At Issue; 58; Hiroshima

[beeping sound] [beeping sound] [music] [Announcer]: "The following program is from N.

E. T., the National Educational Television Network." [Host]: "Hiroshima, 1965, [crowd noise] [people talking in background] [music] [music] [machine sound]

[machine sound] [machine sound] [Woman speaker]: "If you go to the center part of Hiroshima, there's a peace park with beautiful flowers, and wide streets. If you stand in the middle of that park, you will never understand, 20 years ago, this place had nothing. All ashes." [Announcer]: "The National Educational Television Network presents At Issue, a monthly commentary on people, events, and ideas. This month: At Issue: Hiroshima. On August 6th, 1945,

this building was Hiroshima's new Industrial Exhibition Hall. Today it is preserved as the only physical reminder of the atomic bomb. Twenty years have passed. Hiroshima is totally rebuilt. There are no outward scars, but the memory of that day is still vivid in the minds of those who survived. Rihei Numata, at the time of the explosion, was a Hiroshima newspaper reporter. Today, he is a guide for many of the 200 thousand tourists visit the city annually. Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, a German Jesuit Priest, has lived in the Hiroshima area for thirty years. Today, he still suffers from radiation sickness. This recently completed Catholic church replaces the mission building where Father Klinesorg was when the bomb exploded. Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto is a Methodist minister on the outskirts of town when the bomb destroyed

his church. He was one of the first to re-enter the city and help with the injured. Today in this rebuilt church, he continues his work with survivors. Miss Tazu Shibama has been teaching English in Hiroshima for 30 years. Before the war, she studied in the United States. On August 6th, 1945, her students were in the streets helping to prepare the city's defenses against an American invasion. [background talking] Miss Shibama was at her home one mile from the center of the blast. Most of her students were killed. Miss Shibama survived. This is where she lived. [Tazu Shibama]: "8:15 in the morning of August 6th, I was eating my breakfast alone in the dining room and there came the yellow flash. I did not know what happened. There was no sound at all. But, the next moment, I found myself buried in the darkness. My house, which was a two-storied wooden house building, was broken down to pieces and covered me up." [Male speaker]: "I was, uh, ?crossing? the channel over there. It takes about 12 minutes to cross a channel by ferry boat.

I saw a flash, white flash, over the sky of Hiroshima and that was very peculiar. I didn't know what that was. But, uh, is a so strong and so bright and after about 15 or 20 second, we hear a big noise, concussions blowing over our boat and that was so strong, our boat would lean by 15 or maybe 20 degrees to the left." [Male with German accent]: "I was there in this building ?inaudible? and the only thing I remember clearly was, uh, was it uh, lightning, za fire like lightning and

then I remember nothing, still I was standing in the garden outside of the house." [Male speaker]: "I was standing in front of the house and saw ?inaudible? flash of light ?inaudible? round through the mid air from the east to the west. I thought, danger, so I took a couple steps in through a garden there and lie down under ground between two rocks. Then I felt strong rush of wind many splinters of ?inaudible? and roof tile fell upon me. I thought I was hit. When I got up, I found the house behind me have been destroy and saw a few people coming out of debris ?inaudible? in there and, uh, breathing. So I took one of them for a police station over there there I saw so many injured people. Then I began to wonder, what happened because I didn't hear any sound of plane nor a

blast. It was quiet." [Woman speaker]: "I sat in the darkness thinking a bomb hit my house and I was there to die. But, I did not die because I found somebody [horn honking] buried in the same place where I was. Mr. Marihara, our next door neighbor who was standing in his garden about 50 yards away, was blown off from his place and buried in the same place where I was. Mr. Marihara was strong enough to make his way out and found me there sitting and he helped me out." [Male speaker]: "?inaudible? Meanwhile, Hiroshima, is about 15 miles from the- ss.. here, from here. And there was smoke coming up all over the city but in half an hour,

that smoke raised, oh, about 15,000 feet high. Was about, what you call, a mu-, a mushroom shape." [Male speaker]: "I never saw a firebomb bomb in my life and therefore I saw it, it was a fire bomb who just, uh, rained down off our house [laughs] and it was very late in the afternoon that we, uh, what it is, uh, heard it was an extraordinary bomb. But even that, eh, nobody knew tha- wa- knew it was atomic bomb." [Reverend Tanimoto]: "I dash into street to get back to the church and encounter a long and ?inaudible? line of escapees. Strange to say they are completely naked. No clothes. No hair.

