This essay, dated March 10, 2019, portrays through the testimony of former Saga University President Haruo Uehara, who offered advice and proposals to the Prime Minister’s Office immediately after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, the inability of Prime Minister Naoto Kan to make decisions and his lack of crisis-management capacity.
By obsessing over technical minutiae and postponing the decisions that only a prime minister could make, he exposed the nation itself to grave danger.

2019-03-10
Mr. Uehara later recalled in the author’s interview.
“I was shocked and truly frightened.
I felt that if the Prime Minister of a country was in such a state, the nation itself was in danger.”

What follows is a continuation of the previous chapter.
A leader incapable of making decisions.
“It is astonishing that the Japanese people had such a foolish Prime Minister.
As far as I know, is he not the worst Prime Minister in history?”
This was the impression of Haruo Uehara, former president of Saga University, who as an expert on reactor condensers had been offering advice and proposals to the Prime Minister’s Office immediately after the nuclear accident broke out.
Mr. Uehara, who from as far back as Takeo Fukuda and as recently as Shinzo Abe had been consulted by many Prime Ministers on energy policy in general, said he was utterly appalled by Mr. Kan.
The sequence of events was as follows.
In response to the accident, Mr. Uehara immediately urged the Prime Minister’s Office to restore the cooling system and also sent drawings for the installation of an external cooling device.
On March 16, he was summoned to Tokyo by Goshi Hosono, then Special Adviser to the Prime Minister at the Integrated Headquarters for Accident Response.
He also met then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano and then Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Banri Kaieda, and then returned once to Saga City, where his office was located, to arrange the machinery needed for the work.
“And yet, no matter how much I spoke with high officials at the Prime Minister’s Office, all they said was, ‘The Prime Minister refuses to make a decision.
Because he is the final decision-maker, nothing can be done’” (Mr. Uehara).
At the time, one government official lamented, “The Prime Minister has no broad strategic perspective whatsoever.
On the contrary, he obsesses over trivial things he happens to know, and is always two days late in making decisions,” and that was precisely the pattern unfolding.
On March 20, former Internal Affairs Minister Kazuhiro Haraguchi and former Cabinet Office Parliamentary Secretary Hiroshi Ogushi of the Democratic Party gathered at Mr. Uehara’s office to discuss the nuclear accident response.
There, Mr. Haraguchi contacted Mr. Kan by mobile phone and handed the call over to Mr. Uehara, and the following exchange took place.
Mr. Kan: “I have read your report, but I cannot understand it technically.
Where exactly is the external cooling device to be attached?
I cannot make a decision if I do not know where it is to be attached.”
Mr. Uehara: “That is not something the Prime Minister himself should be thinking about.
Even if you do not understand the technicalities, you can still decide whether it should be done or not.”
At that, Mr. Kan suddenly flew into a rage, shouting, “What did you say!” and then continued ranting at length in words that could scarcely even be recognized as Japanese.
Mr. Uehara later recalled in the author’s interview.
“I was shocked and truly frightened.
I felt that if the Prime Minister of a country was in such a state, the nation itself was in danger.”
To be continued.