Niels Bohr.

This is coolbert.

This year of course marks the sixtieth year since the first detonation of atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

And the current issue to the National Geographic has an article devoted to nuclear weapons.

At the start of the article, they have a quote from J. Robert Oppenheimer that is most revealing as to the attitudes only then [in 1945] developing toward nuclear weapons.

Attitudes that up to now, have been most prescient. To quote Oppenheimer from the Geographic article [this appears to be a paraphrase of what Oppenheimer said, and is not verbatim]:


"Nuclear weapons were surprisingly cheap and easy to make, once you understood how. Soon, he said, other countries would be making them too. Their power of destruction - - - "already greater incomparably greater than that of any other weapon" - - - will grow, he declared. Despite these unsettling predictions, Oppenheimer found positive benefit in the breakthrough, calling nuclear weapons "not only a great peril, but a great hope."

[it is very interesting that Oppenheimer felt this to be so in 1945. Just after the first bombs were dropped. Even at that moment, it was realized that the mere possession of nuclear weapons did NOT mean that they would be used. Responsible and thinking persons DID know what the score was even at that date, and had already formulated concepts and ideas regarding the usage of nuclear weaponry.]

And what did this hope consist of??

To quote further from the Geographic:

"Oppenheimer's hope grew out of discussions with the brilliant Danish physicist Niels Bohr, who had escaped his Nazi-occupied homeland and found his way to Los Alamos late in 1943. The spread of nuclear knowledge, Bohr told Oppenheimer, would eventually make nuclear weapons a common danger to all humankind, like a disease spreading to a global pandemic. When nations finally recognized the threat, Bohr and Oppenheimer agreed, the world would come together as never before - - - to limit the spread of nuclear weapons out of practical self interest. And in forging those agreements through open negotiations and mutual understanding nations would reduce the danger and ultimately banish war."

It seems, at least, among the great powers of the world, this has come true to a certain extent. The danger of war has been greatly reduced between the foremost competing world powers. This WAS true during the era of the Cold War [1945-1990]. The consequences of war between the United States and the Soviet Union would be too horrible to contemplate for both sides. There would be no winner. Destruction on an unacceptable scale would be the case. Without exception. Nuclear weapons are WHAT DID prevent a general global war between the two main adversaries from the end of World War Two [WW2] onward to 1990 and the breakup of the communist Soviet Union.

With regard to Niels Bohr.

Niels Bohr DID escape Denmark during WW2. To what extent he contributed to the Manhattan Project is something I am not sure of. He WAS being skillfully and carefully interrogated by Werner Heisenberg in the years prior to his escape from Denmark. Heisenberg was of course the man in charge of the GERMAN atomic bomb project. It was felt by the British that it was VERY important to spirit Bohr out of Denmark to prevent him from unwittingly aiding the Germans. This escape was accomplished by a British long range, special operations Moon plane, Bohr nearly dying in the escape! Bohr was a man who felt that the interests of science overrode all other considerations of morality, even to the extent of aiding German physicists in their "research". Churchill was reputedly even to have considered having Bohr assassinated as he posed such a threat, possessing the naivete that he [Bohr] did.



Again, even at such an early date as 1945, just after the first usage of nuclear weapons, this paradox of the destructiveness of nuclear weapons precluding their use was already understood.

This paradox of course holds true only if the threat of retaliation is an option. "If you use the bomb on me, I will use it on you. Go ahead, just try", is the threat. So far, no one has dared to call the bluff of the other guy since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Indeed, the total number of nuclear weaponry held by the world powers HAS drastically decreased in recent years and will continue to decrease. NOT totally eliminated, but drastically reduced.

Banish war?! NO!! The presence of nuclear weapons will NOT banish war. War will always be fought at some level. War fought with nuclear weapons MAY not be seen ever again. And not just because of the inherent destructiveness of atomic weapons. Modern weaponry not even conceived in 1945 have now the tactical effect of a nuclear weapon. A target that years ago could be ONLY taken out by an atomic bomb can now be taken out by precision guided weaponry, for instance. Another reason by the feasibility of using nuclear weapons has become greatly diminished.

coolbert.