At the end of August 1975, Japan\u2019s first national antinuclear rally was held in Kyoto over three days, being attended by 51 groups from NPP sites as well as 600 citizens and researchers, presenting the slogan: \u201cLife-threatening nuclear power.\u201d At that time, 59 nuclear reactors were already in service, being built, or planned, along the coastline of the Japanese archipelago. The slogan of the rally, \u201clife-threatening nuclear power,\u201d was taking shape without doubt.<\/p>\n
In March 1975, a book named The Safety of Nuclear Power Generation<\/em> was published (from Iwanami Shoten, Tokyo; in Japanese). It was perhaps the first book in this country that criticized nuclear power generation. An easier-to-read version of this book was issued under the name of Nuclear Power Generation<\/em> (an Iwanami Shoten softcover; in Japanese) in February, 1976. These works were the achievements of research by the Nuclear Safety Issue Research Group, which had been active since 1972. Among the important members of the group were four physicists: Mitsuo Taketani (elementary particle theory), Sh\u016b Ono (solid-state theory), Tokunosuke Nakajima (nuclear engineering), and Y\u014dichi Fujimoto (nuclear physics). It was in the early 1970s that concerned scientists started to criticize nuclear power plants.<\/p>\n We would like to trace back about 20 years, to March 2, 1954, the very next day after a U.S. hydrogen bomb test was performed near the Bikini Atoll. A number of tuna longline fishing boats had been exposed to radiation in the Pacific Ocean, including the heavily contaminated Daigo Fukury\u016b Maru (S.S. Lucky Dragon 5), but on March 2 a budget proposal of 250\u00a0million yen for nuclear power was suddenly submitted to the Japanese Diet, which approved the proposal. This gigantic budget became the trigger for post-war Japan to steer itself toward becoming a science- and technology-based nation.<\/p>\n In those days, many Japanese scientists, who had not forgotten the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, were against nuclear power research, because it might lead to the development of nuclear arms and, consequently, war. On the other hand, a good number of scientists were positive about research, both out of curiosity and the promise of research subsidies. The two groups of scientists held prudent discussions. Having become impatient, the pro-nuclear Diet member Yasuhiro Nakasone (who then belonged to the Kaishinto<\/em> Reformist Party and later became a Liberal Democratic Party member and Prime Minister) reportedly remarked: \u201cBecause academics were wasting time, we slapped their cheeks with a bundle of notes.\u201d<\/p>\n In the end, the Atomic Energy Basic Law was established in December 1955, incorporating compliance with the three nuclear power principles demanded by the Science Council of Japan, which were \u201copenness,\u201d \u201cdemocracy,\u201d and \u201cautonomy.\u201d The nuclear power promotion framework, led by politicians and supported by pro-nuclear academics, was thus established.<\/p>\n Returning to the 1970s, in September 1975, encouraged by the anti-nuclear rally in Kyoto, the Citizens\u2019 Nuclear Information Center (CNIC) was established, led by Mitsuo Taketani as Director. At first, the organization was regarded as a place to exchange information about nuclear power generation among academics and researchers concerned with the safety of nuclear power plants. However, Jinzabur\u014d Takagi (nuclear chemistry), who was the only full-time staff of the organization, had a different opinion: \u201cResearchers should also be activists.\u201d This controversy is commonly known in the as \u201cwatch-versus-hammer debate.\u201d The metaphor is that scientists are like precision watches while activists are like hammers who stand up against reality. Being defiant of the old, conservative idea that experts should live in the worlds in which they specialize, Takagi was in pursuit of a new role for scientists; he believed that scientists should pursue both research and social activism.<\/p>\n After Taketani\u2019s resignation, Takagi became the second Director of the CNIC. Since then, the organization has been pursuing the difficult path of conducting both research and activism, according to Takagi\u2019s policy. Behind his idea lay the fact that he was deeply involved in the movement against the construction of the Sanrizuka Airport (today\u2019s Narita International Airport), which was the most intensely fought controversy in Japan at the time. We should note that Takagi sincerely empathized with the farmers who, with bare hands, resisted the national authorities, which enforced the airport construction with bulldozers.<\/p>\n
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