Nuclear Hotseat

A-Bomb survivor Senji Yaaguchi , the first hibakusha to address the United Nations, holding up photo of him shaving.  Photo courtesy Wilmington College Peace Resource Center and Claude Baillargeon. Original photo posted at NH #743.

This year’s 35th annual Westheimer Peace Symposium was based on the theme “Practicing Art, Practicing Nuclear Abolition” It was presented in conjunction with the Wilmington College Peace Resource Center Academic conference: Archives as Witness from Monday, September 29 through Wednesday, October 1, 2025 at Wilmington College in Wilmington, Ohio.

I attended for multiple purposes:

• to cover the event for Nuclear Hotseat,
• as an instructor for two classes on Activist Podcasting,
• on a panel examining media manipulation by journalists in the telling of the story of the atomic bombs at the dawn of the Atomic Age.

Academics, artists and activists from around the world - Japan, Korea, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, U.S. and more - to present work inspired by archival research related to nuclear histories as a reflection of the Peace Resource Center’s mission and vision over the past 50 years. 

Among the presenters:

Prof. Claude Baillargeon leading us through the art exhibit he curated,
"Memorializing the Hibakusha Experience."

An example of a 1950's Manga comic book - censored and probably burned -  dealing with the atomic bombings.  This is an example used in Prof. Yuki Miyamoto's presentation: Stewards of the Archives: Legal, Literary and Popular Culture Approaches to Nuclear Witnessing.

Hibakusha Mr Yukihiro Ishikawa, carrying the message of peace from Hiroshima to the Westheimer Peace Symposium.

Second generation Hibakusha, Masae Shoda, w/Nuclear Hotseat's Libbe HaLevy

"Witnessing and Photographing Atomic Bomb Sufferers" - a zoom Conversation with 92-year-old Murasato Sakae in Japan (lower right), interpreter and researcher Yoshiko Tanigawa (lower left) Peace Resource Center Director Tanya Maus handling the tech (upper right), and Prof. Claude Baillargeon, Curator of the exhibit providing a guided online tour (upper left.)

And the obligatory multi-selfie of three great anti-nuclear warrior/friends:
(l-r) Norma Field, Libbe HaLevy, Yuki Miyamoto. 

Tombstone for Protest "Funeral" for Santa Susana Field Lab clean-up.
(Photo Credit, Melissa Bumstead)

Keystone (cover) photo credit:  Sean Muniz via Snappr

The long-promised clean-up of radioactive Santa Susana Field Lab site near downtown Los Angeles is being killed by Boeing & CA's Department of Toxic Substances Control. Mothers from Parents Against Santa Susana Field Lab hold a funeral for their clean-up expectations, voice anger and disappointment.

We talked with Parents Against SSFL founder and co-Director Melissa Bumstead, and co-Director Jeni Knack on Friday, October 3, 2025. 

Funeral for soon-to-be-killed clean-uo agreement for the Santa Susana Field Lab.  Here, Parents Against SSFL gather to mourn outside the headquarters of the "killer," Boeing. 

NOTE:  Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) LIES when it says "there's no possibility for off-site migration of radioactive particles" when we already know, through the citizen science testing in the wake of the 2018 Wolsey fire, that there was verifiable migration of radioactive particles to as far as 9 miles away from the site, in Sherman Oaks. Check out this report from Nuclear Hotseat #541, November 3, 2021.

High tensions continue at Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, still in long power outage.
NOTE:  As of this posting on October 8, 2025, Zaporizhzhia's six nuclear reactors are still without external power. One back-up generator is already out of operation.

LINK to Linda's story with more information on Beyond Nuclear International.

Before the U.S. stopped underground nuclear testing in 1992, activists were hiking into ground zero at the Nevada Test Site, forcing expensive delays and arrests while magnifying public support for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. 

• Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) is launching a new training program for health professionals interested in learning about the health impacts of nuclear weapons and radiation. This eleven-week online course will bring together leading experts, frontline community voices, and health advocates to explore the medical, environmental, and social consequences of nuclear weapons production, testing, and military use, plus health risks related to nuclear energy. Participants will also develop advocacy and communications skills to bring the health perspective into policy debates, media conversations, and community action.
  LINK to register - fees on a sliding scale, some scholarships available. 
• Democrats alarmed as Trump eyes weapons material to fuel nuclear reactors. 
• From Zaporizhzhiato Natan,nuclear piracy is equally dangerous - and illegal
• The “Golden Age of Nuclear” is all a veneer
• U.S. to gift Pu-239 to private nuclear industry
• The dangerous new Washington consensus for more nuclear weapons
• It’s past time to start protecting US nuclear power reactors from drones

Alfred Meyer of Physicians for Social Responsibility, mid-Zoom interview

• Alfred Meyer is a long-time member of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and has served variously as Executive Director of the PSR Wisconsin chapter, Board Member of PSR National, and President of PSR New York.  He co-authored a PSR/IPPNW critique of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) report on the health effects of the radioactive releases from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors. He has also founded, co-founded and/or served as an executive for half a dozen other major organizations dedicated to nuclear issues relating to Fukushima, Chernobyl, Ukraine, and the connection between proposed fusion weapons w/nuclear reactor infrastructure.
  
  I spoke with Alfred Meyer on December 23, 2022.
• LINK to Alfred Meyer’s article in The Progressive: It’s All About the Bomb: Why civilian nuclear power is merely a cover for producing more nuclear weapons.

Dr. Gordon Edwards, addressing the United Nations

• Dr. Gordon Edwards is a mathematician, physicist, nuclear consultant, as well as president and co-founder of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, a not-for-profit corporation established in 1975. He has served as a consultant on nuclear issues for governmental and non-governmental bodies for over 45 years, and been accepted as an expert witness by US and Canadian courts and tribunals. He is frequently invited to testify before provincial and federal bodies, and to give major addresses in various countries. He also explains complex nuclear matters in a way that is easy to understand, for which I am deeply grateful. I spoke with Dr. Edwards on February 12, 2024.

Excerpts from last year’s Halloween feature: “What Scares Me Most about Nuclear.” I spoke with more than 30 activists and concerned citizens about what they found most frightening about nuclear. Here are just a few, from:

• Jan Boudart – Nuclear Energy Information Service, Chicago (NEIS.org)
• Kevin Hester – Veteran activist, New Zealand
• Dr. Michael Ketterer – chemist, professor, researcher
• Leona Morgan – Haul No (HaulNo.com)
• Brian Morrison – space scientist

You can access the full Halloween special, with more than 30 different speakers on what scares people most about nuclear, by going to: Nuclear Hotseat #645

Ollie Basta, playing the lead role of podcaster/activist Jessie Keever, addresses a rally at the United Nations at the climax of ATOMIC BILL AND THE PAYMENT DUE 

• Nuclear Hotseat producer/host Libbe HaLevy's new play, ATOMIC BILL AND THE PAYMENT DUE, received its world premiere staged reading at the Wilmington College 400-seat Heiland Theatre on September 9, 2025.  Produced by the Peace Resource Center at Wilmington College, an internationally honored archive of materials on the human effect of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the staged reading played like a full production, even on a minimal-budget, book-in-hand staged reading.  Audiences cheered, yelled "BRAVO!" laughed, cried, and held the silence as the two-hour reading played out. 

Ollie Basta as podcaster/activist Jessie Keever in ATOMIC BILL AND THE PAYMENT DUE. 
Behind her, projection of the logo painted on the side of Bockscar,
the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
(Photo credit: Randall Sarvis, Wilmington College)

(r-l) Otto Cipollini as Gen. Leslie Groves, Kevin Wall as William L. Laurence ("Atomic Bill") and behind him, Gary Sheldon as NYTimes editor Edwin James - the moment when Groves co-opts Bill into the Manhattan Project. (Photo credit: Randall Sarvis, Wilmington College)

(below) Ecstatic author in the immediate aftermath of watching the successful staged reading of her play. (Sorry for the ginormous size, but I haven't figure out how to resize a video):

https://youtube.com/shorts/uW_sgNeCo1o?feature=share

• The Wilmington College Peace Resource Center (PRC) celebrates the 50th anniversary of its founding this year with a series of events and exhibits, of which ATOMIC BILL AND THE PAYMENT DUE was one. 
  
