Brighter Than A Thousand Suns

Robert Jungk
Brighter Than A Thousand Suns (1956)

Robert Jungk, autor de Mais Brilhante do que Mil Sóis, escritor e jornalista judeu nascido na Alemanha, tem, como tema dominante da sua obra literária, as questões levantadas pelo surgimento do armamento nuclear. Este livro em particular, balizado entre os anos de 1918 e 1955, acompanha as descobertas da Física que deram o suporte teórico ao desenvolvimento da bomba atómica (e à corrida ao armamento nuclear que se lhe seguiu), bem como as questões éticas e morais que se levantaram ante os cientistas, conscientes que o resultado do seu trabalho permitiria abrir portas ao aparecimento de armas de destruição massiva. Foi, igualmente, o primeiro livro publicado acerca do Projecto Manhattan. Resultado de entrevistas pessoais com os envolvidos na primeira linha da investigação – acompanhando essencialmente o seu ponto de vista e posicionamento – o livro acabou por se tornar objecto de controvérsia, ou porque alguns entrevistados contestaram a interpretação, ou até o sentido das suas declarações, ou porque o próprio Jungk considerou ter sido propositadamente induzido em erro com alguma da informação recebida. O certo é que num meio tão sensível e envolto em secretismo, a partir do momento em que foi capturado pela aplicação militar, é natural que as verdades de ontem se tornem nas mentiras de hoje. É, ainda assim, uma leitura quase viciante, sobre um tema um tanto árido, que marcou aquelas décadas do século XX.

These scientists were not only concerned about their personal freedom. They desired in particular to be free to enlighten their fellow men about the terrors of the new weapon. When they read in the newspapers, at that time, that members of Congress were in favour of the United States keeping the secret of the atom bomb to themselves, the physicists would have liked to retort that there was no atomic secret which could not be detected within a very short time by any nation scientifically of the first rank. They would have liked to press for the immediate convocation, on American initiative, of an international conference on the control of atomic development, as had been desired by Bohr, Szilard, and the author of the Franck Report.
A special subject brought up by the scientists at Los Alamos was the game of hide-and-seek played by the Army with the problem of radioactivity. Even before the atomic weapon had first been used some physicists had entreated General Groves to allow pamphlets to be dropped at the same time as the bomb, pointing out the unfamiliar dangers of radioactivity arising from the explosion of this new weapon. This request had been refused by the military authorities, for they feared that such warnings might be interpreted as a confession that they had been employing a type of weapon like poison gas.
They proceeded, probably from similar motives, to try to divert attention from the radioactive effects of atomic bombardment. It was explained that there was now no dangerous radioactivity to be found in the ruins of Hiroshima, and the number of the victims who had been exposed, at the moment of the explosion, to a fatal dose of radiation or one likely to cause chronic illness, was kept secret. Groves stated openly at a Congressional hearing that he had heard death from radiation was 'very pleasant'.
[...]
Just as in August 1945 and February 1950, so now, for the third time, the entire world was seized with horror at the frightful violence of the new weapons. The Japanese fishermen had been far beyond the danger zone determined by the Americans. And yet they had been exposed, some 120 miles away from the point of explosion, to its effects. They reached their home port of Yaizu on 14 March, sick and weak with sufferings they could not account for, and were at once taken to the hospital.
It was rumoured that the scientists had lost control of the new bomb, which had liberated the terrific quantity of energy equal to between 18 and 22 million tons of TNT. Mike's explosive force had been equal only to 3 million tons of dynamite. It was admitted that the bang had been twice as powerful as had been anticipated. But even more disturbing than this news was the poisonous effect of the new projectile, which was identified during the following days in rain over Japan, in lubricating oil on Indian aircraft, in winds over Australia, in the sky over the United States, and as far away as Europe.
The previous bombs had affected only the conscience of mankind, so soon to relapse again into apathy; but the latest 'hell bombs', it was evident from the reports, endangered the air that man breathed, the water he drank, and the food that he ate. They menaced, even in times of peace, the health of every person, wherever he lived.