Skin from faces, arms, breast peeling off and hanging loose. Yet, without any expression of the emotion. In deep silence, they were escaping. I thought it was a procession ?inaudible?" [woman speaker]: "Mr. Marihara hurried back to his house which was also blown down to pieces. He worked very hard to dig his family out but in vain. All of his family had to die. And Mr. Marihara lived in the town too long that he, too, had to die because of the blood disease." [male speaker]: "Then I was looking for people who survived [laughs] and the first I met was our, uhh, what is it, cook and she was crying, uhh, "Jesus

have pity on us." And I saw, uhh ?unintelligible? that's still living. And the next was Father LaSalle who came out blood- bloody? and then Father Chislick, he was already badly hurt by it. and then we, uh, started to take things out of the houses ?unintelligible? and to save some people's who were under the debris. [other person]: "Hmm." [previous speaker]: "But we could only save 5 of them. And then the fire was so, uh, what's it, near that we had to leave the place." [other speaker]: "We stood out, uh, and, uh, waited until the other fires done. It took about 2, 3 hours and the fire's done. And, [pause] in that [pause] moment, we saw rain falls. It was very peculiar that there, we had black rain falls.

The rains lasted about half an hour. It's big drops. Black rains. And after the rain's over, we tried to go to the, uh, northern part of, ah, of the city. We cross at, ah, a training ground for the army. So, we, ah, easier to go inside, in center of the city. But as you go, you see a hundred thousand of the dead bodies and some of dying on the ground, oh, by the rivers because that was the fire's so hot, they all jumped in the rivers to escape from the, uh, from the fires. So, this was, was, ah, what you call, "Hell on earth." [Reverend Tanimoto]: "And that evening, I, ah, rounded round the bank of the river and, ah, there were many

seriously injured people lying on the ground and they asked for water. I passed cup of water from one to another. They were burned. Whole body burned and swollen twice large. No one could be told from the others. They couldn't drink water while they are lying on the ground. With what trouble they arranged their upper body and accepted a cup of water and, ah, drink it. After they drink water, they returned their cup with a most gracious expression of thanks. I was so deeply moved. Now, I was thoroughly exhausted. I couldn't move any farther. I lie, I lie down on the ground to sleep but I couldn't sleep at all. Next morning, I found many people already dead but it was quiet on the bank of ri- river. Whole night. ?unintelligible? We had a tremendous pain but they overcome. ?unintelligible? dreadful their bodies were destroyed. They had a burning spirit, you know,

the bomb could not destroy the heart of human being." [Host]: "On August ninth, the second atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki. Shortly thereafter the emperor, speaking on radio for the first time, announced Japan's surrender. In Hiroshima, Reverend Tanimoto went to what was left of the railroad station. There, a small group of survivors, many severely injured, gathered to hear the broadcast." [Reverend Tanimoto]: "When we realized it was the voice of the emperor, ?unintelligible? and we couldn't understand what he was saying, because, you know, he was ?unintelligible? disturbed. his broadcast, but of all, we found it was a broadcast by emperor saying we stop. We finished the war. We've stopped the war. ?unintelligible? war. So, the people there wept bitterly with deep disappointment." [Host]: "The atomic bomb that fell on Hiroshima was the equivalent of 20,000 tons of

TNT, a crude and insignificant device by today's standards. But the statistics of destruction were awesome. 97 percent of all structures in a mile and a quarter radius destroyed totally. Death toll estimated at over 78,000. In the weeks following the bomb, many more died of radiation sickness. The wounded were removed to nearby villages. By the end of the year, a third of the population remained in the city. Today, 20 years later, the population has risen to half a million, 20 percent higher than before the war. Little by little people came back and the population swelled as Japanese returned from the lands they had conquered in Asia. Many of these people came to Hiroshima, a city that needed new people. Why did they, and the original citizens come back? Kayoro Agura, Assistant to the Mayor of Hiroshima: "I think it took rather a long time for them to come back. But uh when you say to people come back. The original Hiroshima (coughs) people coming back took more time than the newcomers coming in. For the newcomers I think Hiroshima was a good land to come in newly. Sort of your frontier-ship I suppose. So I think the original people came back a little later. But the chief attraction for coming back would be their own property although small but to have your own place to live is something that attracted them very much

