Around the Diocese posted Sunday, February 28, 2010
Our First Atom Bomb
March 2010
by Bishop Borsch
[Editor’s note: It has been a privilege these past three plus years to be the editor of this theological column. Now I am pleased to pass the editorship on to the Rev. Dr. Storm Swain. Originally from New Zealand, Storm is now the Director of Anglican Studies at the Lutheran Theological Seminary here in Philadelphia and Assistant Professor of Pastoral Care and Theology. She has a delightful mind and heart, and I know readers will appreciate the columns in the months and years to come. In this my last contribution, I thought I would tell you about something rather different—a historical novel that tries to help readers become involved in the ethical and moral issues of the first use of an atomic weapon. If you would like to read more, go to www.firstatombomb.com. Or you can order the book through Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Don’t be too shocked!]
This story of the dropping of the first atom bomb got going for me again when the fight broke out at the National Air and Space Museum. It happened when they were preparing to unveil the restored forward fuselage of the Enola Gay and an exhibit to go along with it. At first it was the curatorial staff and a few of the veterans with their supporters who were battling back and forth. The plan for the exhibit included something of the human side of the death and destruction at Hiroshima along with aspects of the politics and ethical concerns about this mission. Several of the pictures and descriptions from Japanese survivors were pretty hard to take. It wasn’t long before General Tibbets and other veterans, followed by the Air Force Association and its magazine and the American Legion and a good number of politicians complained about what they called historical revisionism and a lack of balance. After that just about everybody with an opinion joined in. The Senate even passed a Sense of the Senate motion. They did not want the exhibit to question what they saw as the authoritative understanding that the first atomic bomb had helped to end the war and save lives. That was the only story they believed should be told. The exhibit, they maintained, should rightly and proudly stick to those facts. When the director had to resign and efforts were made to limit the exhibit to that basic story, a number of historians weighed in on the opposite side. That was far from the whole story, they insisted. Nor was it even all the facts. Those who wanted to omit ethical concerns and other parts of the story were, as they put it, lacking a moral compass. There ought to be a way to help people see and hear the story in all its human and moral complexity. It was during that argument that I felt I had run into another All American kind of hero who was trying to get a handle on the significance of what happened in his life and the life of our country. I think I knew that the Enola Gay’s bombardier was gone by then, but he insisted he need to talk with me. It clearly was someone like him, though, I supposed, also different, raising other possibilities about that August day in 1945.
“I try to imagine being in his front seat position. Can you imagine putting anyone into that position? Making any human being responsible for that? Such power over death and life? No wonder he was mixed up. No wonder he wanted to think up a plan B, or, how did he put it?—to try to reshuffle the cards. I can understand why you and he would want to imagine things differently. Imagination is needed if we are going to see other possibilities in time of war.” — From an interview with Dr. Theodore McCluskey S.J.
“And maybe the Russian part of it isn’t so scary any more, thanks to Reagan, but we’re still relying on our nuclear arsenal as the final threat. You may not like it, but you can understand Israel wanting one too, and China and then India and Pakistan along with the Frogs and Brits and now North Korea and soon Iran and who knows who else? It may not be long before some Osama bin whoozits gets his terrorist hands on one.” — From an interview with Brigadier General Paul W. Tibbets (USAF Ret.)
