First, please allow me to introduce myself, and to tell you a little bit about this series of essays.

As my background statement shows, I have held a variety of positions over the years. These positions have allowed me to look at nuclear issues from a variety of different perspectives and to make observations that I hope will be of interest to others. I therefore welcome the opportunity that JANUS has given me to share my thoughts with you in several essays over the coming year. I hope you will find them interesting, thought provoking, and entertaining, and with luck, I hope they will initiate a dialogue that will help address some of the important energy issues we face today.

Aside from that, the only other thing I will say about myself is that I have had a very long and happy association with Japan and with Japanese people. My first visit to Japan was in 1975, and I have lived, worked, and traveled extensively in Japan since then. I have many Japanese friends and I love Japanese food, art, and culture. So it is a special pleasure for me to work once again with a Japanese organization and in a Japanese context. I will not be focusing exclusively on Japan, but I hope to discuss some issues that may be of particular interest in Japan, and will make special note of Japanfs activities where appropriate.

I have chosen as the title of this series of essays the term gnuclear reactions.h Since puns do not always translate well from one language to another, I would like to point out that, in English, the word greactionh has several meanings. For purposes of these essays, I am thinking of two of its meanings: a chemical or physical transformation or change, and a response of an individual to some stimulus, such as a piece of news. By choosing this title, I wanted to reflect the fact that my essays will cover some of my reactions to various nuclear issues, and I hoped that using the term gnuclear reactionsh would simultaneously make us all think about both the physical processes and the issues they have produced.

Gail Marcus