  The PRC was founded in 1975 by the Quaker peace activist Barbara Reynolds (1915-1990) who worked ceaselessly toward creating a world free of nuclear weaponry and war and to helping atomic bombing survivors share their stories of the tragedy of military conflict.  Currently, the PRC develops events and programming that encourages dialogue on the Wilmington College campus about how to resolve conflict from the personal to the global level. The PRC assists faculty and students in creating student-led projects, internships, and local/global collaborations so that Wilmington College and its local region can become an even greater part of a global community of peace.
  
  The PRC and its director, Tanya Maus, have long held that art in all its many forms is an important way to communicate atomic and nuclear truths. 

ATOMIC BILL director Tara Lydy (l) and author Libbe HaLevy, seen at entry to the art exhibit "Memorializing the Hibakusha Experience."  (Photo Credit: Tanya Maus)

Photo wall installation of 108 close-ups of the eyes of Hibakusha and Downwinders who witnessed the atomic bombings of Trinity, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  (Photo Credit: Tanya Maus)

Display case showing 1947 New Yorker magazine that was completely given over to the original John Hersey report on Hiroshima, and Japanese magazine with similarly innocuous cover that contains the first published photos of Hiroshima survivors, 1952. (Photo credit: Libbe HaLevy)

Hibakusha Yamaguchi Senjihi shaving.  Original photo by Tomotsu Shohei

Author/Nuclear Hotseat host Libbe HaLevy (l) and Peace Resource Center Director Tanya Maus (r) in front of the PRC.

• Atomic Bill and the Payment Due by award-winning veteran environmental journalist Karl Grossman in Counterpunch.
• "Atomic Bill": The Bomb Publicist and the New Play by award-winning filmmaker, author, and nuclear gadfly Greg Mitchell
• A more personal take on the play by Karl Grossman:  I’m a character in Libbe HaLevy’s new play “Atomic Bill and the Payment Due” 

• Email:  [email protected]
• Or use the CONTACT link on this website:https://nuclearhotseat.com/contact/" class="text-nh underline hover:text-nh-dark"> https://nuclearhotseat.com/contact/

M. V. Ramana w/book, Libbe HaLevy w/Podcast.

• We discuss the acclaimed new book by reknowned physicist M. V. Ramana: Nuclear Is Not the Solution: The Folly of Atomic Power in the Age of Climate Change.  Ramana is professor and Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security at the University of British Columbia. He previously worked at the Nuclear Futures Laboratory and the Program on Science and Global Security, both at Princeton University. Ramana is a member of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, the Canadian Pugwash Group, the International Nuclear Risk Assessment Group, and the team that produces the annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report.

CLICK on book cover to purchase from Amazon.

https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2025/09/14/read-this-book/

• WESTINGHOUSE LIES.  The TOTALLY FICTITIOUS 2014 WESTINGHOUSE ANIMATION of a 116 WEEK BUILD SCHEDULE for the AP 1000 NUCLEAR REACTOR.
  Westinghouse has long since taken it down from their website, but Ramana downloaded and saved it. 
  NO WONDER they took it down! This is a LINK to that video, or CLICK BELOW.

THIS ANIMATION IS A TOTAL LIE.

Portrait of a playwright/podcaster in Peak Happiness with the stage of her new play,
ATOMIC BILL AND THE PAYMENT DUE.

Producer/Host Libbe HaLevy here.  I’m in Ohio at the Wilmington College Peace Resource Center (PRC) for the world premiere staged reading of my play, ATOMIC BILL AND THE PAYMENT DUE.  It's a featured presentation for the PRC's 50th Anniversary Celebration.  While here, my commitments are such that I’m unable to produce the Nuclear Hotseat that I planned to on the PRC and the play, as well as my experience seeing the airplane that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. All that will be on next week’s show. Here, an important full-length interview with Prof. Bo Jacobs on how we, all of us, are Global Hibakusha - atomic bomb radiation survivors.  Thanks for understanding. - Libbe.

