Japanese Elites in Kissinger's Seminar
In 1953 Henry Kissinger (1923-) held an international summer seminar in Harvard University.
Yasuhiro Nakasone, a then Japanese parliament member, joined it, though it was just eight years after the end of WWII. Nakasone (1918-) later became prime minister of Japan, specifically, in 1982. Importantly, in 1954, the next year of his joining the seminar, Nakasone contributed to passing a bill to allocate a National budget to building the first Japanese nuclear reactor. Since then, lawmaker Nakasone acted as one of major politicians in Japan who willingly promoted development, building, and operation of nuclear power generation plants over decades.
Accordingly it is thought that Japanese conservative elite politician Nakasone was recruited or brainwashed by US governmental agencies and influential persons, such as Kissinger, so as to carry out their plan to introduce nuclear technology into post-war Japan.
However into Kissinger's seminar some other Japanese elites were also invited. In those years the seminar was held every year, usually inviting 50 or so rising and young elite politicians, professors, authors, business leaders from all over the world. It lasted for 50 days in summer.
And, in one time Kenzaburo Oe (1935-) joined this summer seminar in early 1960s. Looking back to the episode from today, it is a little strange that pacifist Oe received invitation from Kissinger who is not pacifistic at all. But, after WWII Japan fully adopted American democracy. And Oe has been an enthusiastic believer in democracy. He hated militarism and nationalistic ideology which were observed in the Empire of Japan during WWII. Oe probably though that he could find peace activists even in Kissinger's seminar.
Oe received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1994. However, Oe has been a well-known peace activist since he won a big literary award in Japan in 1958 while he was a student of the University of Tokyo. Oe is also against operation of nuclear power plants in Japan. So, it is interesting what Oe thought in Kissinger's summer seminar in early 1960s.
At the time, Oe had already published his nonfiction titled Hirsohima Notes. Oe reported predicaments Hisrohima atomic-bomb victims were experiencing after WWII. So, on one occasion during his stay in the US for the seminar, he talked about this work. Then an American woman said to Oe that if the Imperial Navy of Japan had not attacked US naval bases in Pearl Harbor, there would not have been Hiroshima.
However, I don't think that author Oe replied that in Pearl Harbor only 60 US citizens were killed while more than 2,300 American soldiers died in action; but in Hiroshima 120,000 civilians were killed while 20,000 soldiers died due to the blast of an atomic bomb (in 4 months after the Hiroshima attack discharging high radioactive doses).
Anyway, Kissinger won Nobel Peace Prize in 1973. But, Yashuhiro Nakasone has not yet. And, since a tremendous accident occurred in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011, nobody in Japan thinks that very old man Mr. Nakasone still holds a chance to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
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