and that is how it is in Japan. [Host] Hiroshima lies beneath a semi- circle of mountains on the edge of the inland sea. On one of the hills stands ancient Hiroshima Castle the palace of a feudal lord. In the city below almost nothing is more than twenty years old. The people of Hiroshima began the rebuilding of their city with little help from anyone. Gradually industry returned. During the war Hiroshima was a military city. Now, commercial vessels replace warships at the docks. Cars rather than tanks

roll off assembly lines. Hiroshima is proud of its wide streets. New steel and concrete buildings are replacing the wooden houses of twenty years ago. Tazu Sheebama recalls the old city: "Twenty years have passed and all the houses around here have been changed. During the wartime many of the people had to go in to the country to do the farming. Young people had to go to the Army supply factories. Only the women lived in these houses. And the houses were built of wood mostly and this part was a warehouse having many baskets at the barriers piled up. All these things were burned to ashes by the bombing. Now these hotels and other buildings are stucco

building as you see. They say at first nothing can live or grow for 75 years because of the radiation effect. We were surprised the next Spring after the bombing trees and grasses started to grow. We hoped that we can get another beautiful house with beautiful gardens around but population increased so much that we have to give up most of the gardens. Only the houses many many hundreds of the new houses have been built since. [Host]: To the outsider, Hiroshima's half million inhabitants are like those of any other Japanese community. The city continues to expand closer to the mountains which encircle it but underneath Hiroshima is unique. The survivors of the first atomic bomb live here. They number 90,000. One fifth

of the population. At the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission the long term effects of radiation upon man are studied. Set up in 1947 the ABCC is a joint undertaking of The U.S. National Academy of Sciences and The Japanese Ministry of Health. The records of over one hundred thousand survivors are kept here. These are evaluated to compare lifespans. Bi-yearly physical and laboratory examinations are given to twenty thousand adults and children and the results are compared with a matching group of people not exposed to the bomb. The findings are constantly brought up to date. For instance the incidents of Leukemia in people exposed within one thousand yards of the hypo-center reached a peak in 1953 when there was a thirty to fifty fold increase. What are some of the findings today? Dr. Antonio Chakko, the ABBC's Head of Statistical Studies: Younger individuals, that is individuals who were younger at the time of the bomb,

have been more greatly effected than those were not. Then the older individuals. Second, that Leukemia has occurred more often among those exposed to the bomb at a closer range than those the others. Leukemia, the frequency has been such that the rate perhaps Leukaemia is about oh eleven, fifteen times that of the, uh among the individuals who were close to the bomb is about eleven, fifteen times that of the others. But here I think a point should be kept in mind, we're dealing with rare events. For example the all tolled up to 1962 we had about uh twenty three deaths from

Leukemia among the youngsters. That is among the youngsters zero to nineteen years of age at the time of the bomb. And uh we would have expected about 2 perhaps or 3. If they had followed the normal incidents, rather the incidents that we usually find in a population like Japan. We think we are beginning to see some evidence of cancer may occur with a greater frequency among the survivors. Cancer of the thyroid in particular seems to be something that is coming up now with greater frequency than we saw before. Remember we're talking about the years lived between 1950 and let us say 1964. Well in that span perhaps the life of those who were closer to the bomb have been shortened by

about one year in contrast to those who were farther away from the bomb. [Host]: The possibility of genetic abnormalities has caused the greatest concern. Over 70,000 births in Nagasaki and Hiroshima have been examined. The only genetic change of critical consequence results in a greater tendency for a couple to have male children if the father was heavily exposed, and female children if the mother was exposed. Studies show no increase in abnormalities or stillbirths. The ABCC now believes that the possibility of adverse effects in future generations is remote. The publication of these findings has relieved some doubts in the minds of survivors. But there are still many unknown factors. Studies now in progress at the ABCC will shed more light on the problems of this and future generations. Meanwhile the fact that there are people today who suffer the after effects of radiation creates anxiety among the survivors and prejudice against them when they wish to marry or find

