Nukes and the Scientists

“I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds.”

-         The line Oppenheimer remembered from the Bhagavad Gita

Robert Jungk wrote this great book titled Brighter Than a Thousand Suns about the “atomic scientists” who contributed to the building of the atomic bomb: via theory, via exhortations to build it, and via direct participation in its construction. Later it talks of how they reacted after the nukes were actually used.

Around the time Hitler came to power, the theories had identified the enormous energy waiting to be unleashed in the atom. The German scientist, Heisenberg, explained why people like him agreed to build the Nazi bomb:

“(If anyone protests), he will naturally finish up a few days later in a concentration camp.”

Non-Aryan scientists were persecuted and fled Germany. The exodus continued from other parts of Europe as the Nazis marched on. Most of these scientists were terrified at the prospect of Nazi Germany building (and using) a nuke; and so they urged the US to build one first. But other than that fear, as another German scientist put it:

“Our colleagues elsewhere had at that time complete confidence in the decency and sense of justice of their governments.”

And yet, even though so many European scientists contributed to the US effort, they were initially viewed as aliens, sometimes even enemy aliens!

But if the Allies were trying to build the bomb only because of Germany, why didn’t they stop when Germany surrendered in 1944? Why continue the effort? Robert Oppenheimer explained that part perfectly:

“It is my judgment in these things that when you see something that is technically sweet you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success.”

The decision to use the nukes was that of the military and political establishment, who of course, had no intention of checking with the scientists! Their reasons included the oft-cited reasons:

1)      Japan seemed intent on fighting a futile battle to the bitter end.

2)     If they didn’t use it, would the public be appalled by the billions spent on the development of a weapon never meant to be used?

3)     Curiosity about how much damage a nuke could do on a “real” city.

4)     The urge to defeat Japan before the Russians got into that front.

Point #3 above in fact played a role in a deliberate policy to target a city that had escaped earlier bombardments. And so 4 cities were spared regular bombardments, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

While many scientists were horrified by the use of the atomic bombs and protested, they were marginalized. Besides, very soon scientists accepted the need to build even more powerful nukes, this time to counter the Soviet threat. As Edward Teller said:

“For peace we need weapons… I believe I am contributing to a peaceful world.”

And while the protests may not have won the day, as Jungk says the awareness they brought about may have done some good: without that, who knows which rulers might have “yielded to the temptation to use their atomic swords to slash entangled political knots”?

Ultimately, as Neils Bohr said, every scientist “is both a spectator and an actor in the great drama of being”.