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Historians Propose National Park To Preserve Manhattan Project Sites
Hugh Pickens writes writes "William J. Broad writes that a plan now before Congress would create a national park to protect the aging remnants of the atomic bomb project from World War II, including hundreds of buildings and artifacts scattered across New Mexico, Washington and Tennessee — among them the rustic Los Alamos home of Dr. Oppenheimer and his wife, Kitty, and a large Quonset hut, also in New Mexico, where scientists assembled components for the plutonium bomb dropped on Japan. 'It's a way to help educate the next generation,' says Cynthia C. Kelly, president of the Atomic Heritage Foundation, a private group in Washington that helped develop the preservation plan. 'This is a major chapter of American and world history. We should preserve what's left.' Critics have faulted the plan as celebrating a weapon of mass destruction, and have argued that the government should avoid that kind of advocacy. 'At a time when we should be organizing the world toward abolishing nuclear weapons before they abolish us, we are instead indulging in admiration at our cleverness as a species,' says Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich. Historians and federal agencies reply that preservation does not imply moral endorsement, and that the remains of so monumental a project should be saved as a way to encourage comprehension and public discussion. A park would be a commemoration, not a celebration, says Heather McClenahan, director of the Los Alamos Historical Society pointing out there are national parks commemorating slavery, Civil War battles and American Indian massacres. 'It's a chance to say, "Why did we do this? What were the good things that happened? What were the bad? How do we learn lessons from the past? How do we not ever have to use an atomic bomb in warfare again?" '"
arc de triomphe, Trafalgar square, brandenburg gate, etc?
Whatever you may think of the two bombings in particular lots of countries have killed a lot more people in their wars, and built varying types of monuments. Should the war museums in britain not have lancaster bombers given how they were used to obliterate cities? How about any monument to the royal navy which was basically built to starve continental adversaries into submission?
For all it's faults the manhattan project was also one of the largest research projects in history, if not the largest, and I think it's important to remember just went into making it, how much money and resources can be spent testing ideas in a desperate hope to find one that works, and a tribute to the people who did the work to make it happen at all. It's important to recognize the consequences of that work too, but it really was tremendous work and genius to realize the potential of uranium and plutonium, good and bad.
For those who've never visited, a tour of the museums at Los Alamos (the town) is incredibly humbling and thought-provoking. Except perhaps for psychopaths, there is nothing celebratory about it. On the contrary, the atmosphere is deeply troubling and anxiety producing. However, I for one would appreciate the opportunity to visit the lab grounds as a national park, to better understand how the Manhattan Project transpired. I believe this is important for humankind to grasp the darker sides of its nature.
It shortened the war by years, sparing millions of lives at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives.
Also, there is a difference between honoring something like this and remembering something like this.
Go to Dachau, take the tour - the difference between honoring and remembering becomes obvious.
The sooner the Americans come, the better...One hundred million die proudly.
-- Japanese slogan in the summer of 1945.
Japan was finished as a warmaking nation, in spite of its four million men still under arms. But...Japan was not going to quit. Despite the fact that she was militarily finished, Japan's leaders were going to fight right on. To not lose "face" was more important than hundreds and hundreds of thousands of lives. And the people concurred, in silence, without protest. To continue was no longer a question of Japanese military thinking, it was an aspect of Japanese culture and psychology.
-- James Jones, WWII
We will prepare 10,000 planes to meet the landing of the enemy. We will mobilize every aircraft possible, both training and "special attack" (kamikaze) planes. We will smash one third of the enemy's war potential with this air force at sea. Another third will also be smashed at sea by our warships, human torpedoes and other special weapons. Furthermore, when the enemy actually lands, if we are ready to sacrifice a million men we will be able to inflict an equal number of casualties upon them. If the enemy loses a million men, then the public opinion in America will become inclined towards peace, and Japan will be able to gain peace with comparatively advantageous conditions.
-- Imperial General HQ army staff officer in July 1945, from Weintraub's "The Last Great Victory"
"We hated the Japs but nobody had the slightest desire to go there and fight them because the one thing we knew was that we'd all be killed. I mean we really knew it. I never used to think that, I used to say the Japs would never get me. But there was no question about the mainland. How the hell are you going to storm a country where women and children, everybody would be fighting you? Of course we'd have won eventually but I don't think anybody who hasn't actually seen the Japanese fight can have any idea of what it would have cost."
-- Austin Aria, veteran of the Okinawa campaign
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!