Should we have done it? I’m not quite sure. I think not. You can say that we did nothing new because on March 9, 1945, we had conducted a thousand-plane raid over Tokyo and killed at least 100,000 people. But it was really a qualitatively new weapon. A thousand-plane raid is something that you can mount once in a war, maybe. This was a raid by one airplane. You could do it once a week if you could make the bombs once a week.
It did something else, too. It destroyed our moral leadership in the world. Whatever we have been thinking, other people in the world saw that we had used this horrible new weapon on a defenseless, unwarned civilian population.… Every country in the world had to face the fact that we might be willing to bomb them under some circumstances.
On balance I think that a well-meaning President made the worst decision that anybody in the world has ever made. As far as my own part in it is concerned, I recognize that we had to do that and that I didn’t have anything to do with the decision. And I wish I hadn’t.
An Odd Mix of Feelings
Lilli Hornig, born in Czechoslovakia in 1921, and her family immigrated to Berlin in 1929. When Hitler came to power in 1933, the family fled to the United States. With a master’s degree in chemistry from Harvard, in 1943, Lilli went to Los Alamos with her husband, Don Hornig, to work on the top-secret project. After the war, she received her Ph.D. in chemistry at Brown University. In an interview in 2011, Lilli describes her mixed emotions about the bomb and its impact on Japan.
From AHF Oral Histories
INTERVIEW WITH LILLI HORNIG
Yes, I remember the petition to not use the bomb as a weapon. The petition came around just after the [Trinity] test. I think it may have originated in Chicago. Some of my friends were signing it and I thought that it was a good idea. Many of us had really worked on the bomb with the thought that it might deter Hitler. Once the European war was over, a lot of the people left right away. Kisty [George Kistiakowsky] left for instance soon after that.
There wasn’t certainly among the scientists the same gut feeling about using it. And we thought in our innocence—of course it made no difference—but if we petitioned hard enough, they might do a demonstration test or something, like they later did at Bikini and Enewetak, and invite the Japanese to witness it. But, of course, the military had made the decision well before that they were going to use it no matter what. So, we had very mixed feelings about that.
When the bomb was dropped, Don and I were actually in Milwaukee visiting his family because his brother was in the Navy and was slated to be shipped out and this was his leave… Don and I went downtown. There were all the papers with the headlines, so we knew it had gone off.
That was an odd mix of feelings. I mean, certainly some triumph, the destruction was just so incredible. I think we have all been a little haunted by that over the years.
Several years ago, Don was asked to speak at the University of Colorado Science Policy Program. We also went to an undergraduate class in physics and spoke briefly. Afterwards a student came up to us, a young man probably about thirty and clearly half Japanese.
He said, “I’m going to tell you something that’s rather hard for me because in Japan we’re very, very close in the family. We don’t talk much to other people about our feelings. But my grandmother was in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped. She and my mother survived. Later, my mother got engaged to an American serviceman and was coming here [to the United States].
My grandmother told her that she should be glad she’s going [to America]. Basically, the atom bomb had been a blessing for Japan because it got rid of the old government and ended the war. The utter destruction that was taking place was actually worse than what these bombs did. It all happened in a flash, one moment.”
I was very moved by what he told us and have thought about what he said a number of times.
The Perils of Nuclear Fallout
Ralph Lapp received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago and worked on the Manhattan Project at the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago. After the war, he witnessed the test on the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific and investigated its effects on Japanese fishermen on the Lucky Dragon. Lapp reflects on how nuclear weapons have radically changed the nature of warfare.
From AHF Oral Histories
INTERVIEW WITH RALPH LAPP
The fallout from nuclear weapons has turned out to be the difference between the normal growth of weapons and the spectacular growth of killing power, taking into account the atomic debris—strontium-90, cesium-137, and things with a long half-life.
I worked by myself to discover just what it was that took place in a bomb explosion, later at Bikini. This was March 1, 1954, and they exploded a 15-megaton bomb. That is 15 million tons of TNT equivalent, or a thousand times the power of the bomb that collapsed buildings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was spectacular by itself, to have such a big bomb. But the radioactive fallout occurred over an area of thousands of square miles.
Ninety-two miles from where the bomb exploded, there was a tuna trawler from Japan called the Lucky Dragon. The crew had been searching for tuna fish up north, but not finding good fishing. They had sailed down to where—they did not know—but the bomb was being exploded. The crew was up just before dawn, and one of the men looked and saw a great flash. He cried, “Pikadon! The sun rises in the west!” This intrigued me, but I was on a very busy schedule of lecturing and writing.
I was a critic of the Atomic Energy Commission. This won me no great degree of acceptability because I was a critic, and the Atomic Energy Commission did not like criticism. The admiral in charge of the Atomic Energy Commission saw to it that I could not get my passport renewed, and I had to get a lawyer and sue for a passport. They thought that I was working for the Soviet Union, which was weird. I hired a lawyer, and in eighteen hours, I got my passport.
