Is Japan's Elite Hiding a Weapons Program Inside Nuclear Plants?

Is Japan's Elite Hiding a Weapons Program Inside Nuclear Plants?

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New America Media, News Analysis, Yoichi Shimatsu, Posted: Apr 06, 2011


Confused and often conflicting reports out of Fukushima 1 nuclear plant cannot be solely the result of tsunami-caused breakdowns, bungling or miscommunication. Inexplicable delays and half-baked explanations from Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) seem to be driven by some unspoken factor.

The smoke and mirrors at Fukushima 1 seem to obscure a steady purpose, an iron will and a grim task unknown to outsiders. The most logical explanation: The nuclear industry and government agencies are scrambling to prevent the discovery of atomic-bomb research facilities hidden inside Japan's civilian nuclear power plants.

A secret nuclear weapons program is a ghost in the machine, detectable only when the system of information control momentarily lapses or breaks down. A close look must be taken at the gap between the official account and unexpected events.

Conflicting Reports

TEPCO, Japan’s nuclear power operator, initially reported three reactors were operating at the time of the March 11 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Then a hydrogen explosion ripped Unit 3, run on plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (or MOX). Unit 6 immediately disappeared from the list of operational reactors, as highly lethal particles of plutonium billowed out of Unit 3. Plutonium is the stuff of smaller, more easily delivered warheads.

A fire ignited inside the damaged housing of the Unit 4 reactor, reportedly due to overheating of spent uranium fuel rods in a dry cooling pool. But the size of the fire indicates that this reactor was running hot for some purpose other than electricity generation. Its omission from the list of electricity-generating operations raises the question of whether Unit 4 was being used to enrich uranium, the first step of the process leading to extraction of weapons-grade fissionable material.

The bloom of irradiated seawater across the Pacific comprises another piece of the puzzle, because its underground source is untraceable (or, perhaps, unmentionable). The flooded labyrinth of pipes, where the bodies of two missing nuclear workers—never before disclosed to the press— were found, could well contain the answer to the mystery: a lab that none dare name.

Political Warfare

In reaction to Prime Minister Naoto Kan's demand for prompt reporting of problems, the pro-nuclear lobby has closed ranks, fencing off and freezing out the prime minister's office from vital information. A grand alliance of nuclear proponents now includes TEPCO, plant designer General Electric, METI, the former ruling Liberal Democratic Party and, by all signs, the White House.

Cabinet ministers in charge of communication and national emergencies recently lambasted METI head Banri Kaeda for acting as both nuclear promoter and regulator in charge of the now-muzzled Nuclear and Industrial Safety Commission. TEPCO struck back quickly, blaming the prime minister's helicopter fly-over for delaying venting of volatile gases and thereby causing a blast at Reactor 2. For "health reasons,” TEPCO 's president retreated to a hospital ward, cutting Kan's line of communication with the company and undermining his site visit to Fukushima 1.

Kan is furthered hampered by his feud with Democratic Party rival Ichiro Ozawa, the only potential ally with the clout to challenge the formidable pro-nuclear coalition

The head of the Liberal Democrats, which sponsored nuclear power under its nearly 54-year tenure, has just held confidential talks with U.S. Ambassador John Roos, while President Barack Obama was making statements in support of new nuclear plants across the U.S.

Cut Off From Communications

The substance of undisclosed talks between Tokyo and Washington can be surmised from disruptions to my recent phone calls to a Japanese journalist colleague. While inside the radioactive hot zone, his roaming number was disconnected, along with the mobiles of nuclear workers at Fukushima 1 who are denied phone access to the outside world. The service suspension is not due to design flaws. When helping to prepare the Tohoku crisis response plan in 1996, my effort was directed at ensuring that mobile base stations have back-up power with fast recharge.

A subsequent phone call when my colleague returned to Tokyo went dead when I mentioned "GE.” That incident occurred on the day that GE’s CEO Jeff Immelt landed in Tokyo with a pledge to rebuild the Fukushima 1 nuclear plant. Such apparent eavesdropping is only possible if national phone carrier NTT is cooperating with the signals-intercepts program of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).

The Manchurian Deal

The chain of events behind this vast fabrication goes back many decades.

