From Hiroshima to Fukushima

To mark third anniversary of quake and tsunami: I wrote an article by that title after the nuclear crisis hit Japan (and, in a sense, the world) after the tsunami, linking the radiation threat to what followed the atomic bombings of 1945, about which I've written two books. Then the NYT's popular "Lens" blog profiles a Japanese photographer, still living,  who literally has traveled the road from the A-bomb go the current nuclear disaster.  In fact, Kikujiro Fukushima's entire celebrated career was inspired by a Hiroshima survivor asking him to go out and show the troubles and pain of people there and elsewhere.  And he has done that, plus reminding his fellow citizens about Emperor Hirohito's role in World War II. 

As it happens, I have a special interest in visual images from Hiroshima, from my interview with the photog who took the only pictures there on August 6, 1945, to my book on the U.S. cover-up of Japanese and American military footage that exposed what really happened there.   But read the entire "Lens" story to meet a unique and remarkable individual.