I wanted to go to Japan. I had just married. My wife—who is here today—and I were hooked up, and she went with me to Japan. I visited the Japanese fishermen who had been on board. There were twenty-three fishermen, one of whom died.
They were outdoors, on this little boat when the bomb went off. Several hours later, the radioactive debris of a chalky nature—the coral was made of chalk. This drifted down and descended on the decks of the Lucky Dragon. The men took it off their shoulders and off their heads.
They were very lucky; the Lucky Dragon had a good name. They were very lucky because if the bomb had been bigger, there would have been more radioactivity and it would have killed them. As it was, it did not. Only one man died, and I think he died of a blood disease.
Well, the story of the Lucky Dragon blew the lid off secrecy, because the Atomic Energy Commission could not keep it a secret. This story had to be told. Because in my thinking, in the history of weaponry, we have an unusual situation in which the weapon’s area of destruction is measured in thousands of square miles.
Here was a tremendous change in warfare. In addition, there was a persistent effect of radioactivity with long half-lives that persisted and could deny territory to normal use. Furthermore, there was the fact that some of the chemicals in the fallout were highly toxic fission products, and this means that strontium-90 could be a health hazard.
This, to my way of thinking, represented a historic change. Events like this bisected human history. Anything before was pre-atomic and anything after is normal, so to speak, but it was not. It would have been normal, except for these weapons. Now, these weapons have kept the peace for many decades, but we now find ourselves in an utterly new situation with regard to hostility of other countries.
I think that the one lesson that we have to learn is that there can be no more strategic wars. The weapons have such power and are so complex in their physiological effects that we have entered a new era. These weapons have bisected human history. The future requires that we do not use nuclear weapons in a hostile way. Now, it is easy to say but extremely difficult to do.
A Global Manhattan Project
Die
ter Gruen fled Nazi Germany in 1937, graduated from Northwestern University in chemistry, and worked on the Manhattan Project at Oak Ridge. Afterward, Gruen helped form the Oak Ridge Scientists and Engineers, dedicated to preventing the use of nuclear weapons in war. With a Ph.D. in chemical physics from the University of Chicago, Gruen had a distinguished career at the Argonne National Laboratory. Here he calls for a global effort to combat climate change.
From AHF Oral Histories
INTERVIEW WITH DIETER GRUEN
When I reflect on my life and my career, I would have to say that the Manhattan Project was the seminal experience for me. It showed me in the most graphic way possible what this country can achieve when we are united, when we have a focus, and when we have the political and national will to solve a particular problem, we can achieve miracles.
On August 6, 1945, President Harry Truman said, “We have now won the battle of the laboratories. What has been done is the greatest achievement of organized science in history.” What Truman did not know at the time is that we might be facing a similar situation again, seventy years after he made that statement. I believe that today, we face another situation that in my mind is similar to the situation we faced with the Manhattan Project and that is climate change.
We are moving more rapidly than many people think to the point of no return where the global climate is so warm that it will be irreversible. The process, in my opinion, must be stopped within the next twenty years. That is going to require a massive commitment of money, people, and effort in order to achieve it. Because what we’re talking about is to change over from the energy system that we have today, which is based largely on the burning of fossil fuels, to one that does not burn fossil fuels.…
We must make the sun our global energy source and make solar electricity competitive in the marketplace with fossil fuel–generated electricity. Perhaps in that way, we will be able to achieve the transition.
We should not sit quietly and passively. We should think about that problem and see if we can agree to mount a global Manhattan Project to bring this about… We need to apply the best and most sophisticated methods that we are capable of to increase the efficiency for the conversion of light to electricity. That’s the basic problem. It’s a very good scientific problem that can be solved if we put the effort into it.
A Lack of Trust and Confidence
Herbert L. Anderson was completing his Ph.D. in physics at Columbia and working as an assistant to Enrico Fermi in 1938 when fission was discovered. During the Manhattan Project, Anderson worked on the Chicago Pile-1 and designing reactors at Hanford. After the war, he promoted an international agreement to avoid an arms race. In this 1986 interview, he was resigned to the necessity of nuclear weapons until there is greater trust and confidence in the world.
From AHF Oral Histories
INTERVIEW WITH HERBERT ANDERSON
On one hand, nuclear weapons are a disaster and a major concern of all mankind. And it would be better not to have them. But we do have them. I mean, they exist and you can’t erase that. That’s a fact and you have to deal with that. It’s unfortunate that it has evolved the way it has.
Right after the war, I played a role with many of my associates to try to go around and tell people how dangerous they were and hope that there would be some international type of agreement. But that never worked out.
How do you deal with the problem? It is easy enough to say that we don’t need any nuclear weapons and we shouldn’t have any. But then you come down to the political questions involved.
I’m sufficiently a hawk to feel that if you don’t have a strong position militarily, nobody talks to you. You don’t have a voice. I believe that we have to be involved in the decision-making process. You cannot delegate the political dominance to somebody like the Russians.
I’ve been interested in whatever methods would increase the confidence and trust among the people. I dream occasionally that advances in technology might actually break down barriers. I tend to be an optimist, so I look at the developments and see how the technology has really brought more understanding and has made it more difficult to conceal things.
