Matt+King+-+Entry+11+(Due+Nov.+11)

I found the articles about the letters between Teller and Szilard, the President's statement, and the Szilard Petition very interesting. Some very good points about the use of atomic weaponry and the effects of such actions on the war and the future of mankind were made. For example, in his letter to Teller, Szilard states, "Their defense that their protest would have been of no avail hardly seems acceptable even though these Germans could not have protested without running risks to life and liberty. We are in a position to raise our voices without incurring any such risks..." (Szilard, 1). He raises a good point on how lucky we are to be able to freely express our minds, and that power, to some degree, lies in the hands of the American citizen; during the second world war, people in Germany and much of Europe were not so lucky.

Teller expresses an even more interesting viewpoint. First, he says, "I have no hope of clearing my conscience. The things we are working on are so terrible that no amount of protesting or fiddling with politics will save our souls" (Teller 1). Obviously, both men show some form of guilt for having taken part in the creation of the the most dangerous weapon at the time. The difference between these two men is that Szilard wants to go back and right his wrongs, to try to somehow fix the damage that has already been done. Teller, on the other hand, feels that he is responsible for taking part, but he is taking responsibility; both men //knew// what they were doing, maybe Szilard was thinking that the project would take longer to complete than it would to end the war by other means. Perhaps he hadn't thought of the implications of devising such a weapon until after it was both finished and seriously considered being used on another country.

It is interesting to see where some of these pivotal figures in the creation and use of the atomic bomb draw the line. At what point does a weapon become //too powerful//? After all, isn't that the sole purpose of weaponry? If the atomic bomb is too powerful to use against enemies, what about the other weapons used during the war: machine guns, conventional bombs airplanes, mortars, etc.? Surely these weapons could produce the same casualties as one atomic bomb. It seems a little counter-intuitive to develop this revolutionary weapon and then try to stop its usage in a war. Some historians have even said that the number of lives saved by the atomic bomb would likely have been more than the lives it took; a full invasion of Japan would have been the next alternative. It would be interesting to hear how Szilard and the other co-signers of his petition would respond to that.