Post 6: And You Thought Dropping an F-Bomb Was Impolite...

To create a weapon with massively lethal destructive power beyond the scope of human imagination, or not to create a weapon with massively lethal destructive power beyond the scope of human imagination? That is the question.

There were only two answers to that question about building the H-Bomb: do it or don’t. The “do it” group were cold warriors who supported an ever-increasing military arsenal as the best solution to defeating the Soviets. This required that Americans beat the Soviets to every military technology so America always would have the most powerful weapons available. The “don’t” group saw the weapon as an unnecessary danger. It is possible, they argued, to be fully prepared to win a war against the Soviets without creating such an immensely powerful weapon. It would not be pragmatic to create a weapon that would destroy so much territory and kill so many civilians when a tactical nuclear bomb would cause much less carnage and be able to used on, and limited to, a battlefield.

An outspoken member of the “do it” group was Edward Teller (of the Teller-Ulam design). Attempting to take a moral stance on the H-Bomb was ridiculous, he argued. The A-Bomb and H-Bomb are equally immoral, they are both extremely powerful devices designed to kill, the degree mattered little. Development of an H-Bomb is inevitable, anyway. Teller said, “If the development is possible, it is out of our powers to prevent it. All that we can do is retard its completion by some years…. The terrible consequences of a super bomb will not be avoided by ignoring or postponing the issue but by wise and provident planning” (Cassidy 288). His argument is that once it is possible to develop a weapon like this, someone will. Years later, he never changed his position. He maintains that knowledge in itself is valuable, so the development of the H-Bomb was not a mistake (Cassidy 288).

Oppenheimer was the big name of the “don’t” group. Though Oppenheimer was doing his best to tow the line and stay in the good graces of the government, given the threats of the McCarthy era, he did not support the development of the H-Bomb (Cassidy 285). He and the Scientific Advisory Panel advised against developing the weapon for two reasons. The first was that the creation of this more powerful bomb would escalate the arms race, and the second was the moral issue. Arthur Compton was a member of the panel. When advising the Vice President he said, “…we should prefer defeat in war to a victory obtained at the expense of the enormous human disaster that would be caused by its determined use” (Cassidy 288). Americans really don’t like to lose wars.

Ultimately, Teller and the “do it” group won, and the H-Bomb was developed. Teller was motivated by the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge’s sake (Cassidy 288). Others were seduced by the power of the enormous weapon. It is one thing when the debate is among intellectuals who give the appropriate consideration to using such a weapon. Now, though, it is on youtube for the world’s consumption:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNcQX033V_M

When I watched this video on Oct 18, there was a comment under it that said:

“there can never be enough of them bombs
we have to protect our country against terrorists, aliens, arabs and greenpeace
so build more of them!”

Teller and others thought that this technology will be able to be kept on a shelf and never used, and so far, they seem to be right. The memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is still fresh and scary enough to have deterred nuclear war. But there are those, like whoever made this comment above, who are not slowed by caution or empathy, and are driven only by hate and ignorance. One can only hope that no one with his mentality ever seizes control of a powerful weapon. But now, thanks to the “do it” group, it is possible that someone might.