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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
“Atoms for Peace” was a U.S. government policy in the 1950s promoting nuclear power around the globe as a safe source of energy. The U.S.A. sponsored an “Atoms for Peace” museum exhibit for Hiroshima in 1956 as part of this immensely successful effort to convince the Japanese public of the benefits of nuclear power. The effectiveness of this initiative is remarkable, considering the three previous nuclear disasters and the antinuclear movement they sparked. The exhibit was able to accomplish the transformation of public opinion by stressing the differences between nuclear power and nuclear bombs. Zwigenberg condemns the “Atoms for Peace” project for making the world lose sight of the dangers of nuclear power. He contends that the exhibit's festive and fashionable atmosphere misrepresented nuclear power, since it ignored the problems of nuclear waste and potential malfunctions.
1 I thank Miriam Intrator and Samuel Malissa for reading and commenting on this paper. I want to also thank Mark Selden for his editorial and substantive suggestions. I wish to thank Koide Madoka and Shimosaka Chikako for their valuable help with translation of sources.
2 “Japan's nuclear conundrum: The $64 billion question,” The Economist, November 5th 2011. Accessed November 22, 2011.
3 Criticism of nuclear energy turned into a cottage industry after Fukushima. One can enter any Japanese bookstore and find a whole corner devoted to it. See, for instance, Takagi Jinzaburō, Hangenpatsu demae shimasu: genpatsu jiko eikyō soshite mirai wo kangaeru - Takagi Jinzaburō kōgiroku (Tokyo, Nanatsumorishokan Shinsō Han, 2011). An earlier example, much quoted, is Arima Tetsuo, Genpatsu, Shōriki, CIA: Kimitsubunsho de yomu Shōwa rimenshi (Tokyo: Shinchōsha 2008).
4 Kenzaburō Ōe, “History Repeats,” in The New Yorker, March 28, 2011. The address of Hiroshima's mayor, Mitsui Kazumi, in the August 6th ceremony after Fukushima followed similar lines, accessed December 30th 2011
5 I will deal here almost exclusively with Hiroshima. The Nagasaki case is slightly different.
6 The museum, established in 1955, served as the central exhibition space and was situated on Nakajima Island, which was turned in the early fifties into the Peace Park, Hiroshima's main commemorative space. The park was also the symbolic center for the post 1945 anti-nuclear and peace movements that came out of the reaction to the Lucky Dragon # Five incident, discussed below.
7 Hidankyō declaration.
8 Tanaka Toshiyuki, “Genshiryoku heiwa ryō to Hiroshima: senden kōsaku no tāgeto ni sareta hibakushatachi,” in Sekai, No. 25 (August 2011), p. 257.
9 Interview for NHK documentary Genpatsu dōnyū shinario (1994) text and German translation here, accessed December 10th 2011
10 Louise Schmidt interview in The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project Information Series (1988) accessed November 20th 2011.
11 President Eisenhower created the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB) to follow up on all NSC decisions. The OCB met regularly on Wednesday afternoons at the Department of State, and was composed of the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Directors of the CIA, the United States Information Agency, and the ICA.
12 Yamazaki Masakatsu, “Bikini jikogo no genshirō dōnyūron no taito,”in Kagakushi Kenkyū, Vol. 43 No. 280 (2004).p. 84. The directive is reproduced in “Japan and Atomic Tests” accessed October 25th 2011.
13 Ibid.
14 Quoted by Evan Osnos, “The Fallout” in The New Yorker. 87.32 (Oct. 17, 2011): p.49.
15 Yoshioka Hitoshi, “Nuclear Power Research and the Scientist's Role,” in Yoshioka Hitoshi (ed.), A Social History of Science and Technology in Contemporary Japan: Vol. 2 Road to Selfreliance 1952 - 1959 (Trans Pacific Press, 2005), p. 110.
16 Ibid., p. 104.
17 Morris Low, Shigeru Nakayama, and Hitoshi Yoshioka, Science, Technology and Society in Contemporary Japan (Cambridge University Press, 1999), p.72.
18 Yoshioka, “Nuclear Power Research,” p.109.
19 Low et al., p. 71.
20 See chapter 3 in Simon Partner, Assembled in Japan: Electrical Goods and the Making of the Japanese Consumer (University of California Press, 1999).
21 Yamazaki, “Bikini jikogo,” p. 85.
22 Shibata Hidetoshi, Sengo masukomi kaiyūki (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1985), pp. 346-347. See also Yamazaki, “Bikini jikogo,”p. 83. Yamazaki doubts the meeting was as dramatic as Shibata portrays it, but ascertains, using NSC documentation, that Watson did work in Japan at the time and had a role in the USIS campaign. Watson himself talked of the meeting and Shibata in the ‘94 documentary.
23 Shibata, p. 377.
24 Schmidt Interview.
25 Nakayama Shigeru, “Forming a Nuclear régime and Introducing Commercial Reactors,” in Yoshioka Hitoshi (ed.), A Social History of Science and Technology, pp. 86-87. Along the way, GE and Westinghouse disregarded safety concerns to sell the LWR as the safer option. See the BBC documentary Atomic States (2011) accessed December 15th 2011.
