Oral Histories

Tatsujiro Suzuki is a professor and vice director at the Nagasaki University Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition (RECNA). His academic work focuses on civilian nuclear energy and nonproliferation. Suzuki was previously Vice Chairman of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission. In 2014 he joined RECNA, and served as its director from 2015-2019. In this interview, Suzuki discusses his opinions on international nuclear issues and policies. He shares his views on how countries can work together to promote nuclear nonproliferation. He also describes his reflections on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and RECNA’s current projects.

Richard Rhodes is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Making of the Atomic Bomb,” “The Twilight of the Bombs,” “Dark Sun,” and “Energy: A Human History,” as well as more than twenty other books. In this interview, Rhodes expounds on the character of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the inevitability of discovering nuclear fission, the development of the hydrogen bomb, nuclear proliferation and the Cold War arms race, and the relationship between the Soviet Union and United States. He also discusses his play “Reykjavik,” based on the 1986 meeting between Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan.

David Holloway, author of “Stalin and the Bomb: the Soviet Union and Atomic Energy 1939-1956,” is a professor of history at Stanford University. An expert on the international history of nuclear weapons, Dr. Holloway traces the development of the Soviet Union’s nuclear capabilities and policy throughout the Cold War. He discusses the beginnings of the Soviet atomic bomb project in World War II, the rise of the Cold War, and the development of the USSR’s hydrogen bomb. He also offers remarks on the current state of nuclear weapons internationally.