How to Stop the Madness of Nuclear Threat

Millions of U.S. schoolchildren saw this civil defense film as the cornerstone of the government's public awareness campaign. The duck-and-cover advice was based on findings by a team of American doctors sent to study the effects of radiation on survivors. The doctors found that those who had sheltered behind a tree or in water, for example, appeared to be in better health than others, according to Diefenbunker, Canada's Cold War Museum.

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In the first grade, my classmates and I practiced nuclear attack drills.

At Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Astoria, Queens, New York City, we ducked and covered under our desks as instructed by Sister Frances. I do not remember watching a government film.

Secure under our desks, we recited together the Rosary, a repetition of prayers, including the Hail Mary and the Our Father.

Sometimes, we had nuclear drills, where we went down to the basement, and we recited the Rosary.

Eighty years ago, humans unleashed the ultimate weapon, achieving the unthinkable.

The United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, followed by another on Nagasaki three days later. Together, the nuclear explosions killed between 100,000 and 200,000 Japanese civilians, according to World Politics Review (August 8).

In September 1945, Life magazine photographer Bernard Hoffman wrote caption notes to the picture editor, Wilson Hicks, in New York:

"We saw Hiroshima today -- or what little is left of it. We were so shocked by what we saw that most of us felt like weeping; . . . because we were so shocked and revolted by this new and terrible form of destruction. Compared to Hiroshima, Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, are practically untouched. What was formerly Japan's most modern westernized city, is now nothing more than a two-foot layer of twisted tin and rubble.

"As you stand in the middle of this four and one-tenth square miles of flattened ruin, gaunt, blackened, twisted trees give the picture of Hiroshima its only source of elevation. Only ten, steel-framed buildings still stand -- but there is nothing left of them too. They're just blackened hollow shells; and like everything else in Hiroshima, they're twisted.

"The sickly sweet smell of death is everywhere, a putrid reminder of the 30,000 people who are still missing. On Aug. 20th, two weeks after the explosion, Hiroshima had 30,000 counted dead. 13, 390 had been seriously wounded. 43,500 had received wounds not thought serious, until they began to die from slight burns and wounds not ordinarily fatal. According to Hirakuni Dazai, Prefecture of Thought Police, the death toll is expected to exceed 80,000."

As an American, I am ashamed of my country's actions, and I apologize for them. I offer my condolences for the thousands who lost their lives. I offer my condolences to the 2024 Nobel Prize Peace winner, Nihon Hidankyo, the movement of atomic bomb survivors which strives to demonstrate, through witness testimony, that nuclear weapons must never be unleashed again. And I offer my condolences to all of us in the world now living with this sleeping monster.

Four years after the United States' two detonations, on August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union detonated its first nuclear weapon in Kazakhstan, where the government had built houses, bridges and tunnels to test the explosion's effect, according to First Soviet Test, American Experience, PBS (Public Broadcasting Service).

The Soviet Union had entered the nuclear arms race, which defined the Cold War.

"For the first time, the United States viewed its atomic bomb not as something to be used on someone else, but something that could be used against it," according to Diefenbunker, now Canada's Cold War Museum. In 1962, the museum was the 75-foot underground bunker in Carp, Ottawa, intended to house 535 government and military officials for a 30-day lockdown in the event of a nuclear attack on Canada.

Did doing nuclear attack drills, as a child, scare me?

No. I was as frightened of nuclear attacks as I was of fire, both of which seemed unlikely to me. I did not have enough knowledge or experience to be fearful.

On May 27, 2016, President Barack Obama became the first U.S. president to visit Hiroshima. According to the White House, Office of the Press Secretary, the president said, in part:

"Among the nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear, and pursue a world without them.

"And perhaps above all, we must reimagine our connection to one another as members of one human race. We're not bound by genetic code to repeat the mistakes of the past. We can learn. We can choose. We can tell our children a different story -- one that describes a common humanity; one that makes war less likely and cruelty less easily accepted.

"That is why we come to Hiroshima. So that we might think of people we love -- the first smile of our children in the morning; the gentle touch of a spouse over the kitchen table; the comforting embrace of a parent -- we can think of those things and know that those same precious moments took place here seventy-one years ago. Those who died -- they are like us. Ordinary people understand this, I think. They do not want more war. They would rather that the wonders of science be focused on improving life, and not eliminating it.

"When the choices made by nations, when the choices made by leaders reflect this simple wisdom, then the lesson of Hiroshima is done."

How many Hail Marys do we need to recite to stop the madness?

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Protect and Survive (1980) by Peter Kennard, arguably Britain's foremost political artist over the past 50 years. Protect and Serve was a British public information campaign on civil defense between 1974 and 1980.

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