OPINION: Doubts & Fears

OPINION Doubts & Fears

In the hour of victory the people of the United Nations were quick to voice their fears of the atomic bomb and its implications.

In a single issue of the New York Times readers wrote: “It is a stain upon our national life. . . .” “It is simply mass murder, sheer terrorism. . . .” “Let us . . . dump the whole thing into the Atlantic or Pacific . . . man is too frail to be entrusted with such power.”

Said Methodist Bishop G. Bromley Oxnarn and Lawyer John Foster Dulles, speaking for the Federal Council of Churches: “If we, a professedly Christian nation, feel morally free to use atomic energy in that way, men elsewhere will accept that verdict . . . the stage will be set for the sudden and final destruction of mankind.”

Dr. Cecil Hinshaw, president of William Penn (Quaker) College at Oskaloosa, Iowa, described atomic bombing as a “barbaric, inhuman type of warfare. . . . Its use is unjustified. . . .”

Although the Vatican newspaper, Osservatore Romano, said atomic bombing had created “an unfavorable impression” in the Vatican, Pope Pius XII told visiting newsmen that such a statement was unauthorized.

Sir James Chadwick, British physicist, said that some of his colleagues had refused to work on the atomic bomb for fear that they might be creating a planet-destroying monster.

“The Moral of It All.” The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. G. F. Fisher, was not afraid of “endless destruction.” “In time this discovery will immensely increase the ease of human life. . . . Great comfort is a temptation more dangerous than great danger. To use the increased leisure and to use it fruitfully will call for an increase in man’s own spiritual resources. Men must become better men. That is the moral of it all.”

Danish Scientist Niels Bohr, whose research had done much to create the new atomic age, soberly wrote in the London Times: “Against the new destructive powers no defense may be possible, and the issues center on worldwide cooperation to prevent any use of the new source of energy which does not serve mankind as a whole.”

The New York Times pointed out that to outlaw atomic energy as a weapon was useless without considering “the rest of war’s horrible paraphernalia. In a word, the trail must be blazed for disarmament and peace.”

Among those who heard the news in awe and wonderment was Hermann GÖring, nervously awaiting trial as a war criminal. Said he: “A mighty accomplishment. I don’t want anything to do with it. I am leaving this world.”