Beatty 1993

Scientific Collaboration, Internationalism, and Diplomacy: The Case of the Atomic Bomb
Casualty Commission
Author(s): John Beatty
Source: Journal of the History of Biology, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Summer, 1993), pp. 205-231
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Scientific Collaboration, Internationalism,
and Diplomacy: The Case of the Atomic
Bomb Casualty Commission
JOHN BEATTY
Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior

University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
A long-term study of atomic bomb casualties in collaboration

with the Japanese, affords a most remarkable opportunity for
cultivating international relations of the highest type.
National Research Council Report, 1947
INTRODUCTION
The "long-term study" in question commenced with the estab-

lishment of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission in 1947. The
ABCC was ostensibly a joint Japanese-American effort with a
purely scientific goal: namely, to ascertain the long-term radia-
tion biological effects of the bombs on survivors in Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. But, especially in its early years, the ABCC was
much more an American effort with an additional diplomatic
mission: to enlist Japan as an ally in the Cold War containment
of Communism.
In this paper, I am especially concerned with the role played
by Japanese-American scientific collaboration (or apparent col-
laboration) in helping to fulfill the ABCC'S diplomatic ends.
Central to this analysis is a reconstrual of the notion of scientific
"collaboration," with the emphasis shifted from credit-sharing to
the sharing of responsibility (or the apparent sharing of responsi-
bility) not only between individuals, but also between scientific
institutions and governments.
Analysis of the diplomatic aims of the ABCC also requires some
discussion of the idea that science "knows no boundaries" - that
science is transnational. In principle, the transnationality of science
facilitates international scientific collaborations, which in turn
provide evidence for that particular conception of science - in
principle!
Journal of the History of Biology, vol. 26, no. 2 (Summer 1993), pp. 205-231.
? 1993 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
206 JOHN BEATTY
INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC COOPERATION AND

COLLABORATION
According to a traditional interpretation, science is "universal"

- universality being a supervirtue that covers several subvirtues,
including the "transnationality" of science. This was, for instance,
the interpretation elaborated by Robert Merton in his famous 1942
paper on scientific norms. As he put it, "The acceptance or rejec-
tion of claims entering the lists of science is not to depend on the
personal or social attributes of the protagonist; his race, nationality,
religion, class, and personal qualities are irrelevant."'
Acknowledging some anomalies due to exceptional circum-
stances, Merton continued: "Even under counter-pressure, scientists
of all nationalities [have] adhered to the universalistic standard.
. . .The international, impersonal, virtually anonymous character
of science [has been] reaffirmed (Pasteur: Le savant a une patrie,
la science n'en a pas)."2 Merton found cause to defend this notion
at this time in response to another one of those supposedly rare
exceptions, the rise of Nazi science.
While this interpretation of science as trans- or supranational
may suggest to some that science is mostly "above" politics, it
suggests to many others that science has an important political
role to play - namely, in international relations.3 If international
diplomacy is the art of reaching agreements between nations, then
(so the argument goes) scientists should make good diplomats,
for they aspire to universal aims, they speak a universal language,
and they reason according to universal standards from universally
ascertainable observations. Scientists can thus be expected to reach
agreement - if they cannot settle on a particular position, then
1. Robert K. Merton, "The Normative Structure of Science," originally pub-

lished in 1942 as "Science and Technology in a Democratic Order," reprinted in
The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1973), p. 270.
2. Ibid., p. 272.
3. There are a number of excellent secondary sources on the concept of the
transnationality of science and related views about the role of science in interna-
tional relations. See in particular, Brigitte Schroeder-Gudehus, "Science,
Technology and Foreign Policy," in Science, Technology and Society: A
Cross-Disciplinary Perspective, ed. Ina Spiegel-Rosing and Derek de Solla Price
(London: Sage, 1977), pp. 473-506; idem, "Nationalism and Internationalism,"
in Companion to the History of Modern Science, ed. Robert C. Olby et al. (London:
Routledge, 1988), pp. 909-919; Paul Forman, "Scientific Internationalism and
the Weimar Physicists: The Ideology and Its Manipulation in Germany after World
War I," Isis, 64 (1973), 151-180; Jean-Jacques Salomon, Science and Politics (New
York: Macmillan, 1973), chap. 9.
Scientific Collaboration, Internationalism, and Diplomacy 207
they can at least agree on the range of uncertainty that remains.

Their aims, language, rules of reason, and observational premises
are impartial with respect to the interests of any nation, and hence
their conclusions cannot be dismissed. Science is "binding" in
both of the usual (active and passive) senses.
Expressions of this sentiment are commonplace. Most impor-
tantly for the purposes of this paper, they are common in the post
World War II, Cold War period. As President Eisenhower's Special
Assistant for Science and Technology, George Kistiakowski, put
it in 1960, "Science is today one of the few common languages
of mankind; it can provide a basis for understanding and commu-
nication of ideas between people that is independent of political
boundaries and of ideologies."4 And as President Kennedy elabo-
rated upon the idea a few years later in a centennial convocation
address to the National Academy of Sciences,
I would suggest that science is already moving to enlarge its

influence in three general ways: in the interdisciplinary area,
in the international area, and in the intercultural area. For science
is the most powerful means we have for the unification of
knowledge, and a main obligation of its future must be to deal
with problems which cut across boundaries, whether bound-
aries between the sciences, boundaries between nations, or
boundaries between man's scientific and his humane concerns.5
At this time, the idea was already being realized in a fairly

concrete way, through the assignment of science attaches to
embassies around the world. The attache idea had been suggested
in Lloyd Berkner's 1951 report to the State Department, "Science
and Foreign Affairs."6 Berkner motivated his proposal by invoking
the usual transnationalistic image of science whereby science could
serve as a medium for international communication. The U.S.
State Department began to assign science officers to foreign
embassies in the mid-fifties. By 1970, 27 countries had science
attaches at 116 embassies, and in 23 world capitals.7
4. George B. Kistiakowski, "Science and Foreign Affairs," Bull. Atom. Sci.,

16 (1960), 115.
5. John F. Kennedy, "The Centennial Convocation Address of President John
F. Kennedy," News Report (National Academy of Sciences, National Research
Council),13: 6 (1963), no pag., quotation on second p.
6. Lloyd V. Berkner, "Science and Foreign Relations," excerpted in Bull. Atom.
Sci., 6 (1950), 293-298.
7. J. W. Greenwood, "The Scientist-Diplomat: A New Hybrid Role in Foreign
Affairs," Sci. Forum, 19 (1971), 15; see also idem, "The Science Attache: Who
He Is and What He Does," Sci. Forum, 20 (1971), 21-25.
208 JOHN BEATTY
International scientific cooperation may thus serve diplomatic

ends. But international collaboration has even more to offer in these
respects. I use the term "collaboration" in partly the same way as
those sociologists for whom it signifies an act of cooperation in
which the participants agree to share recognition or credit for the
outcome; considerable emphasis has been put on joint authorship
as a form of credit-sharing.8 But there are several problems with
this construal - one of which is only apparent - that are worth
addressing briefly.
The first (apparent) problem is that this account seems to confuse
the usual evidence of collaboration with collaboration itself. Joint
authorship may be the usual way of advertising a collaboration,
but it is sometimes a false advertisement: credit is sometimes given
where in fact no credit is due, just as collaborators are sometime
unfairly denied credit. Whether someone is really a "collaborator"
in a project should have to do with the nature of his or her
participation.9 Note, however, that the traditional construal does not
make this particular mistake; for it does not identify collabora-
tion with credit-sharing per se, but rather with the expectation (by
implicit or explicit agreement) that credit will be shared. This
expectation in turn influences the form of participation in a
cooperative project.
The second problem with the traditional construal of collabo-
ration as recognition or credit-sharing is that it rests on an overly
narrow concept of the function of authorship (single or multiple).
For instance, authorship may also serve the function of confer-
ring authority on an article - dual authorship may confer even more
authority. 10
Moreover, the functional category of recognition or credit-
sharing is itself heterogeneous. "Credit" is usually construed as a
desirable commodity. But in principle, and in fact, one can be
credited with and recognized for failures as well as successes. The
expectation of shared blame in the case of failure can strongly
influence participation in a cooperative venture.
Actually, what is more basic to collaboration than the expecta-
tion of shared credit or blame is shared responsibility for a project
8. See especially Warren 0. Hagstrom, The Scientific Community (New York:

