60 years of the A-Bomb
60 years ago, Paul Tibbets dropped the A-Bomb on Hiroshima. Eight days later, on August 14th, Japan surrendered. An obvious correlation. Right? All major newspapers have something to say on the 'occasion' of the 60th Anniversary of the A-bomb.
These two posts gave the two distinct viewpoints:
For:
National Post
Against:
Kai Bird in the LA Times
I expect a post(or a comment) from the expert on: the history and politics of the bomb. It would irk him more than it irked me to read Robert Oppenheimer's Gita quote being quoted often and mostly out of context by writers (read: hacks) like these. Interesting story on the younger Tibbets
3 comments:
What Bird says about the Smithsonian exhibit seems justified. It certainly was more complex than saving 'a million' lives, a number which also certainly seems to have been exaggerated. There definitely was a political component involved.
About Oppenheimer, he HAS been quoted out of context, in fact many times...on the other hand, the man was complicated, and nobody really knows what the spontaneous Gita quote REALLY reflected.
And as for the expert, the only one was Robert Oppenheimer, and he is unfortunately dead... :(
The Tibbets story is interesting.
Hirak,
I was watching the history channel the other day and they had this same interesting debate on whether it was the bomb or whether it was the Soviet Union declaring war on japan, that was the final straw. My personal take is that as with most things in history, it was a bit of both.
By the way, for those interested in this part of world history, I would highly recommend the book, "The Emperor's General" by James Webb. It is a first hand account by one Mr. Jay March, who was an aide to MacAurthur during the occupation of Japan. I had a great time listening to the Book CD, so I presume the book should be pretty good too.
Sid Rege
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