jobs. At Hiroshima's Red Cross Hospital there is a special wing where survivors receive free medical treatment. Since its opening in 1956 there have been 150,000 outpatients. Last year 305 patients were hospitalized. 53 died and there is no way to directly attribute any single death to atomic exposure but statistics do indicate a relationship. Dr Fumio Shingeto, the Director of the hospital is a survivor. He examines many of the patients and personally supervises the treatment of the severely ill. Dr Shingeto: "This here Mitugai Yamaguchi, female, 56 years old now. She was exposed 1.5 kilometers from hypo-center she got burns half discs side of the body and suffered 40 days

for the bomb and after that she ?inaudible? About 6 years ago she suffered various kind of complaint especially anemia. And this next one is Nesuniko Misono, female, 40 years old now. Recently she suffered from chronic granocytic Leukemia. She came to the hospital sixth of March 1965 and we are treating others with myelin and cortico steroid hormone and with blood transfusion. Hadooweeyaye Sato was exposed 1.25 kilometres from hypo-center. She was a student. 3 years ago she had enlargement of spleen

and increasing of white blood cells. That was diagnosed as chronic granucyte Leukemia. Fortunately she got remission but next year again hospitalised and got remission again and she came sometime this year she had typical chronic Leukemia finding. [Host]: Clusters of folded paper cranes hang above Mrs. Sato's bed. Beneath this monument in Hiroshima's peace park there are thousands of similar paper cranes. According to legend anyone who folds 1,000 paper cranes will live a long life. Several years ago they became a special symbol. A young girl who had been exposed to the bomb as an infant was suddenly stricken with Leukemia. In her hospital bed she began folding paper cranes but could only complete 964 before she died. Her classmates finished the rest and this monument was built as a

memorial to children of the A bomb. The peace park is located in the area which was just beneath the center of the blast. Each year on the 6th of August thousands of people gather here for memorial ceremonies. At other times of the year tourists and local citizens on leisurely strolls take pictures and enjoy the outdoors. The Peace Museum stands at the entrance to the park. Over 200,000 Japanese and foreign visitors go through it every year. A series of exhibits tell the story of August 6th 1945. The mushroom cloud. Photographs of some victims. Keloid scar formations due to heat rays. Melted stones.

A circular clay model of the devastated city. The visitors include many Americans. Hiroshima is an overnight stop in most packaged tours of Japan. Americans who visit the museum are often led to re-examine their feelings about the bomb. We spoke to several after their visit. [Man]: The impression I got from the whole thing is a very sad picture but I think that all the Heads of our different governments and countries should be brought here and be taken serious and maybe remain here for a couple of weeks and look at this terrible thing and I think it would make quite an impression. You might as well face it. No use in trying to cover it up. I do think

that it might have been a different story maybe if Japan would have had the bomb instead of us. I think any country might have used it. [Woman]: I am sorry that it was our country that did it. [Woman 2]: How they had forgiven us and they were friendly [Woman] I was happy to find that this was so and I feel that this museum will stand as a memento of our friendship. [Man] a justification

for the use of the bomb.[background noise[ I think there was at the time it was dropped but going through the museum there isn't a justification and yet no place in the museum is there a justification for the use of the bomb. I think that it's important that these people know why the bomb was dropped. really know or appreciate the sadness that was caused by the bomb. The Japanese are being filled with this is sadness with the photographs and everything else, but they're not given the reason for it - uh, to end war An explanation for English-speaking visitors to the museum gives no reason why the bomb was dropped. The The Japanese version, which the schoolchildren here says simply that it was used as an act of war. There is little public effort in the schools or by the government to educate children in the moral and political issues raised by the