Basic Books, 1965), chap. 3.
9. This point is elaborated and illustrated in James R. Griesemer and Elihu
M. Gerson, "Collaboration in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology," J. Hist. Biol.,
this issue.
10. On the authority function of authorship see, for example, Harriet Zucker-
man and Robert K. Merton, "Patterns of Evaluation in Science: Institutionalisation,
Structure and Functions of the Referee System," Minerva, 9 (1971), 66-101.
and its outcome. It is this sharing of accountability (implicitly or

explicitly acknowledged) - with the expectation of mutual credit
in the case of success, or mutual blame in the case of failure -
that increases each party's stake in the project and thus affects
the nature of their cooperation.11
One other problem with the traditional notion of collaboration
is that by emphasizing (the expectation of) joint authorship it
portrays collaborative cooperation entirely as a matter of individual
relations. But it is not only individuals who share responsibility,
credit, and blame for cooperative scientific ventures - organizations
and govemments do too. Of course, organizations and governments
do not work together in the same way, nor do they work toward
the same sorts of ends, as individual scientists. But they collabo-
rate nonetheless.
Finally, the traditional construal of collaboration suggests an
overly sharp discontinuity between collaboration and cooperation.
But it is important to keep in mind that responsibility, credit, and
blame can be shared in degrees, that the acknowledgments and
announcements of responsibility-sharing can take different forms
(not necessarily joint authorship), and that responsibility-sharing
can have different effects and play different roles in different
projects. When I draw attention to the specifically collaborative
aspects of a cooperative venture, I only mean to point to such things
as the fact that, the way in which, and the purpose for which respon-
sibility, credit, and blame are being shared.
The important point in connection with international science is
this: Collaboration between cooperating parties involving two or
more countries is a way of pointing out or emphasizing that the
project in question is transnational - that the project is not to be
identified with the interests of one country. Mutual participation
is not as effective as mutual accountability and mutual responsi-
bility in this regard. Once the transnationality of the project is
"established," it can better serve diplomatic ends.
THE ATOMIC BOMB CASUALTY COMMISSION:

DIPLOMATIC OPPORTUNITIES
I will illustrate these ideas, and the kinds of uses to which they
are sometimes put, by discussing a particular case of international
11. An insightful article on the multiple functions of authorship is Michel

Foucault, "What Is an Author?" in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected
Essays and Interviews, ed. Donald F. Bouchard (Ithaca; N.Y.: Cornell University
Press, 1977), pp. 113-138.
210 JOHN BEATTY
science - namely, a joint Japanese-American effort to determine the

long-term radiation-biological effects of the bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki.12
The biological effects of radiation had been studied intensely
during the war years by Manhattan Project investigators. But that
work had been done primarily out of concern for worker safety;
that is, the bomb qua weapon had been developed and studied
mainly in connection with its physical blast, not its radiation-
biological effects. The bombs' designers apparently discounted
the possibility of widespread, intense radiation exposure to
survivors of the bombings, believing instead that most everyone
within range of intense radiation would be killed by the blasts.
Indeed, while Manhattan Project officials had planned ahead of time
to survey the physical effects of the explosions, they had made
no special provisions for investigating the biological effects.'3 But
it quickly became clear that radiation exposure among survivors
of the blasts was a problem - and not only a biomedical, but also
a diplomatic problem.'4
Radiation exposure was known to have effects that were man-
ifested much later - such as various cancers, which could appear
long after the initial exposure, and genetic mutations, which might
be manifested many generations hence among obviously innocent
victims. The possibility of such unconventional effects threatened
the success of the Occupation of Japan, not only by threatening
order, but also by threatening the ability of the Unites States to make
Japan an ally in the containment of Communism, which became
a more and more important goal of American foreign policy (and
hence Occupation policy) as the Cold War developed.
12. The history of this project is also discussed in Mary Susan Lindee,
American Science and the Survivors at Hiroshima, (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press) forthcoming; idem, "What Is a Mutation? Identifying Heritable Change in
the Offspring of Survivors at Hiroshima and Nagasaki," J. Hist. Biol., 25 (1992),
231-255; John Beatty, "Genetics in the Atomic Age: The Atomic Bomb Casualty
Commission, 1947-1956," in The Expansion of American Biology, ed. Keith
Benson, Ronald Rainger, and Jane Maienschein (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers
University Press, 1991), pp. 284-324; William J. Schull, Song among the Ruins
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990).
13. Barton C. Hacker, The Dragon's Tail: Radiation Safety in the Manhattan
Project, 1942-1946 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), pp. 1-116;
Shields Warren to Seymour Jablon, May 10, 1993, NAS Central Files: Medical
Sciences: Committee on Atomic Casualties: Beginning of Program: 1946, Archives
of the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. (hereafter, NAS Archives).
14. Peter Wyden, Day One: Before Hiroshima and After (New York: Simon
and Schuster, 1984), pp. 317-328; Monica Braw, The Atomic Bomb Suppressed:
American Censorship in Japan 1945-1949 (Tokyo: Liber Forlag, 1986).
The latter point deserves further elaboration. One of the early

aims of the Occupation was the so-called democratization of Japan.
This directive left considerable room for interpretation, especially
in light of rapidly changing political circumstances. Originally it
involved a broad reshaping of Japanese institutions: a new con-
stitution and a newly structured government, an overhaul of the
educational system, important medical, agricultural, industrial, and
labor reforms, and even a large-scale attempt to democratize
Japanese science (so much for the universality of science!).'5
But as the Occupation proceeded, and the Cold War intensi-
fied, Japan came to represent much less of a threat to democracy
and much more of a potential outpost in its defense. The suc-
cessful completion of the Occupation became contingent upon
making Japan an ally in the promotion of democracy and the
containment of Communism.'6 As President Truman's influential
policy planner George Kennan acknowledged, Japan and Germany
had become "two of our most important pawns on the chessboard
of world politics"; and as General Douglas MacArthur bragged in
1949, employing an analogy that gained increasing usage, the
Pacific had become "an Anglo-American lake and our line of
defense runs through the chain of islands fringing the coast of
Asia."'7 Scientific cooperation between Japan and America came
to be seen as an especially important form of diplomacy in the
Cold War.
In 1947, after about a year of preliminary studies on the more
immediate radiation-biological effects of the bombs, President
Truman directed the National Academy of Sciences-National
15. Kazuo Kawai, Japan's American Interlude (Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1960), esp. pp. 16-S50; Edwin 0. Reischauer, The United States and Japan
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965), esp. pp. 30-45, 205-290.
On the democratization of Japanese science see Hideomi Tuge, Historical
Development of Science and Technology in Japan (Tokyo: Kokusai Bunka
Shinkokai, 1961), pp. 138-183; "Reorganization of Science and Technology in
Japan: Report of the Scientific Advisory Group to the National Academy of
Sciences, 1947," ADM: ORG: NAS: Scientific Advisory Group on Science in Japan;
see complete files ADM: ORG: NAS: Nominations of Scientists for Duty in
Germany and Japan, NAS Archives; see also William F. Robbins Papers, Box
1945-1948, Folders April 28, 1947 through September 1947, American
Philosophical Society Library (hereafter APS Library).
16. Kawai, Japan's American Interlude, pp. 27-33; Reischauer, United States
and Japan, pp. 32-41. The extent of this shift is debated in Robert E. Ward and
Sakamoto Yoshikazu, eds., Democratizing Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 1986).
17. John W. Dower, "Occupied Japan and the American Lake," in America's
Asia: Dissenting Essays on Asian-American Relations, ed. Edward Friedman and
Mark Selden (New York: Random House, 1969), pp. 146-206, p. 170.
212 JOHN BEATTY
Research Council (NAS-NRC) to proceed with a long-term

