Thursday, October 31, 2013

better for America winning friends : A-Bomb or Penicillin-for-all ?


How was the post-war Pax Americana to be best created ?

Was it best to intimidate other nations into being friendly to America by reminding them who held the A-Bomb, and held it alone ?

Or was it best to freely give away 'Penicillin-for-all' , to hope to win other nations' respect by this example of America's open-hearted generosity ?

In other words, was it best for America to project itself as the Gordon Gekko side of Manhattan and reward the efforts of those 'Masters of the Universe', Robert Oppenheimer and Leslie Groves ?

Or was it best to project itself as the Emma Lazarus side of Manhattan and exalt the efforts of the smallest Manhattan Project , that of Henry Dawson, Karl Meyer, Eleanor Chaffee and Gladys Hobby ?

America, itself Janus-faced, never could make up its mind and ended up doing a little of both in the years since 1945 .

But now - post 9/11 and Ramzi Yousef- it isn't too late in the run-up to the 2016 presidential elections for both New York-based Hilary and Kristen to look at this old question again ....

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