Letters: September 13, 1995


PRINCETON AND THE BOMB
In her article on Princeton and the Bomb (paw, June 7), writer Caroline Moseley should have asked physicist John A. Wheeler to elaborate on his statement, "Some people had the idea that we should have just had a demonstration, but that wouldn't have been effective. This way, we ended the war quickly and deterred Soviet aggression."
The desire to save lives by ending the war quickly and decisively is understandable and praiseworthy, and it may be true that a demonstration might have failed to achieve that objective. But the argument that we weren't sure the Bomb would "work" is not really relevant. If a demonstration had failed to bring about an end to the war within a reasonable time, we then could have proceeded with Hiroshima.
I surmise that the case for a demonstration was dismissed for two unstated reasons. One, by then we had so demonized the Japanese enemy-in part due to the truly atrocious behavior of the Japanese military, compounded by a heavy dose of racism depicting the Japanese as less than human-that American leaders had few moral compunctions about the mass murder of Japanese civilians. Two, both sides had already engaged in so much massive, indiscriminate bombing of civilian populations that such actions had become accepted as legitimate tactics in to-tal war.
But in retrospect, Hiroshima and Nagasaki-so terrible that they have not been repeated (as yet)-can be seen for what they were: acts of state terrorism, which is the governmentally ordered killing of civilians to achieve a political (not military) objective. In this case, the original goal had been military: to obtain the unconditional surrender of Japan's armed forces, as demanded in the Potsdam Declaration. But subsequently, the goal became political: to force the Japanese government itself to surrender after it had ignored the Potsdam ultimatum. In total war any distinction between military and political objectives gets so murky that the bombing of civilians is viewed not as terrorism but as "military necessity."
Perhaps the more important motive comes out in Wheeler's last phrase, though it is partly a non sequitur: we wanted to deter Soviet aggression. A demonstration would not have impressed Stalin as much as Hiroshima and Nagasaki did.
Robert V. Keeley '51
Washington, D.C.

Your story on the Bomb was an unabashed celebration of dropping the most lethal weapon ever used on a civilian population.
Several of the scientists quoted in the article claim that lives were saved by using the Bomb on a populated city. They are probably unaware that before we dropped the atom bombs, Japan had already agreed to surrender, with only one condition-that it be allowed to keep its emperor. After we dropped two atom bombs on them, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally-and we let them keep their emperor anyway! In other words, we agreed to the same terms of surrender that Japan had already agreed to before we needlessly killed over 100,000 of its civilians.
Conceding it was necessary to drop an atom bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, how can one justify dropping our only remaining atom bomb on Nagasaki just three days later? Communications with Hiroshima were destroyed by the bomb, and it was many days before Tokyo knew the extent of the devastation. Even after the second bomb, it took the Japanese until August 15 to surrender. Why did we only give them two days to surrender before dropping the second bomb? Were we determined to hurry, so as to cause as many casualties as we could before the Japanese government had enough facts to surrender?
Your article was unbalanced, amoral, biased in favor of weapons of mass destruction, and avoided discussion of the ethical dilemmas of scientists asked to develop weapons for politicians.
David L. Harten '84
Roselle Park, N.J.

As a physician, I have learned the power of denial from my patients. And now sadly, I discover that the five thoughtful faculty members highlighted in your article on the Bomb may also suffer from this self-imposed blindness. Neither they nor the author explored the solid historical evidence that the nuclear bombings of the civilian-packed cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unnecessary to end the war, significantly reduce U.S. casualties, or prevent Soviet hegemony in Asia. General Eisenhower opposed the bombing, as did Admiral Leahy, who stated that using the A-bomb on civilians adopted "ethical standards common to barbarians in the Dark Ages."
I have often wondered how any human could have loaded masses of civilians, including women and children, into gas chambers. Wouldn't the face of a child haunt him forever? Luckily, participants in the Manhattan Project didn't have to see the faces of their victims, but the end result was similar.
As a radiologist, I know that the primary source of data on radiation effects on humans comes from the more than 300,000 survivors of the nuclear bombings. Thanks to
their involuntary participation in the largest "clinical trial" in medical annals, I can reassure my patients about the relative safety of a radiation dose from a mammography.
Paul R. Fisher '76, M.D.
New Haven, Conn.

In 1944 I took Hugh (later Sir Hugh) Scott Taylor's course in physical chemistry. Dr. Taylor often led us in speculation about potential uses of the energy released from nuclear fission, which he thought could be tamed.
The course was given in Frick Laboratory, down whose open helical stairway we bounded two steps at a time, grabbing onto (and sometimes swinging a bit from) a black pipe that rose several stories high in the center of the stairwell. In it Dr. Taylor was conducting a crucial series of experiments for the separation of U-235 from U-238 by the gaseous diffusion of various uranium compounds. The 1 percent difference in molecular weight was reflected in their diffusion speed, allowing-after many passes through the system-a considerable increase in the concentration of U-235 over its natural level of one in 140 parts of uranium ore. The result was so-called enriched uranium, which is fissionable, whereas uranium from natural ore is not.
More than a year later, after brief service in the combat infantry in Germany, my division was loaded onto ships bound for the Ulithe Atoll in the Caroline Islands, the staging area for hundreds of U.S. warships and troop transports gathered for the invasion of the Japanese homeland. While en route, we were told our particular fate: my regiment was to be the sixth wave of the assault on Japan, approximately 45 minutes after the first. Our job was to secure a beachhead, and casualties were expected to be very high.
Then, our reprieve: the Hiroshima detonation, which ended the war and possibly saved my life and that of thousands of others GIs. Learning of it by ship's radio, I remembered that black pipe, and its function.
Robert L. Goldemberg '46
Wyckoff, N.J.