investigation of the effects. To this end, the Academy (through
the Council) established the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission
(ABCC), with funding secured from the Atomic Energy Com-
mission (AEC)."8
While the ABCC was originally administered and funded mainly
by U.S. institutions, it was also in important respects a joint
Japanese-American venture, with formal ties to the brand new
(1947) Japanese National Institute of Health - itself a product of
the Occupation's efforts to democratize Japanese science and
medicine. The JNIH set up branches in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
specifically in order to contribute to the ABCC's efforts. Through
that connection, the ABCC employed many Japanese researchers,
physicians, nurses, and midwives.
The importance of the cooperation of Japanese health-care
workers to the completion of the scientific mission of the ABCC
cannot be overestimated. Consider, for instance, their role in the
investigation of possible genetic effects of the bombs among
offspring of exposed parents. By custom in Japan, most births
occurred at home, overseen by midwives - whose cooperation was
thus crucial. The midwives were trained to examine the babies
thoroughly and to report on their physical condition. Complicating
the recording of births was the considerable social stigma attached
to congenital defects, and the consequent efforts made to conceal
them. Midwives were given additional compensation for reports
of abnormal births. Japanese nurses and physicians always con-
ducted follow-up examinations in the home, but they did so espe-
cially quickly in cases of reported malformations. The alternative
to putting Japanese health-care workers in charge of these early
reports would have been to have the new mothers face their recent
American enemies under very unusual circumstances in their own
homes and/or at ABCC headquarters; recruitment might thus have
suffered, since participation in the investigations was voluntary.'9
18. See the complete file, NAS Central Files: Medical Sciences: Committee
on Atomic Casualties: Beginning of Program: 1946, NAS Archives; see also
"ABCC Progress Report - April 15, 1948," NAS Central Files: Medical Sciences:
Committee of Atomic Casualties: 1948, NAS Archives.
19. In her forthcoming book on the ABCC, American Science and the Survivors
at Hiroshima, Susan Lindee explains in illuminating detail the crucial role of
Japanese workers - not only healthcare workers, but translators, drivers, police, and
others - in carrying out the ABCC's research. She also discusses the investiga-
tions of Japanese physicians and researchers prior to the arrival of American
scientists, investigations eventually incorporated into the ABCC's studies and
protocols. According to Lindee, this case "suggests how scientific colonizers draw
The cooperation of Japanese biomedical personnel was seen

not only as scientifically crucial, but also as diplomatically ad-
vantageous. While the specter of long-term biomedical effects of
the bombs may have hampered efforts to woo the Japanese, a
cooperative investigation of the effects of the bombs opened up
opportunities in the same regard. For instance, it was noted in a
preliminary ABCC report that
a long-term study of atomic bomb casualties in collaboration

with the Japanese, affords a most remarkable opportunity for
cultivating international relations of the highest type.... Japan
at this moment is extremely plastic and has great respect for
the Occupation. If we continue to handle Japan intelligently
during the next few years while the new policies are being estab-
lished, she will be our friend and ally for many years to come;
if we handle her unwisely, she will drift to other ideologies.
The ABCC or its successor may be able to play a role in this.20
As the quotation suggests, the matter of winning Japan as an ally

was inseparable from the matter of containing Communism. This
diplomatic prospect was expressed over and over again, especially
whenever the question of phasing out ABCC programs arose. Thus,
for instance, when it looked as though the genetics investigation
would be terminated in the mid-fifties, the geneticist George Beadle,
who was serving as an advisor to the ABCC, argued that American
geneticists had substantially furthered the cause of genetics in Japan,
and he urged continued support on the grounds that "There is [here]
a great opportunity to encourage science in a much needed area and
a great deal of good will toward the USA could come along as a
by-product. This latter point is important, I feel. Many Japanese
intellectuals are eyeing Red China and Russia with interest and if
we don't take steps soon to keep them on our side, it may be too
late."2"
on native science . . . in order to decipher the social system within which science
must operate." I will return to another point Lindee makes in this regard.
On the role of Japanese healthcare workers, see also Schull, Song among the
Ruins (above, n. 12), chap. 3; Beatty, "Genetics in the Atomic Age" (above, n.
12); Y. Scott Matsumoto, "Patient Rapport in Hiroshima," Amer. J. Nurs., 54
(1954), 69-72.
20. Paul S. Henshaw and Austin Brues, General Report, Atomic Bomb Casualty
Commission, January 1947 (Washington, D.C.: National Research Council, 1947),
pp. 4-5, NAS Archives.
21. George W. Beadle to Keith Cannan, September 30, 1956, NAS Central
Files: Medical Sciences: Committee on Atomic Casualties: ABCC: 1955, NAS
Archives.
214 JOHN BEATTY
This proposed diplomatic function of the ABCC was no mere

figment of the wild imagination of politically naive scientists.
Consider two other attempts to use science to gain Japan's
allegiance - the first seemingly minor, the second more enterprising.
William Schull, one of the leaders of the ABCC genetics project,
recounts that he and Masuo Kodani, a Japanese-American geneti-
cist also working for the ABCC, were "summoned" by Occupation
authorities from Hiroshima to Tokyo in 1951 in order to greet
H. J. Muller and then accompany him on his lecture tour of Japan.
To Schull, the purpose of the tour was transparent: Muller was
not only one of the world's leading geneticists (having won the
Nobel Prize for biology and medicine in 1946), he was also by
this time an ardent anti-Communist, and could speak from his
own experience in the Soviet Union about the repression of thought
there (in particular, the suppression of Mendelian genetics). Muller
took his message to one of the most radical student bodies in Japan,
Kyoto University, where, as Schull recollects, "His presentation
projected an experience and authority that brooked no opposition.
Student objections, if they existed, were so feebly and ineffectu-
ally advanced as to be embarrassing."22
Ten years later, in 1961, President Kennedy and Prime Minister
Ikeda signed an agreement that led to the establishment of the
U.S.-Japan Cooperative Science Program, which continues to the
present. Among the motives for the agreement was a concern that
Japanese scientists tended too far to the left, and that they viewed
American science with suspicion, especially inasmuch as American
science was heavily funded by the military and the AEC. It was
believed that more exposure to American scientists would show
Japanese scientists the nonmilitaristic aims of their U.S. counter-
parts, and would thereby serve an allying role. As Eugene
Skolnikoff, a science advisor to Kennedy at the time, later explained
the rationale:
An excellent example of . .. a scientific/political initiative exists

in the current U.S.-Japan Cooperative Science Program. . ..
Politically, the Japanese scientists have become an important
influence on the public and youth of Japan. Therefore, the
political attitudes of many of the scientists is a source of concern
to the United States with regard to the future development of
Japanese foreign and domestic policies. In recent years, these
scientists have had poor relations with their own government and
22. Schull, Song among the Ruins (above, n. 12), pp. 98-105; quotation on
p. 104.
few contacts with the American government or with American

activities.23
The ABCC should be seen as part and parcel of such uses of

science to gain the allegiance of Japan in the Cold War. Not that
the United States was alone in this use of science. The Soviets,
for instance, also sent delegations to Japan to discuss the bio-
medical effects of radiation, and on one occasion they pressed for
the establishment of a joint Soviet-Japanese institute in Hiroshima
to study radiation-related illnesses among the bomb's survivors.
In response to this proposal, an AEC official suggested to an
NAS-NRC administrator of the ABCC that an appropriate
"diplomatic counter-move" be put into effect, such as a large
ABCC-sponsored "International Conference on Radiation Damage"
to be held in Hiroshima.24
Some of the results of the ABCC investigations turned out to
be pretty useful, diplomatically speaking. Most importantly, the
results of the genetics study were negative - "negative" in the
technical sense, meaning that no increase in mutation rate among
the offspring of the survivors could be demonstrated. A very small
increase could not be ruled out, but at least a large increase in
mutation rate could be ruled out. So the bombs did not prove as
unconventional as some - on both sides of the Pacific - had feared
they might.25
DIPLOMATIC OBSTACLES
In 1966, Richard Petree, the AEC's Acting Country Director

for Japan, summarized the diplomatic success of the ABCC as
follows:
The ABCC was one of the first institutionalized joint U.S.-Japan

scientific projects and, as such, it has a definite value and status
23. Eugene B. Skolnikoff, Science, Technology, and American Foreign Policy

