When the atomic bomb went off over Hiroshima on Aug. 6th,

1945, 70,000 lives were ended in a flash. To the American people who

were weary from the long and brutal war, such a drastic measure seemed

a necessary, even righteous way to end the madness that was World War

II. However, the madness had just begun. That August morning was the

day that heralded the dawn of the nuclear age, and with it came more

than just the loss of lives. According to Archibald MacLeish, a U.S.

poet, "What happened at Hiroshima was not only that a scientific

breakthrough . . . had occurred and that a great part of the

population of a city had been burned to death, but that the problem of

the relation of the triumphs of modern science to the human purposes

of man had been explicitly defined." The entire globe was now to live

with the fear of total annihilation, the fear that drove the cold war,

the fear that has forever changed world politics. The fear is real,

more real today than ever, for the ease at which a nuclear bomb is

achieved in this day and age sparks fear in the hearts of most people

on this planet. According to General Douglas MacArthur, "We have had

killed or permanently damaged fetuses in the womb. Death and

bomb, we sent out the official "go ahead" for the rest of the world

which we had vainly hoped to avoid. We could no longer "do nothing"

Has the atomic bomb introduced "the fear of total annihilation

originally supposed to be a preventative measure, assumes hysterical

originally developed to contain a Nazi atomic project was available

handful of people in charge of them. In the words of James Conant,

nuclear power are capable of great good. Great evil is more likely to

third world war and ultimately caused the collapse of the greatest

only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do

revealed a man who understood the moral issues at stake and who had

system, Armageddon will be at our door." The decision to drop the

experience has shown that nuclear power in Western hands deterred a

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Approximate Word count = 1514
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)