When I took physics in the spring of 1942, our instructor introduced Henry DeWolf Smyth '18 *21, the chairman of the department, to the class. In a brief announcement, Smyth told the many sophomores present that they could avoid a military call-up by choosing physics as their major.
Since even sophomore physics overtaxed my computational capabilities, more than three years passed before I understood why he had said this.
Brad Bradford '44
Highland Park, Ill.

CONTRACEPTION
PAW did the alumni community a grave disservice with its uncritical promotion of the book Emergency Contraception: The Nation's Best-Kept Secret (Notebook, May 10). According to your article, the book by Professor James Trussell *75 and five other coauthors describes ways a woman can prevent "fertilization or implantation of a fertilized ovum." Obviously, this book operates on a central misnomer: calling abortifacient methods "contraception." Once conception takes place (when sperm fertilizes egg), the only possible outcomes are abortion, miscarriage, or birth. Contraception is no longer an option. "Preventing implantation" means inducing an abortion or miscarriage.
There are many women in this country who use genuine contraception (i.e., contra-conception), but who abhor abortion as the taking of human life. Selling these women abortifacients under the false label of "emergency contraception" is rank deceit. It's time the "experts" stopped lying to women.
Walter M. Weber '81
New Hope, Ky.

POLER'S RECESS
The caption on your April 19 From the Archives photograph asked if readers could provide information about it. The photo shows students participating in the "Poler's Recess" and was published on page 138 of Pictorial History of Princeton (Wheaton J. Lane, ed., Princeton University Press, 1947). As the text notes, "Poler's Recess developed out of the old Horn Spree, 'invented' by the Class of 1858. On a moment's notice, students would start blowing horns at night until caught by the outraged faculty. Poler's Recess, coming at nine in the evening during the exam period, let everyone blow off steam for five minutes, after which everyone went back to work, theoretically."
Incidentally, my father, James C. Healey '15, appears on the page opposite in a photo of seniors celebrating St. Patrick's Day. The picture of Poler's Recess was probably staged the same spring of 1915.
Robert M. Healey '42
Roseville, Minn.

DANTE, BICKER
Though I read the Divine Comedy in second-year Italian, I passed through Princeton too early to have profited from Robert Hollander '55's courses on Dante. My loss, no doubt, although I do continue to re-read the Comedy (mostly in English, I'm afraid) once a year. So I cannot let pass unremarked Allan Bryant '53's letter of July 5 attacking Dante, Hollander, and indeed Princeton itself for teaching such courses. Surely to blame Dante for the Inquisition or for "illegal methods of intimidation" betrays a truly cavernous lack of historical sense, one that would only be matched were I to say of Pericles (one of Mr. Bryant's democratic heroes) that he was no more than the self-interested spokesman of the narrow, male, slave-holding elite dominating, in the name of "democracy," the population of classical Athens. (I leave aside the whole question of Athenian imperialism; Thucydides beat me to it.)
In the same issue you published a letter from my classmate Donald Kahn '52, and I concur with him that the achievements of our class in achieving 100-percent Bicker have been overlooked. I was one of the signatories to the petition he mentions, whereby we promised not to join any club unless everyone was bid. Ten years later, when I was teaching at Princeton and the problems of Bicker continued, no one had the faintest idea of what we'd done.
Nicholas R. Clifford '52
New Haven, Vt.

AWASH IN RICHES
According to your July 5 Notebook, the trustees have decided to commence a new fund-raising effort to net $750 million. That's three-quarters of a billion dollars to be added to the flourishing billions already amassed in the endowment and other resources of this small university.
As high as it is, Princeton's goal of raising $750 million seems paltry compared to Yale's efforts to raise $1.5 billion and Harvard's target of $2.1 billion, sums that will be add-ed to those schools' existing multibillion-dollar endowments.
I'm sorry, but this is a surreal form of charity. Princeton, Yale, and Harvard are fine institutions, but when is enough enough? Is it necessary to point out that charities compete for contributions, which are not in unlimited supply? Or that there are real charitable needs in our society, as well as poverty aplenty? Or that there are fine educational institutions with less than a tenth or a hundredth of what Princeton has, and that many schools make do hand-to-mouth yet perform a comparable service?
Is there no sense of embarrassment in amassing such wealth while relentlessly pursuing more money that might otherwise go to truly needy causes?
Jeff Pidot '69
Hallowell, Me.


paw@princeton.edu