“What has kept the world safe from the bomb since 1945 has not been deterrence, in the sense of fear of specific weapons, so much as it’s been memory. The memory of what happened at Hiroshima.” — John Hersey, Hiroshima
Early in the morning of August 6th, 1945 — 66 years ago today — the Enola Gay, ordered on a non-stop, release-and-return mission to Hiroshima, took off from Tinian in the Marianas. Released at approximately 8:15 am, the atomic bomb Little Boy exploded 1,800 feet directly over the city with a blinding flash and a force equal to twenty thousand tons of TNT — the flash-boom (or pikadon) that punctuated the inception of the nuclear age. Everything for 3000 meters in all directions from the hypocenter was totally destroyed. In an instant, the citizens and soldiers below were transformed into victims of the world’s first nuclear holocaust. (I use the term holocaust here, with Mark Seldon, to connote the literal definition provided by Oxford English Dictionary: “Complete consumption by fire; complete destruction, especially of a large number of persons; a great slaughter or massacre.”)
As fires and radiation enveloped the city, those who survived the immediate explosion were left with a profound sense of having experienced a frightening, surreal event, incomprehensible to anyone but the victims. As doctors struggled to make sense of the chilling effects of radiation sickness, with apparent survivors suddenly perishing, and the estimated death toll doubling in a mere two weeks, the Japanese press could only describe an “evil spirit” possessing Hiroshima. Understanding the impact of this “evil spirit” became a central part of the Japanese people’s attempt to come to terms with the war’s meaning. The most compelling voice in this quest for understanding was that of the bomb survivors themselves. It was in fact the hibakusha (literally, bomb survivor), perhaps the most pitiable of Japan’s war victims, who emerged to bear witness to the unimaginable horror. Their testimonies merit careful meditation on this solemn anniversary.
“I thought it was strange to see an airplane flying that time all by itself. I looked at it and it was a B-29. It seemed very strange since there were on anti aircraft guns firing at it. I watched it for a while, then it disappeared. As soon as it disappeared, another airplane appeared from the same direction. It seemed very, very strange. I was still wondering what would happen. Then, suddenly there came a flash of light. I can’t describe what it was like. And then, I felt some hot mask attacking me all of a sudden. I felt hot. I lay flat on the ground, trying to escape from the heat. I forgot all about my children for a moment. Then, there came a big sound, sliding wooden doors and window were blown off into the air.”
“The water of the river we looking at now is very clean and clear, but on the day of bombing, all the houses along this river were blown by the blast with their pillars, beams and pieces of furniture blown into the river or hanging off the bridges. The river was also filled with dead people blown by the blast and with survivors who came here to seek water. Anyway I could not see the surface of the water at all. Many injured people with peeled skin were crying out for help. Obviously they were looking at us and we could hardly turn our eyes toward the river.”
“Looking at the injured, I realized how seriously the town had been damaged. The fire was its peak at around that time. It thundered 10 times between 10 and 11 o’clock. The sound of thunder itself was not so great but still I could see the lightning over the fire. When I looked down on the town from the top of that hill, I could see that the city was completely lost. The city turned into a yellow sand. It turned yellow, the color of the yellow desert.”
I offer these remembrances on a blog geared towards foreign policy for two reasons. The first is that the tragic events of the disaster-in-installments of March 11th has thrown into sharp focus the human health costs of nuclear energy on the Japanese archipelago. Not surprisingly, as policymakers and citizens embark on a contentious debate over the future course of Japanese nuclear energy policy and nuclear experts continue their efforts to contain the fallout from the stricken nuclear reactors in Fukushima, Japan’s distinction as the only nation to experience the horror’s of nuclear bombing has emerged as prominent trope in framing the stakes of this debate. In this way, the national trauma of August 1945 continues to be marshaled as evidence of an acute awareness of and aversion to the adverse effects of nuclear radiation. This experience thus frames the terms of the public policy debate unfolding in Tokyo.
What is lost in this narrative, however, is the decades-long struggle of the hibakusha — their protracted fight for medical treatment, awareness, and a voice. Which is precisely why those engaged in this debate would do well to meditate on the events of August 6 and 9, and the ways in which the legacies (be they political, intellectual, biological, or otherwise) continue to color the present. Western media outlets are quick to highlight the resonances between this Chernobyl-like event and those of 1945. But, in my opinion, a far more salient point is the fact that the legacy of 1945 never truly disappeared: it has run throughout Japan’s postwar history in the activism, writing, and testimony of the hibakusha and their efforts to both describe the incommunicable and prevent it from ever happening again to anyone. That some Japanese citizens have taken matters into their own hands in addressing and monitoring the nuclear radiation fallout in Fukushima demonstrates the importance of grassroots alternatives to government oversight that has proved itself far from adequate. We are only beginning to make sense of the human and ecological tolls of this nuclear catastrophe, but, as was the case with Hiroshima, grassroots activism will no doubt figure prominently into our understanding the accident and the movement for redress.
Which brings me to my second point. Today’s anniversary also marks an occasion to step back from the Gordian knot of non-proliferation policy in order to dwell on the humanity that hangs in the balance. Grandiose though this statement might seem, it is a point all-too-often drowned out by the din of nuclear policy debate. Framed in the wonkish terms of international diplomacy, nuclear non-proliferation becomes a realm of multi-lateral talks, the alphabet soup of institutional acronyms, carrots-and-sticks, containment strategies, and policy agendas. As such, it can often feel, at least to me, so far detached from lived reality as to be something of a chess-match or grand strategy. This is a potentially dangerous mindset — one that can erode the terms and stakes of the debate. This is not to say that policymakers, commentators, and diplomats, myopically focused as they are on the nitty-gritty abstractions of policy, live in an alternate universe. Far from it, in fact: the details and heavy-lifting of non-proliferation policy is essential to ensuring peace.
Nevertheless, August 6, 1945 was an epoch-shifting moment. The pikadon of 8:15 am reverberates into the present. It resonates in the boring detail of six-party talks and IAEA reports. But also, just as importantly, in the bodies and stories of the Japanese inhabitants of Hiroshima. It is absolutely critical that we, at least for today, draw the linkages between the two so as to ensure that John Hersey’s observation — “what has kept the world safe from the bomb since 1945… is the memory of Hiroshima” –continues to ring true.
I’ll leave you with two videos to fuel thinking of your own:
