<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:16px"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1420821091294_7543" dir="ltr"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1420821091294_7588">Dear list members,</span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1420821091294_7543" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1420821091294_7543" dir="ltr">As some of you may recall, I located a fascinating article by Dr. Fritz J. Hansgirg, an Austrian Ph.D. chemist, about Korea, written as WWII was drawing to a close. And I hope that many of you have read the reprint in Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society -- Korea Branch [Volume 88, 2013]. As I explained in the Transactions article, Hansgirg had worked for the Japanese at Konan, Korea for about two-and-a-half years, and four years in Manchuria, between 1935 and 1940.<br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1420821091294_7543" dir="ltr"><span><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1420821091294_7543" dir="ltr"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1420821091294_8035">Now I have discovered a lengthy letter, written by Hansgirg, which is, in some ways, even more fascinating than the article in Transactions. Hansgirg's letter, 12-pages long, was mailed from Konan to the vice president of the Roerich Museum in New York City in September 1935. The topics addressed in that letter include Korea and its people, Buddhism, and what turned out to be an aspect of Japan's nuclear weapons program during WWII.</span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1420821091294_7543" dir="ltr"><span><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1420821091294_7543" dir="ltr"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1420821091294_8038">I intend on devoting an entire chapter of my book-in-the-works, "Dr. Fritz J. Hansgirg: Heavy Water and the Secret History of the Atomic Bomb," to this letter. My co-author is Dr. Kenneth N. Ricci, a Ph.D. nuclear physicist from Stanford. But I haven't decided as of yet whether I should publish this letter separately. If anyone would like to offer their ideas or the names of potential publishers, I would very much like to hear from them.</span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1420821091294_7543" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1420821091294_7543" dir="ltr">Thank you.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1420821091294_7543" dir="ltr">Bill Streifer</div> </div></body></html>