Wretchard wrote: “Japan is widely believed to have the capability to build weapons very quickly.”
Years ago I was working with a PhD (Physics) researcher from one of the Japanese megacompanies during one of North Korea’s early nuke demonstrations. So I asked him how Japan could sit back and do nothing while the neighborhood went nuclear.
He answered that the Japanese government takes its pacifist constitution very seriously. But that Mitsubishi contracts at Japanese nuclear power plants. He thought if anyone had a nuclear weapon in Japan it was Mitsubishi – holding it in trust for the Japanese people.
Related link:
http://www.nci.org/03NCI/01/pr5994.htm
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Monday, May 9, 1994 202-822-8444
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‘ASTOUNDING’ DISCREPANCY OF 70 KILOGRAMS OF PLUTONIUM WARRANTS SHUTDOWN OF TROUBLED NUCLEAR FUEL PLANT IN JAPAN
Washington—A factory in Japan that turns U.S.-controlled plutonium into fuel for breeder reactors should be shut down until serious operating problems and an inventory imbalance amounting to at least nine bombs’ worth of plutonium are resolved, the Nuclear Control Institute (NCI) urged in a letter to Secretary of State Warren Christopher, released today.
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