Authors: Brian Van DeMark
The Franck Report argued against using the bomb, even “if one takes the pessimistic point of view and discounts the possibility of an effective international control over nuclear weapons at the present time.” In this case, the report concluded, “the advisability of an early use of nuclear bombs against Japan becomes even more doubtful—quite independently of any humanitarian considerations. If an international agreement is not concluded immediately after the first demonstration, this will mean a flying start toward an unlimited armaments race.” The report rested its argument against dropping the bomb on Japan on the ground that announcing its existence to the world in this way would make international control virtually impossible. The report urged instead a demonstration of the bomb over an uninhabited area before a group of international observers. “A demonstration of the new weapon might best be made before the eyes of representatives of all the United Nations on the desert or a barren island. This may sound fantastic, but in nuclear weapons we have something entirely new in order of magnitude of destructive power, and if we want to capitalize fully on the advantage their possession gives us, we must use new and imaginative methods.” The scientists hoped to shock the world into international cooperation.
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Compton kept his word by accompanying Franck to Washington to discuss a preliminary draft of the report with Vice President Wallace at a breakfast meeting arranged by Compton on April twenty-first.
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They also tried to see Secretary of War Stimson at the Pentagon on June twelfth, but the secretary did not make himself available. Compton left the Franck Report for Stimson with a covering note that faulted it for failing to consider what Compton thought was the most important issue at hand. “While it calls attention to difficulties that might result from the use of the bomb,” wrote Compton, it “does not mention the probable net saving of many lives,
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nor that if the bomb were not used in the present war the world would have no adequate warning as to what was to be expected if war should break out again.”
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Unlike Franck, who hoped to avert an atomic attack, Compton hoped such an attack would be the last terrible act of World War II and serve notice that there must be no World War III. This grandson of pacifist Mennonites knew all too well the destruction and human agony the bomb would cause; he had been living with this realization for four years. “But I wanted the war to end,” Compton later wrote. “I wanted life to become normal again. I saw a chance for an enduring peace that would be demanded by the very destructiveness of these weapons. I hoped that by use of the bombs many fine young men I knew might be released at once from the demands of war and thus be given a chance to live and not to die.”
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Compton was especially haunted by the semester he had spent at the University of Cambridge in the fall of 1919. Among his students that fall were many who had been crippled and blinded during the Great War. He often saw crutches leaning against chairs in the lecture halls. It was a sadly poignant sight—they were so young. What had sunk most deeply into Compton’s soul was not the sight of legless young men but the awareness that so many others who should have been there lay buried in the mud of Flanders’ fields.
Compton took the Franck Report along with him to a meeting of the Scientific Advisory Panel in Los Alamos on June sixteenth. The panel was meeting in Oppenheimer’s office that day when Stimson’s assistant George Harrison phoned and said they, not the Interim Committee, should consider the Franck Report and examine the possibility of devising a nonmilitary demonstration that would be sufficiently convincing to effect Japan’s surrender. Harrison’s call charging the panel to reconsider use of the bomb against Japan in the light of the Franck Report created a tense and soul-searching atmosphere. Compton later described the harsh dilemma that he and his three colleagues felt at that moment:
We were keenly aware of our responsibility as the scientific advisers to the Interim Committee. Among our colleagues were the scientists who supported Franck in suggesting a nonmilitary demonstration only. We thought of the fighting men who were set for an invasion which would be so very costly in both American and Japanese lives. We were determined to find, if we could, some effective way of demonstrating the power of an atomic bomb without loss of life that would impress Japan’s warlords. If only this could be done!
The difficulties of making a purely technical demonstration that would carry its impact effectively into Japan’s controlling councils were indeed great. We had to count on every possible effort to distort even obvious facts. Experience with the determination of Japan’s fighting men made it evident that the war would not be stopped unless these men themselves were convinced of its futility.
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The possible failure of a demonstration bomb also worried them, as did the specter of a bloody invasion of Japan if the bomb failed to end the war. But, of course, they had more than just the war in mind. In their opinion, the weapon’s postwar influence depended on a widespread recognition of new realities—the new weapon required a new attitude toward war. If Japan did not accept this view, the war might continue; if the Soviet Union ignored it, the peace would be lost. They concluded that combat use of the bomb would make a deep impression on both countries, convincing those who needed to be convinced to end the war, and persuading those who needed to be persuaded that postwar cooperation was imperative. Compelled initially by fear of German progress, and now terrified by the consequences of their own success, these men of sensibility, culture, and peace were driven to recommend policies that they would have found abhorrent in other circumstances.
There was not unanimous agreement, however. Lawrence again pressed for a demonstration, or at least an explicit warning, before the bomb was dropped on Japan. Fermi also resisted. This was highly unusual. Fermi disliked expressing political opinions. Now, he boldly argued not for a demonstration, but for no drop at all. Nations will always fight wars, he said, therefore scientists could not responsibly place atomic bombs in national arsenals. It took Compton and Oppenheimer until 5:00 the following morning to “talk him down,” Oppenheimer later noted.
