Word: bombings
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...early chapters from the foundation for such a conclusion by showing the problem itself in its scientific and military aspects. The cornerstone is laid by Philip Morrison (official War Department investigator of the results of the Hiroshima bomb) whose picture of the effects of a single bomb on New York City should convince skeptics that the atomic bomb would be nearly as unpleasant for concrete-housed Americans as it was for bamboo-sheltered Japanese. He stresses that the only inaccuracy in his description, which includes 300,000 killed and a host of wounded that would tax hospitals...
...just another weapon" school of thought which relaxes securely in its belief that defenses will fix everything. But Louis N. Ridenour shows the impotency of anything under one hundred percent defense, and the physical impossibility of anything over ninety percent defense. It is the huge destructive power of the bomb that makes even ten percent efficiency economical from an attacker's viewpoint. For, per square mile destroyed, an atomic bomb of the Hiroshima class is six times cheaper than other explosives, according to General Arnold, and possibly up to one hundred times cheaper, according to J. R. Oppenheimer...
Negative defenses such as decentralizing industry and moving cities underground are deemed unlikely during peace and too late in case of war. Nor is there a possibility of defense by keeping the bomb secret. Not only do Hans Bethe and Frederick Seitz estimate that other nations will have an atomic bomb within six years, but they believe that Russia may well be ahead of us by the end of this period...
...clear that on many occasions during the war Conant the chemist and "field agent" was called upon for decisions far removed from the test-tube and University classroom. His firm contention in 1942 that the bomb could shorten the war came at a time when high military officials considered the whole scheme expendable. It was a force behind President Roosevelt's decision to allow the project to grow beyond the blueprint stage. Later in 1942, Conant, as a member of the Baruch Committee, was asked to find an answer to the rubber, shortage, while, as a member of the still...
...President stands as mentor to the powerful science-in-government element that has Washington more or less in awe. It was only logical that Secretary of State Byrnes should take him to Moscow as technical adviser. At the meetings Molotov's lumbering attempts to be gay about the "bomb that Dr. Conant carries in his vest pocket" brought an open apology from Stalin. It is evident that the Kremlin is not taking lightly this new influence on American affairs. The Russian experience may be only the first of many encounters that this product of Puritan stock will have with...