Where god fails, science succeeds

[onager]

98. Incredibly weak, even by your standards

Leo Szilard, Interview: "President Truman Did Not Understand," U.S. News & World Report, August 15, 1960, pages 68-71.

Q Dr. Szilard, what was your attitude in 1945 toward the question of dropping the atomic bomb on Japan?

A I opposed it with all my power, but I'm afraid not as effectively as I should have wished.

Q Did any other scientists feel the same way you did?

A Very many other scientists felt this way. This is particularly true of Oak Ridge and the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago...

Q When did your misgivings first arise?

A Well, I started to worry about the use of the bomb in the spring of '45. But misgivings about our way of conducting ourselves arose in Chicago when we first learned that we were using incendiary bombs on a large scale against the cities of Japan.

This, of course, was none of our responsibility. There was nothing we could do about it, but I do remember that my colleagues in the project were disturbed about it...

Q Was that the end of the illusion?

A Yes, this was the end of the illusion. But, you see, there was still a difference between using incendiary bombs and using the new force of nature for purposes of destruction. There was still a further step taken here - atomic energy was something new.

I thought it would be very bad to set a precedent for using atomic energy for purposes of destruction. And I think that having done so we have greatly affected the postwar history.

Q In what way?

A I think it made it very difficult for us to take the position after the war that we wanted to get rid of atomic bombs because it would be immoral to use them against the civilian population. We lost the moral argument with which, right after the war, we might have perhaps gotten rid of the bomb...

The only conclusion we can draw is that governments acting in a crisis are guided by questions of expediency, and moral considerations are given very little weight, and that America is no different from any other nation in this respect.

http://members.peak.org/~danneng/decision/usnews.html