In the early evening of March 15, 1933, a group of London socialites gathered in a Westminster mansion to hear a special lecture on the latest developments in nuclear science. The talk was chaired by Winston Churchill. The speaker—Churchill’s friend Frederick Lindemann, a friend of Einstein’s and a professor of physics at Oxford University—discussed John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton’s recent artificial splitting of the atom and James Chadwick’s discovery of the neutron. Churchill had foreseen an important role of this subatomic particle fifteen months before in his essay “Fifty Years Hence,” read widely in Britain and North America. He had told his readers in this article that scientists were looking for “the match to set the [nuclear] bonfire alight.”
、、、
Now, under pressure of leading a country at war, he himself was about to see whether he would be up to that challenge. Given his familiarity with the concept of nuclear weapons, it was remarkable that he recognized the importance of working closely with the United States in building the first ones, only three years later, in April 1943. By then, it was obvious that the British could not possibly build the Bomb alone during the War, and the gargantuan Manhattan Project was surging ahead, with the British playing only a relatively minor role. Churchill had been able to make only very limited political use of the nuclear bomb established by his nuclear scientists. He did, however, strike a secret deal with President Roosevelt at Quebec in August 1943 that required both British and American leaders to approve the first use of the weapon. Churchill later agreed that the Bomb could be used on Japan, a decision he never regretted.
、、、
Churchill’s thinking about nuclear weapons changed rapidly after it became clear in the early 1950s that both superpowers would soon have the hydrogen bomb, making possible what would become known as “mutually assured destruction.” In February 1954, toward the end of his second term as British Prime Minister, Churchill read a report on a speech by Sterling Cole, Chair of the U.S. Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, which first brought home to him the extent of the H-bomb’s destructiveness. This realization drove him, in his final months on the international stage, to urge the Soviet and American leaders to meet with him with the aim of easing the tensions of the Cold War, to reduce considerably the risk of a conflagration. He became a pioneer of détente, though an unsuccessful one, and left office privately fearing that nuclear war was all but inevitable.
" In later years, several key figures, including General Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Douglas MacArthur, Admiral William Leahy, and Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, claimed to have opposed using the bomb, but there is no firm evidence of any substantial contemporary opposition."
白云网友引用了中文版世界通史里有关英国首相丘吉尔关于对日扔原子弹的立场。
这是从白云网友帖子里来的，
https://www.ias.edu/ideas/2013/farmelo-churchill
In the early evening of March 15, 1933, a group of London socialites gathered in a Westminster mansion to hear a special lecture on the latest developments in nuclear science. The talk was chaired by Winston Churchill. The speaker—Churchill’s friend Frederick Lindemann, a friend of Einstein’s and a professor of physics at Oxford University—discussed John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton’s recent artificial splitting of the atom and James Chadwick’s discovery of the neutron. Churchill had foreseen an important role of this subatomic particle fifteen months before in his essay “Fifty Years Hence,” read widely in Britain and North America. He had told his readers in this article that scientists were looking for “the match to set the [nuclear] bonfire alight.”
、、、
Now, under pressure of leading a country at war, he himself was about to see whether he would be up to that challenge. Given his familiarity with the concept of nuclear weapons, it was remarkable that he recognized the importance of working closely with the United States in building the first ones, only three years later, in April 1943. By then, it was obvious that the British could not possibly build the Bomb alone during the War, and the gargantuan Manhattan Project was surging ahead, with the British playing only a relatively minor role. Churchill had been able to make only very limited political use of the nuclear bomb established by his nuclear scientists. He did, however, strike a secret deal with President Roosevelt at Quebec in August 1943 that required both British and American leaders to approve the first use of the weapon. Churchill later agreed that the Bomb could be used on Japan, a decision he never regretted.
、、、
Churchill’s thinking about nuclear weapons changed rapidly after it became clear in the early 1950s that both superpowers would soon have the hydrogen bomb, making possible what would become known as “mutually assured destruction.” In February 1954, toward the end of his second term as British Prime Minister, Churchill read a report on a speech by Sterling Cole, Chair of the U.S. Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, which first brought home to him the extent of the H-bomb’s destructiveness. This realization drove him, in his final months on the international stage, to urge the Soviet and American leaders to meet with him with the aim of easing the tensions of the Cold War, to reduce considerably the risk of a conflagration. He became a pioneer of détente, though an unsuccessful one, and left office privately fearing that nuclear war was all but inevitable.
“ Churchill later agreed that the Bomb could be used on Japan, a decision he never regretted.”
机器翻译：“丘吉尔后来同意原子弹可以用于日本，他从不后悔这个决定。”
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Trumans-decision-to-use-the-bomb-712569
" In later years, several key figures, including General Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Douglas MacArthur, Admiral William Leahy, and Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, claimed to have opposed using the bomb, but there is no firm evidence of any substantial contemporary opposition."
最后递交给总统的建议甚至采用了“事先警告被炸城市居民”的措施。
Interim Committee 质询了不少政界军界的官员，唯一记录下来的反对意见是以芝加哥大学的科学家为主的曼哈顿计划里的部分文职人员 （< 26%)