Nuclear Issues

I’m reading a book at the moment, Life Under a Cloud: American Anxiety about the atom, by Allan M. Winkler. He tells the story of how the first atomic bomb was created by a group of international scientists, backed by an enormous amount of money from the U.S. government.

After the two bombs were released on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, those same scientists had a change of heart. They called for an international organization to control the use of the atom. Well, they were disappointed. Those efforts were stopped because of missed opportunities for communication with “the enemy” and political pressures that prevented the establishment of a working plan.

Winkler goes on to discuss the change in American attitudes after the war, some regret but still a strong belief that using these weapons was justified and helped to bring an end to the war and the loss of more American lives.

In the 1950s, Americans were worried about being attacked. The government published instructions on what the public should do if there was a nuclear attack. A film, Duck and Cover, and its “catchy” song, was from 1951. This link provides the video and a transcript.

Later, with nuclear testing, the American public became concerned about the fallout from nuclear tests. Strontium 90, a radioactive isotope, was found in children’s teeth as a result of their drinking contaminated milk. Some babies were born with defects. The government started a propaganda program to tell the public there was no problem. Nuclear power could be the energy source of the future! People would work fewer hours a day, and they would power their cars with a tiny piece of nuclear fuel. The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) did not release the results of studies on fallout.

To read the rest of this article, listen to the songs and access a list of vocabulary, see my Substack at https://louisehaynes.substack.com/p/songs-about-nuclear-weapons