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Atomvapen
Some programs have been theatrical masterpieces, but all we're seeing is the negative side of nuclear war.
Senator Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.), discussing television shows about the nuclear war 
It would be our intention to clear North Korea of enemy forces. This could be accomplished through the atomic bombing of enemy military concentrations and installations in North Korea and the sowing of fields of suitable radioactive materials.
US General Douglas MacArthur, 1952
This kind of weapon can't help but have an effect on the population as a vhole.
President Ronald Reagan on nuclear weapons
The reason that it was dropped was just that nobody had the courage or the foresight to say no.
Freeman Dyson, physicist, on the atom bombs of 1945
If a third or more of our population were killed in an attack (a conservative estimate by the standards of the Rand Corporation's "Study of Nonmilitary Defense") a stronger estate tax would have a tremendous revenue potential.
From a 1963 Federal Reserve System planning document
In the first weeks after Hiroshima, extravagant statements by President Truman and other official spokesmen for the US government transformed the inception of the atomic age into the most mythologized event in American history. These exhilarating, excessive utterances depicted a profoundly altered universe and produced a reorientation of thought that influenced the behavior of nations and changed the outlook and the expectations of the inhabitants of this planet.
Stewart Udall, former US Secretary of the Interior, in his book "The Myths of August"
With proper tactics, nuclear war need not be as destructive as it appears.
Henry Kissinger, U.S. Secretary of State (1973-1976)
[After a nuclear attack] ... so far as the balance of payments is concerned, our results show exports consistently exceeding imports by amounts varying from about 150 to 200 percent.
Two economists speaking at a Fort Monroe, Virginia, seminar sponsored Civil Defense in 1967
Du inser naturligtvis att huvudskälet för projektet är att få ryssama på knä.
General Leslie Grove, i mars 1944, till professor Joseph Rothblat
- Do you think there could be a battlefield exchange without having buttons pressed all the way up the line?
- Well, I would — if they realized that we — if we went back to that stalemate, only because our retaliatory power, our seconds, or our strike at them after their first strike would be so destructive that they couldn't afford it, that would hold the them off.
Ronald Reagan
At this point, I would like to emphasize that our emergency planning [for a nuclear attack by the Soviets] is predicated on the idea that it is possible for nation to survive, recover, and win and that our way of life, including free enterprise, the oil industry, and Socony Mobil Oil Company, can survive, recover, and win with it.
Maxwell S. McKnight, security adviser to Mobil, speaking in 1963
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
Albert Einstein
Atomic energy might be as good as our present-day explosives but it is unlikely to produce anything very much more dangerous.
Winston Churchill, in 1939
- Jag skulle hellre använda atombomben.
- Det, tycker jag, skulle bara vara för mycket.
- Atombomben... Stör det dig? Jag vill bara att du ska tänka stort.
President Richard Nixon diskuterar att sätta in kärnvapen i Vietnamkriget med sin utrikesminister Henry Kissinger, den 25 april 1972
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
Albert Einstein
It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender ... My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children...
Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff for President Harry Truman
In fact, living standards within the first year following either attack [UNCLX or CIVLOG) could compare favorably with those enjoyed in this country in the late 1950s. The net effect of the attack indicates a reduction in per capita value-added of approximately $660.
Two economists speaking at a Fort Monroe, Virginia, seminar sponsored by Civil Defense in 1967. A UNCLX (300 megaton) attack would kill half the population of the United States.
I call it the Madman Theory, Bob. I want the North Vietnamese to believe I've reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We'll just slip the word to them that, for God's sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about Communism. We can't restrain him when he's angry - and he has his hand on the nuclear button - and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace.
Richard Nixon, to Chief Aide Robert Haldeman
Just one of our relatively invulnerable Poseidon submarines-less than 2% of our total nuclear force of submarines, aircraft, and land-based missiles-carries enough warheads to destroy every large and medium-sized city in the Soviet Union.
Jimmy Carter, U.S. President, 1977
You have a survivability of command in control,
survivability of
industrial potential, protection of a percentage of
your citizens, and
you have a capability that inflicts more damage on
the opposition than it
can inflict on you. That's the way you can have a
winner.
George Bush Sr, explaining how to win a nuclear
war to Los Angeles Times
reporter Robert Scheer, 1980
Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to I November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.
The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, which interviewed 700 Japanese military and political officials after the war
You have survivability of industrial potential, protection of a percentage of your citizens, and you have a capability that inflicts more damage on the opposition than it can inflict on you. That's the way you can have a winner.
U.S. Vice President George Bush, 1980, on how to win a nuclear war
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and population.
U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey
Create a belt of scorched earth across the avenues of communism to block the Asiatic hordes.
U.S. General Charles Willoughby, on the proposed use of atomic bombs in Vietnam, 1954
Truman is a monster. l can think of him as nothing else but the Butcher of Asia. Of his grin of triumph on giving the order to drop the Atom bombs on Japan. Of his maintaining troops in China who are shooting the starving Chinese for stealing a handful of food.
Zora Neale Hurston, black writer, 1946
There will be no nuclear war. There's too much real estate involved.
Frank Zappa
I can't see how not wanting to blow up the world is un-American
William Winpisinger, President of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers
During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, attempting to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'...
General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander Europe during World War II and later US president, describing his reaction upon having been told that atomic bombs would be used on Japanese cities
American strategic [nuclear] forces do not exist solely for the purpose of deterring a Soviet nuclear threat or attack against the U.S. itself. Instead, they are intended to support U.S. foreign policy.
Colin Gray, U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
There are contingency plans in the NATO doctrine to fire a nuclear weapon for demonstrative purposes, to demonstrate to the other side that they are exceeding the limits of toleration in the conventional area.
US Secretary of State, Alexander Haig, 1983
Military strategists can claim that an intelligent U.S. offensive strategy, wedded to homeland defenses, should reduce U.S. casualties to approximately 20 million ... a level compatible with national survival and recovery.
Colin Gray, U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, on estimated casualties incurred from a nuclear first-strike against the U.S.S.R.
If Washington officials were so intent on sending a message to Hanoi, surely small tactical weapons would be a way to tell Hanoi something, as two atomic bombs had spoken convincingly to Japanese officials during World War II and the threat of atomic bombs induced the North Koreans to accept meaningful negotiations during the Korean War.
U.S. General William Westmoreland, commander of U.S. Forces in Vietnam, on U.S. Strategy there
I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced [to Secretary of War Stimson] my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'....
General Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe during World War II and later US president, on the atom bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki
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