Atomic bombs have brought a flood of writings, and much public discussion. New emphasis has been provided by the possibilities of an “H” bomb. Yet the gist of most of the things said is much the same as Calvin Coolidge’s report of a sermon on “Sin.” When asked what the preacher had said, the reply was, “He was against it.” Most of us are “against” the atomic bombs, but since we cannot wipe them out of existence, or erase the pages of past history, it is time to face the future.
What is it going to be like, living in the atomic age? Should we give heed to the prophets of calamity who see nothing but the end of civilization ahead, if some magic formula is not found immediately to banish the bombs? Some of them would make it appear better to shoot ourselves now, and try life in the next world, rather than risk existence on the same planet with the bombs. Do we have any reason for going on living? Can our children plan on a reasonable life with any faith in the future? Is there any probability that the bombs can be effectively outlawed? All of us have asked ourselves these questions in the few years since Hiroshima.
We need some realistic answers.
The press and radio have made the most of the bomb, even though it needed little build-up. The resulting mental attitude that seems to be gaining ground in this country is even more serious than any future physical effects. The general tone of many of the articles and speeches has been so filled with overwhelming fear that it has tended to create an atmosphere of confusion and helplessness.
Even such a mature scientist as Dr. Arthur H. Compton, joined the ranks of the defeatists. He was one of the writers of a book called One World Or None, published soon after Hiroshima. He saw nothing ahead but catastrophe if war were not eliminated. He considered national self-defense to be only an out-worn tradition. Dr. Urey wrote a booklet entitled I Am a Frightened Man. The Committee on Atomic Information broadcasted it. Such actions were typical of the reaction to the bomb.
Based on such conclusions, groups of American scientists organized for work in political fields. They began the barrage of fear propaganda, and organized a crusade to promote immediate international control of atomic energy. No one doubts the desirability of such control. It is important, however, to examine the premises for their plans, the possibility of success.
The sincerity of those alarmists cannot be questioned. We should challenge, however, their judgement in international affairs. Can we solve the new problems by such reliance on fright alone?
We must remember that fear has been employed many times as a military weapon. An enemy would like nothing better than to have us weakened by panic. The propaganda of fear must therefore be considered as a poison. It will build up a deadly national neurosis of defeatism if it is not checked. We should direct it at our enemies, not ourselves.
One antidote might be a realistic differentiation between current facts and distant possibilities. Since precise data along those lines are based on secret matters and expert opinion, and are something foreign governments would pay considerable sums to obtain, our own security requires us to withhold them from publication. It is not practical, therefore, to expect a complete solution to the problem in that direction alone. We must put our trust in our leaders who do have the information and be guided by their decisions.
Another antidote would be to develop a sound philosophy capable of meeting the needs of the age. We need hope and a positive faith in the future. I believe we can find both.
As a step in the development of such a philosophy, it is worthwhile for those of us who had to go through the experience of combat duty in the past war to resurvey our own philosophy. How do our ideas compare with those of other groups? We had many shocks and met many tests. I believe we have something helpful to offer.
During the war we learned to control our emotions. Death faced us many times. Our friends were killed alongside us. We lived with fear and survived it.
We can face the atomic bomb now, without surrendering to hysteria. It has not created either a new hell or a new heaven. It has not created a new life after death. After thousands of years of human existence on this planet, death is still the same.
The propagandists do not seem to realize that. Their whole theme is fear. Once you grant the basic premise of overwhelming fear, any promise seems like salvation. You are willing to clutch at any straw.
Since they have chosen such a platform, I would like to ask you to examine fear itself with me. Fear is a personal matter. It has to be met and overcome by each person for himself.
It has been in the world a long time. It still exists in powerful forms in many other countries. Here in the United States we have been able to eliminate most of it, except in time of war. Sometimes we are not emotionally prepared for it.
I met it in December of 1942, off Guadalcanal. I commanded destroyers for a year’s combat operations in the Solomons, and another year in the Philippines and Okinawa. I came in contact with fear first hand many times.
I learned that the worst thing is the preliminary fear before action. That is an old story to anyone who has had duty in the front line. We each had to learn for ourselves that we could be afraid and still work. We had to see our friends alongside us hit and find that we ourselves still survived, not demoralized, but only with a strong determination to make the death of those friends mean something in the world. We lost our doctor about 3 o’clock one morning off Kolombangara. He was one of several hit by bomb fragments from a snooper plane. I went into Okinawa on D minus 6 day, with a squadron of eight destroyers, and left at the end of that campaign, three months later, with only three ships remaining in action. I am not saying this to show that I had unique experiences. They are only the things I saw first-hand. They are typical of what every combat soldier and sailor found out for himself. We were afraid many times, but we survived.
We found that fear itself did not destroy us. We were given a strong measure of faith in the essential goodness of this world, and in the life beyond. We came to look upon death as a rejoining of our friends who had gone before us. It was not annihilation into chaos. It was merely a transition. We often had the feeling that we were actors waiting in the wings, for a cue to go on the stage of the Next World. Our friends there were often near us.
Besides faith, we found minor compensations. All of our senses were sharpened enormously. Food was tremendously good to eat. Sleep was a tantalizing luxury. The most gorgeous sunsets I had ever seen were found off New Georgia Island many evenings while we were on our way up the “Slot” for a night operation, looking for Japs but never knowing what we would find.
We proved to ourselves that fear need never dominate us. When fear is eliminated as the basic premise, the plans proposed to solve our Atomic Bomb problems take a different light.
Before we can move to possible solutions, however, a brief review of the present world situation is necessary. We need a very broad perspective to treat such far reaching problems.