(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1967), p. 148; see also Memorandum on Japanese
Science and Technology - Summary and Evaluation, December 27, 1968, esp.
pp. 3, 15-20, Science Officer, American Embassy, 1959-1970, ABCC Records,
NAS Archives.
24. R. Keith Cannan to George Darling, January 22, 1960, Atomic Energy
Commission #4, General, January-December 1960, ABCC Records, NAS Archives.
25. J. V. Neel and W. J. Schull, et al., The Effect of Exposure to the Atomic
Bombs on Pregnancy Termination in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Washington, D.C.:
National Academy of Sciences, 1956); Beatty, "Genetics in the Atomic Age"
(above, n. 12); Lindee, American Science and the Survivors at Hiroshima (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, forthcoming).
216 JOHN BEATTY
in our relations, particularly in the scientific field, with Japan.

It has also done much to demonstrate American concern for
the victims of the atomic bombings, thereby forestalling the
development of adverse attitudes that would have seriously
hampered our postwar relations with Japan. The scientifically
documentable information obtained through the ABCC program
has also provided us with irrefutable grounds to counter hostile
charges which might have been made concerning the effects of
the bombing. In many ways, therefore, the ABCC has served
to turn a liability in our relations with Japan into an asset, and
it has become an accepted and reputable U.S-Japan scientific
program .26
Just two years later, and not due to any intervening develop-
ments, the American Embassy in Tokyo described the overall
diplomatic success of the ABCC in rather less rosy terms:
ABCC has succeeded in winning a significant measure of support

from local government officials, the Ministry of Health and
Welfare and the more responsible segment of the scientific
community. To a considerable extent, this acceptance can be
credited to the scientific and diplomatic skills of Dr. George
B. Darling, ABCC's Director for the past ten years. But even Dr.
Darling's considerable influence has been unable to prevent a
steady trickle of critical and hostile press comment which plays
on readily available superstitions and fears, and tends to peak
early each August on the anniversary of the Hiroshima bomb.
This negative publicity approximately cancels the foreign policy
benefits that would otherwise be derived from the ABCC
operation.27
Assessing the diplomatic significance of the ABCC in winning

Japan as an ally is clearly not straightforward. Complicating any
such assessment is the fact, mentioned in the latter quotation, that
there were many sensitive issues surrounding the investigations
of the bomb's effects, and these seriously detracted from the role
of the ABCC as diplomatic common ground.
An indication of the seriousness of the difficulties is the fact that
the ABCC qua international scientific cooperative project is so
26. Richard W. Petree to James Clark, December 28, 1966, Atomic Energy
Commission 1967, ABCC Records, NAS Archives.
27. Memorandum on Japanese Science and Technology (above, n. 23), pp.
16-17.
invisible. Contrary to what one would expect from the first assess-
ment, it is extremely difficult to find even a mention of the ABCC
among government (e.g., congressional) records of international
scientific programs. The problem is in part definitional, having to
do with the way in which so-called international cooperative
agreements are formally established (I will discuss the actual formal
agreements later). But the problem is also largely political, as
suggested by a participant in a recent NAS workshop on interna-
tional scientific and technological cooperation:
It seems strange to me that this oldest and largest of all U.S.-

Japan bilateral scientific programs, which was born out of war
and has continued for almost 40 years in peace, is almost
unknown outside of Japan. I do not even find this program listed
in tabulations of agreements published by the Department of
State, the Congress, or Japanese organizations. The reasons
may be psychological, sociological, or political, although I
cannot discount pure oversight or a simple matter of definition.28
With the ending of the Occupation in 1952, and the lifting of

Occupation-enforced restrictions on the Japanese press, complaints
about the ABCC as well as the Occupation and the U.S. govern-
ment spread quickly. Prior to that time, the press was forbidden
to publish any false or "destructive" criticism of the Occupation,
or any news that "might, directly or by inference, disturb the public
tranquility."29 Of course, lots of news about the atomic bombings
and the investigation of their effects fell under these categories.
Once the restrictions were lifted, long-subdued accusations and
suspicions were loudly announced. ABCC "Research Committee"
minutes in 1952 record discussions of new anti-American
sentiments and new problems in patient cooperation attributed to
the fact that "with the end of the Occupation there has been a
dissemination of pictures of atomic bomb casualties and discussions
on the use of the atomic bomb. Recently the fact that ABCC gives
no treatment and that patients come here merely as guinea pigs
has been reiterated in all these media."30
28. Justin L. Bloom, "The U.S.-Japan Bilateral Science and Technology

Relationship: A Personal Evaluation," in Scientific and Technological Cooperation
among Industrialized Countries, ed., Mitchel B. Wallerstein (Washington, D.C.:
National Academy Press, 1984), p. 87.
29. Memorandum on Press Code for Japan, September 19, 1945, reprinted
in William J. Coughlin, Conquered Press: The MacArthur Era in Japanese
Journalism (Palo Alto, Calif.: Pacific Books, 1952), Appendix C; and see espe-
cially Braw, Atomic Bomb Suppressed (above, n. 14).
30. Research Committee Minutes for meetings April 2, 1952, and October
218 JOHN BEATTY
The "guinea pig" allegation stemmed from ABCC policy to

investigate and diagnose only, not to offer treatment. As one
character in Hiroyuki Agawa's 1953 novel, Devil's Heritage,
captured this sentiment, "That's one reason why they say that the
people here are being used as guinea pigs. When the doctors use
animals in their experiments, they don't give it a thought if the
animals die or if they have a tough time of it.... If data is obtained
from these animals, that's sufficient. There's no need to treat them
for anything. What the ABCC is doing is exactly the same thing."3'
Not only was the issue treated in the literature of the period, it
was also discussed in the Japanese press. It was the single sorest
point, diplomatically speaking, for the ABCC. Ambassador to Japan
Edwin Reischauer had to admit that the ABCC was something of
a "political liability" in this regard.32
There was a serious attempt - how successful, it is hard to say
- to counter the guinea-pig accusation by presenting the negative
results of the genetics study to the survivors as compensation for
their participation in ABCC studies. Thus, as ABCC Director
George Darling suggested in 1957, specifically in response to the
criticism that the ABCC "only does research" and does not treat
or otherwise compensate its subjects:
The very real service ABCC renders to the community through

the research studies is not generally appreciated, and under-
standably so, because of the intangible nature of the contribution.
Considering the findings of the genetic study alone, however,
it is difficult to imagine what service the ABCC could have
performed for the survivors as individuals or the community
as a whole which would in any way compare with the reassur-
ance parents are able to give their teenage children today as a
result of this . . . study.33
Perhaps the only thing worse than being a guinea pig in a

scientific experiment, from the Japanese point of view, was to
28, 1952, ABCC Research Committee 1954-1956, ABCC Records, NAS