bomb; however, these issues are often exploited by the press and television. For many Americans, the questions raised by the bomb are still of great interest. For a few, the effort to find answers has become a life's work. Barbara Reynolds has been living in Hiroshima for five years. Long active in the world peace movement, she sailed her boat The Phoenix on a on a protest voyage into the bikini testing area. She's also traveled to Moscow on a peace mission. Recently, she established a new Friendship Center in Hiroshima. I'm working with a group of people here to form a friendship center what we are hoping we can dedicate as world friendship center in August, which will be - we hope - a new way of working for peace through cooperation, through understanding, through trying to have a place where all of the people who come from different countries with different ideas can get together and lay their pieces of truth on the table and try to find out where these these pieces fit into the whole picture

and gradually make Hiroshima a more internationally minded center and also a more concerned place where people try to help each other. One of the things that is so unfortunate is is that many people who come here bring their own preconception and find only those things which reinforce it. Russians will come here, the Communists will come here and they'll use it for anti-American propaganda. They'll try to exaggerate perhaps the uh problems that still ex -ist. The uh Chinese Communists of course will use it to point out who is the enemy of peace. The people from Malaysia and East Asia will uh say, "Well, why do you worry about Hiroshima? Look what they did to us." The Japanese themselves often say that uh the people in Hiroshima should stop whining and complaining because because uh they didn't suffer anymore than people in Tokyo and other parts of Japan and

and of course many Americans will uh rather close their minds to it, not wanting to really examine it, and they they say, "Well, what about Pearl Harbor?" and they don't wish to consider, "Oh, what was the beginning of it?" That Pearl Harbor was an act of violence and that this act of violence built into more violence and that eventually it led to Hiroshima. Marvin Tack is a social worker who lives in Hiroshima. We asked him how he felt felt when he first came to the city. I was uneasy, felt - you know, that some somehow I was responsible for the - a - thing that happened to them. for this and somewhat, a feeling of guilt, even now. Yet, I- I don't feel that so strongly. I think I- I've learned that maybe from um- from Hiroshima. I've thought many Americans who've come a few days, a few hours here in the city, it's a feeling, sort of an uncanny feeling of "ooh, ah"

"I caused this" and so on. I think it's shallow thinking maybe but I think as you get into the city and to know what the city is thinking I think you broaden out and realize there's something more basic here than putting guilt in one party or receiving guilt as an individual nation or person. The thing about this city that has impressed me is, the um- the working with the um- ah the hibakusha, the survivors themselves the feeling of ah- mutual -uh repentance and ah- ah mutual forgiveness. So I'm- I've gone from emphasizing thinking about the guilt and what happened twenty years ago. And learned from my Japanese friends to some extent that we were all involved. And that, what happened then, is not only our guilt or his guilt but it's everybody's guilt. In other words, I think my feeling now is I should concentrate on the present day situation. [Narrator] Marvin Tack also counsels young people in

industry. The problems most frequently discussed in his group sessions: rapid industrialization, automation, and the impersonality of the business world are as real in Hiroshima as they are throughout Japan. However, continuing growing demand keeps assembly lines in motion. Hiroshima's Toyo Poyo factory, one of the largest in Japan, employs eighteen thousand workers. They turn out one thousand popular priced Mazda cars every day. In an expanding economy patterned frankly after the American system and strongly influenced by the American dream. The demand shows no sign of diminishing. [car horn honk] There is now one car for every twenty five people in Hiroshima [car horn honk] and with employment at one hundred twenty percent more people can afford one every day. [car horn honk] There is plenty to buy in Hiroshima at a brightly lit shopping arcade is always crowded with bargain hunters. Western clothes are slowly replacing sandals and kimonos [sounds of children playing] and even though most marriages are

still arranged, young couples today enjoy greater freedom than their parents did. [city sounds] Still, the cost of the good life is high. As in many fast developing countries, the burden of prosperity rests heavily on those who work long and hard for low wages. In Hiroshima, many of the poor are survivors within sight of the Atomic Dome one of the city's largest slums spreads along the bank of the Ōta River, over half its inhabitants are survivors. In nineteen forty five this man had a comfortable home in the center of Hiroshima and a successful upholstery shop nearby then the bomb destroyed both his house and business. Weakend by radiation disease he rented a house in the suburbs but money soon ran out he and his wife came here. Now after twenty years of living and doing occasional work in the same small room they have lost hope of rebuilding their home and business. This is a neighborhood of large

