O nuclear wind, when wilt thou blow
That the small rain down can rain?
Christ, that my love were in my arms
And I had my arms again. Paul Dehn
Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch some heavy water,
They mixed it with the dairy milk
And killed my youngest daughter. Paul Dehn
Flight Sergeant Foster flattened Gloucester
In a shower of rain.
(A Mr Hutton had pressed the wrong button
On the coast of Maine.) Paul Dehn
Hark, the herald angels sing
Glory to the newborn thing
Which, because of radiation,
Will be cared for by the nation. Paul Dehn
Ban the bomb. US anti-nuclear slogan from 1953
Better red than dead. nuclear disarmament campaign slogan 1950s
I support them [CND] because everything sane and sensible and quiet that we do is absolutely ignored by the press. And the only way we can get into the press is to do something that looks fanatical ... The worst possibility is that human life may be extinguished and it is a very real possibility. Very real ... Many hundreds of millions of people dying in agony, only and solely because the rulers of the world are stupid and wicked. I can’t bear it. Bertrand Russell, interview BBC 1959
Fears of catastrophe as nuclear plant explodes: While the [Japanese] government orders a mass evacuation from the area around the nuclear explosion, there are fears the tsunami toll may exceed 10,000. Sunday Times online article 13th March 2011
Every day I saw the huge material, intellectual and nervous resources of thousands of people being poured into the creation of a means of total destruction, something capable of annihilating all human civilization. I noticed that the control levers were in the hands of people who, though talented in their own ways, were cynical. Andrei Sakharov, Sakharov Speaks, 1974
Britain’s present nuclear deterrent policy threatens a would-be aggressor with devastation from thermonuclear bombs to be delivered by Victor and Vulcan MK II aircraft of the British V-bomber force. Peter Watkins, The War Game 1965 [intended for BBC’s The Wednesday Play but withdrawn], opening caption
London, Friday 16th September: It’s just been confirmed that late last night in order to show collective communist support for the Chinese invasion of South Vietnam the Russian and East German authorities have sealed off all access to the city of Berlin, and have stated their intention of occupying the western half of the city within forty-eight hours, unless the Americans in Vietnam withdraw yesterday’s decision to use tactical nuclear weapons against invading Chinese forces. Here in Britain Her Majesty’s government has declared a national state of emergency. ibid.
In 1959 a Home Office manual wrote: Public education in the matters of radioactivity will be progressive over the next few years. ibid.
There would remain before impact a warning time of approximately two and a half to three minutes. ibid.
Within this car a family is burning alive. ibid.
‘Some of these people are just falling apart.’ ibid. nurse
People living often in their own filth in total dejection and inertia. ibid.
On this day the first food rioter is killed by the police in Kent. ibid.
This is a government food control centre. ibid.
Would the survivors envy the dead? ibid. caption
In August 1945 the city of Hiroshima was destroyed in about nine seconds by a single atomic bomb. The man responsible for building the bomb was a gentle and eloquent physicist named J Robert Oppenheimer. The Day After Trinity, 1980
‘You may well ask why people with kind hearts and humanist feelings – why they would go and work on weapons of mass destruction.’ ibid. Hans Bethe
At the age of twenty-five he accepted an unusual dual professorship. ibid.
His left-wing activities did attract official attention. ibid.
Oppenheimer’s first job was to convince scientists and their families to join him for the duration of the war in a place he was not allowed to identify. ibid.
Oppenheimer had gathered the elite in physics, mathematics and chemistry to build the atomic bomb. ibid.
By 1944 he was in charge of a walled city of six thousand. ibid.
The professor and the general made an unlikely team. When Groves took charge of the Manhattan Project in 1942 there was barely enough plutonium in the world to cover the head of a pin. And very little uranium 235. ibid.
11th July 1945: an unmarked Pontiac sedan arrives at the MacDonald Ranch carrying the world’s entire supply of plutonium – about ten pounds. The courier demands a receipt. Approximate value – one billion dollars. ibid.
Young technicians were horrified to overhear Enrico Fermi taking side-bets on the possibility of incinerating the state of New Mexico. ibid.
More than a million civilians dead – the Japanese fought on. ibid.
Hiroshima August 6th 1945 ... More than 100,000 killed, 40,000 injured, 20,000 missing. Burns, blindness, radiation sickness. It took only nine seconds. ibid.
He [Oppenheimer] argued adamantly and publicly for the international control of atomic weapons. ibid. commentary
The arms race began in earnest. ibid.
Teller had urged ... the hydrogen bomb. ibid.
A disbelieving America saw the Russians explode a hydrogen bomb in the same year. ibid.
As many as five agents shadowed him [Oppenheimer] in a single day. ibid.
The Atomic Energy Commission found Oppenheimer a security risk. ibid.
There have been more than 1,200 atomic explosions on the face of the Earth. ibid.
Dr Oppenheimer grew tenser as the last seconds ticked off. He scarcely breathed. He stared directly ahead. Thomas Farrell, Oppenheimer’s deputy
We thank God that it has come to us instead of our enemies. And we pray that He may guide us to use it in His ways and for His purposes. Harry S Truman, radio broadcast 9th August 1945
The atom bomb was no ‘great decision’. It was merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness. Harry S Truman
We were secretly mining their harbours, we had command of their skies, but still the bomb [Enola Gay] dropped. Alfred McCormack, Military Intelligence
It was a nice day. I was playing outdoors when I saw a sudden flash. Fire broke out everywhere. Our house and gate were burned down before I knew it. Then we went under a bridge. There were many people there dying from burns. When I came back Daddy was dead. A few days later Mummy died too. Hiroshima child
The whole city was on fire. Their faces were so badly burned it was impossible to tell if they were men or women. Hiroshima survivor
The worst it could do would be to usher people sooner and in their millions into a higher form of life to which they are destined anyway. Geoffrey Fisher, former Archbishop of Canterbury, discussing thermonuclear war
A daring expedition makes its way to one of the most remote places on Earth: Bikini Atoll. It’s here to explore the world’s most extraordinary ship graveyard: giant Japanese and American warships rest side by side on the ocean floor. These once proud ships were sacrificed in one of the most spectacular experiments of all time. Ghost Fleet of Bikini Atoll, 2009
The Bikinians had barely left in 1946 when Operation Crossroads Taskforce One descended on their Atoll. ibid.
Goats, sheep, rats and pigs were placed aboard the target vessels. ibid.
The first [Bikini] atomic test codenamed Able ... It would be the first atomic bomb to explode in peacetime. ibid.
But few of the large ships … had sunk. The disappointment was enormous. Especially for the Air Force who had hoped for much more spectacular results. ibid.
The military finally had their spectacle. ibid.
What impact did this have on marine and island life? ibid.
Bikinians: Banished from their home a second time. ibid.