I was five when they attacked. I don't remember much other than it took everyone away from what they were doing and glued them to the radio.
Those were the days weren't they? Everything was simple. They were the bad guys and we were the good guys. I was a bit older when we did Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I had changed already. There was something wrong with that. Years later when doing my doctorate at the University of Chicago walking by the Fence around the stands at Stag Field and seeing the plaque commemorating the Manhattan project was a constant reminder. It was the site of CP-1 the first sustained nuclear reactor.
Unlike most reactors that have been built since, CP-1 had no radiation shielding and no cooling system of any kind. Fermi had convinced Arthur Compton that his calculations were reliable enough to rule out a runaway chain reaction or an explosion. But, as the official historians of the Atomic Energy Commission later noted, the "gamble" remained in conducting "a possibly catastrophic experiment in one of the most densely populated areas of the nation!
I was six then but still remember eventually learning about the fear that they might not be able to shut it down. Today I can understand the stupidity of the great scientists willing to risk the public welfare for war. They were bought and paid for.
(On the lighter side, my friend from our graduate neurophysiology lab, Howie Nash [later to be a member of the National Academy of Science], and I had a routine we would do when we were walking past the plaque and a tour bus stopped. We would grab each other and kiss. You have to know the reputation of the University of Chicago to appreciate that little bit of theater. One other member of our lab group was Dan Agin who was a post doc. You may know of him from his books or blogs on Huffington).
Now it is all something I see from a different perspective. History tells a lot if you look at it holistically rather than as a string of piecemeal events. But there is no doubt that that day in 1941 was a life shaping event. I am who I am today in significant part due to that event.
Read on below and I'll try to put it into perspective.
I don't remember specifics from that day. My parents worshiped FDR and listened intently. What I do remember is a whole bunch of things that came as a result.
Saving tin foil in a big ball. Rationing and the stamps. The comic books glorifying war and demonizing the Japanese and Germans.
My mom was a movie buff and she took me to the movies a lot. There were always the newsreels. One of the most vivid memories I have is the first newsreel of a liberated concentration camp at the end of the war. The emaciated humans barely alive. Then the stories about the extermination camps. One again things were simple. We were the good guys and the Nazis were evil. It was years later that I learned about our turning back shiploads of refugees to let them be gassed.
It was not until years later that I learned that we had our own Nazis right here at home. This was especially disturbing since I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in Chicago until I was into first grade. I was the only goy among all the kids who played together.
Later on, when I did my post doctoral training in Israel (1963-1965) I learned a lot more about the holocaust. I was already prepared for the trauma by that first newsreel.
Ah yes besides the bomb there was the Internment of Japanese Americans. To this day few people, especially those who admire Hubert Humphrey, realize that the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950 or the McCarran Act that he cosponsored provided for the internment of "subversives" in some of these same camps.
Finally, I can thank the bomb and the cold war for my public supported education. If it were not for Sputnik and Cold War paranoia I would not have had the opportunities I have had. Along with that comes the knowledge that all wars are for profit and that the oligarchs and plutocrats of Capitalism are well know for profiting from their support of both sides in any war.
So as I listened to the sound track of Victory at Sea on NPR this afternoon, I had to once again admire Rogers' genius. He has made that music a part of me and I love it. So much for my anti-war position.