October 8, 2011
US strategy influence on Japan’s nuclear energy policy (Part 7)
“Since then (1955—ed.), no people in the world have moved more rapidly than have the Japanese in organizing their atomic energy program.” This sentence is from the 1957 Progress Report which the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission compiled as part of the U.S. “atoms for peace” policy.
Atomic Expo
The United States stressed the need to recruit experts from abroad for study in the United States to have them educated as scholars supportive of U.S. nuclear energy policy. It also promoted the policy in other countries through newspapers and radio. According to a report of the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) dated November 4, 1955, the United States provided 18,000 hours of atomic-related programs to Japanese radio stations between October 1954 and September 1955.
A turning point toward the rapid development of Japan’s atomic energy program was an exhibition promoting the peaceful uses of atomic energy, jointly organized by USIS (USIA’s international wing) and the Yomiuri Shimbun. The exhibition was held at Tokyo’s Hibiya Park for two months from November 1955.
It was one of many exhibitions which the United States staged worldwide between 1955 and 1956 in relation to the promotion of the “peaceful uses of atomic energy.”
The Yomiuri volunteered to co-sponsor the exhibition to comply with the wishes of its owner Shoriki Matsutaro, who was to become the first chair of the Atomic Energy Commission of Japan in January 1956.
The Yomiuri carried campaign articles about the exhibition daily, and the number of visitors was 360,000 in total, which was a world record for an atomic expo worldwide.
Referring to twelve countries including Britain, West Germany, and Argentina as expo venues, the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB), a substructure of the U.S. National Security Council (NSC), in its December 21, 1955 report specially evaluated the one in Tokyo as “the most elaborate yet organized by USIA.”
Co-sponsored by mass media
The exhibition traveled across Japan during that year. All of them were co-sponsored by major newspapers, such as the Asahi in Osaka, and the Chunichi in Nagoya, following the lead of Yomiuri in Tokyo.
These exhibitions were part of the psychological operations of the U.S. Eisenhower administration to counteract the public anxiety concerning the U.S. massive retaliation nuclear strategy. The U.S. Air Force also proposed making popular “the historical development, in layman’s language, of atomic theory, weapons, and peaceful uses of atomic energy” as helpful to strengthen the U.S. nuclear posture on a global scale.
The United States extolled the success of its campaign strategies fully utilizing the Japanese mass media. An OCB report dated August 15, 1956 states, “A public opinion poll taken before and after the Tokyo exhibit indicated a significant favorable change in opinion, directly attributed to the exhibit, about U.S. progress and intentions in the fields of atomic energy.”
Yomiuri owner Shoriki Matsutaro had been instrumental to achieving a desired outcome to the unprecedented U.S. psychological operations against the Japanese public. However, he later began to promote nuclear power generation in Japan on his own, going beyond U.S. expectations.
(To be continued)
“Since then (1955—ed.), no people in the world have moved more rapidly than have the Japanese in organizing their atomic energy program.” This sentence is from the 1957 Progress Report which the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission compiled as part of the U.S. “atoms for peace” policy.
Atomic Expo
The United States stressed the need to recruit experts from abroad for study in the United States to have them educated as scholars supportive of U.S. nuclear energy policy. It also promoted the policy in other countries through newspapers and radio. According to a report of the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) dated November 4, 1955, the United States provided 18,000 hours of atomic-related programs to Japanese radio stations between October 1954 and September 1955.
A turning point toward the rapid development of Japan’s atomic energy program was an exhibition promoting the peaceful uses of atomic energy, jointly organized by USIS (USIA’s international wing) and the Yomiuri Shimbun. The exhibition was held at Tokyo’s Hibiya Park for two months from November 1955.
It was one of many exhibitions which the United States staged worldwide between 1955 and 1956 in relation to the promotion of the “peaceful uses of atomic energy.”
The Yomiuri volunteered to co-sponsor the exhibition to comply with the wishes of its owner Shoriki Matsutaro, who was to become the first chair of the Atomic Energy Commission of Japan in January 1956.
The Yomiuri carried campaign articles about the exhibition daily, and the number of visitors was 360,000 in total, which was a world record for an atomic expo worldwide.
Referring to twelve countries including Britain, West Germany, and Argentina as expo venues, the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB), a substructure of the U.S. National Security Council (NSC), in its December 21, 1955 report specially evaluated the one in Tokyo as “the most elaborate yet organized by USIA.”
Co-sponsored by mass media
The exhibition traveled across Japan during that year. All of them were co-sponsored by major newspapers, such as the Asahi in Osaka, and the Chunichi in Nagoya, following the lead of Yomiuri in Tokyo.
These exhibitions were part of the psychological operations of the U.S. Eisenhower administration to counteract the public anxiety concerning the U.S. massive retaliation nuclear strategy. The U.S. Air Force also proposed making popular “the historical development, in layman’s language, of atomic theory, weapons, and peaceful uses of atomic energy” as helpful to strengthen the U.S. nuclear posture on a global scale.
The United States extolled the success of its campaign strategies fully utilizing the Japanese mass media. An OCB report dated August 15, 1956 states, “A public opinion poll taken before and after the Tokyo exhibit indicated a significant favorable change in opinion, directly attributed to the exhibit, about U.S. progress and intentions in the fields of atomic energy.”
Yomiuri owner Shoriki Matsutaro had been instrumental to achieving a desired outcome to the unprecedented U.S. psychological operations against the Japanese public. However, he later began to promote nuclear power generation in Japan on his own, going beyond U.S. expectations.
(To be continued)