families including those too young, too old, or too ill to work. Some families live on government welfare payments of about thirty dollars a month. A laborer in road construction earns little more. During the war, this area was an army camp. Today, nearly six thousand wooden shacks built one against the next stretch in from the river along narrow passageways. [car horn in the distance] After the bomb, when the city was covered with debris the ?praying-ground? offered an open space thousands of homeless survivors came here using the wreckage of the army barracks they build temporary shelters these dwellings still stand, the charred wood remains. And for the survivors there is little hope of leaving. [car horn in the distance] The survivors who live here are those who still suffer the lingering effects of the bomb. This woman's husband died from radiation sickness two weeks after the bomb. She

herself has been in constant pain from a spiral fracture. Her daughter, divorced with five children must work as a waitress thirteen hours a day to support the family. This housewife is also a survivor, since the bomb she has suffered from general weakness and fatigue a frequent complaint of those exposed to radiation. The smallest household task leaves her exhausted. Although hospital treatment is free, there is no lasting medical cure. Survivors who came in the beginning have been joined by the traditional poor, Koreans, who came to Japan as cheap labor and Japanese of the lowest caste. These people perform the most menial jobs, their children will not be accepted by a university and like the children of survivors they will find it difficult to marry outside their own group. This land belongs to the city of Hiroshima and city planning maps

[?] shown as part of the peace park, but no one knows when the shacks will come down or where the people will go. Survivors make up one fifth of Hiroshima's population. Except for the poor and physically ill they are not noticeably different from the majority of citizens. They work at the same kinds of jobs and lead similar lives. Yet for some, life is different from what it might have been. [music] ?Keto Hirose? was seven at the time of the bomb. [music] She was in the street on an errand for her mother; her body was severely scarred. Unable and afraid to get married [woman singing] she became a bar hostess. Like some three thousand other hostesses in Hiroshima, she entertains lonely men with pleasant conversation. Other survivors have sought anonymity. On the outskirts of Hiroshima is the home and beauty shop of Mrs. ?? Oshima[?]. She was one of the Hiroshima maidens [chatter] young women so disfigured by facial scars that a normal life seemed impossible.

Through the efforts of reverend ?Tanimoto?, Norman Cousins and others, she went to the United States for plastic surgery and professional training. On her return she opened her own beauty salon. [chatter] Soon afterwards she was married, and now has two healthy children. Once a year she takes them to the Peace Park. [chatter] On August 6th everyone in Hiroshima pauses to remember. The annual memorial ceremony began immediately after the war as a simple tribute to those who suffered from the bombings and to plea in their behalf for world peace. In recent years Hiroshima's baseball stadium has been filled with peace delegations from around the world but the meetings have become less and less concerned with peace. [cheering] The Japanese peace movement is now split among three battling political factions: social democrat, pro-Russian, and pro-Chinese. The latter denounced the United

States for having nuclear arms, but make no reference to the red Chinese weapon. College students have formed their own group, but it too is hopelessly divided along political lines. Last year's meetings were marred by disagreement. This year, at a time when Japan's leaders are seriously debating the question of partial rearmament, what happens in Hiroshima will be of special importance. United States Ambassador to Japan, Edwin Reischauer explains to Andrew Stern how the atomic experience has affected Japanese thinking. [Reischauer] I don't think it's basically changed anything; it's just strengthened various tendencies that were there anyhow. Ever since the war, the Japanese had a very great revulsion for war, a strong tendency towards pacifism, and I think that atomic experience has strengthened both of these and added a very special overtone of sensitivity to anything atomic. [Stern] Do you feel that because the, uh, Chinese have had a nuclear device now for almost a year that

