knowing
resources, the public allowed itself to be convinced that nuclear power
was safe and clean. It had forgotten the lessons of
In 1954, the Japanese government began funding a nuclear research program.
In December 1955, it passed the Atomic Energy Basic Law, establishing the
for atomic energy and first chair of the JAEC.
commercial reactor from
water reactors. By mid-1957, the government had contracted to buy twenty
additional reactors.
In the
magic elixir that would power vehicles, feed the hungry, light the cities,
heal the sick, and excavate the planet. Eisenhower unveiled plans for an
atomic-powered merchant ship and an atomic airplane. In July 1955, the
1956, Eisenhower informed the United Nations that the
agreements with 37 nations to build atomic reactors and was negotiating
with fourteen more.
By 1958, the
planetary excavation under the AEC's Project Plowshare, which proposed to
use peaceful nuclear blasts to build harbors, free inaccessible oil
deposits, create huge underground reservoirs, and construct a bigger and
better
twenty-megaton bomb alongside the eye of a hurricane. One Weather Bureau
scientist proposed a plan to accelerate melting of the polar icecaps by
detonating ten-megaton bombs. Only Eisenhower's reluctance to unilaterally
break a Soviet-initiated nuclear test moratorium halted this sheer folly.
Still, Project Plowshare achieved its goals. Lewis Strauss, chairman of
the AEC, admitted that Plowshare was intended to "highlight the peaceful
applications of nuclear explosive devices and thereby create a climate of
world opinion that is more favorable to weapons development and tests".
Atoms for Peace masks nuclear weapons buildup. Under the cover of the
peaceful atom, Eisenhower pursued the most rapid and reckless nuclear
escalation in history. The
nuclear weapons when he took office to approximately 22,000 when he left.
But even that figure is misleading. Procurements authorized by Eisenhower
continued into the 1960s, making him responsible for the levels reached
during the Kennedy administration - more than 30,000 nuclear weapons. In
terms of pure megatonnage, the
1,360,000
Few know that Eisenhower had delegated to theater commanders and other
specified commanders the authority to launch a nuclear attack if they
believed it mandated by circumstances and were out of communication with
the president or if the president had been incapacitated. With
Eisenhower's approval, some of these theater commanders had in turn
delegated similar authority to lower commanders (I am grateful to Dan
Ellsberg for this information). And given the fact that there were then no
locks on nuclear weapons, many more people had the actual power, if not
the authority, to launch a nuclear attack, including pilots, squadron
leaders, base commanders, and carrier commanders.
In 1960, Eisenhower approved the first Single Integrated Operational Plan,
which stipulated deploying US strategic nuclear forces in a simultaneous
strike against the Sino-Soviet bloc within the first 24 hours of a war.
The Joint Chiefs were subsequently asked to estimate the death toll from
such an attack. The numbers were shocking: 325 million dead in the Soviet
Union and
fallout in
countries bordering the
The price of denial
While Americans were preparing for nuclear annihilation, the Japanese were
living in their own form of denial. From its shaky beginnings in the
1950s, the Japanese nuclear power industry flourished in the 1960s and
1970s and continued to grow thereafter. Prior to the tsunami-precipitated
reactors that generated thirty percent of its electricity; some projected
it would not be long before
nuclear catastrophe in
third time with the nightmarish side of the nuclear age and the fact that
their nuclear program was born not only in the fantasy of clean, safe
power, but also in the willful forgetting of
the buildup of the
A reckoning with
the Japanese will move forward from this tragedy to set a path toward both
green energy and repudiation of deterrence under the
much as they blazed a path with their Peace Constitution and
antinuclearism following the horrors of World War Two.
_____
Peter Kuznick wrote this article for The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
(April 13 2011).
Peter Kuznick is associate professor of history at
director of the Nuclear Studies Institute. Kuznick founded the Committee
for a National Discussion of Nuclear History and Current Policy and
co-founded the Nuclear Education Project. He is the author of Beyond the
Laboratory: Scientists as Political Activists in 1930s
co-editor of Rethinking Cold War Culture (2001), and co-author of
Rethinking the Atomic Bombings of
American Perspectives (2010). Currently, he is co-authoring a twelve-part
documentary film series and book with Oliver Stone titled The Forgotten
History of the
November.
Recommended citation: Yuki Tanaka and Peter Kuznick,
Bomb, and the "Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Power", The Asia-Pacific Journal
Volume 9, Issue 18 Number 1 (May 02 2011).
http://www.japanfocus.org/articles/print_article/3521
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