Quote of the week:
“If necessary, we shall continue the war alone, and we are not afraid of that. But I trust you realize, Mr. President, that the voice and force of the United States may count for nothing if they are withheld too long.” – new Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s first secret cable to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1940 as the French Army was collapsing. (Found in Erik Larson’s wonderfully readable The Splendid and the Vile.)
Pandemics are rare. The use of nuclear weapons in warfare is, so far, a one-off. What actions will we take to ward off another pandemic, once the immediate, stunned stupefaction and pain wears off? Will we take preventive measures? Will we come together as a society? Will fractious major and regional powers act differently toward one another? Or will we all revert to bad habits?
The Bomb was universally viewed as a threat, but selectively viewed as a necessary instrument of power and deterrence. The virus is a universal threat that harms the old, infirm, poor and city dwellers more than others. The Bomb and its means of delivery are expensive. A virus can cause a global recession or even depression. As much as we spend for missile defenses, there are no effective defenses against the Bomb; not so for this virus, but it will still take an enormous toll.
Very few of us remember the sense of stupefaction and dread that the Bomb’s sudden appearance caused. Here’s a look back to some of the immediate reactions to Hiroshima.
Here are the two lead paragraphs of the 2,500-word report in the New York Times on the atomic bombing of Japan:
The White House and War Department announced today that an atomic bomb, possessing more power than 20,000 tons of TNT, a destructive force equal to the load of 2,000 B-29’s and more than 2,000 times the blast power of what previously was the world’s most devastating bomb, had been dropped on Japan.
The announcement, first given to the world in utmost solemnity by President Truman, made it plain that one of the scientific landmarks of the century had been passed, and that the ‘age of atomic energy,’ which can be a tremendous force for the advancement of civilization as well as for destruction, was at hand.
On August 7, 1945, the Washington Post carried this editorial:
If the imagination was numbed by the story of German rocket bombs, it is utterly paralyzed by President Truman’s revelations concerning the new “atomic bomb.” It is probably correct to say that most Americans received this news not with exultation but with a kind of bewildered awe.
The New York Times editorialized thusly:
A revolution in science and a revolution in warfare have occurred in the same day… In the bewilderment that such a stupendous announcement must bring, one consequence stands clear. Civilization and humanity can now survive only if there is a revolution in mankind’s political thinking.
In August 1945, the American Institute of Public Opinion asked U.S. citizens whether they approved or disapproved of the use of atomic bombs. Eighty-five percent answered in the affirmative. Later in the fall, when asked whether the Bomb should be controlled by the United Nations or the United States, seventeen percent answered the UN; 71 percent answered that the United States should maintain control.