As cinema goes, the made-for-TV movie about a cataclysmic nuclear war “The Day After” was mediocre. But some scenes stuck in my memory. Preparing for her granddaughter’s wedding, a woman is making beds for expected houseguests. As missiles streak through the cloudless sky, she refuses to stop spreading the sheets. “Don’t tell me about what’s on the news. We have a wedding in the morning.” It struck me as a clear depiction of how we are all living in the nuclear age.
Years before that movie was broadcast I had had my eyes opened to the reality of nuclear war by another film, Alain Resnais’ “Hiroshima, Mon Amour.” It incorporates newsreel footage (I don’t know if it’s authentic) of the days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima where many of the houses were made of clay bricks. The intense energy of the explosion caused seeds inside the clay to germinate, so a few days later the rubble was covered with a profusion of flowers. Meanwhile, dogs that survived the bombing roamed the city in large, vicious packs.
Seeing the movie started my lifelong obsession with nuclear annihilation and the need to prevent it. I spent hours with a microfilm machine reading newspapers, beginning with the New York Times of Aug. 7, 1945. Already there was evidence of anti-nuclear activism.
Every August in western Massachusetts there are commemorations of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. One year we gathered on the Hadley side of the Connecticut River. Ira Helfand, one of the founders of Physicians for Social Responsibility, read from the Biblical book of Genesis. I do not believe that Dr. Helfand has supernatural powers, but as soon as he spoke of “the birds of the air,” a flock of black birds took wing. Another year as I walked downtown to a gathering at the Unitarian church I imagined all the buildings on Main Street melting into nothingness.
Having read John Hersey’s “Hiroshima” and Keiji Nakazawa’s graphic novel “Barefoot Gen,” I recognize the importance of remembering the many people who were killed and the suffering of the survivors. We need to listen to the “hibakusha,” as the survivors are called. But a different emphasis is vital. Each year’s anniversary of the bombings is an opportunity to educate ourselves, not just about the history of what happened in 1945 but on prevention of the final catastrophe.
A huge expanse of ruins left the explosion of the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945 in Hiroshima.
Today, nine countries have nuclear arsenals and a 10th is on the verge of producing its first bomb. There are about 12,000 nuclear warheads in the world. Forty years ago there was significant progress toward dismantling nuclear weapons in the United States and what was then the Soviet Union. Now progress has stopped and there is evidence that China is rapidly expanding its arsenal. Even a “limited” exchange between India and Pakistan, two countries which are now observing a cease-fire since exchanging conventional weapon fire earlier this year, is likely to cause abrupt and prolonged global cooling with a human death toll in the billions as agriculture collapses.
Our memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, each city destroyed by a single bomb that is small by present-day standards, are misleading. Detonation of large numbers of bombs, each between six and fifty times as powerful as the weapons exploded over Japan, will not produce horror comparable to what the hibakusha remember. It will produce the end of civilization and possibly the end of human life on Earth.
There is value in ringing a peace bell, folding paper cranes, and floating lanterns on Nashawannuck Pond. But there is even more value in organizing to prevent global annihilation.
Please join us at the Easthampton Public Library at 4:45 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 6, for a walk to Nashawannuck Pond or come to the pond between 5:15 and 8 p.m. for readings, music and a chance to see lanterns led by a boat on the pond. Among the sponsors of the gathering are Physicians for Social Responsibility/Pioneer Valley, Back from the Brink/Western Mass., the Greater Springfield Campaign for Nonviolence, Mass. Peace Action, Traprock Center for Peace and Justice, the Peace Pagoda, Pax Christi, Luthiers, Prosperity Candle, and — importantly — Mount Tom Ice Cream.
Henry W. Rosenberg lives in Northampton.