Greg Mitchell - 75 years ago: When Leo Szilard tried to halt dropping atomic bombs over Japan
As this troubled
summer rolls along, and the world begins to commemorate the 75th anniversary of
the creation, and use, of the first atomic bombs, many special, or especially
tragic, days will draw special attention. They will include July 16
(first test of the weapon in New Mexico), August 6 (bomb dropped over
Hiroshima) and August 9 (over Nagasaki). Surely far fewer in the
media and elsewhere will mark another key date: July 3.
On July 3, 1945, the
great atomic scientist Leo Szilard finished a letter/petition that would become
the strongest (virtually the only) real attempt at halting President Truman’s
march to using the atomic bomb - still almost two weeks from its first test at
Trinity–against Japanese cities.
Dear xxxxxxxxxxxx,
Enclosed is the text of a petition which will be submitted to the
President of the United States. As you will see, this petition is based on
purely moral considerations.
It may very well be that the decision of the President whether or not to
use atomic bombs in the war against Japan will largely be based on
considerations of expediency. On the basis of expediency, many arguments could
be put forward both for and against our use of atomic bombs against Japan.
Such arguments could be considered only within the framework of a
thorough analysis of the situation which will face the United States after this
war and it was felt that no useful purpose would be served by considering
arguments of expediency in a short petition.
However small the chance might be that our petition may influence the
course of events, I personally feel that it would be a matter of importance if
a large number of scientists who have worked in this field went clearly and
unmistakably on record as to their opposition on moral grounds to the use of
these bombs in the present phase of the war.
Many of us are inclined to say that individual Germans share the guilt
for the acts which Germany committed during this war because they did not raise
their voices in protest against these acts. Their defense that their protest
would have been of no avail hardly seems acceptable even though these Germans
could not have protests without running risks to life and liberty. We are in a
position to raise our voices without incurring any such risks even though we
might incur the displeasure of some of those who are at present in charge of
controlling the work on “atomic power”.
The fact that the people of the people of the United States are unaware
of the choice which faces us increases our responsibility in this matter since
those who have worked on “atomic power” represent a sample of the population
and they alone are in a position to form an opinion and declare their stand.
Anyone who might wish to go on record by signing the petition ought to
have an opportunity to do so and, therefore, it would be appreciated if you
could give every member of your group an opportunity for signing.
Leo Szilard
We rarely hear that as
the Truman White House made plans to use the first atomic bombs against Japan
in the summer of 1945, a large group of atomic scientists, many of whom had
worked on the bomb project, raised their voices, or at least their names, in
protest. They were led by the great physicist Szilard who, among things, is the
man who convinced Albert Einstein to write his famous yes-it-can-be-done letter
to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, setting the bomb project in motion.
On July 3, he finished
a petition to the new president for his fellow scientists to consider. It
called atomic bombs “a means for the ruthless annihilation of cities ” and
asked the president “to rule that the United States shall not, in the present
phase of the war, resort to the use of atomic bombs.” Dozens of his
fellow Manhattan Project scientists signed.
The following day he
wrote this cover letter (see below). The same day, Leslie Groves,
military chief and overall director of the Manhattan Project, began a campaign
to combat Szilard–including strong FBI surveillance–and remove him from the
bomb project. Groves also made sure the petition never landed on Truman’s
desk. No action was ever taken on it, in any event.... read more:
https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/75-years-ago-when-szilard-tried-to-halt-dropping-atomic-bombs-over-japan/