Joseph Rotblat’s Memories of 6 August 1945
"The first inkling that I had that the [Manhattan] project was successful in the sense that it achieved what it wanted to achieve was on the 6th of August 1945.  I can remember very well.  It was a Monday, a bank holiday in England, and I came back from being away and I switched on the radio at 6:00 in the evening and there was the announcement that we had dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.  And so I knew from this that what were before purely theoretical speculations turned out to be reality.  To me it was a great shock because, for one, I still had some faint hope that maybe all these theoretical calculations would turn out to be wrong and the whole thing would be a fizzle, and secondly, I thought even that if it were successful that it would not be used against populations, but rather as we used to discuss before I left Los Alamos, to try to demonstrate to the Japanese the acquisition of the new type of weapon and get them to agree before it should be used on populations.  Both of these hopes, albeit faint hopes, were completely turned out to be wrong.  And then I was of course also very much afraid about what was going to happen because I was very much influenced by my discussions in the previous summer, 1944, at Los Alamos with Neils Bohr, the famous Danish physicist… he foresaw that this was going to lead to an arms race.  … I knew also at that time, that the atom bomb that was used on Japan was the first step in nuclear weaponry.  Because in the office next to me was Edward Teller who was not actually involved in the work on the atom bomb itself.  He already at that time worked on the super project, the hydrogen bomb.  One of Teller’s helpers was also a Polish man and therefore we used to talk to each other in Polish.  I knew a little bit more than other people about what was going on.  So I knew that it would begin an arms race and that the hydrogen bomb would come in.  And then, remembering what Bohr was saying, I was very much…for the first time I became worried about the whole future of mankind.  Because I knew that…once you are going to develop these huge weapons, where are you going to stop?  And this was my reaction on the 6th of August.” [Source: Personal interview with Sandra Ionno Butcher, Washington, DC, 13 July 2003.  The photo is a picture of paper cranes made by children in Japan and given to Joseph Rotblat.]

"What has kept the world safe from the bomb since 1945 has not been deterrence, in the sense of fear of specific weapons, so much as it's been memory. The memory of what happened at Hiroshima."

John Hersey

On Sunday I attended the International Forgiveness Day celebrations where a lifetime achievement award was given to Bob Plath.  For 17 years Bob has tirelessly worked to promote forgiveness.  Several "Heroes of Forgiveness" were there to acknowledge Bob, including Takashi Tanemori.

At the age of eight, Takashi was playing hide and seek with his classmates. The day was Aug. 6, 1945. Little Boy was falling from the sky (3 days later the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki).

Takashi was one mile from ground zero.  His mother, sister and brother died immediately in the blast.  His father died a month later.

In an article Takashi shared this story about his father, "The night before he died, he taught me the seven codes of the samurai and said, ‘Promise me that you will teach your children that which I taught you. Promise yourself and promise to me that you will live your life as I lived before you. Live for the benefit of others, then we all benefit. This is the simplest way to make a peaceful world.’ ”

At the Forgiveness Day, Takashi, now frail, nearly blind and with a warm smile, talked about forgiving America, which has allowed him to have peace in himself.

Today is the 68th anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.  It is a time to reflect about the lives that were lost that day and the need for humanity, all us, to develop our moral capacity to keep pace with our technology.  

The dawning of the atomic age woke us up to the fact that we have the power to destroy ourselves.

Last year I interviewed Steven Leeper from the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation.  At that time Steven emphatically pointed out that even though the cold war is over, the potential risk of nuclear weapons being used is increasing.  In the next five years the number of countries with such weapons will grow dramatically.



Warm regards,

Philip Hellmich
Director of Peace
The Shift Network

"Cyrus Eaton was a person too overwhelming to contemplate.  His decisions were of import to the world.  Yet he met the people of Pugwash as complete equals.
  One remembers the year 1957 when the big International Conference shook the people of Pugwash to action.

  Leona MacLeod completed a painting of lobsters traps on Pugwash wharf and a 98 year old Charlie Teed presented this wonderful painting to Cyrus Eaton.  The event was at Ivan Purdy's cottage West Pugwash where the populace gathered for a cook-out.  Cyrus Eaton introduced Anne Jone; in six months they married.
  Cyrus Eaton monumental figure in the financial and diplomatic world has many books and reams of print written about him, and rightly so; Charlie Teed, the imposing figure making the presentation that day could have recited enough tales that day to fill a huge book of Lore; but no one thought to listen and record.  Now it is too late.
  The Start Weekly, Toronto, did an article on "The Thinkers Conference" in 1960 and fortunately featured a good picture of Charlie Teed and his Walrus mustache.
  The Star quoted Charlie as saying, "I was a grown man when Eaton came through 70 years ago.  I called him Cy then and I see no reason to change now.  He doesn't want war and he is doing his best to avoid it.  He's a real gentleman." [from Lore of North Cumberland by Harry Brown and Others -- published by The North Cumberland Historical Society; Publication No. 9 -- 1982]