Character before knowledge

The scientific panel was not called upon to decide whether the bomb should be used, but only how it should be used.

In spite of seven of the scientists writing to the Secretary of War, opposing use of the bomb, the Interim Committee (Oppenheimer, Fermi, Compton and Lawrence) recommended the bombing.

From then on, it was a rush to test the bomb, and then use it, before the Japanese surrendered. Three atomic bombs were built. The first – tested: if the test was a failure – it would be reported as a "girl" – if successful a "boy".

For the second and third bombs, 67 Scientists petitioned the government to warn the Japanese first – a petition that was prevented by General Groves from reaching the White House. Enrico Fermi commented "Don't bother me with your conscientious scruples! After all, the thing is superb physics!"

The $2 billion Manhattan Project would be seen as a senseless waste of money, if Japan surrendered. Truman authorised the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Oppenheimer explained later that his Interim Committee's recommendation was "a technical opinion".

The reactions of the scientists were conflicted. "Shouts of joy" at the success of the bombing. Simultaneous pride and shame. As the radiation effects were learned, General Groves reassured a Congressional hearing that he'd heard that death from radiation was "very pleasant".

Oppenheimer knew that the bombing was not the end of the nuclear project, but the start of a nuclear arms race between USA and Russia. Now nuclear science came fully under military influence, Edward Teller now came into the picture , and the race for the hydrogen bomb was on. Still there were some that rebelled , but by 1947, these had lost out. They set up the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to awaken the world to the danger. Einsten said: "In the end, there beckons, more and more clearly, general annihilation"

Robert Jungk's account of the men, and some women, too, who developed atomic weapons , is set against the background of the big events of the time, with a sympathetic attitude to the pressures and problems that surrounded these people.

From 1951 to 1955 the general attitude of atomic scientists was one of enthusiasm for the hydrogen bomb (1000 times more powerful than the first atomic bomb). Jungk muses on this: "How is one to explain such macabre enthusiasm which had swept away all the earlier scruples and objections to the Super monster?"

He finds his answer in a statement by Oppenheimer: - "When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it" Jungk comments that Oppenheimer here reveals a dangerous tendency in the modern research scientist.

Robert Jungk wrote that in 1955. Nearly 60 years later – has anything changed?