Japanese thinking about this problem is going to change any? [Reischauer] Well, over the long run it may, to date I don't think it has very greatly. A certain number of Japanese are beginning to think more realistically about the specific problem of defense in the nuclear age. It's a sort of thing the Japanese, with their pacifism and neutralism, shied away from over the last twenty years and a few Japanese are beginning to honestly face this sort of problem, but it isn't most Japanese by any means. [Stern] Why has this been so? [Reischauer] Well, I think perhaps of this, eh, in part the result of the great shock of the war and its aftermath, American occupation and the sense it took Japan out of the world of reality for awhile. The Japanese turned inward very, very much, I think, over the last twenty years or just attended to take for granted the American role of stabilizing our things in this part of the world, giving peace and security without thinking about how this was achieved. And the Japanese needs

themselves to not have to worry too much about the problems of defense and peace and so on. [Stern] What about some of the demonstrations here against military bases, against atomic submarines? [Reischauer] Well, I just avoiding, um, thinking about these problems and how one maintains peace, uh, one can very easily in Japan concentrate on the undesirable aspects of a foreign military being in Japan. I think the Japanese can accept American defense to a certain extent and at the same time protest against the presence of American troops very easily. They seem contradictory to us, but I think we just have to understand that contradiction, understand what exists in Japan. [Stern] I mean is this something fairly typical in terms of post-war Japanese thinking? [Reischauer] Well, of course there is nothing like that in the pre-war world in Japan. Japan was a very militaristic country, and she swung from a, an extreme of militarism to an extreme of pacifism. [Announcer] ?Japanese name? editor of the Japan Times tells how the atomic

experience relates to Japanese pacifism. [editor] Well, each has infested Japanese [inaud] thinking so deeply So they are -- so family didn't resolved for the peace at any price I should say [inaud] and that is a pacifism. Japanese people something like kind of like religious pacifism, like Quaker. It is kind of pacifism like Gandhi used to advocate, but it was based on a pure uh, simple but pure way of thinking. After they suffered so much about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The shock was so great, they still haven't got [inaud] shock yet. [man] Do you feel that one day Japan will have to be part of the nuclear club? [man] I'm fifty six years old now. As long

as I am up to, say, ten years I will be against to help to see Japan, er, having a nuclear weapon, and if we decide to have it, we can do it. As long as technology is concerned we are capable, but we feel there must be uh, uh,at least one country who are capable of producing nuclear weapon still advocating against having a nuclear weapon. [chatter] [Announcer] Recent public opinion polls show that the majority of Japanese people are against nuclear weapons and nuclear testing. In Hiroshima these sentiments are particularly strong. The memory of the bomb is still vivid yet Americans going to Hiroshima rarely encounter any open resentment toward them or their country. Three Hiroshima citizens explain this lack of outward bitterness toward Americans. [citizen 1] Mayor of Hiroshima right after

the disaster said if Japan had the atom bomb she might have [inaud] on American city. The question is not tomorrow but uh, [inaud] [citizen 2] Many people in Hiroshima don't hate American people I think. In fact I like America, I respect America [horns honking] and American people but [inaud] I think understand that tragedy we had in Hiroshima happened because it was a war time and all the people in Hiroshima hate war and not any one country or any one nation to drop the bomb. [citizen 3] This question of bitterness relates to Buddhism I think, and uh, once you face the uh, problem as being asked whether you have bitterness or not it will come back and do have but on the surface uh, we have to pursue our own daily living. So on the surface you will notice that uh, this bitterness does not uh, linger inside. But if you probe into it I think you may hit it. But

this all depends upon the circumstances of oneself. If he is in a good status today, I think, uh it is less bitterness than if he's in a bad situation today I think the more. I think this is natural. [Announcer] Jun Eto, one of japan's leading literary critics finds the question of bitterness a perplexing one. [literary critic] You have to be a kind of psychiatrist in uh, analyzing this kind of touchy problem, and as eh, most of the Japanese are Buddhist, we are taught from the childhood, the early childhood

that to hate other people, uh quite wrong. And on top of that the, the disaster in Hiroshima is, was more like a natural disaster than disaster caused by human enemy. That may be the reason why they don't express any conscious bitterness against the Americans, but still you can penetrate into the, into the deep hidden part of the human subconsciousness in my personal opinion eh, various Japanese peace movement is more or less connected with some kind of subconscious bitterness against the Americans, and of course this subconsciousness intent against our closest ally

is more or less related to the experience we had in Hiroshima in nineteen forty five. At that time, of course, the people of the Hiroshima city were physically hit by the A bomb and not only the Hiroshima people but, uh people [inaud] Japan were psychologically, and the possibly spiritually, hit by these same experiences and this is something uh, very difficult to uh communicate to those who haven't suffered from this particular tragedy and I personally ah- don't quite like to talk about it in public. That's effects that they prefer whispering around about the able issue to ah- making noise in public. I- I'm speaking of the

