Page 2 of 2 The horror of Hiroshima lives on
By Frida Berrigan
Returning to Tokyo, Yamahata took advantage of the general confusion that
surrounded the Japanese surrender to the Americans and managed to hold on to
his negatives, rather than turning them over to his superiors.
A handful of his images were published in Japanese newspapers at the end of
August 1945, before the American army arrived and the United States occupation
began. In October 1945, occupation authorities imposed a ban on photographing
the atomic sites and on the publication of all atomic-related stories (and the
images that went with them). Most of Yamahata's photographs from Nagasaki were
not seen until 1952, after Japan was once again an independent nation and Life
Magazine published a few of his
Nagasaki photos. That same year almost all the Nagasaki photographs were
published in Japan under the title: Atomized Nagasaki: The Bombing of Nagasaki,
A Photographic Record. The book includes sketches by Eiji Yamada and an
essay by Jun Higashi, his two companions in Nagasaki that day.
In the introduction, Yamahata wrote: "Human memory has a tendency to slip and
critical judgment to fade with the years and with changes in life style and
circumstance … These photographs will continue to provide us with an unwavering
testimony to the realities of that time."
Remembering
When I was young, to keep memory from "slipping," our family and friends marked
the anniversary of those terrible days in a distant land with a demonstration
or vigil. Often, we ended with a ceremony of remembrance, setting paper
lanterns afloat on water in honor of those who died.
Admittedly, this would not pass for a carefree American summer evening, but
even as a little girl I came to feel as if I knew some of the A-bomb survivors
personally - the experience of Akihiro Takahashi, the photographs of Yosuke
Yamahata, and perhaps closest to my heart, the story of Sadako Sasaki.
The children's book, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, written by
Eleanor Coerr, brought me close to one girl whose life was cut short by my
government's A-bomb long before I was born. I was then a chubby, sedentary kid,
and so found myself strangely intrigued and confused by Sadako's deep love of
running.
She was just two years old when Little Boy exploded above her city, but eight
or nine as the book begins, impatient and uncomfortable with all the obligatory
ceremonies surrounding the anniversary of the bomb in Hiroshima. She did not
like to look at the survivors or care to hear the terrible stories. All she
wanted to do was run. Lithe, athletic, and popular, Sadako joined a footrace on
the very anniversary of the destruction of her city and, when she found herself
unable to finish, was taken to the doctor only to discover that she had "atom
bomb sickness" - in her case, leukemia.
In the hospital, a friend reminded her of an ancient Japanese belief: if you
fold 1,000 paper cranes, the Gods will grant you a wish. So with the help of
her classmates, she began to do just that. Scrap paper, candy wrappers, fancy
printed paper: all become tiny origami birds of hope.
With her as an inspiration, I learned to fold paper cranes, practicing until I
could do so with my eyes closed and fold them as small as a pea. Childhood
being childhood, what may have impressed me most was a friend of mine who could
fold those origami birds with her toes.
On October 25, 1955, with 356 birds left to go (as Coerr tells it), Sadako
died. Since 1958, a statue of Sadako holding a golden folded crane has stood in
the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, draped with small paper birds sent from children
all over the world, a symbol of peace.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki today
Sixty-four years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we need more than symbols of
peace. Folding paper cranes alone cannot, unfortunately, end the threat of
nuclear war. Memories of the destruction fade, the hibakusha grow even
older and die, the haunting pictures end up in books stored spine out on
bookshelves.
Meanwhile, the terror of nuclear annihilation - so keen at certain moments
during the long superpower Cold War stand-off - seems to have worn off almost
completely. That's too bad, since the actual threat of nuclear war remains
hidden but potent. The nine nuclear powers - the United States, Russia, France,
England, China, Israel, Pakistan, India, and North Korea - have more than
27,000 operational nuclear weapons among them, enough to destroy several
Earth-sized planets. And in May, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the
International Atomic Energy Agency, warned that the number of nuclear powers
could double in a few years unless new disarmament is a priority. Is it any
wonder then that, according to a recent Rasmussen opinion poll, one in five
Americans believe nuclear war "very likely" in this century, and more than
half, "likely"?
The unthinkable is still under consideration - even as the Barack Obama
administration takes its first steps in the right direction. In an April speech
in Prague, President Obama publicly embraced the goal of seeking "the peace and
security of a world without nuclear weapons". In its wake, his administration
has begun taking still quite modest but potentially important steps towards
that goal, including: renewed talks with Russia over mutual nuclear reductions,
conversations initiated in the US Senate about jump-starting the ratification
of the Comprehensive Test Ban, stalled these last 10 years, and of negotiations
for the also stalled Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, imagined as an
internationally verified ban on the production of nuclear materials for
weapons.
Right now, however, the American nuclear landscape - little acknowledged or
discussed - remains grimly potent. According to the authoritative Bulletin of
the Atomic Scientists, the United States still maintains a nuclear stockpile
estimated at 5,200 warheads - of which approximately 2,700 are operational
(with the rest in reserve), while the Obama administration will spend more than
$6 billion on the research and development of nuclear weapons this year alone.
At some point early next year, the administration will complete a Nuclear
Posture Review outlining the role it believes nuclear weapons should play in
the American pantheon of power, and, if the president follows through on his
anti-nuclear statements, perhaps that document will at least begin to limit the
scenarios in which such weapons could be used. In the meantime, the policy of
the United States remains no different than it was in 2004, when former defense
secretary Donald Rumsfeld signed the Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy. It
said, in part, that the United States possesses nuclear weapons for the
purposes of "destroying those critical war-making and war-supporting assets and
capabilities that a potential enemy leadership values most and that it would
rely on to achieve its own objectives in a post-war world". Read that sentence
again, and think, under such a doctrine, what might the United States not bomb?
Keep in mind as well that the bombs which annihilated two Japanese cities and
ended so many lives 64 years ago this week were puny when compared to today's
typical nuclear weapon. Little Boy was a 15 kiloton warhead. Most of the
warheads in the US arsenal today are 100 or 300 kilotons - capable of taking
out not a Japanese city of 1945 but a modern megalopolis. Bruce Blair,
president of the World Security Institute and a former launch-control officer
in charge of Minutemen Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles armed with 170, 300,
and 335 kiloton warheads, pointed out a few years ago that, within 12 minutes,
the United States and Russia could launch the equivalent of 100,000 Hiroshimas.
It is unthinkable. It seems unimaginable. It sounds like hyperbole, but
consider it an uncomfortable and necessary truth. The people of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki and the children of our future need us to understand this and act upon
it - 64 years too late - and not a minute too soon.
Frida Berrigan, a senior program associate at the New America
Foundation's Arms and Security Initiative, is the eldest daughter of peace
activists Liz McAlister and Philip Berrigan. The two met during the Vietnam
War, founded the Jonah House community in the early 1970s and spent 11 years of
their marriage separated by prison sentences stemming from their anti-nuclear
and peace activities. Phil Berrigan died in 2002 at the age of 79.
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