In actual fact, there are two days to remember: August 6, when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and August 9, when the second was dropped on Nagasaki. Since I was one of the people who worked on the bomb, a person might be justified in asking me whether or not there has been a crisis of conscience since, in view of the truly horrible results of the bombing. This is not a question to be answered lightly, even if no one asks it; anyone who contributed to the bombing should ask himself that question, ponder it deeply, and try to answer it as honestly as possible. So I will try to answer it for myself. First, a bit of history and a few figures. In early 1945, the Japanese had estimated that their home islands would be invaded by the Allied forces - mainly American - on or about November 1 of that year. By no great coincidence, we had in fact made a preliminary plan to do just that, and on that very date. The Japanese estimate was, therefore, a very good one indeed. Regarding the estimate as a forewarning, they armed themselves to the best extent possible despite their woeful shortage of the materiel of war, and vowed to defend the sacred soil to their last breath. This was not unlike Churchill's speech when he took office: "We will fight them on the beaches, we will fight them in the hills; we will never surrender". Knowing full well the intense patriotism of the Japanese, our own estimates were for a million casualties in a campaign of invasion. Judging from the iron resolve of both sides, many private opinions were that the casualties would consist mostly of dead. It matters little whether this means a million Allies, a million Japanese, or both. It's a horrible figure no matter which. The accepted view just before the dropping of The Bombs was that while there would be huge casualties, they would certainly be Japanese, and that in any case, there would not be as many as would result from an invasion. Therefore, ghastly as the idea of this bombing was, it was in fact more humane than the idea of invading Japan. Well, as everyone knows, more than a hundred thousand people were killed or injured in the two drops. The aftereffects, too, were dreadful; some of them continue to be felt to this day. What is less well known is that in the fire-bombing of Tokyo and other major Japanese cities using conventional bombs, the accepted, "normal", incendiary bombs of modern war, the total casualties were actually greater than at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In Tokyo alone there were over 100,000 deaths, and many thousand more in the other cities. It was just as horrible as "nuking". Yet this series of raids was regarded as a normal operation leading to a normal victory, which in the coldest statistical sense it truly was. These "ordinary" bombings didn't shock the public. After Dresden and Hamburg and Tokyo we were used to the immolation of whole city populations. The only thing that really impressed us was the suddenness of the massive destruction at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. To say that it impressed, shocked, and dismayed Japan would be an understatement. Within a very few days thereafter, Japan surrendered and the war was over. There were no millions of casualties. None of us humble workers on the bomb project were told that our military were already fairly sure that Japan was actually on the verge of surrender due to its shortage of almost everything. Still, there was always the uncertainty of war; invasion would mean a land campaign of unknown length. This would give Uncle Joe Stalin the time to mount his own offensive against Japan (he had been pretty quiescent in the East up to that time), and hence to claim a substantial share of whatever spoils there might be. At the very least he would have a strong voice at the peace table. The main reason for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki strikes - we were informed much later - was to preclude Stalin from deriving a major advantage from a minor effort. Mind you, this was no small item. The last thing anyone needed was the further spread of Stalinism. All we knew was that we were minimizing casualties and shortening the war. Our consciences were clear. We had saved a million lives at the cost of some hundreds of thousands, and enemy hundreds of thousands at that. My conscience was clear, and it still is. However, now it is evident that we had become so insensitive to human suffering that the long slow agonies of the victims of "carpet-bombing" were taken as a matter of course, while only the results of the much more spectacular atomic attack caused much agonized soul-searching. Forty-eight years after the Bombs we should have searched our souls for some nuggets of humanity. And we have indeed found some. We don't want Bosnia or Somalia or others to suffer. Well and good. But we (and that means all of the principal nuclear powers, the "Club") still have thousands of powerful nuclear weapons because there are still a few pockets of possible nuclear aggression. In our striving for advantage even in the cannon's mouth we (this includes every country that has any nuclear weapons) have ignored our common humanity. One hypothesis about the disappearance of the dinosaurs has it that they were wiped out by a mighty natural catastrophe. Are we who are, of course, so much smarter than the dinosaurs, going to wipe ourselves out some day because human though we are, we have forgotten humanity? Dr. Rudoff, formerly with the Manhattan Project, writes from his home in Cambridge, Maryland. Hyman Rudoff, August 16, 1993. Table of Contents