6.
Albert Einstein spoke passionately about the necessity of democracy as a fundamental prerequisite of scientific development and rational thinking.
“The more minds involved in the decision making, the better results. By allowing freedom of speech we stimulate a more complex heuristic process, and I do not believe that my contribution to theoretical physics could have ever been developed and achieved under an oppressive regime.“
“As you know I had to flee Germany, to escape the Nazi persecution, and had it not been for this accidental fortune or intention by God – I am conflicted about this, because I shudder at thinking God would have spared me while leaving so many others to their horrific fate…”
At this point he paused and ran his hand across his eyebrows as if he had suddenly forgotten what to say. Studying his notes he resumed:
“…had it not been for this I would have died in one of those extermination camps. I am old now, and I have too much time on my hand, too much time to think. And I cannot help thinking what would have happened if I was not a scientist, but someone unfortunate, one of those nameless victims of human brutality, one of those Jews who never made it out of Germany and the Nazi occupied territories.”
“Before all this happened I would have been adamantly opposed to any suggestion like the one presented here today. Freedom is priceless, and particularly, of course, to a scientist and a thinker, freedom of thought. Before the war I would have never thought civilized human beings capable of the atrocities, the utter bestiality…”
Again his lost the thread and searched in his notes for a clue.
“I cannot be actively involved, but I will do this – I will go out on a limb and vouch for this idea, an idea I will take the libert to call MAD. Yes, MAD, an abbreviation of Mutually Assured Destruction. I like MAD. It’s a good acronym, because what we do is, in a sense, to replace and old form of madness called War with a new form of madness, one that will hopefully prevent another world war by making all men fear it more than anything else. More than they fear Capitalism, and more than they fear Communism, and more than they fear other races.”
Then Albert Einstein sat down, awkwardly, with the appearance of a little boy who has presented an essay and await the verdict of his peers.
“Again, I will remind you that we are sworn to secrecy about every word spoken here today, but also that you can speek freely without fearing our condemnation. Who wants to go next?”
CS Lewis repeated his warning that any action resulting in a referendum from the meeting might in itself be a form of hubris.
“The ancient Greeks used to say that the gods first blind those they wish to punish. This indicates that at first we commit our sins knowingly, against better knowledge and against our conscience. Then later, through the dynamics of crime, the destructive effects of violating the rights of others, we become slaves to our own devices, and deviation becomes our natural environment. I understand, and I respect your desire for peace, but was it not Chamberlain who sought peace in our time and who, instead, gave way for a merciless butcher?”
“I was among those in favor of Munich, but looking back I also see how deceptive this dream of peace was. Perhaps it is happening again. Perhaps our willingness to compromise with the powers of darkness – and I can think of no other word for the Stalinist regime – will, rather than prevent atomic Ragnarok, plunge the world into it.”
“Finally, I would like to repeat my initial warning. The Bible – pardon me for bringing up this ancient collection of fables – tells us that all authority is given by God, and we should submit to it. It is not for the sake of vanity they carry a sword. What you propose strikes me as illegal and, quite possibly, immoral.”
“May I remind you that in this very moment the police are rounding up people suspected of aiding the Communist regime? That is one thing, and one may agree or disagree with these methods, but another is that reports have been floating for many years of systematic efforts of the Soviet Union to acquire nuclear arms through espionage. Is this what we propose? To assist an oppresive regime in acquiring methods to wantonly take the lives of millions for the sake of some abstract concept of balance?”
“Indeed, if such a balance can be achieved, which I still doubt, I would vote in favor of it. But you are, in spite of your brilliance and your excellent reputations, merely men, not gods. If found complicit in passing on nuclear secrets to Russia I assure you that not only will you stand trial, be convicted and, perhaps, executed as a result of it, but you will lose all favor with your peers, and history will judge you not as engineers of a greater peace, but as misguided men, as traitors.”
After this, prompted by CS Lewis’ passionate rejection, Tolkien spoke.
“Are we gods, you ask. The Bible, Jesus Christ himself, stated: You are all gods. I see our responsibility as no less than that, the responsibility of gods, each of us supreme masters of our own small part of the universe and of our fate. It is not that we have the absolute power to control it, or that we should reach for such power – God forbid it – but we should embrace our task on Earth as if we were gods, with the same keen sense of responsibility we assume resides in God.”
“I do not know much about God, but this I know: All over the world, today, there is one question that haunts every soul, and that is the question, Where was God?”
