A record of the first five meetings of “The Symposium on Fusion Technology held between 1960 and 1968”

It is more than 40 years since 1960, when the first meeting of Symposium was convened. In these 40 years, human knowledge about plasma physics has increased enormously and technology has advanced a great deal to solve fusion energy problems, mainly thanks to the efforts of the Symposium member countries. Therefore, it is thought worthwhile to provide a written history of SOFT, which is practically representing the history of fusion research. ys, the Symposium history suffers from the fact that it lacks formal records of its first few meetings. Because of this lack of formal records, it is difficult to know what technical and scientific subjects were discussed at those early meetings and what technological difficulties were recognized at such the first few SOFT meetings. We are not able to know what were agreed upon to solve the technological difficulties. This is the reason why I began gathering the records of the first few Symposium meetings. The efforts and difficulties I have made and encountered, respectively, are described in this paper. Time passes rapidly and it is becoming more and more difficult for me to complete my work. Therefore, since the Symposium usually has met in Europe, I wish European colleagues to read my paper, and would appreciate the importance of this problem. I am very glad if they take over the work from me.