During the Japanese militarist occupation of northeast China in the 1930s, the puppet state of Manchukuo was carved out as a fully modern economic powerhouse to support overpopulated Japan and its military machine. A high-ranking economic planner named Nobusuke Kishi worked closely with then commander of the occupying Kanto division, known to the Chinese as the Kwantung Army, General Hideki Tojo.

Close ties between the military and colonial economists led to stunning technological achievements, including the prototype of a bullet train (or Shinkansen) and inception of Japan's atomic bomb project in northern Korea. When Tojo became Japan's wartime prime minister, Kishi served as his minister of commerce and economy, planning for total war on a global scale.

After Japan's defeat in 1945, both Tojo and Kishi were found guilty as Class-A war criminals, but Kishi evaded the gallows for reasons unknown—probably his usefulness to a war-ravaged nation. The scrawny economist’s conception of a centrally managed economy provided the blueprint for MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry), the predecessor of METI, which created the economic miracle that transformed postwar Japan into an economic superpower.

After clawing his way into the good graces of Cold Warrior John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower's secretary of state, Kishi was elected prime minister in 1957. His protégé Yasuhiro Nakasone, the former naval officer and future prime minister, spearheaded Japan's campaign to become a nuclear power under the cover of the Atomic Energy Basic Law.

American Complicity

Kishi secretly negotiated a deal with the White House to permit the U.S. military to store atomic bombs in Okinawa and Atsugi naval air station outside Tokyo. (Marine corporal Lee Harvey Oswald served as a guard inside Atsugi's underground warhead armory.) In exchange, the U.S. gave the nod for Japan to pursue a "civilian" nuclear program.

Secret diplomacy was required due to the overwhelming sentiment of the Japanese public against nuclear power in the wake of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings. Two years ago, a text of the secret agreement was unearthed by Katsuya Okada, foreign minister in the cabinet of the first Democratic Party prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama (who served for nine months from 2009-10).

Many key details were missing from this document, which had been locked inside the Foreign Ministry archives. Retired veteran diplomat Kazuhiko Togo disclosed that the more sensitive matters were contained in brief side letters, some of which were kept in a mansion frequented by Kishi's half-brother, the late Prime Minister Eisaku Sato (who served from 1964-72). Those most important diplomatic notes, Togo added, were removed and subsequently disappeared.

These revelations were considered a major issue in Japan, yet were largely ignored by the Western media. With the Fukushima nuclear plant going up in smoke, the world is now paying the price of that journalistic neglect.

On his 1959 visit to Britain, Kishi was flown by military helicopter to the Bradwell nuclear plant in Essex. The following year, the first draft of the U.S.-Japan security was signed, despite massive peace protests in Tokyo. Within a couple of years, the British firm GEC built Japan's first nuclear reactor at Tokaimura, Ibaragi Prefecture. At the same time, just after the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the newly unveiled Shinkansen train gliding past Mount Fuji provided the perfect rationale for nuclear-sourced electricity.

Kishi uttered the famous statement that "nuclear weapons are not expressly prohibited" under the postwar Constitution's Article 9 prohibiting war-making powers. His words were repeated two years ago by his grandson, then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The ongoing North Korea "crisis" served as a pretext for this third-generation progeny of the political elite to float the idea of a nuclear-armed Japan. Many Japanese journalists and intelligence experts assume the secret program has sufficiently advanced for rapid assembly of a warhead arsenal and that underground tests at sub-critical levels have been conducted with small plutonium pellets.

Sabotaging Alternative Energy

The cynical attitude of the nuclear lobby extends far into the future, strangling at birth the Japanese archipelago's only viable source of alternative energy—offshore wind power. Despite decades of research, Japan has only 5 percent of the wind energy production of China, an economy (for the moment, anyway) of comparable size. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a nuclear-power partner of Westinghouse, manufactures wind turbines but only for the export market.

The Siberian high-pressure zone ensures a strong and steady wind flow over northern Japan, but the region's utility companies have not taken advantage of this natural energy resource. The reason is that TEPCO, based in Tokyo and controlling the largest energy market, acts much as a shogun over the nine regional power companies and the national grid. Its deep pockets influence high bureaucrats, publishers and politicians like Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, while nuclear ambitions keep the defense contractors and generals on its side. Yet TEPCO is not quite the top dog. Its senior partner in this mega-enterprise is Kishi's brainchild, METI.

