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2011 August 31 - September 6 TOP3 [NUCLEAR CRISIS]

Gov’t labeled progressive physicists as obstacle to nuclear energy development

A declassified document shows that the Japanese government in the 1950s labeled progressive nuclear physicists as “leftist” or “far leftists”, recognizing them as obstacle to the domestic promotion of nuclear power generation.

The document was discovered at the United States National Archives by Yamazaki Masakatsu, professor emeritus at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

It is dated February 24, 1954, the year when Japan’s first nuclear energy-related budget was earmarked. The Japanese-written document is titled, “Japan’s institutions and researchers of nucleus and nuclear power.”

On the front page, the names and titles of two Japanese persons were handwritten in English: Fukui Isamu, the then vice minister of Education Ministry (Liberal Party); and Komagata Sakuji, official of the then Ministry of International Trade and Industry. The document was sent from the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo to the U.S. Department of State on September 27, 1954.

It stated, “One of the reasons why nuclear energy issue is troublesome is because it is used by the left wing as a tool of their anti-U.S. movement.” Calling scientists Sakata Shoichi and Taketani Mitsuo “far-leftist elementary particles researchers,” it described them as the strongest opponents of nuclear energy research under the conservative government.

Sakata was a world-known professor at Nagoya University, who paved the way for the new development of elementary particle physics. Nobel laureate Masukawa Toshihide was the member of Sakata’s laboratory.

The document went on to say, “The largest organization led by far-leftist leaders is the Democratic Scientists Association.”

It includes a list of Japan’s major nuclear physicists, each one of whom was identified as “far-leftist,” “leftist,” or “rightist, deeply related with the U.S.”

Professor Yamazaki, who disclosed the document, pointed out that it was possibly compiled by Vice Education Minister Fukui under then Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru. The document indicates that the Japanese and U.S. governments at that time jointly tried to remove progressive scientists, as it was sent to the U.S. Department of State via the U.S. Embassy, he said.