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.

Theodore “Ted” Rockwell was born in Chicago in 1923. As a graduate student at Princeton University, Ted was recruited to work as an engineer at the Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge, TN in late 1943. Rockwell was assigned to the “Tiger Team” at Oak Ridge, which responded to problems that arose in the Y-12 Plant. After the war, Rockwell continued his career in nuclear technology, becoming Technical Director for Admiral Hyman Rickover. In this interview, Ted explains how the electromagnetic separation process of the calutrons worked at the Y-12 Plant and how the gaseous diffusion process at the K-25 Plant worked. He discusses his duties in the Manhattan Project and his work with Admiral Rickover in the years after the war. He also explains why he thinks safety concerns over nuclear reactors, nuclear waste, and radiation are usually blown out of proportion.