The national test site for offshore wind is unfortunately not located in windswept Hokkaido or Niigata, but farther to the southeast, in Chiba Prefecture. Findings from these tests to decide the fate of wind energy won't be released until 2015. The sponsor of that slow-moving trial project is TEPCO.

Death of Deterrence

Meanwhile in 2009, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a muted warning on Japan's heightened drive for a nuclear bomb— and promptly did nothing. The White House has to turn a blind eye to the radiation streaming through American skies or risk exposure of a blatant double standard on nuclear proliferation by an ally. Besides, Washington's quiet approval for a Japanese bomb doesn't quite sit well with the memory of either Pearl Harbor or Hiroshima.

In and of itself, a nuclear deterrence capability would be neither objectionable nor illegal— in the unlikely event that the majority of Japanese voted in favor of a constitutional amendment to Article 9. Legalized possession would require safety inspections, strict controls and transparency of the sort that could have hastened the Fukushima emergency response. Covert weapons development, in contrast, is rife with problems. In the event of an emergency, like the one happening at this moment, secrecy must be enforced at all cost— even if it means countless more hibakusha, or nuclear victims.

Instead of enabling a regional deterrence system and a return to great-power status, the Manchurian deal planted the time bombs now spewing radiation around the world. The nihilism at the heart of this nuclear threat to humanity lies not inside Fukushima 1, but within the national security mindset. The specter of self-destruction can be ended only with the abrogation of the U.S.-Japan security treaty, the root cause of the secrecy that fatally delayed the nuclear workers' fight against meltdown

Yoichi Shimatsu, a Hong Kong–based environmental writer, is the former editor of the Japan Times Weekly.


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Comments

 

Anonymous

Posted Apr 6

This is an interesting, speculative allegation. Akin to starting a sudoku puzzle. Maybe others have "a number to add".

Maybe this is a number: when I was an Army civilian manager in Okinawa in the mid-1970s, one of my employees told me that "we" had been secretly storing nuclear weapons there. (How he knew, I don't know.) This was after the 1972 "reversion" of the islands from US to Japanese control, and the Okinawans were bitterly protesting that fact and the many impacts of military occupation... including the alleged (and of course denied) storing of American nukes! Given the tensions of Vietnam, PRC, North Korea, even USSR in that sector, didn't surprise me. The US military secretly stored nukes in many places.

Anonymous

Posted Apr 6

This is an interesting, speculative allegation. Akin to starting a sudoku puzzle. Maybe others have "a number to add".

Maybe this is a number: when I was an Army civilian manager in Okinawa in the mid-1970s, one of my employees told me that "we" had been secretly storing nuclear weapons there. (How he knew, I don't know.) This was after the 1972 "reversion" of the islands from US to Japanese control, and the Okinawans were bitterly protesting that fact and the many impacts of military occupation... including the alleged (and of course denied) storing of American nukes! Given the tensions of Vietnam, PRC, North Korea, even USSR in that sector, didn't surprise me. The US military secretly stored nukes in many places.

Anonymous

Posted Apr 6

hi

Anonymous

Posted Apr 6

it's highly possible

Anonymous

Posted Apr 7

All hidden right now, in my humble opinion, is a meltdown that happened days ago.

Anonymous

Posted 6 days ago

Nuclear "power plants" around the world have been quietly producing "enriched" products for their
financial benefactors for decades,this is nothing new,one need simply look at the multiple concentrations of facilities,sometimes next-door to each other,and ask the simple question,
how much electricty is actually being produced?

Anonymous

Posted 6 days ago

Nuclear "power plants" around the world have been quietly producing "enriched" products for their
financial benefactors for decades,this is nothing new,one need simply look at the multiple concentrations of facilities,sometimes next-door to each other,and ask the simple question,
how much electricty is actually being produced?

Anonymous

Posted 6 days ago

The substance of this article is contained in the para:
"A fire ignited inside the damaged housing of the Unit 4 reactor, reportedly due to overheating of spent uranium fuel rods in a dry cooling pool. But the size of the fire indicates that this reactor was running hot for some purpose other than electricity generation. Its omission from the list of electricity-generating operations raises the question of whether Unit 4 was being used to enrich uranium, the first step of the process leading to extraction of weapons-grade fissionable material."

