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NUC LEAR WA RFARE
What Scientists
DidNot
Foresee 40Years Ago
T
H IS
past yea r much
attent ion has been
drawn to the 40th
an niversary of the end of the
Second World War.
The end of that war also
ushered in a new era- the age
of atomic and tbermonuclear
weapons.
Saved Uves in Victory, But . ..
At thc bcginning of the Manhattan
Projcct that produced the "Little
Boy" and "Fat Man" bombs,
American and British scien t ists
were first driven by the knowlcdge
that they were in a race with their
counterparts in Nazi Germany.
Their worries diminished by the
spring of 1945 as the "Thousand
Year Reich" was collapsing in
Europe. But Japan was sti ll a stub–
born and dangerous power, cvcn in
retreat.
Thc closer the Allied forces got
to J apan the more suicidaJ Japanese
defenses became. The battle for
Okinawa alone resulted in at least
150,000 J apanese military and
civilian deaths.
" In anticipation of American
invasion," wrote Cathryn Donahue
in the August 7, 1985,
Washington
Times.
" ...
two million Japanese
troops were stationed around the
islands, with tons of ammunition
stowed in underground caves; anoth–
er 3 million were being called back
from China for a last-ditch
defense.... Every one of Japan's 1
O
million ablebodied civilian men and
November / December 1985
by
Gene H. Hogberg
women was asked to sacrifice his or
her life in suicide attacks."
A "demonstration" atomic bomb
would not, it is now widely
believed, have convinced the J apa–
nese military command to give up
the fight. I n fact, even after the
second
bomb was dropped on
Nagasaki, there was little immedi–
ate inclination to give in.
Even though it remai ns a high ly
sensitive issue in J apan, sorne Japa–
nese have publicly admi tted that,
by bringing a swift end to the war,
the superweapons ironically saved
Japan as a nation, making possible
her amazing postwar economic
recovery.
. . . New Awesome Destruction
Unforeseen
Many of the scientists st ill alive
who worked on the top-secret Man–
hattan Project have si nce become
crusaders for control of atomic
weapons.
These nuclear physicists had no
idea at that time the world's store
of atomic and nuclear weapons
would soar to more than 50,000,
representing 13,000 megatons de–
ployed by the United States and
the Soviet Union alone.
Nor had they any idea how awe–
some sorne of the weapons systems
would become, paling the 0.01
megaton Hiros hima bomb into
comparative insignificance. Just
one new U.S. Trident submarine,
for example, contai ns as much
destructive power in its missiles as
25 World War lis!
Dr. Harrison Brown, a Manhattan
Project veteran, is editor in chicf of
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist.
In
bis editorial in the August, 1985,
issue, Dr. Brown writes tbat an all–
out war involving between 5,000 and
10,000 megatons could result in
one
billion persons
bcing killed out right,
with an additional billion succumb–
ing later to injuries from the blasts,
fi res and rad iation.
But speculations about a resul –
tant "nuclear winter" effect-dust
and smoke hovering in the atmo–
sphere, shutting out sunligbt , pro–
ducing severe temperature drops
and a catastrophic decline in agri–
cultura! production-indicate the
death toll could rise as high as
four
billion persons,
or about 90 percent
of the human population!
Imagine! The possibility of o nly
a
tithe
of humanity left! And it
could be worse if the effects of
nuclear winter were transported
south of the equator to where the
remaining 1
O
percent of human
beings live. (Nearly aJI the major
population ccnters, including India,
líe in the Northern Hemisphere.)
Thus, all mankind is threatened
with the possibility of extinction,
confirming the reality of Matthew
24:22- "unl ess t hose days were
shortened, no Aesh would be saved"
(Revised Authorized Yersion).
The beginning of a "nuclear
build-down" is urgentiy needed,
D r. Brown contends, "paving the
way for bringing sorne kind of
order out of the international
(Concinued on page 45)
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