TOKYO, July 19 -- A leading scientist on the Japanese team to develop an atomic bomb during the Pacific War said Wednesday that Japan would have used the device if the country had developed it first. Retired Lt. Col. Tatsusaburo Suzuki broke 20 years of silence on the subject, telling a press conference that Japan's wartime effort to develop an atomic bomb was far from successful and that its efforts were 'primitive.' In 1975 he wrote about the matter in several Japanese weekly magazines. 'We would have used the atomic bomb against U.S. military installations on Tinian and Saipan if we could have developed it,' said Suzuki, now living in Tokyo. The 83-year-old scientist admitted in a speech given at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan he was kept off the front lines during the war so he could play a leading role in the secret atomic bomb development project. As Japan accelerated its research on nuclear weapons in 1944, he was assigned as liaison officer to the Institute for Physical and Chemical Research in Riken, where most of the secret research occurred. 'Many experts wrongly believe Riken was supported by the Imperial Family of Japan,' explained Suzuki. 'There was never any proof of Emperor Hirohito's involvement and I never reported to him about the project.' Under hostile questioning, Suzuki admitted that the Imperial Family was interested in the production of an atomic bomb, but declined to disclose more information on it.
'In the later stages of the war, Imperial family members knew that Japan was going to lose by using only conventional weapons,' Suzuki explained, 'and they wanted to develop an atomic weapon as a way of reversing the country's fortunes.' Little information remains on Japan's top-secret wartime program to develop an atomic bomb -- headed by the late Dr. Yoshio Nishina -- because 'we were ordered to destroy all files when the war ended.' Suzuki said Nishina had studied under Professor Neils Bohr in Copenhagen, Denmark, during the late 1930s with other prominent nuclear physicists. The scholars, known as the Denmark Faction, included some of the world's leading atomic scientists from the United States, Germany and Japan. Japan's Nobel Prize-winning scientist of the early post-war period, Hideki Yukawa, was one of the faction's adherents, Suzuki said proudly. Suzuki gave journalists the impression that he was toeing a policy line throughout his speech and in the question period. He claimed, for example, that Japan did not come close to developing an atomic bomb in 1945. Many authors on the period, including Japanese professors, disagree. 'We succeeded in separating a fissionable material called UF-6 and collecting four to five kilograms (8-11 pounds) of the substance,' Suzuki said. 'But we never succeeded in separating U-235 (uranium 235) or achieving critical mass,' which is needed to produce a nuclear chain reaction. He said there were two schools of thought among Japanese atomic scientists during the bomb's development process. 'The pessimists believed Japan could not make a bomb in 100 years,' he said, 'while the optimists, like me, thought we could do it with a stepped up effort.' Suzuki said the main obstacle was a lack of money and resources devoted to the development project. Asked if he saw anything positive in nuclear weapons, Suzuki answered that their horrific impact had produced peace in the post-war period. 'If you had visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki right after the U.S. nuclear attacks like I did,' recalled Suzuki, 'you would agree that they should never again be used against human beings, especially those living in a crowded city.'
tokyo X X X professors, disagree. 'We succeeded in separating a fissionable material called UF-6 and collecting four to five kilograms (8-11 pounds) of the substance,' Suzuki said. 'But we never succeeded in separating U-235 (uranium 235) or achieving critical mass,' which is needed to produce a nuclear chain reaction. He said there were two schools of thought among Japanese atomic scientists during the bomb's development process. 'The pessimists believed Japan could not make a bomb in 100 years,' he said, 'while the optimists, like me, thought we could do it with a stepped up effort.' Suzuki said the main obstacle was a lack of money and resources devoted to the development project. Asked if he saw anything positive in nuclear weapons, Suzuki answered that their horrific impact had produced peace in the post-war period. 'If you had visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki right after the U.S. nuclear attacks like I did,' recalled Suzuki, 'you would agree that they should never again be used against human beings, especially those living in a crowded city.'
