How corporate America, the CIA and Walt Disney talked Japan into nuclear technology
The plan had the advantage of making allies dependent on technology from corporate giants General Electric Co. and Westinghouse,
Tepco ‘Deal With Devil’ Signals End to Japan’s Postwar Era Bloomberg, October 21, 2011,“……….Hiroshima Bombing Japan’s development into the world’s third-biggest user of nuclear energy dates from the last days of the war. Yasuhiro Nakasone, who would later become Prime Minister and a powerful advocate of atomic energy, was serving as a naval officer in Japan when Hiroshima was bombed. After the war, he began the work of persuading the U.S. to sell Japan nuclear technology…..
Japan’s interest coincided with U.S. concern about what to do with its own surplus of weapons-grade plutonium, and the suspicion that created in the Soviet Union, Laura E. Hein wrote in “Fueling Growth — The Energy Revolution and Economic Policy in Postwar Japan.”
U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower’s solution was the “Atoms for Peace” program to use U.S. plutonium to provide nuclear fuel for its allies. Continue reading
South Korea’s history of seeking nuclear weapons
CIA documents shed light on S Korea’s nuke ambition in 1970s, The Korea Herald/Asia News Network, Sep 26, 2011 As the international community continues to grapple with how best to thwart North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, a Seoul-based publication has revealed declassified US Central Intelligence Agency documents shedding light on South Korea’s own efforts to acquire nuclear weapons four decades ago.
Global Asia, a publication of the East Asia Foundation in Seoul, said the previously secret US documents show that South Korea continued to develop nuclear weapons at least two years after Washington thought it had ceased during the 1970s……..
Park’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons may have influenced North Korea’s own threat perception at the time, and fuelled the North’s desire to acquire its own nuclear weapons ? a fact that continues to be relevant today……
these historical documents illustrate that engaging North Korea from a position of political, economic and military strength ? not extended nuclear deterrence ? remains the best policy option…http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20110926-301465.htmlNuclear energy got huge startup subsidies, renewable energy gets pittance
Early subsidies to nuclear dwarf all others
Energy subsidy showdown: Fossil fuels, nuclear, biofuels vs. renewables, Smart PlanetBy Kirsten Korosec | September 23, 2011 Renewable energy has snagged just a fraction of the federal subsidies that fossil fuels and nuclear received when they were emerging technologies, according to a new report from venture capital firm DBL Investors. Continue reading
Radiation effects of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on WW2’s American soldiers
When the servicemen returned to the United States, many of them suffered from strange rashes and sores. Years later some were afflicted with disease (such as thyroid problems and leukemia) or cancer associated with radiation exposure. Little could be proven beyond a doubt, and all of their disability and compensation claims were denied,
The Last Great Untold Story of World War II—and the Lingering Effects Today, THE NATION, Greg Mitchell, August 19, 2011 ”……..Most of the [U.S.]troops in Hiroshima were based in camps on the edge of the city, but a larger number did set up camps inside Nagasaki. Because of the alleged absence of residual radiation, no one was urged to take precautions. Some bunked down in buildings close to ground zero, even slept on the earth and engaged in cleanup operations, including disposing bodies, without protective gear. Few if any wore radiation detection badges.
“We walked into Nagasaki unprepared…. Really, we were ignorant about what the hell the bomb was,” one soldier would recall. Another vet said: “Hell, we drank the water, we breathed the air, and we lived in the rubble. We did our duty.” Continue reading
The lies that produced the atomic bombing of hiroshima
Truman referred in his diary to “the telegram from Jap Emperor asking for peace.”………The United States Strategic Bombing Survey concluded that, “… certainly prior to 31 December, 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November, 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped
Truman Lied, Hundreds of Thousands Died, The Real News. David Swanson, 6 Aug 11, On August 6, 1945, President Harry S Truman announced: “Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important Japanese Army base. That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of T.N.T. It had more than two thousand times the blast power of the British ‘Grand Slam’ which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare.”
When Truman lied to America that Hiroshima was a military base rather than a city full of civilians, people no doubt wanted to believe him. Continue reading
Atomic bombing did not cause Japan to surrender in 1945
compelling evidence that it was the Soviet entry into the Pacific conflict, not Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that forced Japan’s surrender….
If killing large numbers of civilians does not have a military impact, then what, Wilson asks, is the purpose of keeping nuclear weapons? We know they are dangerous. If they turn out not to be strategically effective, then nuclear weapons are not trump cards, but time bombs beneath our feet..
Why did Japan surrender? Sixty-six years ago, we dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. Now, some historians say that’s not what ended the war.What ended World War II?, Boston Globe, By Gareth Cook, August 7, 2011 For nearly seven decades, the American public has accepted one version of the events that led to Japan’s surrender. Continue reading
USA’s secret efforts to prevent Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal
How USA conned Japan into developing nuclear energy
U.S. used atomic power cooperation to remedy Japan’s ‘ignorance’, Mainichi Daily News, Japan) July 24, 2011, TOKYO (Kyodo) — The United States used atomic power cooperation with Japan in the 1950s to ease the Japanese public’s aversion to nuclear weapons and remedy their “ignorance” about nuclear power, declassified U.S. papers showed Saturday. Continue reading
The fallacy of nuclear fallout shelters’ supposed safety
Citizen Cold Warriors in the United States were expected to be able to reconcile these two diametrically opposed thoughts: A nuclear war can destroy all life on earth. You will survive if you build a family fallout shelter….. Fallout can drift in unpredictable directions for thousands of miles over a period of years.
