'We must never forget Hiroshima and Nagasaki'

Japan's anti-A-bomb feelings were stirred in 1954 when the Americans tested an H-bomb on Bikini Atoll and the subsequent atomic dust killed Aikichi Kuboyama, a crew member of the Japanese fishing boat Daigo Fukuryu Maru, which was sailing nearby. From that point, Japan's movement to ban the bomb was born. A housewife from Tokyo's Suginami Ward spearheaded the movement. Their signature-gathering campaign spread rapidly. Kaoru Yasui, a professor at Hosei University, was at the center of this movement.

The spreading of this movement across Japan provided the foundation for the formation of the Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs. The first World Conference against A&H Bombs was held in Hiroshima in 1955. I began attending the conferences from the second one, held in Nagasaki. In those days, I was the peace director for the All-Japan Federation of Students' Self-Governing Associations, a regular director for the council and a spokesman for the world conference. The third conference, in 1957, was held in Tokyo, and again, I was a spokesman for the international event.

At that time, the US, the UK and France continued testing H-bombs over the Pacific. We organized a demonstration to protest these actions. It's a shame that elements on the left starting to divide the anti-bomb movement from within after that, bringing divisiveness to even this humanistic cause. I left the movement around then and entered the world of journalism, but Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still the starting points of my life. We can never forget what happened in those two cities. We need to continue to remind people of the very real horrors of war.