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In the end, Fermi gave in, Compton and Oppenheimer’s logic prevailing: it was better to have the bomb used
once
so that people everywhere learned just how awful it was.
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Oppenheimer reported to Washington the panel’s conclusion that it could “propose no technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war” and that there was “no acceptable alternative to direct military use.” “Our hearts were heavy as we turned in this report to the Interim Committee,” Compton later wrote. “We were glad and proud to have had a part in making the power of the atom available for the use of man. What a tragedy it was that this power should become available first in time of war and that it must first be used for human destruction.”
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Oppenheimer would later regret publicly the lack of farsightedness and political courage that the Scientific Advisory Panel demonstrated at this crucial weekend meeting in June. His feeling of failure may have been compounded by the realization that if he, Compton, Lawrence, and Fermi had endorsed the recommendation of the Franck Report that weekend, their endorsement might have forced a high-level reconsideration of use-without-warning. But then no one in Washington, either, spent a fraction of the time and thought reviewing the arguments of the Franck Report that its drafters put into formulating them. The remarkably prescient report made little impression on policy makers who saw their first responsibility as ending the war victoriously.
Compton, Lawrence, Oppenheimer, and Fermi also had made ending the war, rather than the bomb’s impact after the war, their controlling consideration. This was not surprising. To have acted otherwise, at the time and under the circumstances, would have required political vision and courage that the atomic scientists, at this juncture, did not possess. This was clear when, having made their recommendation to Stimson, they added: “With regard to these general aspects of the use of atomic energy, it is clear that we, as scientific men, have no proprietary rights. It is true that we are among the few citizens who have had occasion to give thoughtful consideration to these problems during the past few years. We have, however, no claim to special competence in solving political, social, and military problems which are presented by the advent of atomic power.”
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To some extent, they were just being polite. But to another, their recusal was evidence that despite increasing awareness, they subscribed to the axiom—common in their day—that scientists should not offer political judgments. Their attitude would change dramatically in subsequent years.
Bohr, however, felt no reluctance about speaking out. After the May thirty-first Interim Committee meeting, Oppenheimer went over to the British Embassy, where Bohr was staying. “I met Bohr and tried to comfort him,” Oppenheimer remembered later, “but he was too wise and too worldly to be comforted…. He [was] quite uncertain about what, if anything, would happen.”
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Tellingly, Oppenheimer added this about Bohr (and himself) years later: “He was for statesmen; he used the word over and over again. He was not for committees and the Interim Committee was a committee.”
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Bohr felt that time was running out. Before leaving the United States to return to his liberated Denmark, Bohr asked Frankfurter to arrange one last meeting for him with Stimson. On June eighteenth, Stimson’s assistant Harvey Bundy sent the following in a message to his boss: “Do you want to try and work in a meeting with Professor Bohr, the Dane, before you get away this week?” Stimson scrawled no in the margin of the message.
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Bohr gave up and a few days later sailed for Europe.
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Szilard sensed that things were moving fast now, and that he must act quickly if he hoped to avert what he considered a tragedy. Appalled at the firebombing of civilians, he felt frightened by the gathering force of events. In early July he decided to draft a petition to President Truman arguing against use of the atomic bomb on moral grounds.
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The sense of urgency and responsibility that Szilard felt came through forcefully in his covering letter to colleagues:
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.
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 those acts. Their defense that their protest would have been of no avail hardly seems acceptable even though these Germans could have had 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 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….
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In the petition Szilard argued that the United States bore special moral responsibility for being the first nation to develop the bomb:
The development of atomic power will provide the nations with new means of destruction. The atomic bombs at our disposal represent only the first step in this direction, and there is almost no limit to the destructive power which will become available in the course of their future development. Thus a nation which sets the precedent of using these newly liberated forces of nature for purposes of destruction may have to bear the responsibility of opening the door to an era of devastation on an unimaginable scale.
If after this war a situation is allowed to develop in the world which permits rival powers to be in uncontrolled possession of these new means of destruction, the cities of the United States as well as the cities of other nations will be in continuous danger of sudden annihilation. All the resources of the United States, moral and material, may have to be mobilized to prevent the advent of such a world situation. Its prevention is at present the solemn responsibility of the United States—singled out by virtue of her lead in the field of atomic power.
The added material strength which this lead gives to the United States brings with it the obligation of restraint and if we were to violate this obligation our moral position would be weakened in the eyes of the world and in our own eyes. It would then be more difficult for us to live up to our responsibility of bringing the unloosened forces of destruction under control.
Szilard opposed the atomic bombing of Japan on the moral ground that it would open “the door to an era of devastation on an unimaginable scale.”
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