The Anniversary of Hiroshima

[Brian D. McCary]

> 	Nonetheless, I see no special guilt on the part of the United 
> States.  In World War Two, every country that COULD slaughter civilians 
> DID slaughter civilians -- we just improved the technology.  In Dresden, 
> Manchuria, Auschwitz, and Siberia, folks murdered other folks by the 
> millions, and no one needed J. Robert Oppenheimer to help.
> 
> 				Andrew Walser
> 				University of Illinois-Chicago

I agree.  In the long term, we will be better served by studying
how the war started and forces guiding its progras than by studying
the ethics of one of the tactics for getting out of it.

On the other hand, I am distressed by the disinclination of the American
public to critically (but objectively) examine the process for making 
what was, in hindsight, one of the most important decisions in the war.
The recent Smithsonian exihibit fiasco, where Congress and the Pentagon
decided to do the thinking for the rest of us, barely elicited a whimper out
of anyone but the curator.

On a brighter note, this month's Physics Today has been devoted to aspects of
the bomb projects in America and Germany.  Nothing previously unpublished, 
but an interesting evening's worth of reading.  They include some of the
Farm Hall trascripts, recordings of discussions among the top German
physicists (allied prisoners) upon hearing about Hiroshima.  There was alot
of soul searching going on, it seems:

HARTECK:  If it a fact that an explosive can be produced either by means of
the mass spectrograph - we would never have done it, as we could never have
employed 56,000 workmen.

VON WEIZSACHER:  How many people were working on V-1 and V-2?

DIEBNER:  Thousands worked on that.

HEISENBERG:  We wouldn't have had the moral courage to recommend to the
government in the spring of 1942 that they should employ 120,000 men just
for building the thing up.

VON WEIZSACHER:  I believe the reason we didn't do it was because all the
physicists didn't want to do it, on principle.  If we had all wanted
Germany to win the war we would have succeeded.

HAHN:  I don't believe that, but I am thankful we didn't succeed...

Definitely an issue worth checking out.


Brian McCary