The author does not seem to realise that reactors are not used to enrich Pu. Enrichment typically done by chemical means and isotopic separation using centrifuges. Of course reactors are used to produce Pu in the first place, but at the same time as they generate heat for power generation.

The alternative explanation - that the used fuel storage pond cracked and leaked out all its cooling water - seems entirely sufficient and more credible.

Oliver Tickell.

Anonymous

Posted 6 days ago

The substance of this article is contained in the para:
"A fire ignited inside the damaged housing of the Unit 4 reactor, reportedly due to overheating of spent uranium fuel rods in a dry cooling pool. But the size of the fire indicates that this reactor was running hot for some purpose other than electricity generation. Its omission from the list of electricity-generating operations raises the question of whether Unit 4 was being used to enrich uranium, the first step of the process leading to extraction of weapons-grade fissionable material."

The author does not seem to realise that reactors are not used to enrich Pu. Enrichment typically done by chemical means and isotopic separation using centrifuges. Of course reactors are used to produce Pu in the first place, but at the same time as they generate heat for power generation.

The alternative explanation - that the used fuel storage pond cracked and leaked out all its cooling water - seems entirely sufficient and more credible.

Oliver Tickell.

Anonymous

Posted 6 days ago

The substance of this article is contained in the para:
"A fire ignited inside the damaged housing of the Unit 4 reactor, reportedly due to overheating of spent uranium fuel rods in a dry cooling pool. But the size of the fire indicates that this reactor was running hot for some purpose other than electricity generation. Its omission from the list of electricity-generating operations raises the question of whether Unit 4 was being used to enrich uranium, the first step of the process leading to extraction of weapons-grade fissionable material."

The author does not seem to realise that reactors are not used to enrich Pu. Enrichment typically done by chemical means and isotopic separation using centrifuges. Of course reactors are used to produce Pu in the first place, but at the same time as they generate heat for power generation.

The alternative explanation - that the used fuel storage pond cracked and leaked out all its cooling water - seems entirely sufficient and more credible.

Oliver Tickell.

Anonymous

Posted 6 days ago

While I personally have no problem with the idea of a Japanese bomb, Yoichi Shimatsu's story here seems to be primarily based on... a bunch of bullshit.

It IS true that there was a LOT of interest in building a bomb, and while it still CERTAINLY IS TRUE that Japan could whip up a bomb in no time at all, the Fukushima plant is NOT EVEN CLOSE to being a reprocessing facility.

Shimatsu San's notion that, "A fire ignited inside the damaged housing of the Unit 4 reactor, reportedly due to overheating of spent uranium fuel rods in a dry cooling pool. But the size of the fire indicates that this reactor was running hot for some purpose other than electricity generation." Is a bunch of bullshit. Of COURSE it does NOT indicate that.

Spent fuel rods are kept in a giant cooling pond for a reason. Without water, they overheat and catch fire. The size of the fire can be enormous! And the heat from the rods lasts for years after they are taken out of electricity generation. What the hell does that have to do with a reprocessing facility. A reprocessing facility is a totally different animal, would look different, require a different structure and need a whole HUGE amount of other equipment. If Japan were reprocessing, they would only need to take the rods elsewhere and reprocess them in an empty warehouse, not in a reactor pond. Good grief! Not only that, but if Japan wanted to build a bomb they COULD use the Plutonium they already have. They have no need to enrich Uranium. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

It seems you need to know close to nothing about how to make a bomb to accuse someone of trying to do so.

It should be noted that Yoichi here is based IN CHINA! It's only natural that China would want a story like this to be out there. True or not.

Again. It is NO SECRET that many Japanese have wanted a bomb in the past, that as China continues to threaten the world, many may want one now, and that it is a piece of cake for Japan to create one. But there just is NO EVIDENCE at all that Fukushima has anything to do with that.

Learn something about what you are talking about before writing. The real story is the suffering of the Japanese people. If you are an environmental writer, there's plenty else for you to write about.

