Jon Mitchell is an investigative journalist with the Okinawa Times and winner of the 2015 Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan's lifetime achievement award for press freedom. His work has featured in reports for the US Congress and Japanese parliament; it has also helped US veterans exposed to contamination in Japan to win compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs. US authorities—including the State Department and Department of Defense—have repeatedly attempted to block Mitchell’s work, prompting condemnation from international press freedom groups. He lives in Japan.John W. Dower is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II.

Mitchell’s advocacy for human and environmental justice pushes for sweeping change as he offers up a blueprint of hope in the last chapter and a call to action boldly addressed to the American government. . . . Mitchell catalogues in detail the present-day victims of the poisoned Pacific: indigenous residents of Okinawa and various Pacific islands, forced to help clean up chemical spills, drink contaminated water, and deal with ruined soil and rampant disease; the waters of the Pacific Ocean itself, containing thousands of liters of leaking contaminated barrels; the unprotected American military personnel and their families stationed in Japan and exposed to dangerous chemicals that cause birth defects and cancer.

• Author’s Note Foreword by John W. DowerIntroduction 1 Japanese Weapons of Mass Destruction and the US Cover-up 2 Nuclear Warfare in Japan and the Marshall Islands 3 Okinawa: “The Junk Heap of the Pacific”4 Military Herbicides, Vietnam, and Okinawa 5 Polluting with Impunity 6 Okinawa: Paradise Lost Timeline: Environmental Contamination and Accidents on Okinawa (1947–2019) 7 Japan: Contamination, Nuclear Deals, and the Fukushima Meltdowns 8 Toxic Territories: Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Johnston Atoll 9 Toward Environmental Justice Appendix: Contaminants NotesBibliography Acknowledgments Index About the Author

Jon Mitchell is an investigative journalist with the Okinawa Times and winner of the 2015 Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan's lifetime achievement award for press freedom. His work has featured in reports for the US Congress and Japanese parliament; it has also helped US veterans exposed to contamination in Japan to win compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs. US authorities—including the State Department and Department of Defense—have repeatedly attempted to block Mitchell’s work, prompting condemnation from international press freedom groups. He lives in Japan.John W. Dower is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II.

Mitchell’s advocacy for human and environmental justice pushes for sweeping change as he offers up a blueprint of hope in the last chapter and a call to action boldly addressed to the American government. . . . Mitchell catalogues in detail the present-day victims of the poisoned Pacific: indigenous residents of Okinawa and various Pacific islands, forced to help clean up chemical spills, drink contaminated water, and deal with ruined soil and rampant disease; the waters of the Pacific Ocean itself, containing thousands of liters of leaking contaminated barrels; the unprotected American military personnel and their families stationed in Japan and exposed to dangerous chemicals that cause birth defects and cancer.

• Author’s Note Foreword by John W. DowerIntroduction 1 Japanese Weapons of Mass Destruction and the US Cover-up 2 Nuclear Warfare in Japan and the Marshall Islands 3 Okinawa: “The Junk Heap of the Pacific”4 Military Herbicides, Vietnam, and Okinawa 5 Polluting with Impunity 6 Okinawa: Paradise Lost Timeline: Environmental Contamination and Accidents on Okinawa (1947–2019) 7 Japan: Contamination, Nuclear Deals, and the Fukushima Meltdowns 8 Toxic Territories: Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Johnston Atoll 9 Toward Environmental Justice Appendix: Contaminants NotesBibliography Acknowledgments Index About the Author