Toshihiro Higuchi

This dissertation examines the Cold War politics of environmental radiation safety standards for radioactive fallout from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing from 1945 to 1963. Focusing on the birth of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) and that of the US Federal Radiation Council (FRC), the dissertation analyzes US national security and science policy behind these regulatory reforms. It also seeks to address the relationship between the new advisory committees and US policy toward a limited test ban in 1963. Based on multi-archival research in Canada, Great Britain, Japan, Russia, and the United States, the historical investigation illuminates multinational interactions among policymakers and scientific experts in a global search for “acceptable risk” in the Cold War world.

Dissertation: "Radioactive Fallout, the Politics of Risk, and the Making of a Global Environmental Crisis, 1954-1963"