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H-JAPAN May 25, 2005 (1) From: "wgrund@bgnet.bgsu.edu" <wgrund@bgnet.bgsu.edu> Here we go again. I recall about ten years ago when Wilcox's book was reprinted that a round of similar inquiries was floated on H-Japan. I had just returned from a trip to DC where I was doing research for my dissertation on this subject. This is a story that just won't die. The bibliography in Wilcox's second edition provides a pretty good map for primary and secondary sources in English on the subject. I was able to find just about all the sources he used, with only a few exceptions. To the best of my recollection, Wilcox never actually states that Japan succeeded in building and testing a nuclear weapon, but he strongly implies that they did. After considerable research on the subject, both in the US and Japan, I am firmly convinced that the Japanese did NOT succeed in testing (or even building) a nuclear weapon. The Hungnam story likely began when David Snell, a reporter for the Atlanta Constitution, wrote of his encounter with a Japanese COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE officer after the war, who alleged that Japanese scientists had tested a nuclear weapon off the eastern coast of Korea. Wilcox rediscovered this article many years ago when researching this subject. Apparently, however, he did not see Snell's follow up article, where he all but retracted this story. Nonetheless, Wilcox otherwise got a lot of the story correct, that Japanese scientists were involved in nuclear research during the war. Both the army and navy had comparatively small projects. But Wilcox also neglected to include or account for much of the evidence that would suggest that Japan DID NOT develop a nuclear weapon. This is where his book, as work of professional scholarship and history, flies off the rails. (And not because he isn't tenured somewhere.) Furthermore, he introduces material referring to the atrocities of Unit 731, and the postwar cover-up, and by inference, suggests that facts about Japan's nuclear research were similarly suppressed. This is clearly not the case. Japanese scientists and others began to publish articles about their wartime nuclear research activity as soon as the US occupation ended. (The Japanese media had been prevented from publishing anything about nuclear weapons and research, both US and Japanese, by US occupation officials.) If you care to do the research, you can find references to wartime nuclear research in Japan by scientists, military officials, and historians (in Japanese) from as early as 1946. But because Wilcox, and others, did not know of these sources, it was as good as a conspiracy of silence. I suspect we are seeing another round of interest in this subject because we will be commemorating the 60th anniversary of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki this year. We are certain to see interest in this story emerge again in another ten years, fifteen, and I suspect, in 2045. And so it goes… As for Derek Price, he passed away several years ago. On the other hand, I am happy to report that Eri Yagi is still very much alive and enjoying her retirement teaching ballroom dancing (to the disabled no less!) For reviews of the Wilcox book, I recommend the following: John Dower's Review of Robert Wilcox, Japan's Secret War, in Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 43 (Aug.-Sept. 1986), 61-62; and Morris F. Low's, Japan's Secret War? 'Instant' Scientific Manpower and Japan's World War II Atomic Bomb Project, Annals of Science 47 (1990), 347-360. On the Hungnam story, see Walter E. Grunden, Hungnam and the Japanese Atomic Bomb: Recent Historiography of a Postwar Myth,”Intelligence and National Security 13 (1998), 32-60. For a brief, but accurate and scholarly account of Japan's wartime nuclear research, John Dower's NI and F: Japan’s Wartime Atomic Bomb Research, in Japan in War and Peace: Selected Essays (New York: New Press, 1993), 55-100, is a good place to start. For a more detailed account, see the chapters on science mobilization and nuclear research in Walter E. Grunden, Secret Weapons & World War II: Japan in the Shadow of Big Science (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005), now available. Also, watch for a follow-up article in Historia Scientiarum, co-authored by Masakatsu Yamazaki, Keiko-Nagase Reimer, and Walter E. Grunden on this subject. For a direct comparison of German and Japanese wartime nuclear research efforts, see the article by Mark Walker, Masakatsu Yamazaki, and Walter Grunden in the forthcoming issue of OSIRIS, available in July 2005. Japanese scholars, such as Masakatsu Yamazaki and Yutaka Kawamura, have been even busier researching and publishing on this subject, especially from a more internalist perspective. For selected publications, see the bibliography in my aforementioned monograph. A documentary on Japan's wartime nuclear research is under production by the History Channel and is scheduled for broadcast this summer. I hope this overly long missive helps to clear up some confusion. Most Sincerely, Walter E. Grunden Department of History Bowling Green State University (2) From: thom simmons <malangthon@xtra.co.nz> Interesting topic. It may become even more pertinent in the next few years. SOURCE: I have had lengthy responses from Robert Wilcox and am waiting for permission to post his responses. I can say that he is in touch with John Taylor at the National archives and John is still referring people to Robert for his knowledge on the archives and the topic. Their relationship still remains cordial and Robert is unaware of any negative comments directed toward him or his work. Robert also conveyed the fact that the archives have been shifted and the filing protocols have been monkeyed with--not to the archivists' liking as it is. CREDIBILITY: One of the most common rebuttals for the Japanese development of nuclear weapons capability hinges on the belief that they could not make a bomb. This is often tied to fairly common ad hominem arguments about the other side wanting to believe they did: "The Americans want to believe it so obviously it is wrong to say Japan did develop a bomb. The first denigrates the intelligence of the Japanese--they weren't smart enough? --and the second, besides being simply fallacious, ignores the fact that propensity of the ruling bodies in Japan at the time for destruction and abuse is well and truly documented. The ease of building the bomb question: There is a lot of technology out there that dates to the late 19th and the early 20th centuries that many countries have not employed. Something as simple as reticulated water systems or sewage are still lacking in many countries that have certainly had time to put them into place. How many groups or countries have the bomb? Unknown. To say they would have built it if they could literally begs the question. The events in North Korea--on the public stage anyway--remain shrouded in mystery. No one knows if they have it. Some say they do. This whole line of reasoning--we don't know that they have it so they don't-- presents large gaps. And too, a theory that the US government covered it up is not unreasonable either, is it? Wilcox did not invent this. Derek Price (deceased as it turns out) is the guy who put him onto it. There were others who were there in the Pacific Theatre soon after and they say the same things. All in all, as a theory it is hardly unreasonable. Why the naysayers care to rely on simple ad hominem is a mystery. The Japanese waging the war had the intelligence, the means and the motivation. -- Regards, Dr. T. L. Simmons malangthon@xtra.co.nz (3) From: Denise O'Brien <obriend@temple.edu> Derek Price died in 1983. For information about him see the following: http://www.asis.org/Features/Pioneers/price.htm Regards, Denise O'Brien ------------------------------------------------------------------------ You can manage your H-Japan subscription at H-Net Subscription Management Page without requiring the use of LISTSERV commands by email. Change of address operations, digest requests and temporary mail suspensions can be handles by using this page. The link to this page is: http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/lists/manage.cgi
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