I hope that these mistrustful aspects of our international society will ultimately get diminished. TV plays an intensively powerful role, making it very difficult for anybody to conceal their misdeeds…
On the other hand, there’s a tremendous amount of waste. It’s a whole enterprise in which an enormous amount of money is spent and everything is meant hopefully not to be used. You build weapons and the hope is that you’ll never use them. So why spend all the money? It’s really a great anomaly.
The disasters caused by the atomic bombings were atrocious, and they are not just about what happened in the past. The terror of nuclear weapons today is on an even greater scale than that of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. The nuclear powers still cling to their nuclear weapons. Therefore, it is particularly meaningful to demand that we look at what these weapons do, from the perspectives of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
—JOHN DOWER, EMERITUS MIT HISTORY PROFESSOR, PULITZER PRIZE–WINNING AUTHOR OF EMBRACING DEFEAT
Before We Die, We Have to Tell Our Stories
Keiko Ogura is a hibakusha, an atomic bomb survivor. She was eight years old on August 6, 1945, when the U.S. dropped the “Little Boy” atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Only after her husband’s death in 1979 did she begin to talk about her experiences. Now her mission is to spread knowledge about the bombings and keep the survivors’ stories alive.
From AHF Oral Histories
INTERVIEW WITH KEIKO OGURA
Even though I was eight years old, among my classmates we stopped talking about those days. We did not want to tell that we were in Hiroshima [on August 6, 1945]. I didn’t care so much, but ten years later, I was grown up, like 18 to 20. A young man from outside the city asked me, “Keiko, where were you?”
I was shocked. “Why do you ask me such a question?”
He said, “No, no, no, I’m okay. I’m okay. I don’t care, but my parents care.”
I know friends who were in Hiroshima after the bombing whose weddings were canceled. They couldn’t get married to their fiancés because of fears of radiation’s effects on reproduction. That is the worst.
This is myself. I was like that, eight years old. I didn’t tell about my story for fifty years because we just sealed off our feelings. We had a dilemma whether to tell our story or not. Recently, people started to tell after sixty or seventy years. For the first time, my classmates talk about the atomic bombing, what we saw. Seventy years later when the former President [Barack] Obama came to Hiroshima, we said, “Before we die, we have to tell our stories.”
Finally, we found telling our story is the best way to cure our heart… For the first time, I told my story to other people, and then the nightmares stopped.
Photo courtesy of Los Alamos National Laboratory
Remains of Saint Paul’s Church, Nagasaki, after the bombing on August 9, 1945.
“Doctor, you know our bodies. The atomic bomb is still living.”
Masao Tomonaga was two years old, sleeping in his house 2.5 kilometers from ground zero in Nagasaki. He studied internal medicine and hematology at the Nagasaki University Medical School. Currently, he is honorary director of the Japanese Red Cross Nagasaki Atom Bomb Hospital. Tomonaga shares his personal story and the lifelong effects of radiation exposure.
From AHF’s Voices of Japan
INTERVIEW WITH MASAO TOMONAGA
My house was about 2.5 kilometers from ground zero. This area is where there were actually military arsenals, Mitsubishi arsenals, and Mitsubishi shipyards. They were completely destroyed. My alma mater medical school was located inside the one-kilometer range from ground zero. The old buildings of Nagasaki Medical University Hospital were totally destroyed. The area was surrounded by about 300-meter hills and mountains. Inside this area, almost all buildings, except for this gigantic hospital, were destroyed, more than 90 percent.
A
Catholic church, the second largest church in Nagasaki city, was almost completely destroyed. My house was a wooden house. All the Japanese wooden houses were crushed completely or partially. Then within ten to fifteen minutes, a huge firestorm came.
I was sleeping on the second floor of this wooden house. My mother was preparing lunch on the first floor. She quickly came up to my room on the second floor. I was sleeping on the bed because I was ill from tonsillitis and a high fever. She took me out of the broken house. The firestorm had not yet reached our house.
We were a lucky family. My father was not in Nagasaki. He was serving for the Japanese Army Air Force in Taiwan as an army doctor. There he heard about the news, the complete destruction of Nagasaki city. He thought his family all perished. Later, maybe within one month, my mother’s letter safely reached him. He got the news that we were alive. He was ordered by Chiang Kai-shek’s Army government to stay in Taiwan for one and a half years and came back to Nagasaki in 1947.
Where my house was, 2.5 kilometers from ground zero, the death rate was below 5 percent. Mostly, people died in broken Japanese houses. They could not escape from the broken houses and were burned by the firestorm. But within one kilometer from ground zero, the death rate goes up from 80 percent to over 95 percent. Very high.
Within a one-kilometer distance, the situation was terrible. Many, many carbonized bodies were seen. Also, white bones were seen. Carbonization occurred by the strong direct heat rays from the detonation. People walking on the street were directly exposed to heat rays. Later, the bodies were burned again by the firestorms. Within 500 meters of ground zero, the bones became ashes. You can just take the ashes.
The Manhattan Project Page 47