We are living in a materialistic atmosphere that is world-wide. We must realize that our American choices and our principles do not govern the rest of the world. Other nations are also free to choose their courses of action, based on other principles. We must recognize that freedom in our plans for the future. We have to remember that powerful foreign governments have openly proposed to destroy us. The Marxian principle of revolutionary force and violence is aimed at the destruction of existing social institutions and governments in all non-marxist areas.
With such aims in view, what conclusions can be reached regarding the probable willingness of foreign governments to use the new bombs? Do you believe that a German government which set up a crematory like Buchenwald for women, children, and old men, would have hesitated to use atomic bombs in the last war? Are our other enemies likely to be more humane than the Germans?
Once we clearly understand the present world situation, there can be no doubt that we shall have to face the use of atomic bombs against us. We should face them openly, not delude ourselves with futile hopes.
How long the use of such bombs will continue is difficult to predict. How long will it be, before dictatorships are abolished in the major countries of the world? Historical perspective helps us to appreciate the time scales required for world-wide social and political improvements. There seems to be little justification in history for assuming that we could complete such great changes in a few years.
To keep our balance, it is worth-while to consider some of the basic yardsticks for great events. The nuclear physicists who made the atomic bomb possible have also evolved an atomic clock for the world. Their expression for the total life of the world runs into incomprehensible millions of years. Geologists have shown us that, in the past, complete orders of life have grown up, dominated for several million years, and then been superseded by new orders. What is a human generation in that cosmic time scale?
Historians have shown us the cycle of rise and fall of nations, extending from Babylon and Rome to modern Germany. They have shown us the occurrence of great natural phenomena, ranging from plague and famine to floods and earthquakes. Some were even more frightening than atomic bombs.
Few great social changes developed overnight. Some of them took centuries. In considering the probable duration of atomic bomb problems then, it would be wise to prepare for several generations. We should not be discouraged by lack of success in a single lifetime. The world has made great moral progress in the last few thousand years, or even in the last few hundred. I believe it will continue to improve, even if the pace seems slow.
Of course the propagandists say we cannot survive a single war, let alone a generation. Some of the scientists say that no defense against atomic bombs is possible. Yet the same scientists accomplished the “impossible” when they developed the atomic bomb. For a generation which has seen such things brought forth as the atomic bombs, as well as jet aircraft and radar, it seems unwise to say that in the future no equally radical devices are possible.
I believe there are and will continue to be defenses. They cannot guarantee absolute prevention of all injury. We have never had that in any war. But we can provide sufficient countermeasures to give us an even chance with any enemy. Strength and weakness are always relative. We have a large area within which we can disperse. We have good multiple communication lines. We have a fair supply of natural resources. Our government structure can be well adapted to decentralization. No other country is more fortunate from either a defensive or offensive standpoint. Although we can be injured by atomic bombs, other countries are equally vulnerable. Relative force is still the deciding factor in any war.
Defenses mean dispersion, decentralization of industry and government. We are already looking for means to eliminate city congestion. We are spending millions of dollars for new housing. We should insist that future growth be channeled only into the smaller cities. Dispersion would make a virtue out of present necessities.
To complete the defense picture, there is one more fundamental requirement. We have to insure a healthy growth of our own internal strength. We have to eliminate social weakness so that we can prevent collapse from forces within our borders. We have to serve as the center of democracy for the rest of the world. We must submerge petty politics and selfish economic clashes in a united effort as great as any we made during the past war. We need to strengthen our determination so that we will be able to carry on in spite of great blows.
American cooperation has proved many times how strong we can be in times of danger. We must realize now that we still have danger with us. We are having an armed truce. A genuine peace can exist only when there is a high degree of mutual understanding and good will among all.
When we leave the problems of internal defense and examine the possibilities of external relations, an objective honesty is again required.
We should take heed of the world as it is, before we can draw conclusions as to the practicability of changing it immediately. In considering international control of atomic energy, we should ask whether we are proposing to treat the basic ills of the world or merely one of the symptoms. To me, an atomic bomb is a symptom. It is a new weapon with extreme concentration of power. Its use will accelerate the tempo of war immensely. Yet a man is just as dead when he has been killed by a beating in a concentration camp, or by a fire bomb, as when an atomic bomb has taken him out of this world. We will have to cure the basic ills before atomic bombs can be eliminated. The use of lethal force has deep roots in history.
Before we can have effective international control of atomic energy we will have to devise means of reaching an understanding with the people of other countries. We will have to open the “iron curtains” which have been set up by secret police to protect the dictatorships. There will never be world peace until those dictatorships resting on internal force and violence are eliminated. There are masses in many countries to be liberated.
We can only eliminate war when all of the world is educated to govern itself. It took eighty-five years, a revolution, and a great civil war to establish our own government firmly. Even then we had a homogeneous group of people and a whole community of common interests. We can hardly expect to repeat that process with a world government in a single generation.
We couldn’t have the freedom we now enjoy in the United States if many thousands before us had not met death itself in helping to establish that freedom. We cannot make their sacrifice worthless by surrendering now to fear of death. We cannot pass our way of life on to our children unless we are willing to support it with our own lives.
We must do all in our power to establish a real workable world government so that wars can be eliminated. We must realize, however, that it will take many years. We must face the world as it is, with faith in our ideals and determination to preserve them. We must not choose our course for the future on the premise of hopeless fear of atomic bombs. There are reasons for hope. There are some defenses against atomic bombs. We have the greatest capacity in the world to create more, if we will only use the time available in work instead of worry.