Japanese people in general and speaking ah- about the uh- about the uh- leftist peace move and so forth That means that uh- the experience of A bomb is so deep rooted in the mind of Japanese people. [Announcer] The deepest fears of survivors have to do with their children. The incidence of leukemia is low, genetic findings are reassuring. But statistics cannot allay the anxieties of each parent for his own child.Those that live in Hiroshima understand the nature of this fear. Barbara Reynolds. [Barbara] I know, I know cause I live here and because I have had friends for instance whose [pause] I had a friend whose daughter was just the age of my daughter [birds chirping] who, just a month after she graduated from high school became sick with, uh, leukemia and in six months she was dead. There was no way, no way whether or not that particular leukemia was caused by the

radiation but of course the mother feels that it was and a great many other survivors who have children who maybe apparently healthy live with this fear and I realize that it was obviously affect your thinking. My daughter sometimes woke up with a headache or felt dizzy when she got out of bed and I would say well, that's just because you have an examination, get on with it, there is nothing wrong with you. But had she been at Hiroshima at that time I don't think I would feel so casual about [birds chirping] many of the symptoms that all of our growing up children have. [man] Young girl from from an acquaintance who was known some years ago, recently had a, uh, child born, she gave birth to a child. And uh, there was a, she was perfectly well, healthy, normal. There's great anxiety in that home the month before the child ? would be a monster, he didn't use the word. And when the child was born, uh, ? they were jubilant.

but even now they are taking that child to the doctor for frequent, periodical checkups. For with the added tension that's in the city and I think that this is something that all the people of the world should know. [announcer] There is no way of knowing how long the psychological impact of the bomb will last but the last visible remnant may soon disappear. The atomic dome located in the center of the city, close to the river, occupies a choice piece of real estate. There is now some talk of tearing it down and replacing it with a new building to house the chamber of commerce. Father Kleinsorge comments, [Father Kleinsorge] I don't know where the [inaud] but certainly a lot of people say don't listen to them and then a lot say no it has to stand. So I personally, pu, I am ? quite indifferent of this question. But,

I think it is no, it gives not an impression of the terribility of the bomb. It's the too -too nice to say too nice perhaps its neither. If you see this and judge the effects of atomic bomb after this, uh, debris you see there now then you will never have a real, uh, impression of [inaud] of these bombs. [man] Assistant to the mayor Mr. ? [Mr. ?] I think uh, it should be left but if it falls down, let it fall. I don't think it should be artificially brought down or reinforced [car honking] or in any other way, because it is the only remainder, uh, reminder left in the city and I think it should be very natural.

[announcer] What happens to the atomic dome will not change the meaning of Hiroshima. Its place in history was assured on August 6, 1945. That experience gave rise to the hope that atomic weapons would never be used again. In Japan the slogan "no more Hiroshimas" became a familiar phrase. Today some of the survivors wonder whether the lesson of Hiroshima will be learned in time. [woman] I think they wouldn't mind nearly so much if they felt that their tragedy had contributed to an understanding that we must never again have war. We mustn't settle our problems by violence. These people feel that unless we can understand what has happened while they're still alive to tell us, there won't be anything to stop this, uh, headlong race to destruction because we don't believe what we read in the papers, we don't, we don't even believe what we see on television, there are too many dramatic, uh,

documentaries which are, uh, dubbed in so that people are only touched by the human contact with those who know what it means. [Another woman] The weapons we are having at this time, much bigger in destructive power. I hope all the people in the world will think about this fact, if this strong new type bomb to be used, none of the human being can survive. [Car horns / traffic] Twenty years ago the destruction of Hiroshima revealed to man the power within the atom. Today the new Hiroshima reveals the strength of human nature. In these first two decades of the nuclear age the atomic formula has lost its mystery. Five nations now have built the bomb, others wish to have it. In 1965, the only atomic secret is how to stop.

Finding a way should be a greatest effort of our time. [white noise] [white noise] [closing music] This is N-E-T,

the National Educational Television Network. [white noise] [white noise] fb