Archives.
31. Hiroyuki Agazwa, Devil's Heritage, trans. John M. Maki (Japan:
Hokuseido Press, 1957), pp. 30-3 1. See also Robert Jay Lifton, Death in Life (New
York: Random House, 1967), pp. 343-354; and see the files of Japanese Press
Clippings, ABCC Records, NAS Archives.
32. Edwin Reischauer to Carl Moore, January 26, 1963, 1957-1970 American
Embassy, Political Section, ABCC Records, NAS Archives.
33. Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission Annual Report, July 1, 1957-June
30, 1958, p. 10.
play the same role in an experiment conducted for U.S. military

or civil-defense purposes. Some Japanese complained that the
subjects of ABCC investigations were unwittingly being used in
this way. This suspicion seemed to be corroborated by the well-
known fact that the ABCC was sponsored by the AEC - the
successor to the Manhattan Project, and the agency in charge of
further nuclear weapons development. ABCC officials were often
confronted with this accusation by the Japanese, as in the case of
a 1952 magazine interview of Grant Taylor, then-director of the
ABCC:
TAKETANI: I wish to know the real object of ABCC. I trans-

lated the "Effect of Atomic Weapons" compiled by the U.S.
Defense Department and the Atomic Energy Commission. This
book gives the result of their investigation on A-bomb radia-
tion effect on the people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This book
also gives a conclusion, on the basis of this investigation, about
the problem of what countermeasure should be taken in case
of an A-bomb warfare.
In this light, it seems that the real object of ABCC is to
study countermeasures in preparation for a war in the future.
How about your opinion concerning this matter?34
The connection of the ABCC with the AEC was politically sticky
enough to cause NAS-NRC officials to consider the possibility
of new sponsors. The NAS-NRC officer most responsible for
overseeing the ABCC, Keith Cannan, confided in 1955 to Detlev
Bronk, president of NAS, that the World Health Organization, or
the United Nations, might be more appropriate sponsors. Both of
those possibilities would disentangle the ABCC from negative
associations. As Cannan explained the problem, "the dilemma
persists that ABCC is, at once, a scientific project and a diplo-
matic front. In the latter respect it has established itself as a
significant and sympathetic component of the community in which
it operates. On the other hand, it is a popular target for anti-
American sentiment and will remain so as long as the project is
known to be operated from the U.S.A. and to be sponsored
exclusively by the A.E.C."3s
34. "Inside Story of ABCC: Questions and Answers with Dr. Taylor, Director
of ABCC," pp. 6-7, ABCC translation from Kaizo, November 15, 1952, pp. 29-34,
NAS Central Files: Medical Sciences: Committee on Atomic Casualties: ABCC:
General: 1952, NAS Archives.
35. Keith Cannan to Detlev Bronk, February 9, 1955, NAS Central Files:
Medical Sciences: Committee on Atomic Casualties: ABCC: 1955, NAS Archives.
220 JOHN BEATTY
COOPERATION? YES. COLLABORATION?
The mutually reinforcing guinea-pig and military/civilian-

defense allegations made the ABCC look like an intrinsically
American operation, entirely subservient to American interests.
Criticisms to that effect could, of course, have been countered
(though only in part, since they were in part indisputable) by
pointing out that the ABCC was after all a joint Japanese-American
enterprise - and this was indeed a standard response. For instance,
in the interview discussed above, Director Taylor referred several
times to the "cooperative" nature of the program. But this was,
especially in the early years, a somewhat disingenuous strategy, and
one that also seems not to have been very effective.
In the first place, as Susan Lindee persuasively argues, American
researchers and sponsors owed much more to Japanese workers than
they actually acknowledged.36 In the second place, as Lindee also
suggests, the point of acknowledging Japanese-American cooper-
ation was not simply (or even mainly) to give credit where credit
was due: the purpose of pointing out the "joint" or "cooperative"
nature of the ABCC must also be viewed in the context of anti-
ABCC and anti-American criticisms, to which it was a response.
The force of the response depended on being able to shift some
of the responsibility for the project onto the Japanese government,
the JNIH, and JNIH personnel - to make apparent that they were
"collaborating" parties (in the sense described above). But it was
hardly the case that responsibility was actually shared. The problem
is well illustrated in the interview with Director Taylor. When asked
about the ABCC's policy to investigate without treatment, Taylor
replied that "it had been agreed with the Japanese Government
that ABCC conduct only physical examinations."37 Sitting next to
Director Taylor was Hiroshi Maki, representing the JNIH branch
at Hiroshima. I suspect Maki was trying to take some of the heat
off Taylor, though he flatly contradicted him in the process, sug-
gesting that the Japanese had little if any say in the matter: "MAKI:
I will speak as the representative of the Japanese staff of ABCC.
The basic object of ABCC is established by the United States.
This cannot be altered by any means. ABCC was dispatched here
to investigate A-bomb radiation effects and the problem of treat-
ment was not included in their project."38 By acknowledging that
there was nothing the Japanese could do about it, Maki contradicted
36. Lindee, American Science (above, n. 12); and see note 19, above.
37. "Inside Story of ABCC" (above, n. 34), p. 4.
38. Ibid.
Taylor's response that the decision was reached in agreement with

the Japanese government, and he thereby underscored the prob-
lematic issue: the United States and U.S. institutions alone were
responsible for the ABCC's investigations, warts and all.
Ultimately, American responsibility for the ABCC was due to
the ABCC's Occupation origins. The ABCC was not - nor did it
need to be, under the circumstances - established through a joint
agreement between the U.S. and Japanese governments: it was
established by Truman's directive alone. Nor was the cooperation
of the JNIH secured by any formal, written agreement. As a JNIH
official himself understood the situation, "As Japan was then under
military occupation by the Allied Forces, the cooperative relation
between JNIH and ABCC was not necessarily spelled out without
[sic - "with," given the context] any agreement in writing, but
was maintained in fact by means of budgetary appropriation.
Written agreement was not effected."39 Remember too that the JNIH
was itself a recent product of the Occupation reconstruction of
Japanese science and medicine.
During the Occupation period, ABCC policy and programs were
the sole responsibility of the NAS-NRC, in consultation with a
committee of American scientific advisors and the AEC. An orga-
nizational chart prepared by NAS in 1951 makes clear the
overwhelmingly U.S. identity of the program in its early years -
at least with regard to its decision-making structure (Fig. 1). The
ABCC was allowed to continue its operations after the Occupation
only by virtue of a brief, diplomatic "note verbale" from the
Jolnt Advisoty Atomlc Energy

