Exploding the Nuclear Fallacy
MARSEILLE, WALTER W.
Exploding the Nuclear Fallacy THE LEGACY OF HIROSHIMA By Edward Teller and Allen Brown Doubleday. 325 pp. $4.95. Reviewed by WALTER W. MARSEILLE Contributor, "Bulletin of the Atomic...
...Among the nuclear physicists, Edward Teller is the outstanding example of one who has not been misled by the nuclear fallacy...
...From the ruins of Hiroshima there arose a hope: This must never happen again...
...This type of collaboration has serious drawbacks...
...Teller has "always been aware of the dangers confronting us, without feeling the need to escape into wish-fulfillment dreams...
...It is difficult to believe that such views can survive the publication of his book...
...this makes it all the more interesting, but weakens its impact...
...It was evident when a great man like Albert Einstein could say with deep regret: "If I had known that the Germans would not succeed in constructing the atom bomb, I would never have lifted a finger...
...However much we may have been at fault in using the atom bomb as though it were merely another, bigger weapon, Teller stresses, we must come to terms with our past...
...Hope became faith: Nuclear weapons have made war obsolete...
...We have chosen not to face our danger...
...Now his book has been published—and an excellent book it is...
...Reading again the sad story of the scientific panel which proved unable to agree on a plan to demonstrate the new weapon before using it, one cannot help wishing Teller had been a member of that council to submit his proposal: "A nighttime atomic explosion high over Tokyo, in full sight of Emperor Hirohito and his Cabinet [would have killed no one and] would have been just as terrifying as Hiroshima...
...The aim of his book is the liquidation of that legacy...
...Despite the book's overall high quality, it is open to a number of criticisms...
...He believes not only that complete openness in science would help us in the fight against Communism, but also that unnecessary secrecy has helped confuse the public to the point where a majority of Americans live either in fear, or in selfdeception and complacency...
...It is most clearly reflected in Robert J. Oppenheimer's comment: "The physicists have known sin...
...Thus the then Secretary of State, more exasperated than prescient, greeted the dawn of the nuclear era a few weeks before Hiroshima...
...It started on the day after Hiroshima...
...Teller's arguments for the abolition of secrecy in matters of science are especially impressive...
...But in refreshing contrast to the writings of many of those who oppose Teller, his book is free from recriminations of any kind...
...today their counsel is even more divided than it was 17 years ago...
...In contrast, the burden of what Teller has to say is: "In a dangerous situation, we have chosen the most dangerous of courses...
...For example, the last part of the book is somewhat sketchy and would have been more convincing if Teller had joined the ongoing debate by anticipating the objections that his policy recommendations will provoke...
...It would be unfair to blame the scientists for the inevitable consequences of their discoveries, but we cannot absolve them of having contributed more than their rightful share to that general confusion which deserves the name of the "nuclear fallacy...
...The more Hiroshima recedes into the past, the less defensible it seems...
...Many of the best minds concluded that if only the revolutionary nature of their discoveries was made clear, the iron compulsion of the will to survive could not fail to bring lasting peace to an overawed mankind...
...And the book would have benefited from a more extensive discussion of such subjects as the protection of our urban population against nuclear attack, the measures that can be taken against the dangers of firestorms, and the use of small and clean nuclear weapons in limited war...
...once its magnitude is fully understood, it will compel this quarrelsome race to cooperate in securing its survival against the destructive forces dwelling in the innermost core of matter...
...The atomic scientists were foremost in yielding to this attractive fallacy...
...With the peculiar singlemindedness of men who are sure of their greater knowledge, they set out to overawe us...
...Increasing pessimism on the one hand, and escape into delusive visions of war having become "unthinkable" on the other—this twosided process started long before we lost the atomic monopoly and long before the Soviets rejected the Baruch Plan...
...An able popularizer himself, Teller is hardly in need of a writer to help him...
...I found it strangely unreal, too comfortable and painless, to read what Teller intends as a challenge expressed in bland English lacking the imprint of a sharply defined individuality...
...The second section, "Science in the World," is inserted in the wrong place and thereby detracts considerably from the otherwise compelling story of Teller's personal involvement in the vicissitudes of the nation's defense efforts...
...Whether he is discussing the development of nuclear weapons and his own part in that development, the role of science in the modern world and the opportunities for peacetime use of nuclear power, educational reform, or the urgent need for moving toward an Atlantic union and beyond to world government, the legacy of Hiroshima remains the underlying theme to which the author returns again and again...
...Since that time, the situation has become incalculably more perilous through the achievements of American physicists...
...From what Allen Brown, the journalist and writer who helped Teller, has let us know in a recent magazine article, I conclude that we are being offered Teller's thoughts in Brown's formulations...
...This campaign has been a conspicuous failure...
...He may be expected to play a leading role in bridging the gaps in understanding that separate the scientists from both the American people and their Government at a time when the country needs them more than ever before...
...There are those who have come to look upon Teller as a "professional Hungarian" and sinister warmonger...
...Not that the tragic mistake of Hiroshima was the sole cause of this development...
...But it continues, and its continuance will only worsen our predicament by driving more people into reactions of withdrawal, evasion and denial...
...and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose...
...Reviewed by WALTER W. MARSEILLE Contributor, "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists" "In this age it appears every man must have his own physicist...
...Faith hardened into intolerant belief and militant doctrine: The threat of nuclear annihilation overshadows everything else...
...Some time ago, he resigned as director of the Livermore Laboratory in order to be able to speak his mind freely...
...The Legacy of Hiroshima is actually four or five books thrown into one...
...He notes that our national defense efforts have been hampered both by lingering guilt feelings and by a curious twist of logic through which agonized minds have tried to rethink the "evil" instrument of destruction into a tool for establishing lasting peace in one stroke...
...And it would have frightened the right people...
...But a downward drift of our country's morale started with Hiroshima, and Teller is among the few who see with full clarity that American discouragement has preceded the decline of American power...
...Nothing is really lost, though, since we shall certainly hear more from Teller in the months to come...
...In fact, I think he has gone too far in avoiding controversy...
...The book's major inadequacy, however, is its style...
...Shortly after Hiroshima, many of our leading atomic scientists got together to launch a campaign designed to preserve world peace by "scaring men into rationality...
...The Legacy of Hiroshima points to the pernicious heritage with which the nation was burdened in the closing week of World War II: self-doubt, withdrawal and moral confusion...
Vol. 45 • May 1962 • No. 11
