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The John Batchelor Show

#H-BOMB: Remembering the Soviet thermonuclear test of August 1953. Henry Sokolski, NPEC.

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

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4.52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 13 August 2024

⏱️ 9 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

#H-BOMB: Remembering the Soviet thermonuclear test of August 1953. Henry Sokolski, NPEC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_atomic_bomb_project

1958

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is a series of cebes I on the world. I'm John Bachelor. I welcome Henry

0:08.7

Sikalski, the Executive Director at the Nonprolliferation and Policy Education Center.

0:14.5

August 1945, Hiroshima, then Nagasaki.

0:18.4

The Nagasaki bomb was a secondary city.

0:21.9

Kakura was the original target.

0:24.0

Charles Sweeney flew the B29 box car.

0:28.0

He had been an observer and great artist for the strike on Hiroshima. He knew what a bomb could do. The decision to drop the

0:36.1

second bomb went forward nonetheless. Nagasaki was a medical and naval and army center sort of but it had a lot of schools and it had the

0:48.3

largest Christian population in Japan.

0:53.0

Sweden knew all this.

0:55.0

They didn't necessarily know it back in Washington.

0:57.8

I mentioned all this because at the time, with very little knowledge of radiation, very little knowledge of what this bomb could do,

1:06.0

there was hesitation not only with Sweeney, the pilot, but with the crews of the B29's extending back to Washington.

1:15.8

Henry I tell that story early because you've got a new poll that evidences the public

1:20.6

has learned.

1:21.4

What does it say?

1:22.4

Well it's not my poll it's the

1:24.9

bullet in comic scientists published a poll that some scholars paid for and the

1:31.9

poll says that if you ask Americans in 45 whether we should

1:40.8

bomb whether the bombings were justified.

1:45.0

85% said yes.

1:47.0

Today, the number is much lower.

...

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