How poignant that the photographer who shot some of the first pictures of Nagasaki, Japan, after the atomic bombing there on Aug. 9, 1945, died Aug. 9. According to your “Joe O’Donnell: 1922 – 2007; Presidential photographer; He showed the world some of the first disturbing images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, caught images of global leaders and captured the moment when a young son famously said goodbye” (Obituary, Aug. 15), Joe O’Donnell, himself a victim from lingering radiation exposure, could not bear to look at the pictures he took there and at Hiroshima, site of the first atomic bombing, for 50 years afterward. When he finally could, he became a nuclear arms protester, published a book and both lectured and displayed the photos in Japan and the U.S.
My 12th birthday arrived between the Aug. 6 Hiroshima and Aug. 9 Nagasaki blasts in 1945. I felt then and still do that the second bombing was unnecessary — that more time was needed for the horror and shock of the first bombing to sink in and be transformed into a rational decision to end the war.
But that’s hindsight.
The important thing now is that we stop the madness, that we do not (as has been proposed) upgrade our nuclear weapons capability and that we set a new example.
We need to show the world that we are so committed to never again using nuclear force, that we will drop all reliance on such weapons and destroy our nuclear stockpile.
Then if terrorists or rogue states acquire such weapons, they will have nothing to gain by using them — only shame and total loss of respect in the world, even among fellow radicals bent on killing those they now disrespect.
