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When I was 18, I went to the Soviet Union. I kept hearing that America was planning to bomb them - lots of bombs were going to come down on these people. I went there not knowing anything, except that I thought the whole thing was stupid and that I wanted to see who these people were that we were going to bomb.

Dropping those atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a war crime.

Well, you know, I was through the whole of the Second World War and saw all my friends killed.

I was four years old when Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941 by Japan, and overnight, the world was plunged into a world war. America suddenly was swept up by hysteria.

In Hiroshima, bombed Aug. 6, 1945, no warning was given of the air attack, and thus no escape was possible for the mostly women, children and old people who fell victim.

Japan is the only country in the world to have suffered the ravages of atomic bombing. That experience left an indelible mark on the hearts of our people, making them passionately determined to renounce all wars.

I was living near the Twin Towers on 9/11, so I saw the attacks, and I had friends who were killed in the attacks.

On a Tuesday, September 11th, 1973, we had the military coup in Chile that forced me to leave my country eventually. And then, on a Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, we had the terrorist attack in the United States.

The Second World War claimed tens of millions of victims.

Britain in 1939 and 1940 really thought they were going to lose the war. It looked like they were going to lose. There was bombing every day, and people were literally starving.