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Feature: The Atomic Bomb Exhibition in the U.S.
Message of ‘No nukes’ Resonates in Western Missouri
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by Jane Stoever |
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 Through poignant testimony and political analysis, representatives of the Hiroshima
Peace Culture Foundation made presentations in western Missouri on the need for
nuclear disarmament. For many listeners, the visitors’ words struck home.
A-bomb witness Yoshiko Kajimoto and Steve Leeper, head of the Hiroshima Peace Culture
Foundation, arrived in Kansas City Sept. 4,2008. The city’s newspaper, The Kansas City Star,
on Sept. 1 described the foundation’s posters － on display at the Community of Christ
Temple in Independence, close to Kansas City － and announced the Sept. 5 presentation at the temple.
The Star headlined its article“Changing the Perspective on Truman’s Tough Choice.”
Independence, the hometown of Harry Truman, the U.S. president who authorized bombing
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is the location of Truman’s former home and presidential library.
A courtyard memorial thanks Truman“for saving many lives by using atomic weapons to end World War II.”
In contrast to the library memorial, the Star article said the posters provided
“a ground-zero perspective”and were “intended to convey the suffering of the bombings’
victims.” The newspaper had about 600,000 readers.
Presentations in Kansas City, Independence
“We are at a crisis point,”Leeper said to a group of about 20 persons at
Rockhurst University in Kansas City and to about 100 people at the temple.
“We have got to get rid of nuclear weapons or they are going to be everywhere.”
Kajimoto, who was 14 and was working in a factory when the bomb exploded, described
the horrors of the bombing. As she carried a classmate on a stretcher away from the factory,
Kajimoto walked barefoot, her shoes lost in the blast.
“We had to carry the girls over areas where dead bodies were scattered,”said Kajimoto.
“We tried to step in between the corpses. We were able not to step on the bodies,
but we couldn’t avoid stepping on the skin that had melted from their bones.
The skin was wet, slimy. I’ll never forget that feeling.”
After hearing Kajimoto, Glenna Krzyzanowski, a young volunteer at Holy Family Catholic
Worker House, a shelter for the hungry and homeless in Kansas City, said,
“I was moved by how serene, how poised, Mrs. Kajimoto was. She has been through
so much suffering. But she tells her story to convince people how important it is
to rid the world of nuclear weapons.”
The review committee on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty came to an impasse in
2005 because the United States would discuss only nonproliferation, not disarmament,
said Leeper.“If we have a failure like that in 2010, when the review committee meets again,
we could easily lose control of the spread of nuclear weapons.”
Listing signs of hope, Leeper pointed out,“Barack Obama is saying the United States
should lead the way to creating a nuclear-free world.” |
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Christian Brother Louis Rodemann, a longtime staff member at Holy Family
Catholic Worker House, said,“Any resources diverted to the use of war
are taken from the poor first. We in the Catholic Worker movement stand
with the poor and model nonviolence.”He said he appreciated Leeper’s
insistence that each action against nuclear weapons counts, each letter counts,
each phone call counts, each protest counts.“I haven’t seen anyone with so much
urgency and hope in about 25 years,”Rodemann said about Leeper.
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Hopeful Spinoffs from Hiroshima Talks Among the people hearing Kajimoto’s and Leeper’s presentations were lawyer Henry Stoever and Jane Stoever (author of this article). They are parties in a lawsuit to botch Bush administration plans to move and update the Kansas City Plant, a facility that produces non-nuclear parts for nuclear weapons, including triggers, guidance systems and casing.
City Council members for Kansas City held hearings in October 2007 on whether to approve $40 million in tax abatement and incentives for water lines, gas lines and highway expansion to prepare the proposed location for the new Kansas City Plant.
At one hearing, David Mason, a Community of Christ priest in St. Joseph, Missouri, said he had heard Kajimoto describe how she and her classmates carried severely injured classmates to safety past dead bodies.“I don’t want this to happen to children in this or any other city,”Mason told the City Council members.“How can we go to church on Sunday and build bombs on Monday?”
Jane Stoever, at the City Council hearings, repeated Leeper’s message as she argued,“It’s up to the United States to decide whether to abolish nuclear weapons. Other countries will follow our lead. We, the people of the Kansas City metro area, ask you, the City Council, to have the courage to withhold taxpayers’ funds for the new plant. Seize this moment to block the spread of nuclear weapons around the world.”
Even though council members voted to fund infrastructure improvements for the Kansas City Plant’s new location, the local peace community took hope for two reasons. First, the lawsuit should delay the process of relocation. Second, the Obama administration may nix the relocation and derail plans for new nuclear weapons.
With the journey of Hiroshima peace activists to the Kansas City area and the use of their ideas by Kansas Citians in arguments against the Kansas City Plant, the effort for a nuclear-free world is coming full circle in America’s heartland.
Kansas City peace activists are deeply grateful for this circle of hope and energy. （Contributed in December 2008） |
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 [profile]
Jane Stoever
She is a freelance writer and editor,
lives in Overland Park, Kansas, close to Kansas City, Missouri.
She has a master’s degree in English and was an editor for the
American Nurses Association and an editor, writer and photographer
for the American Academy of Family Physicians.
She and her husband, Henry, hosted the Japanese Peace Delegation Sept. 4-6,2008. |
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