Aommlttee Commlss5on
(U.S. ScientUnc
Expertsl NatJoneal Academy Dtvlslon of Biology
ofchart ttredrawn from "Guidetof Sciences and Medlcine
Imp1ementa9Ron New York
INAS-NRC and AEC ._Operatlons Office
Representatives]
15,NS CnrlFle,Mdcl cecs Atomic Bomb Casualty Commlsslon

ommittee onAtmcCsaie,Jl
[Director, U.S1
Figure 1. Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission organizational chart, 195 1. (Center

of chart redrawn from "Guide to Policies and Basic Procedures, September 20,
195 1, NAS Central Files, Medical Sciences, Committee on Atomic Casualties, July
1951, ABCC Records, NAS Archives.)
39. Isamu Nagai, "Memorandum re Establishment of Cooperative Relations

between JNIH and ABCC after the Effectuation of the Peace Treaty," U.S.-
Government of Japan Talks and Meetings Re: ABCC, #1, ABCC Records, NAS
Archives.
222 JOHN BEATTY
Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The note basically only

granted permission and guaranteed tax exemptions, and then only
for an unspecified period.40
At the level of the ABCC, the JNIH, and their employees, there
was considerable interest in collaboration, but there were also
serious obstacles to be overcome. Certainly the most serious
obstacle was Occupation censorship, which affected scientists as
well as journalists. The Occupation initially censored all Japanese
scientific publications on atomic energy, including biomedical
effects of the bombs. These prohibitions were justified on the basis
of security concerns (i.e., the need to keep information about atomic
weapons from falling into the wrong hands), and also, in the case
of the press, on political grounds (i.e., the need to keep anti-
American sentiment under control),4" but they made it difficult to
obtain the cooperation of Japanese researchers. As one NAS-NRC
official acknowledged, "The Japanese are inevitably disappointed
in the security blanket which has been thrown over their work.
Material for publication has, I am told, dwindled to a trickle, and
their enthusiasm for further cooperation will be directly related to
some tangible evidence of good faith on our part."42 Indeed, JNIH
officials complained to ABCC representatives in the early days that
Japanese scientists were "restricted by Occupation Directive in their
ability to publish scientific articles. At the same time, American
scientists who have worked on the same projects in cooperation
with Japanese scientists have been allowed to publish their
findings.
In order to overcome these problems, ABCC leaders pressed for,
and received, reconsideration from Occupation and AEC officials.
They then went to considerable effort to assure JNIH authorities
that Japanese scientists would receive proper credit for their work
after all.44 Numerous papers coauthored by Japanese and American
scientists eventually resulted from ABCC investigations, as did
numerous papers authored solely by Japanese researchers.45
40. "Note Verbale," October 23, 1952, State Department and American
Embassy in Tokyo, 1952-1966, #1, ABCC Records, NAS Archives.
41. Braw, Atomic Bomb Suppressed (above, n. 14), pp. 97-145.
42. Philip S. Owen to Shields Warren, February 25, 1948, Atomic Energy
Commission #1, General, ABCC Records, NAS Archives. See also Braw, Atomic
Bomb Suppressed, pp. 120-129.
43. Memorandum on Conference Concerning the Work of ABCC in
Relationship to the [J]NIH, April 16, 1948, ABCC Genetics Program, Bound
Correspondence from Japan, ABCC Records, NAS Archives.
44. See also Braw, Atomic Bomb Suppressed (above, n. 14), pp. 120-129.
45. Lindee, American Science (above, n. 12), discusses the censorship issues
Later, ABCC and JNIH officials put together a proposal to

guarantee "full participation of the Japanese group with a full share
of the responsibilities of the planning and conduct of the
program."46 But the proposal was rejected by the AEC and the
NAS-NRC, who wanted to keep more control over ABCC
investigations in the early years after the Occupation. Executive
Secretary of the NAS-NRC Division of Medical Sciences Philip
Owen explained to ABCC Director Taylor that the NAS-NRC's and
the AEC's reasons for opposing a truly binational ABCC were
basically the same in the immediate post-Occupation period as
during the Occupation: "It seemed to me then, as it does to me now,
a far wiser course to temporize until we knew more of the course
of political events in post-war Japan. The Advisory Committee of
the AEC accepted this view as did Dr. Bronk [president of the
NAS]."47
But by the mid-fifties, the tenuous note verbale had become
quite unsatisfactory from the point of view of the AEC and the
NAS-NRC as well as the ABCC. As criticisms of the United
states, the AEC, and the ABCC increased, there was a greater
need to secure and invoke Japanese responsibility for ABCC
investigations. By the mid-sixties, ABCC, AEC, NAS-NRC, and
State Department officials were intent upon obtaining the Japanese
government's explicit support for and increased responsibility in
ABCC studies.48 When asked by Japanese government officials
why the arrangements of the note verbale of 1952 were "incon-
venient," American representatives responded candidly that because
of its entirely American identity the ABCC was constantly a target
of anti-American sentiment, which threatened its continued oper-
ation:
ENGLISH: Obviously, to be quite frank, an operation of this kind

does have very strong emotional and political overtones in
involving the ABCC in greater detail, and also discusses charges that American
investigators confiscated blood and tissue samples collected by Japanese researchers.
46. "Special Report of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, Extrinsic
Relations, Relations with the Japanese," p. 2, attached to George B. Darling to
Charles L. Dunham, September 11, 1969, U.S-Japan Talks and Meetings Re.:
ABCC, #1, ABCC Records, NAS Archives.
47. Philip S. Owen to Grant Taylor, July 28, 1953, attached to George B.
Darling to Charles L. Dunham, September 11, 1969, U.S.-Government of Japan
Talks and Meetings Re.: ABCC, #1, ABCC Records, NAS Archives.
48. See the following files from the ABCC Records and the NAS Archives:
U.S.-Japan Talks and Meetings Re.: ABCC, #1 and #2; State Department and
American Embassy in Tokyo, #1-#9.
224 JOHN BEATTY
addition to just the scientific objectives. Because of these it

makes the scientific objectives sometimes not clearly recognized
by the general public which is quite understandable and this of
course is an inconvenience....
STORER: It seems to me that some of the inconveniences would

include the following: First of all, because ABCC is identified
as largely a US operation, this makes ABCC particularly
vulnerable to attack. . . . In addition to this, there is difficulty
in recruiting the professional staff at ABCC in part because of
this identity of largely US operation but also because of uncer-
tainty about what its future might be....
DUNHAM: I would like to add with reference to inconvenience

which Dr. Storer mentioned that we all recognize. These state-
ments in the press and so forth saying that we should fold our
tent, we recognize, are not statements by the Japanese govern-
ment by any means. Yet it would be helpful to Dr. Darling and
to me and to Dr. Seitz and to Dr. Storer if there might be some
official statement that actually did endorse the importance of
the program and its importance.49
The minimal note verbale continued to be the only formal, gov-

ernment-level agreement concerning the ABCC until 1973. In the
meantime, though, ABCC officials attributed more and more
responsibility to the JNIH and to JNIH employees, and also - which
is not the same thing - allotted more responsibility. JNIH employees
often acknowledged, and the Japanese press often complained,
that the enterprise was more "cooperative" and "collaborative" in
name than in substance.50
Most important in the establishment of formal, collaborative
relations between the ABCC and the JNIH was a set of four agree-
ments drafted and reviewed over a six-year period from 1956 to
1962, during the directorship of George Darling.5" The proposals
were initiated and drafted by American scientists, but were
criticized and amended by expert committees established by the
JNIH especially for the purpose. What the agreements ensured
49. "Minutes of U.S.-Japan Conference on ABCC," June 18, 1969, pp. 16-19,
U.S.-Japan Talks and Meetings Re.: ABCC, #1, ABCC Records, NAS Archives.
50. See, for example, "ABCC at the Crossroads," Asahi Press, June 4, 1969,
Re.: Future of ABCC (1963-1969) #1, ABCC Records, NAS Archives.
51. The agreements are included in the Appendix to the Atomic Bomb Casualty
Commission annual Report, July 1, 1961-June 30, 1962. See also "Minutes of U.S.-
Japan Conference on ABCC," June 18, 1969, pp. 28-29 (above, n. 49).
was that, as Darling put it briefly, "the JNIH shares responsibility

for the research design"; as he also pointed out, these agreements
were reached well after the peace treaty ending the Occupation,
so "there was no longer any question of the occupational dominance
of the earlier days."52 The new accord was celebrated by a new
letterhead, designed in every aspect to emphasize the joint respon-
sibilities of the cooperating partners (Fig. 2).
Darling touted these agreements as finally ensuring a "complete
binational partnership at both the political and professional levels"
- this despite the one-way origin of the research proposals, and
despite the continued lack of any more formal agreement between
the American and Japanese governments than was provided by
the brief note verbale.54 While the new organization did indeed
confer greater responsibility on the JNIH and its employees,
it was still not quite true that, as Darling put it, "Japan [has]
reestablished its status as a sovereign nation and joined with the
United States of its own free will in describing the mission and
methods of this unique effort"';55 the agreement between Japan
and the United States was yet to come (it will be discussed shortly).
Rather more frank in this regard was a Japanese press report with
a picture of the ABCC building in Hiroshima, captioned: "Entrance
of ABCC with the Japanese and American flags flying abreast.
Nonetheless, the cooperative arrangement between Japan and
America is not well defined."56
Darling was well aware of the distinction between different levels
of cooperation and collaboration. Indeed, although he sometimes
conveniently collapsed them (as when he equated ABCC-JNIH
agreements with U.S.-Japan agreements), at other times he
conveniently emphasized the different levels of collaboration
(supposedly) involved in the ABCC's investigations: governments,
scientific agencies, and investigators all shared responsibility.57
He even construed the subjects of the investigations as respon-
sible partners, thus rendering them collaborators rather than merely
victims: "In a very real sense ABCC provides only the machinery
through which the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki can answer
52. Ibid., p. 29.

