ATOMIC BOMB

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 August 1946, Page 3

ATOMIC BOMB

RESPONSIBILITY FOR FIRST USE

A SCIENTIST’S ADVICE

LONDON, .August 3.

Dr. H. N. MacCracken, former principal of Vassar College in the United States, in a speech at a meeting of scientists at Wadham College, Oxford, said Professor Arthur Compton had accepted a position in which he intends to devote the rest of his life trying to repair some of the damage done by dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima as it was on Professor Compton’s advice that Mr. Truman decided the bomb should be dropped. Dr. MacCracken said many scientists had been doubtful whether the! bomb should be dropped and had sent, a round robin to Mr. Truman, who was then at Potsdam. Mr. Truman replied to Professor Compton putting the responsibility oh him whether to drop the bomb or not. ‘Tt was a terrible responsibility, for one man, but Professor Compton, having thought about it, recommended to Mr. Truman that the bomb should be dropped,” said Dr. MacCracken. “Professor Compton later resigned from his chair of physics and accepted a position as a university president “to devote his life to the moral aspects of science.’ ” Mr. Truman’s Atomic Commission, headed by Senator Carl Hatch, reporting on the Bikini tests, said a combination of under-water and overhead atomic explosions might effectively dispose of a fleet for many months. The tests strongly indicated that atomic bombs could destroy nations and change standards of civilisation. Study must be given to the I protection against radiological effects on civilians .as. well as combatants.