26 Yomiuri Shinbun, April 29 1955.
27 The industrial revolution quote is from Chūgoku Shinbun, November 26 1954. Similar, if more hyperbolic sentiment (and the second and third quotes) can be found in Yomiuri Shinbun, April 291955.
28 Chūgoku Shinbun, May 31 1956.
29 Editor's introduction to the special edition, “Kaimaku shita nihon no atomiku eiji,” in Ekonomisuto (June 1955), p. 8.
30 Chūgoku Shinbun, January 27 1955.
31 Ibid. Also Hiroshima shi (hen), Hiroshima shinshi: rekishi hen (Hiroshima: Hiroshima shi, 1984).
32 Quoted in Tanaka, “Genshiryōku heiwa ryō,” p.251.
33 Chūgoku Shinbun, February 5 1955. Also cited in Tanaka, Genshiryoku heiwa ryō, p. 251.
34 Time Magazine, October 4 1954.
35 Link accessed January 3rd 2012
36 Hiroshima Shi, p. 208. Also Chūgoku Shinbun, January 29 and January 30,1955. As Tanaka noted, Hamai had also already accepted a similar offer by Bern Porter, a nuclear scientist who visited Hiroshima in January 1954. By the time these deliberations took place, Hamai was replaced by Watanabe Tadao who was also a survivor and a fervent supporter of nuclear energy.
37 Chūgoku Shinbun, January 29 1955.
38 Hamai Shinzō et. al. to President of Carroll College, June 30 1950, Letter attached to Hiroshima Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Committee., Hiroshima (Hiroshima City Japan: The Committee c/o Hiroshima Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 1948). Carroll University library, Waukesha, Wisconsin
39 Kenzō Tange, “Hiroshima heiwa kinen tōshi ni kankei shite,” in Kenchiku zasshi, (October, 1949), p. 42. Le Corbusier famously used the phrase a “machine for living.”
40 Quoted in Tanaka, “Genshiryoku heiwa ryō,” p. 252.
41 The all Japan Gensuikyō was formally founded in September 1955. The Hiroshima organization, which went by the same name, was founded earlier. Similar organizations were formed all around Japan following the Lucky Dragon incident.
42 The major power companies came together in March and drafted a request for more details, which was sent to Yates. See Chūgoku Shinbun, March 3 1955.
43 See for instance the covering of the special symposium about the issue on in the January 29th and 30th of the Chūgoku Shinbun.
44 I thank Farida Fotouhi for her generous cooperation and, especially, for giving me access to her fathers’ unpublished papers (Hereafter, Fotouhi papers).
45 Fotouhi papers, p.194.
46 Ibid., p.186. The ABCC donated a film and a projector as well as other materials.
47 Chūgoku Shinbun December 11 1955.
48 Fotouhi papers, 196.
49 Ibid., p. 197.
50 Chūgoku Shinbun February 8 1956.
51 Fotouhi papers, p. 198. See also Chūgoku Shinbun, February 14 1956 and Hiroshima Shi, p. 209
52 Fotouhi papers, p. 200. See the Chūgoku Shinbun, March 22 1956 for the full text of the meeting
53 The quote is from the exhibit's official brochure Genshiryoku heiwa ryō’ no shiori (Tokyo: USIS, 1955). The brochure can be found in Hiroshima Peace Museum library, at the Genbaku shiryō hozon kai collection.
54 Chūgoku Shinbun, May 26th 1956.
55 Ibid.
56 Ibid.
57 Susan Lindee, Suffering Made Real: American Science and the Survivors at Hiroshima, 1st ed. (University Of Chicago Press, 1994).
58 Chūgoku Shinbun June 10 1956. Moritaki and Fuji responses are also quoted by Tanaka.
59 Chūgoku Shinbun sha, Honō no hi kara ni jū nen (1966 nen), (Hiroshima: Miraisha, 1966), pp. 263-264.
60 Chūgoku Shinbun, June 19th 2011.
61 Kawamoto Nikki, Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park Archive (HPMA), Kawamato Collection, Folder 9, No. 8.2.03.
62 Chūgoku Shinbun, May 29 1956. Also quoted by Tanaka.
63 Fotouhi papers, p. 201.
64 Ibid., p. 187.
65 Ibid., p. 188.
66 Chūgoku Shinbun sha, Honō no hi kara ni jū nen, p. 265
67 The museum's librarian Kikuraku Shinobu however was very knowledgeable and proved very helpful in this research. The museum director, Steve Leeper, as well, was very supportive of my research. I thank them as well as other members of the museum's staff for their help.
68 Chūgoku Shinbun, May 7, 1967.
69 Author's interview with Ogura Keiko, 28 January 2010.
70 Tanaka, “Genshiryoku heiwa ryō,” p. 260.
71 Ibid., p. 256. Also Hidankyō, “Message to the World,” 10 August 1956, accessed 29 October 2011.
72 Sheldon Garon, “Rethinking Modernization and Modernity in Japanese History: A Focus on State-Society Relations,” in The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 53, No. 2 (May, 1994), p 357.
73 Fotouhi papers, p. 201.
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