Re: Hiroshima observes 55th anniversary of bombing

["Tosh Ushino" <tushino@icnpharm.com>]

In response to Tom Savin's question:

>The one question for everyone I have is that do they remember that Germany and
Japan
>during WW II were developing their own capability for nuclear destruction. If
those >oppressive dictators had achieved the technology first what state would
the world be in?  >Food for thought.

I recall reading an interview of Akio Morita (late chairman of Sony) years ago.
He was a young engineer in the Japanese Imperial Navy during WW-II. He said that
part of his job was to study US technology by examining the wrecked US
aircrafts. Their conclusion was that they were technically on par with US. They
just didn't have the resource to build new aircrafts with such technology in
quantity. They knew about the technical feasibility of nuclear weapons, but had
no resource to even begin thinking about building one. He said that when they
heard of the bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, their first question was, how
did US accumulate so much fissile uranium?

As for the second question, my father (who was a cadet at the Imperial Army
Officer School in Hiroshima at the time) told me, if the Japanese military
dictators had access to such a weapon, he has no doubt that they would have used
it.

Tosh Ushino

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Toshihide "Tosh" Ushino, CHP                  Tel: (800) 548-5100 x2413
Product Development Manager                   Fax: (714) 668-3149
Dosimetry Div., ICN Biomedicals, Inc.         Email:  tushino@icnpharm.com
3300 Hyland Ave., Costa Mesa, CA  USA 92626           tushino@hotmail.com


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