Anonymous

Posted 6 days ago

This story is absolute ignorant horse manure. The reactor #4 spent fuel pool was super-hot because there was reactor maintenance occurring and the fresher fuel from the reactor was being stored in the pool.
Japan has enormous amounts of highly-enriched-uranium (which is NOT produced in reactors) and weapons-usable plutonium already available - ready-to-go.
It conducts both nuclear research and are experts in explosive design and in rocketry. They don't need to hide out in a power plant. The information problems at Fukushima are the result of confusion, people covering their butts, incompetence, etc.
Look up the accident at Three Mile Island. The lies and confusion were identical.

What nonsense.

Anonymous

Posted 6 days ago

There are American, Canadian, German, and other staff working on those reactors right in the buildings normally (GE still has a maintenance contract with TEPCO), how the hell would they hide a weapons program?

Anonymous

Posted 5 days ago

Sir Percy
When US sponsored an exemption for India's nuclear deal, you know the Pandora’s Box was wide opened. Later on, there were many more previously unknown Pandora boxes being opened. USA AND NATO have to understand that you cannot have the cake and eat it. There will be bad consequence for their bad behavior.

Anonymous

Posted 5 days ago

Oppenheimer was probably right: Nuclear power was just a front for the real goal which was to make atomic bombs. It was never truly considered viable.

Anonymous

Posted 4 days ago

Many words but not one fact offered as proof.

Not one person quoted to back up these assertions.

Everything I've read by this guy seems to be about conspiracies and building an argument on clouds of his own assertions.


--jerseycityjoan, April 10, 2011

Anonymous

Posted 2 days ago

How is that the most obvious conclusion? Virtually any country with nuclear power could produce atomic weapons in a matter of weeks. Mistaking incompetence for conspiracy has lost me some respect for NAM.

Anonymous

Posted 1 day ago

Shimatsu's theory is very likely true.
A couple of points to put the naysayer comments below in perspective.
1 - Why then, has Mordecai Vanunu's life been destroyed for simply pointing out the obvious about the Israelis?
2 - Why would a miniscule fraction of the 100s of billions of dollars of homeland security funds spent in the U.S. NOT be put to use by hiring "experts" to patrol the media/internet and neutralize articles like this with expert-like comments? Of course this is being done. It's a no brainer.
3 - 1 out of four of all U.S. employees are paid to "guard" us and maintain our society as determined by their employers.
4 - Hypocrisy is the rule for the U.S. and Japanese elites, but it must be hidden. Manufactured erception is the glue for their house of cards.

Anonymous

Posted 1 day ago

Shimatsu's theory is very likely true.
A couple of points to put the naysayer comments below in perspective.
1 - Why then, has Mordecai Vanunu's life been destroyed for simply pointing out the obvious about the Israelis?
2 - Why would a minuscule fraction of the 100s of billions of dollars of homeland security funds spent in the U.S. NOT be put to use by hiring "experts" to patrol the media/internet and neutralize articles like this with expert-like comments? Of course this is being done. It's a no brainer.
3 - 1 out of four of all U.S. employees are paid to "guard" us and maintain our society as determined by their employers.
4 - Hypocrisy is the rule for the U.S. and Japanese elites, but it must be hidden. Manufactured perception is the glue for their house of cards.

Anonymous

Posted 1 day ago

Shimatsu's theory is very likely true.
A couple of points to put the naysayer comments below in perspective.
1 - Why then, has Mordecai Vanunu's life been destroyed for simply pointing out the obvious about the Israelis?
2 - Why would a minuscule fraction of the 100s of billions of dollars of homeland security funds spent in the U.S. NOT be put to use by hiring "experts" to patrol the media/internet and neutralize articles like this with expert-like comments? Of course this is being done. It's a no brainer.
3 - 1 out of four of all U.S. employees are paid to "guard" us and maintain our society as determined by their employers.
4 - Hypocrisy is the rule for the U.S. and Japanese elites, but it must be hidden. Manufactured perception is the glue for their house of cards.

Anonymous

Posted 12 hours ago

It is highly likely, or unfortunately true! Why? All western media has been sealing their lips on any doubts or suspicion as if there is nothing like this that has been raised questions! As a result, it is clearly to me that a complicity has been going on between the US and Japan.

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