In the midst of global insanity -- the "total war" frenzy of World War II -- the United States of America created the first of an entirely new class of weapon, the atomic bomb. We used this bomb as quickly as we could, as often as we could, in bringing that war to an end. As it happened, that amounted to two instances, Hiroshima (6 August 1945) and Nagasaki (9 August 1945), the only times to date that nuclear weapons have been exploded in war.
Was this wrong?
Many Americans believed then, and now, that the atomic bombings were the only alternative to a military invasion of the Japanese home islands, which would have been hideously costly in deaths to both sides of the conflict. However, historical research has made it evident that the decision to use the atomic bomb was much more complicated. There were other ways to end the war against Japan, and the bomb was used for more reasons than ending the conflict in the Pacific Theater.
But was this wrong?
Different individuals, and even the same individual at different times, may answer differently. For example, physicist Leo Szilard, who played an essential role in starting America's efforts to build the bomb, became an ardent opponent of its use. For Szilard, what was right in 1939 was wrong by 1945. At the time that U.S. Presidents Roosevelt and Truman and their advisors made each of the decisions that led to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, every element was speculative, uncertain, and of unknown importance. If they knew of a certainty what they could only have guessed about, their decisions may have been different. Or perhaps, not. The people who decided that it was right to develop and use the atomic bomb lived in a world where it was right to wage total war, to attempt the complete destruction of an enemy population, including children, parents, grandparents -- the automated, abstract killing of innocents who simply were citizens of the wrong city or country.
Now, we know with the certainty of experience that one country could not maintain a benign monopoly on the atomic bomb, that a nuclear arms race would be incredibly costly, that the cost would be tallied not only in money but in fear and despair. Now, we know that the atomic bomb and its descendents are not just bigger explosives, but conveyors of poisonous radioactivity that continues to kill for decades after the peace treaties have been signed. Now, we know that nuclear weapons can be, and have been, built in sufficient power and quantity that one tragic mistake could result in millions of deaths, perhaps even the death of human civilization.
Now, we can no longer live in a world where such things as total war and nuclear weapons are right.
If we in the United States continue to maintain that we were right in bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then by what right can we ask others to forswear nuclear weapons? If it was right for us once, might it not be right for us another time? Or right for another nation?
We know now what the decision makers of World War II could only guess. We can strive for a sanity that the times of World War II did not possess. We can decide now that nuclear weapons are not right, for anyone. They will never be right, and they were never right.
For the survival and the integrity of humanity, we must all decide this as a body, but to reach this global decision we start with ourselves. One person's regret for the atomic bomb and the devastation of the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki means little by itself, but it is offered in the hope that others may unite with it until America as a people can express its regret and the world as a whole can express its resolve:
Let the mistake never be repeated.
Mario Cavallini
30 October 1997
Salem, New Jersey, USA
If you feel similarly, I encourage you to speak out in whatever way you feel is right. Talk to friends, write letters, use bumper stickers -- add one more voice to growing the consensus. If you wish to add your name to this testimony, please send a note to marioc1@mindspring.com.
Other testimonies may be found at:
If you want to do more, there are ways for individual citizens to take part in the business of rulers. For instance:
To read more about nuclear weapons and the possibilities for their abolition, consider:
This page is authored by
Mario
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