The Cloud over Bikini
It will be lamentable if one of the results of Bikini is to leave anyone in doubt as to the destructive efficiency of the atom bomb. And yet this is probable unless there is an early corrective to the first reactions of observerk who have tended to write down the extent of the damage. Indeed, there have already been attempts to discountenance the experiment. It has been suggested that the bomb was less effective than those now in production ; that the fleet was dispersed over too wide an area ; that the bomb was designed for land targets and not shipping. But none of these points is relevant. If the destruction was less than some expected, it was, in all conscience, surely wide enough. After a -superficial examination, which was all that was originally practicable on account of the presence of radio-activity: it was established that five ships were sunk, six wrecked and half the entire fleet of 73 ships damaged. What crews would have remained alive on the undestroyed ships can only be surmised. But to measure the significance of atomic energy in warfare by such a yard-stick is wilful blindness. It is not really very important whether a bomb has been invented sufficiently powerful to destroy all England now that, beyond dispute, bombs capable of rendering ordered life•impossible in a very short space of time have been invented. It would be lunacy, while discussing the degree of danger, to lose sight of the mortal danger itself. This has now been established beyond argument. The results of Bikini can safely be left to the experts' who may, or may not consider this over-publicised experiment was justified.- The rest of the world would be better employed in putting their house in order so that the findings of the scientists will have, for them, a purely academic interest.
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