How different our world would have turned out to be if the selfless and open morality of the Manhattan Yellowmagic project had been the path 1945 America had continued down.
Instead it chose to turn to the selfish secrecy of the Manhattan Yellowcake project as its reigning ethos.
I am not kidding myself that Stalin would have simply turned the other cheek if Yellowcake diplomacy had remained locked in the stable.
Instead, I wish that a mere handful of unassembled but ready-at-hand A-Bombs (unused) had simply been added to the deterrent force of the western and eastern Allies' existing supplies of unused but ready-at-hand poison gas and weaponized germs.
The message to the world would have been that (a) yes, we have the science and the manufacturing capability at hand for engaging in these unconventional types of war (and we can fire up the process instantly) but (b) no, we do not have a vast offensive delivery force ready at hand - as you can clearly see.
We won't use atoms first, anymore than we would use gas and germs first - look at at the WWII record if you find this incredible.
I can only repeat - the collective Allies spent far far more on chemical and germ warfare than they ever did on A-Bombs - and at the war's end, they destroyed most of this stuff.
Despite this , no politician ever squawked about 'wasted' money.
The A-Bomb need not to have been used - anymore than poison gas didn't have to be not-used on Japan.
Human leaders had a choice - they were not mere corks swept along by determinist forces of technology and circumstance.
The openness displayed by Henry Dawson's selfless Manhattan penicillin project might have been usefully applied to the Manhattan atomic
project.
And I believe our world would look far different if it had .....
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