ATOMIC FUTURE wish the weight of the evidence were on
the side of Dr. Snow's 'guess ' with which he ended his admirable article last week-- namely, that our horror and fear of atomic weapons will prove our most powerful pro- tection from them. But it seems to me that our attitude to the use of atomic weapons is becoming almost cosy. Horror wilts easily, especially in people who have never experienced real horror except in imagination.
All sorts of ' experts' are now talking of atomic fighters, atomic artillery and atomic rockets. Troops ,are being trained to handle these weapons, and horror and fear of them is not what they are trained to feel in the handling. Atomic strategy and tactics are dis- cussed almost daily in the Press, but the mood is not conditional; all articles are in the future tense: " When an atomic bombing fleet approaches our shores, it will be necessary to . . " etc. Far from breeding horror, familiarity with the atomic facts of life (or perhaps, more aptly, the facts of death) is deadening the imagination. The emphasis is less and less on how to banish atomic weapons, and more and more on how to deal with them when' they come. Some people are even daring to suggest that " it won't be as bad as we thought "—with triumph it was announced recently how little a party of American workers suffered from an accidental exposure to heavy radiation after an atomic test.
85 Abingdon Villas, W.8 DAVID JOHNS
Previous page
