Steve Breen for July 21, 2023

At least some scientists are becoming known. There are too many famous celebrities who really have done nothing beyond acquiring fame.

“…when Alabama gets the bomb!”

Oppenheimer dam n well knew what he helped create , A pandora’s box !

Matthew 24-22.

Cuban Missle Crisis and 1973 Arab-Israeli war are probably the closest the world has come to use of nuclear weapons in combat. Numerous near misses wih weapons mishandled but didn’t go off; Google how we almost nuked Goldsboro, N.C. in 1961.

I’m sure he must be rolling in his grave. This is not what he wanted for nuclear power.

How do you stop the theoretical, then practical research? Especially during a war when people are willing to do whatever it takes to win? Maybe the proposal for international control would have been an appropriate response? (But the US, having a monopoly, was unwilling to agree.) Would it have been better if Germany (who was actually quite a bit behind) or the USSR had developed it first? Would either have these qualms about using it (as in the US, after the fact of Hiroshima/Nagasaki)?

You have to see historical events in their historical context. I can’t see how the US in WWII could not have undertaken to build the bomb. The danger that Germany would do it and do it first was very great. Once Germany had been defeated the calculus changed. Many of the scientists involved in the project did not think that the bomb should have been used against Japan; and one can’t help thinking that part of Truman’s decision was a demonstration to the Soviet Union. However, no matter how it came about, we have got ourselves in a very dangerous situation. If climate change doesn’t do us in, how long can we go before the next use of a nuclear weapon in war?

Oppenheimer knew what he and his fellow scientists had done. He knew the nuclear genie was getting out of the bottle eventually. Hiroshima and Nagasaki gave the world prime examples of how devastating are those weapons thereby for stalling their use which has lasted for almost eighty years. They also saved millions of Japanese and tens of thousands of Allied lives by forcing Japan to surrender and shortstopping its invasion.

Albert Einstein’s letter to FDR triggered the development of the A-Bomb that Oppenheimer headed up. Einstein, who escaped Hitler’s Nazi Germany to the U.S., was an avowed pacifist who despised war and deeply regretted his role in the development of the atomic bomb. In an interview with Newsweek magazine, he said “Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in developing an atomic bomb, I would have done nothing”. Einstein harbored these regrets for the rest of his life.

If not Oppenheimer in the U.S., then who? A German? Japanese? Italian? Russian? The U.S. deployed two atomic bombs at a time when no one knew what the long term radioactive effects might be. No justification was necessary, no remorse called for. The U.S. has demonstrated the responsible use of the weapon, and has not deployed any further. Does anyone believe that any of the Axis powers or Russia would have stopped deployment of nuclear weapons after winning WW2 if they had it first? Surely the Empire of Japan would have used nuclear weapons against China if they had them. The Third Reich would surely have deployed nukes against the Soviet Union, and likely against the U.S. Mussolini would have used them in North Africa. Stalin would not be stopped as he was by the U.S. Oppenheimer gets the credit/blame but whoever was put in that position would have had the same result. Someone was going to do it.

Oppenheimer loses his security clearance.

Curtis LeMay,who was as nutty as a fruitcake,keeps his

Instead of responding to any individual, I thought I would make this a separate comment.

Admiral Daniel V. Gallery, who became an author after WW II, wrote in one of his books, how he happened to be in on the discussion whether to use the bomb or not, supported the idea of blockading Japan, forcing them into surrender by starvation, rather than by invasion or bombing. We know which decision prevailed, but a blockade would have had to last a long time to work and those at the bottom of the economic ladder would have suffered the most. There was a lot of things that were considered, one of them was Americans starting to tire of the war and not being sure if waiting for the blockade to succeed would have not caused the Allies to accept something other than an absolute surrender as was the intention in winning the war.

Instead of responding to individual comments I want to say that, despite what I have stated above, the decision to drop the bomb/bombs was not mine to make. For that I am eternally grateful.

Oppie knew there was no way to keep the genie in the bottle. The science was accessible to anyone. Truman thought it was a military secret and could keep it under wraps, but Oppenheimer told him that wasn’t the case. If not the US, then the Germans or the Russians would have done it first, and we would have always been playing catch-up.