DEBI: So you went from Hiroshima to—

JUNE: Nagasaki. I spent a good deal of my time there, so I was able—

DEBI: When did you get to Nagasaki?

JUNE: I would have to look back carefully, but it must have been in '51. Yes I got there in the fall of '50 and some time in the middle of '51 I got...

DEBI: And what were your chief responsibilities in Nagasaki?

JUNE: As a x-ray technician. And I remember going into the department. They had a big Quonset hut kind of hospital facility on top of the hill. I remember going into the x- ray department and being introduced to all of the Japanese technicians. And everybody's name ended up with san and I thought, "are they all members of the same family?" See, I had no introduction to Japanese language or culture. I was essentially one of the head technicians.

DEBI: Were people who had flash burns or fire burns or also the effects of radiation, they would come for x-rays?

JUNE: Well the program was that they were doing a geographical survey or demographic survey. In other words they had a fleet of cars, station wagons in those days, and they would have the epicenter and so many miles from the epicenter were people were living or now living so they would go out and I don't know the details of how they designated who the picked up. I know that they were simply brought in for routine examinations. The x-rays we took were for bone density and growth patterns—

DEBI: So they would just go out and look at people in the street?

JUNE: No, I'm sure they didn't just look at them in the street. I think there was some demographic way of—

DEBI: They had a database.

JUNE: They had a database. So that they chose to bring in samples from these several districts. I know this child who was mentioned in the documentary--

DEBI: Would you say a little something-

JUNE: So just... there was a documentary produced last fall of survivors of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki. I happened to appear in that as an x-ray technician, holding the hand of a then child who is now in her late 50s who was a survivor. In the documentary she speaks of her afraidness [sic]of having to go to these examinations and the uncertainties that all of them had about what was happening to them. So these were routine x-rays on yearly basis to see the rate of growth that might have been deterred or whatever. So that's where the x-ray part came in. Then they would do certain other, I'm sure, blood evaluations and so forth, like samples—

DEBI: So the U. S. government was trying to verify what they thought was the impact—

JUNE: Yes and I really seemed to me they were verifying with human beings what they already knew. And there are volumes written, I'm sure, about what the effects were. I'm too far past that to give you any official quotes, but I always simplify it by saying there was an increase in the rate of usual abnormalities. In other words, more micro-safalics [sic microcephalics], more tuberculosis and that could be attributed to health, general health. Of course, radiation cataracts and leukemias, and ... I think that I'm eager for some, may be through this project, someone can look at that documentary and see how they documented the determination of our government to suppress the information being developed or I mean being acquired, and/or certainly to suppress the obvious destruction that had taken place for six or seven years through the McCarthy era. We need exposure to how that was and of course I have been sternly, strongly insistent that we get rid of nuclear weapons finished and I think that was probably by the '60s, but I just can't put my mind to it to say exactly when.

DEBI: I think that gives a frame of the research, the organized phase, the research phase. I'm glad to hear there was some kind of treatment.

REID. I'm kind of interested in the social aspect when you were living in Japan during those years. It sounds like you were part of an international community, really there, and what that was like particularly after this time of being in the United States during a very patriotic period. What was it like being in the more international community, what was the feel-

JUNE: Well it was very refreshing. I loved it. and the ok the facilities for example in Nagasaki we were billeted in the home of some wealthy Japanese person that was taken over. Then we had a common dining room somewhere so it was there I was able to be friends with some Nisei, Japanese Americans, who came from the west coast and I believe some had experienced the internment camps. There were those from Australia, as I mentioned, so it was really a multicultural and good time and then in Hiroshima the time I was there, they had taken over a military officers' quarters, you know, several house in a neighborhood. That's where we were billeted. We were transported from that small community to Hiroshima,it was in a greyhound bus so we all pack up and get on the bus together and go to work together and come home together. And all along the inland sea.
 

DEBI: How far was your home from where you worked?

JUNE: Oh I'd say it took us about half an hour. Hiro, H-I-R-O, was the name of the little community. But then in Nagasaki we could walk to work because of our location.

DEBI: You have the eye-witness account...

JUNE: Well, I always said, they banned mustard gas after WWI. Why in the world can't we ban nuclear weapons? But it's obvious again, that again, the military industrial complex, it doesn't fit their menu.

