Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 20, 1995 TAG: 9507200054
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: TOKYO LENGTH: Medium
``We had no doubts about using it if we could. No one ever contemplated how terrible it would be,'' physicist Tatsusaburo Suzuki, 83, said Wednesday. ``We were just doing our best to put it together.''
Suzuki was a leading researcher in Japan's wartime effort to construct an atomic bomb. He spoke Wednesday in a rare and candid explanation of Japan's World War II atomic bomb research.
Scientists in Japan developed theories of how to build a bomb, he said, but never came close to actually making one because they lacked money and materials.
So desperate were they for parts that military officials discussed scrapping a battleship and using the steel for the atomic experiments, Suzuki said.
``I was confident at the time we could have built a bomb if we had better equipment,'' he said.
Top military leaders pinned desperate hopes on atomic weapons turning the tide of the war in Japan's favor, Suzuki said.
The project was supported by Japan's imperial household, and the emperor's brothers were among the leaders who inspected and encouraged their work, he said.
Suzuki was part of a team of 50 scientists culled from Japan's army and top universities to work on developing the bomb. They made about 11 pounds of enriched uranium, he said - far short of what would have been needed to produce an atomic weapon.
Americans found evidence of the project after the war and dumped research equipment into Tokyo Bay. But few Japanese have provided detailed descriptions of the program, and the Japanese army destroyed all records of the project at the end of the war.
Suzuki said the formulas the United States used to create the atomic explosions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki were similar to what his team had worked out.
He said none of the scientists working with him on the Japanese atomic bomb ever mentioned any ethical concerns about their project.
His attitude changed, he said, when he visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki shortly after they were devastated in August 1945 in the world's only atomic attacks.
``After seeing that destruction, I am of the firm opinion that atomic weapons should not have been used,'' he said. ``If you saw the women and children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki dying, weeping for water, you would feel the same way.''
by CNB