Web Letter
As a child of the ‘60s, I remember all too well the drills we practiced in elementary school to hide under our desks in the event of a nuclear attack. I remember the Cuban missile crisis and how afraid my parents and the other adults in my life were. As a young teenager I read Hiroshima and was shocked by it. My father was a captain in the Army and on his way to Japan to be part of the invasion force when the first bomb fell. When I asked him about the atomic bomb his answer echoed the prevailing notion of the day--that the bomb saved his life and the lives of millions of others.
I cannot begin to imagine what it must have been like to be of my father’s generation and watch as your family members and friends went to war and never came home. I do not judge them for the decisions they made. But I agree that the secrecy surrounding the construction of the first atomic weapons indeed threatened the survival of our species and continues to do so today.
It is indeed important that we understand the history of nuclear weaponry in order to be able to intelligently participate in discussions about its future. And as much as I would like to believe otherwise, I am afraid that your efforts may fall on the deaf ears of a populace weaned on government secrecy and reality television. I applaud your effort and look forward to what light you may be able to shed on this in the future.
Robin Johnsen
Largo, FL
Aug 13 2009 - 1:25pm