How The US Was Supposed to Survive a Nuclear Holocaust With 9 Inches of Concrete Gizmodo, 9 June 11, Susan Roy — The American people have a well-documented history of panicking during crises. Is it any wonder then that, when faced with possible nuclear annihilation, the US government would use any ploy available to maintain public order? Bomboozled by Susan Roy explains.
In George Orwell’s 1984, citizens of the totalitarian state of Oceania were required to accomplish the impossible task of holding two contradictory ideas in their minds and accepting both of them: War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Orwell called this “Doublethink.” Continue reading
France’s nuclear weapons program secretly was helped by USA
US secretly helped French nuclear program: documents, Google News By Shaun Tandon (AFP) – 26 May 11, WASHINGTON — The United States secretly helped France develop advanced nuclear weapons in the 1970s as part of a bid by the Nixon administration to sow divisions in Europe, declassified US documents showed. Continue reading
USA secret nuclear tests and coverups
America’s Secret Nuclear Test Revealed in Area 51, The Daily Beast, by Annie Jacobsen 13 May 11In her explosive new book, Area 51, investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen reveals for the first time secret nuclear tests and a nuclear space rocket meltdown. Plus, she explains how she uncovered the real story. Continue reading
Soviet Russia’s radiation experiments on people
The sad story of Nim, – Documentary films, MACLEANS CA, by Brian D. Johnson , April 29, 2011 “…….After the Apocalypse takes us to a former Soviet nuclear test site in Kazakhstan, where residents were deliberately exposed to radiation as human guinea pigs, …… After the Apocalypse, from British director Antony Butts, explores the fallout from 456 nuclear blasts detonated by the Soviets from 1949 to 1989 at the Semipalatinsk test site on the steppes of Kazakhstan. So scientists could study the effects of radiation, residents were not evacuated; some 200,000 were exposed, suffering genetic damage that ricocheted through three generations. Today, one in 20 children in the zone is born with birth defects, and sheep graze in radioactive bomb craters, where herders “protect” themselves with vodka.
Dr. Toleukhan Nurmagambetov, head of the local maternity clinic, takes us to a museum of bottled fetuses with monstrous deformities (such as a cyclops eye), then to an orphanage of children with Down’s syndrome and missing limbs…….. http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/04/29/the-sad-story-of-nim/
Developing the myths of nuclear power as cheap and safe
The myth of radiation being very interesting but not dangerous was however firmly debunked by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, but not without a last ditch attempt by the occupying Allied Powers to protect it – by arresting and deporting any journalist who talked about radiation deaths.
The Nuclear Power Mercantilist Myth :: The Market Oracle :: By Andrew McKillop, 19 April 11, “…..COSTS DIDNT MATTERThe atom scientists of the 1930s with names we still know today, for example Fermi and Einstein, argued about those subjects but, being scientists, were not specially concerned what it would all cost. Only later, with the founding of the UN’s atomic energy agency in 1956 – a promotional agency for nuclear power – were the key subjects of entrepreneurial effort and the obligatorily linked need for government subsidies brought into the fray. This was sold as creating a future world where atomic arms will be changed to power plant ploughshares. While atomic weapons were expensive, the ploughshares would be cheap if we spent enough investing in them. Continue reading
The first manufacturing victims of ionising radiation
Until, one by one, the dial painters began, mysteriously, to fall ill. Their teeth fell out, their mouths filled with sores, their jaws rotted, they wasted away, weakened by an apparently unstoppable anemia. By 1924, nine of the dial painters were dead
The Radium Girls | Speakeasy Science, By Deborah Blum March 24, 2011 “……Radon (Rn) is an element found in the earth’s crust as a radioactive “daughter” of uranium. ……….After American troops joined the war in Europe, (1916) the factory in Orange, New Jersey won a contract to supply radium-dial instruments to the military. By the time the war ended, wristwatches with their glowing dials and handy wristbands were all the style. So were luminous-faced clocks, nicely dressed up in gold and ebony for elegant homes. The corporation’s business was as healthy as ever, as healthy, you might say, as radium itself.There was not a thought worth mentioning that radium might not really be the golden child of the elements. Continue reading
Japan’s history of nuclear power troubles
Japan’s history of civilian nuclear power generation is also littered with problems, … Since 1999 there have been several accidents that have marred what was perceived as a safe industry.
Japan’s Nuclear Half-Century, New Matilda, 15 march 11, All eyes are on Fukushima but this is not an isolated crisis. Mark Pendleton looks at how nuclear accidents have shaped contemporary Japan Continue reading
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