Acknowledgements

IN SHAPING MY thinking, I owe much to the many people who candidly shared their views with me. Bill Breer, my American former diplomatic colleague in Japan, introduced me to three of his senior Japanese contacts who shared with me their knowledge about the political situation since the Fukushima catastrophe — Yoichi Kato, national-security correspondent for the Asahi Shimbun; Yukio Okamoto, retired diplomat and frequent advisor to prime ministers; and Tsuneo ‘Nabe’ Watanabe, director of foreign and security policy research at the Tokyo Foundation. My old friend Kenzo Tomotoshi, a neighbour in Aoyama in the 1960s, retired restaurateur, and an influential participant in Tsukiji fish market politics, gave me invaluable advice about the meltdowns and venting of radiation into fishing grounds off the Tōhoku coast. Some expatriates in Japan were equally forthcoming, including my old squash partner, Greg Clark; Dianne Takahashi; Cherie Firth; Geoffrey Gunn; and Mark Willacy. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to two Australian former English-language teachers in Fukushima, who went through the full drama of earthquake, tsunami, and meltdown before reluctantly evacuating to Australia — Darren Gubbins and Terry Colbert. Theirs are heart-rending stories.

Equally helpful were officials and teachers that Alison and I met during a crowded five-day tour of Fukushima prefecture — particularly Ikuo Nemoto, deputy principle at Kohnan Senior High School, and Billy McMichael, assistant director of student services at Fukushima University; also Tomoko Otake, a journalist with The Japan Times. Other Australians who helped me were Philip White, Greg Piper (mayor of Lake Macquarie, which has a sister-city relationship with Tanagura in Tōhoku), Peter Speirs (mayor of Temora, which has a similar relationship with Izumizaki, also in Tōhoku), Rawdon Dalrymple (a former senior diplomatic colleague who kept challenging my assumptions about the seriousness of the Fukushima disaster), Murray McLean (former Australian ambassador to Tokyo), and David Yardley (director of the Freedom of Information and Privacy Law Section of DFAT in Canberra).

I have been influenced and informed by the writings of a number of commentators and academics on Japan, and have used much of what I read without apology, but with full acknowledgement of their scholarship and insight. They include: Rick Wallace, the Australian correspondent in Tokyo; Michael Hoffman of The Japan Times; Peter Pringle and Jim Spigelman, who in 1981 wrote The Nuclear Barons, about the egos and ambitions of those men and women who developed nuclear technology; Jeff Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University’s Tokyo campus; Peter Hayes and Richard Tanter from the Nautilus Foundation; Hayden Lesbirel, Australian historian of Japan; Professor Gavan McCormack of the Australian National University; anti-nuclear activists Dr Jim Green and Nat Wasley; two Australian public-health experts, Tilman Ruff and Peter Karamoskos; and finally, Dr Helen Caldicott, a paediatrician who has been courageously contesting the claims of the nuclear industry for over 30 years, and who happens to be my sister.

I would also like to thank Aidan Byrne, professor of nuclear physics at the Australian National University, for sharing with me his heterodox perspective about ionising radiation. I don’t share his views, but it is good to rehearse them in civilised academic discourse rather than in a shouting match. At one stage Aidan pointed out over afternoon tea that I was not a nuclear physicist, and I responded by saying he was neither a nuclear physician nor a nuclear-policy practitioner. We each acknowledged our own shortcomings.

Then there are the three people who edited the text — David Golding of Scribe, Mark Diesendorf of the University of New South Wales, and Sue Wareham, vice-president of the Medical Association for Prevention of War. David was thoroughly professional and edited with a light but accurate and understanding touch. Mark, a mathematician and expert on renewable energy, had some valuable advice on radiation calculations. And so did Sue — a cautious and knowledgeable general physician — mainly about the medical effects of radiation and the consequences of past nuclear accidents. As a result of the wisdom of these three people, the book is a sounder document. I am grateful for their efforts.

Apart from all these good people is my wife Alison. With her ebullient personality and intellectual enthusiasm she was, as always, a continual source of ideas. She came with me to Japan (my 70th birthday present to her, a return air ticket). She plied me with advice and suggestions about what to ask at meetings, and helped me analyse many of the conversations that followed.