53. Mildred N. Montgomery to Herbert N. Gardner, May 23, 1963, ABCC
Directors Correspondence, January 1, 1963, ABCC Records, NAS Archives.
54. George B. Darling, "Introduction," Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission
Annual Report, July 1, 1961-June 30, 1962, p. i.
55. George B. Darling, "Introduction," Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission
Annual Report, July 1, 1968-June 30, 1969, p. iii.
56. "ABCC at the Crossroads" (above, n. 50).
57. See for example Darling, "Introduction" (above, n. 55), pp. iii-ix.
226 JOHN BEATTY
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questions of vital importance to themselves and of real concern

to the rest of the world by carefully pooling their individual
experiences. It is only through this process of accumulating infor-
mation bit by bit that knowledge of the real results of radiation
will be substituted for the understandable anxiety caused by fear
of the unknown."58
Winning the friendship of the Japanese government continued to
prove difficult - just as it proved ever more important. The ABCC
continued throughout the sixties to be a target for anti-American
sentiment in Japan. It also, however, became a bigger and bigger
target for the U.S. Bureau of the Budget, which needed stronger
justifications in proportion to the rapidly increasing cost of the
enterprise.59 Requests for greater Japanese involvement thus also
took the form of requests for greater financial support. In return,
the NAS-NRC and the AEC offered the JNIH greater control of
the ABCC.
But greater control meant greater responsibility, which the
Japanese government did not want to purchase. It was only partly
a matter of money; it was also a matter of being implicated in the
studies. This, at least, was the perception of several of the
Americans involved in the negotiations. A memorandum on the
state of Japanese science and technology prepared by the American
Embassy in Tokyo in 1968 reported unoptimistically on prospects
for sharing more responsibility for the ABCC with the Japanese
government: "There seems little doubt that the GOJ is willing to
see ABCC continue for as long as needed to achieve its scientific
goals. Far more open to question, however, is whether the GOJ is
willing to accept a significant portion of the management of the
operation, as this would also expose the government to its share
of the annual round of criticism."60
Japanese concerns about the implications of sharing more respon-
sibility for ABCC investigations were made quite explicit in
meetings between American and Japanese governmental represen-
tatives. For instance, in a two-day meeting at the Japanese Ministry
of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo in 1969, the following complex set
58. George B. Darling, Letter to Japan Times, August 1, 1958, ABCC Press
mid-1957-1964, ABCC Records, NAS Archives.
59. See for example Memorandum for the Ambassador, Briefing on the Atomic
Bomb Casualty Commission, July 30, 1969, State Department and American
Embassy in Tokyo (1969) #4, ABCC Records, NAS Archives; see also the entire
file Re.: Future of ABCC (1963-1969) #1, ABCC Records, NAS Archives.
60. "Japanese Science and Technology - Summary and Evaluation," December
27, 1968, Science Officer, American Embassy, 1959-1970, ABCC Records, NAS
Archives.
228 JOHN BEATTY
of more or less straightforwardly expressed concerns were dis-

cussed:
KONNO: Since I understand today's session is open for free

discussion, I wish to make a few frank comments. We at the
Welfare Ministry are concerned with the medical care and aid
to A-bomb survivors. As Dr. Darling in the field is aware, there
is a special national sentiment directed toward A-bomb survivors,
which makes the problem we have at hand complex. The atomic
bomb is an event some 20 years ago, but it is still felt by many
a matter which occurred very recently. Since 1957 legislation
related to the medical care and health management of A-bomb
survivors has been in effect. At present legislation is promoted
to extend relief to A-bomb survivors and therefore this event
of the past is yet a current problem. The fact of exposure to
the A-bomb has left a lasting impression and though being an
internal problem it has a complicated relation with ABCC. The
emotional problem of the survivor is also related to the ABCC
problem. Therefore, it seems to me that matters cannot be dis-
cussed merely on the basis of results of investigative research
and thus on merely scientific basis because of this background.
This I think needs to be further discussed.
And indeed, it was discussed at length.

One aspect of this quotation is worth further elaboration. The
speaker referred to impending legislation to extend government
benefits to those suffering from the effects of the atomic bombings.
The legislation in question is the "A-Bomb Victims Medical Care
Law," which was first passed in 1957, and which has been revised
on numerous occasions since. The law provides special diagnostic
services at no charge for survivors, and also provides free medical
care in the case of certain illnesses believed to be more common
among persons exposed to radiation.62 The revisions have involved
extensions of the legislation: more benefits, and less-restrictive
qualifications (e.g., extensions of the maximum qualifiable distance
from the hypocenter of the explosions). The lobbyists for these
extensions include the Japan Confederation of A-Bomb and
61. "Minutes of U.S.-Japan Conference on ABCC," June 19, 1969, pp. 1-2,
U.S.-Japan Talks and Meetings Re.: ABCC, #1, ABCC Records, NAS Archives.
62. Committee for the Compilation of Materials on Damage Caused by the
Atomic Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical,
Medical, and Social Effects of the Atomic Bombings (London: Hutchinson, 198 1),
pp. 503-551.
H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, together with a number of pacifist

and antinuclear groups.63
Just how far the legislation should be extended depends in part
of course on empirical studies of the bombs' biological effects,
studies such as those carried out by the ABCC. Those in favor of
greater relief measures argued for more extensive injuries, and on
occasion accused the ABCC of underestimating the damage done.
For instance, in 1960 the Japanese Council against Atomic and
Hydrogen Bombs published a "White Paper on Damages by Atomic
and Hydrogen Bombs - The Hidden Truth" (emphasis added),
which heavily criticized ABCC investigations.64 These groups
represented opposition not only (on occasion) to the ABCC but
more generally to the Japanese government, which may have
extended relief measures for survivors of the bombs, but not nearly
to the extent requested/demanded.
Whether the Japanese government should take joint responsi-
bility for the ABCC studies under these circumstances was indeed
a politically complicated question. It was a question that Japan
finally answered in the affirmative, after considerable negotiation.
As a result of a binational agreement, the ABCC was succeeded
in 1975 by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, jointly
managed and funded by Japan and the United States (see Fig. 3).
The RERF continues in operation today.
Scientific Council Board of Directors Supervisors

(Japan 5, U.S. 5) (Japan 6, U.S. 6) (Japan 1. U.S. 1)
Executive Committee
Local Llason Councils (Chalrman, Japan) Operating Committee

Hiroshima and Nagasakl (Vice-Chairman, U.S.)
(Permanent Directors,
Japan 2, U.S. 2)
Chief of Research Chief of Secretariat
Figure 3. Radiation Effects Research Foundation organizational chart, 1987.