REID: So June, when you were in Nagasaki and Hiroshima both, you were working with Japanese people as well as Americans?

JUNE: Well yes, as far as in the field, the employees. Yeah they were sort of, I don't know what the ratio was but there were several Westerners, not ail from America. Some were from Australia. And there was this one lady that I became close friends with, Marie Gonzalez, who had grown up in Hong Kong. She was Chinese Portuguese. She had lived through the Japanese occupation there and for some reason had an opportunity to come as a nurse with our organization. We were predominantly from the US.

DEBI: This went on through 1952 when you returned to Asheville? No you went from thereto...

JUNE: Well actually from '52, when I finished my two year contract with them I came back with the intention of, which I did go to University of NC for my first year in social work. So that was my yes I'll get mixed up on the number of years, but anyway there was one year...

DEBI: And did the commission finish their work at the end of the contract?

JUNE: Oh no they kept on going. I don't know the exact date but they finally transitioned out of doing that kind of thing and the facilities and whatever were taken over by the Japanese and they were doing more treatment then. The research part  ???

DEBI: How far apart are Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

JUNE: Well they're quite far apart. I don't know the mileage, but if you think of a map of Japan with Hokkaido, the northern most and that's sort of like the equivalent up in Maine, then the thing bends a little bit so Washington is where Tokyo is or rather Tokyo is where Washington is. Then you drop on down till finally you get down to where Alabama is. And Nagasaki is more where Alabama is. Hiroshima is more, well Virginia, NC.

DEBI: That's a great description. Gives good reference points. REED: How much did you interact with the Japanese people while you were there? JUNE: Well the interaction was mostly with the... let's see, I'm trying to think. Like being a regular tourist... in Nagasaki they had a place where you could go for dancing so that... we were not the only Americans there. There were occupation people there in the Sasabo, which was not far from Nagasaki. That's where we did most of our shopping in terms of going to the commissary. There was that kind of interaction, but in terms of becoming intimate friends or anything there wasn't that much opportunity. And then one or two of my friends in different places, we'd always go to some church. I would find, we'd try to find out even though we couldn't understand a word being said, but I remember going to some little house churches and even when to the ?Guragame? church which had been hit by the blast. That's a big catholic cathedral on top of a hill in Nagasaki. And so I went with my catholic friend Marie Gonzalez to worship services there. The Australians had responsibility for the occupation in the Hiroshima area, so there was a rather large contingency of Australian soldiers there and they a chaplain who was just excellent, so some of us would go to their worship services. And I just remember the openness in other words I enjoyed the interaction with the Japanese as well as the others from different places.

REID: Kind of as a final question, I guess. What lesson would you really like to see the American people get from your experiences during this time, if you had to boil it down to one main lesson?

JUNE: I'm thinking of what I always said when I was even over there was that you cannot tell people to have a democracy. You can demonstrate a democracy. You can be a democracy and people will want to be one. Anymore than you cannot tell people to become a Christian unless they choose to be. It doesn't happen. To me that has been the weakness of the error of our various administrations when they have assumed that they can tell other people how to lead their lives. So mainly, it's first be democratic and my huge concern right now, as somebody said on television, "it's all broken," because we're acting so arrogantly, so unilaterally. I really tremble. I lived through the period of time in the '50s and '60s when we were called the ugly Americans just for this kind of thing that we know what is right. I think it all began with the Reagan administration and some how we're a city on the hill, we're special, we're somehow chosen by God. I think that we are going to lose it.

REID: Is there anything else that you would like to add to what we talked about.

 JUNE: I think that the more, oh, yes, I have often said that I was more comfortable in Japan, and I've heard other Westerners say this, that it's because everything doesn't have to be black and white, right or wrong, with me or against me. That's the most limited mentality that human beings can possess. Whereas in Japan, I found that they were able to listen. They could carry on a conversation without feeling intimidated or needing to intimidate. And I remember that people would say, "Well, you can't believe what the Japanese are saying." "What's wrong with... I mean, what's your problem?" It's this narrow-mindedness, black or white, right or wrong assumption that you're perfect. That is our main problem, the degree to which I have found more enjoyment in finding people who can think in the gray areas, outside the box as they say. this is why we don't get along with Europe a lot of times. Because we're too simplistic.

 

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