This is a SPECIAL full-length interview with Prof. Robert “Bo” Jacobs on his book, NUCLEAR BODIES: The Global Hibakusha.

Professor Robert "Bo" Jacobs

• HIBAKUSHA is the term for those who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But in recent years, it has come to be applied more widely to all who have been exposed to radiation from nuclear bomb testing and other sources of contamination from manufacturing, uranium mining, nuclear reactors, and radioactive waste. As today’s guest will explain, that means just about all of us.
  
  Prof. Robert “Bo” Jacobs is an American historian of nuclear technologies and radiation techno-politics. He moved to Japan in 2006 after being hired by the Hiroshima Peace Institute. and is currently a professor at the Hiroshima Peace Institute and the Graduate School of Peace Studies of Hiroshima City University. He’s the author of the 2022 book, NUCLEAR BODIES: The Global Hibakusha.  Bo Jacobs retired from the Hiroshima Peace Institute and returned to the United States, where he continues to write, leacture, and teaxh on nuclear issues. 
  
  I spoke with Robert "Bo" Jacobs on Friday, July 21, 2023.

To purchase the book, go to Amazon, Ebay, or order through your local independent bookstore. 

William L. Laurence - "Atomic Bill" (l) - and J. Robert Oppenheimer (r)  at the Trinity Site, one month after detonation of the first atomic bomb. 

Next Tuesday, September 9, my play on media manipulation at the dawn of the Atomic Age receives its premiere staged reading presentation as a feature at the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Wilmington College Peace Resource Center. If you can get to Wilmington, the performance starts at 7:30 pm and admission is free.  If you can't get to Ohio, you can still learn more about the show because media coverage has already been off the hook:

• Greg Mitchell:  "Atomic Bill": The Bomb Publicist and the New Play
• Karl Grossman:  Atomic Bill and the Payment Due. - Counterpunch
• Karl Grossman: Atomic Bill - shorter, more personal version of the article - Southampton Press
• Harvey Wasserman's KPFK show Solartopia

If you can get to south central Ohio next Tuesday, September 9, the performance starts at 7:30 pm and admission is free. 

• Kimberly Roberson is Director of Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network (FFAN), a project of the National Institute for Science, Law, and Public Policy.  Formerly a campaigner with Greenpeace USA, Kimberly worked as a certified Diet Counselor and Nutrition Educator while serving on the board of the National Association of Nutrition Professionals. In March 2011 she petitioned for better food regulations due to Fukushima, which led to the formation of the Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network.
  
  I spoke with Kimberly Roberson on August 29, 2025.

• The FDA has a list of states, brands and lot numbers for the shrimp recall HERE.  
• Please sign and share this Change.org petition
• Please sign and share this MoveOn petition, which is the signature companion petition to the FDA Citizen Petition on the radioactive food issue. 
• You can also leave a comment on the FDA petition.
• CONTACT: Kimberly Roberson, Executive Director, FFAN:  [email protected]. 
• LINK to interview with Mary Olson of Generational Radiation Impact Project on disproportional health damage of radiation on women and children compared to the adult Reference Man used as the model to set food safety levels.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gS2furzVWwg

• Gary Headrick is co-founder of San Clemente Green , a southern California grassroots organization working to address safety problems at the San Onofre nuclear reactors and other environmental issues in the area. Gary has been leading the charge for safe storage or removal of the high level nuclear waste currently sitting at the SanO site, 123 canisters each containing a Chernobyl’s-worth of radioactivity, sited only 100 feet from the Pacific Ocean. Now there are community meetings happening to try to handle that deadly waste in a more responsible, transparent, safe way - and the public is getting involved in ever-increasing ways.
  
  I talked with Gary Headrick about the latest developments on August 29, 2025.

• Archival of newsletters on the website under News tab, then click on BLOG.

• Guest columnists Robert Weiner and Jenny Zhao: The world needs another nuclear freeze movement
• BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO NUCLEAR WEAPONS - Beyond the Brink