(Center of chart redrawn from Radiation Effects Research Foundation: A Brief
Description, obtained from RERF Hiroshima.)
63. Ibid., pp. 552-570.

64. Ibid., pp. 567, 584-588.
230 JOHN BEATTY
CONCLUSION
Whether the ABCC succeeded as a "diplomatic front" is diffi-

cult to judge; whether it (and its successor, the RERF) served as
such is unquestionable. The ABCC was intended from its incep-
tion to help align Japan against Communism.
In its diplomatic role, the ABCC was supposed to represent a
transnational, scientific common ground for discussion between the
United States and Japan. In order to play that role, it had to be a
cooperative enterprise, but not merely cooperative. Because of the
Occupation origins of the ABCC, Japanese cooperation was fairly
well ensured; but for that very reason, cooperation alone could
not be taken as evidence of Japan's approval of the ABCC.
After the Occupation, as anti-American sentiment grew, and as
the ABCC became an ever more obvious target, it was increas-
ingly necessary to ensure and to demonstrate that the ABCC did
not have an entirely American identity. It was thus necessary that
the Japanese government and Japanese institutions assume greater
responsibility for ABCC investigations. To be sure, budget worries
in the United States hastened the transfer of power! But the
motivation for formalizing more collaborative arrangements at these
levels was also largely diplomatic.
I began this paper by discussing the supposedly transnational-
istic character of science that has so often been said to preadapt
science to the needs of international diplomacy. I then described
how a supposedly joint Japanese-American scientific venture with
high diplomatic aspirations had to struggle to overcome its actually
and obviously American identity and agenda, which were the cause
of new diplomatic problems. It may seem therefore that the point
of the paper is to refute the transnationalism of science.
But it is not clear that the transnationalism of science is refutable
in this way. For, it is not clear that there is an empirical claim at
issue here. Paul Forman writes instead of the "ideology of scien-
tific internationalism," by which he means "the rhetoric asserting
the reality and necessity of supranational agreement on scientific
doctrine, of transnational collaboration in scientific work."65 Forman
describes how this ideology has survived, and how it has even been
invoked in the course of, intense national scientific rivalries.66
65. Forman, "Scientific Internationalism" (above, n. 3), p. 155.

66. The recent role of human genetics in Japanese-American relations
exemplifies the problem Forman describes, and also helps put the ABCC story in
historical relief. As explained above, the human genetics component of the ABCC
played an important part in its diplomatic mission. Lately, another human genetics
On the other hand, evidence for the transnationality of science

- or at least evidence for the transnationality of particular coop-
erative projects - is sometimes appealed to, as if the issue were
empirical. For instance, in the case of the ABCC, American offi-
cials appealed to the "joint," "cooperative," "collaborative" nature
of the project in order to argue that it was not carried out
primarily in the interest of the United States. Evidence of the joint
nature of the project was everywhere on exhibit: from jointly
authored papers, to carefully designed letterhead.
But now put aside the question of the empirical or ideological
status of the transnationality claim, and consider its role in the
argument that science is, by its very nature, useful in international
diplomacy. The inference is not as straightforward as it might
appear. Given that every nation conducts diplomacy in such a way
as tofurther its own interests, it really seems more odd than obvious
that the anational character of science would necessarily make it
diplomatically useful for a particular country.
But once a country has decided that an international scientific
enterprise would for whatever reason further its own interests,
then the (supposed fact of, or the ideology of) transnationalism may
be useful in promoting the project, by drawing attention away
from that country's singularly own agenda. Collaboration among
the participants, in the sense of public responsibility-sharing, also
helps to decouple the identity of the project from one country's
interests, and reinforces the image of transnationality as well.
The ABCC was supposed to work this way.
Acknowledgments
I am very grateful for the help I received from Janice Goldblum

at the Archives of the National Academy of Sciences. Thanks also
to Susan Lindee, Jane Maienschien, Everett Mendelsohn, and an
anonymous reviewer for their encouragement and advice.
project - the Human Genome Project - has been defended in part as an interna-
tional cooperative effort that would promote diplomacy. All the while, the Human
Genome Project is also defended to Congressional budget committees as a means
of bolstering our biotechnological competitiveness with other nations, including
Japan of course. How can the international cooperative, diplomacy-enhancing image
of the Human Genome Project survive the international competitive image, except
by being an ideal?

Beatty 1993

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Scientific Collaboration, Internationalism, and Diplomacy: The Case of the Atomic Bomb

Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior

A long-term study of atomic bomb casualties in collaboration

National Research Council Report, 1947

The "long-term study" in question commenced with the estab-

INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC COOPERATION AND

According to a traditional interpretation, science is "universal"

1. Robert K. Merton, "The Normative Structure of Science," originally pub-

they can at least agree on the range of uncertainty that remains.

I would suggest that science is already moving to enlarge its

At this time, the idea was already being realized in a fairly

4. George B. Kistiakowski, "Science and Foreign Affairs," Bull. Atom. Sci.,

International scientific cooperation may thus serve diplomatic

8. See especially Warren 0. Hagstrom, The Scientific Community (New York:

and its outcome. It is this sharing of accountability (implicitly or

THE ATOMIC BOMB CASUALTY COMMISSION:

11. An insightful article on the multiple functions of authorship is Michel

science - namely, a joint Japanese-American effort to determine the

The latter point deserves further elaboration. One of the early

15. Kazuo Kawai, Japan's American Interlude (Chicago: University of Chicago

Research Council (NAS-NRC) to proceed with a long-term

The cooperation of Japanese biomedical personnel was seen

a long-term study of atomic bomb casualties in collaboration

As the quotation suggests, the matter of winning Japan as an ally

This proposed diplomatic function of the ABCC was no mere

An excellent example of . .. a scientific/political initiative exists

few contacts with the American government or with American

The ABCC should be seen as part and parcel of such uses of

In 1966, Richard Petree, the AEC's Acting Country Director

The ABCC was one of the first institutionalized joint U.S.-Japan

23. Eugene B. Skolnikoff, Science, Technology, and American Foreign Policy

in our relations, particularly in the scientific field, with Japan.

ABCC has succeeded in winning a significant measure of support

Assessing the diplomatic significance of the ABCC in winning

It seems strange to me that this oldest and largest of all U.S.-

With the ending of the Occupation in 1952, and the lifting of

28. Justin L. Bloom, "The U.S.-Japan Bilateral Science and Technology

The "guinea pig" allegation stemmed from ABCC policy to

The very real service ABCC renders to the community through

Perhaps the only thing worse than being a guinea pig in a

28, 1952, ABCC Research Committee 1954-1956, ABCC Records, NAS

play the same role in an experiment conducted for U.S. military

TAKETANI: I wish to know the real object of ABCC. I trans-

COOPERATION? YES. COLLABORATION?

The mutually reinforcing guinea-pig and military/civilian-

Taylor's response that the decision was reached in agreement with

Jolnt Advisoty Atomlc Energy

15,NS CnrlFle,Mdcl cecs Atomic Bomb Casualty Commlsslon

Figure 1. Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission organizational chart, 195 1. (Center

39. Isamu Nagai, "Memorandum re Establishment of Cooperative Relations

Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The note basically only

Later, ABCC and JNIH officials put together a proposal to

ENGLISH: Obviously, to be quite frank, an operation of this kind

addition to just the scientific objectives. Because of these it

STORER: It seems to me that some of the inconveniences would

DUNHAM: I would like to add with reference to inconvenience

The minimal note verbale continued to be the only formal, gov-

was that, as Darling put it briefly, "the JNIH shares responsibility

52. Ibid., p. 29.

ATb)A)K-~1 U' ? C1.

questions of vital importance to themselves and of real concern

of more or less straightforwardly expressed concerns were dis-

KONNO: Since I understand today's session is open for free

And indeed, it was discussed at length.