Jackson Free Press

Takashi Teramoto was 10 when "Little Boy" dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945, killing 140,000 Japanese—half instantly, the other half from radiation poisoning. Teramoto is traveling with Steven Leeper, director of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, who often translates for him. Dedicated to eliminating nuclear weapons worldwide, the foundation is funding their tour to 101 U.S. cities, which began late in 2007.

"People are just not thinking about nuclear weapons," Leeper said. "They think it's an old problem, a problem that was solved when the Cold War ended."

Tell me Teramoto's story.
He was 10 when the bomb exploded in a wooden house with his mother. They were (1,000 yards) from the hypocenter, which is really very close. He was inside, luckily, deep in his house, but he still felt this tremendous light, so he turned to look at it. The whole house fell down, and everything went black. The next thing he knew, he was huddling in the rubble that was his house. He walked toward a light and ran into a woman from his neighborhood. She picked him up and carried him to a river outside of the city. She protected him (from the black rain) with corrugated tin roofing. ... She died in a few weeks from radiation poisoning, but he was spared. … He was on the verge of death for about a month and lost all his hair, but he didn't have all of the vomiting blood and "spots of death," the purpura on the skin. ... Unlike many survivors, he did not have a lot of radiation effects.

What happened to his mother?
His mother was under the rubble. Neighbors dug her out and walked her to a river… she couldn't go any further, and she apparently lay by the river and got weaker and weaker. Ten days later, on Aug. 15, she died. He never saw her again after the bombing.

Isn't the U.S. dismantling nukes after the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty?
Since the 1980s, the number of weapons has come down, but right now, Russia and the U.S. have 2,300 nuclear weapons aimed at each other. We have about 1,600 aimed at the Russians. That means that even before there's an explosion, we could fire rockets (at Russia) just like during the Cold War. We consider (that) a ridiculous and dangerous situation. More importantly, the (2002 U.S.) Nuclear Posture Review states clearly that they want to work toward smaller, combat nuclear weapons. That's what we consider to be the new nuclear threat. Before, the Soviet Union and the U.S. kept a pretty tight rein. Now all kinds of countries are trying to make nuclear weapons. There are 11 countries in the Middle East starting up programs. They say for peaceful purposes, but that's what North Korea said until they exploded a nuclear weapon in 2006.

Don't our nuclear weapons deter others from using them?
There's a tremendous proliferation risk stimulated by the fact that the nuclear-weapons states have no intention of eliminating their nuclear weapons. The (1970) Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was a bargain where the nuclear-weapon states would help non-nuclear nations build their nuclear technologyfor power and medicine, and negotiate to achieve nuclear disarmament. That's what we're obligated to do (and) we have not done it. Since 1970, (Russia) and the U.S. have used each other as an excuse not to (disarm). That whole "mutual destruction" thing and the whole deterrence theory is meaningless. You don't deter terrorists, because they don't care how many nuclear weapons you have.

The only hope ... is to have a world-wide effort led by the U.S., to downgrade weapons-grade fissile material so nobody can make nuclear weapons ... . Then we can control it; terrorists cannot enrich uranium or purify plutonium in their backyard, (which) require huge facilities that we can see from space. …

We can't do it under the current situation because the people in charge of the U.S. are saying, "We will maintain our nuclear weapons, and we'll decide who does and who does not have nuclear weapons." We're saying it's OK for India to have nuclear weapons, but it's not OK for Iran. ... This is not going to work. It's not that kind of world anymore. … The only hope is for everybody to get rid of nuclear weapons.

What is a peace culture?
Human beings have always fought each other; we establish empires and conquer territory. (Like) wolves, you establish territories and (decide) who gets what by strength and power. And that is a war culture—a dominance paradigm—the struggle for dominance and wealth.

We have to find other ways to resolve our conflicts, and that requires a shift from a war culture to a peace culture. The peace culture is the effort to make the world work for everyone. Right now, we live in a war culture. Half the world's population lives on $2 or less a day; 24,000 people die every day of starvation. They're the losers, and we're the winners. In a peace culture, that attitude is unacceptable. We have to move in that direction for two reasons. One is violence, and not just nuclear violence; we have the ability to destroy ourselves and our environment. The other thing is that we have to solve serious environment problems: There's global warming; the oceans are dying; the air is filling up with crap. We're being forced to shift from a war culture to a peace culture. The question is whether or not we're going to be able to do it in time.