“If you truly believe that all human authority is given by God, then you must also believe that God put Hitler in charge of Germany, and that the Russian and Chinese revolutions were crafted in Heaven. To me, this is the most crucial lesson of our age, the most important point to take from the world war: We can no longer blindly trust authority. It is the end of the age of authoritarianism, and it is the abuse of power in high places – even as in the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – that has opened our eyes to this terrifying fact, this new condition that will characterize the latter part of the 20th Century and define the ages to come.”
“We have witnessed, my friends, the most profound war of destruction in the annals of mankind and the brutal, untimely death of 60 million people. I cannot believe this was an act of God. It was an act of man. It was the beast inside man that rose to the surface, unafraid because it believed its actions could not be countered. It belived its force to be overwhelming and its cause to be just, even if the cause was to conquer, oppress and annihilate.”
“What is our historical duty at this point? Our vision is obscured, but the lesson from Hiroshima and Nagasaki seems to be the only thing clear, the pivotal event. To rid our minds of the horrifying imagery of people obliterated, burnt to death in an instance, the primary focus of our concern. I accepted the invitation to come here to discuss this matter, because I see it as the rise of a new evil.”
“Yes, Communism is evil, but there is a universal temptation in autocracy, an allure that no civilization, and no party, and no individual can escape. It transcends race and ideology and religion. It reaches out from the dark, from the abyss, and it clings to us – to the ones of us who are most certain we are freed from it – and it drags us down, warping our minds, forcing us to engage in acts of cruelty beyond our own imagination.”
“I do not believe the Germans are generically evil. Nor the Italians, nor the Spaniards, or, for that matter, the Japanese. I do not believe Russians, the Slavs, to be more evil than any other group of people on Earth. Likewise, we have seen that America is no better. In the Bible, Clive, all nations are portrayed as beasts. One beast replaces the other as the dominant specie, but in essence the ambition of even very small nations…”
At this point Tolkien looked briefly in the direction of Niels Bohr.
“…is criminal. It is aimed at exploitation, at unjust gain at the expense of others, and possession in excess through plunder, through theft and through murder. It was the criminal race for colonies that prompted the first world war, just as the first world war triggered the one we have just endured. It was greed. As much as I believe in democracy, and as much as I cherish freedom, I can no longer have the illusion that because a nation is a democracy, it is also just, excempt from the temptation to steal, kill and destroy. The demon in us is reborn, ever so often, in a new shape.”
“I am not saying that America is such a demon, of course. America is our ally. But such an immense power, not curbed by another force, cannot remain democratic. It is the fundamental democratic principle to provide checks and balances for any authority, and I believe that in all its perversity the Soviet Union may have risen to be such a counterpoint. We must not forget that Russian soldiers who defeated the Nazi forces deep inside of Russia made D-Day possible. Had Germany been at its full force no American soldier would have made it past the beach.”
“Martin Luther thought of the Ottoman Empire as a Scourge of God, and while he opposed Muhammed’s teachings he also lectured Christians, chastising Christianity for having abandoned its own faith, its own virtues, thereby giving God cause to raise up a formidable enemy to chastise them and to remind them of their duty to be good.”
“I do not know if this is true, of course. It is just a way to perceive things that may be useful in the contect. I do not even know if I believe in God. Sometimes I feel I cannot be sure that such concepts as Muhammed, Ottomans, Luther, Stalin or the Soviet Union or the United States of America are real. Sometimes it all appears to me like a dream, a mad dream, a fable that strains credulity.”
“I look at the world, and I find that the stories I have produced are much more realistic to me than the spectre unfolding before my eyes. I find that, if you were to criticize the history of mankind like a piece of literature, it offers very little in terms of suspension of disbelief.”
“I cannot be sure, but I see it as a very clear possibility that we will feel compelled or forced to launch a massive nuclear attack on Russia in the near future – in this decade or the next – to prevent this Marxist empire from achieving nuclear arms, and to intimidate them into compliance or surrender. What will be the consequences of such an action, of Moscow or Stalingrad or Leningrad or all of those cities annihilated? Russia is a huge territory, not a small island like Japan. I believe this ideologic conflict will, by necessity, throw us into another world war. And this time a war that will not end with a few cities destroyed, but with the destruction of all mankind.”
It was understood that Tolkien, without offering direct approval, leaned towards the position Einstein had so vividly titled MAD. Niels Bohr spoke briefly, thanking for the participation of each of the members of the informal council.
He sketched out his belief that equilibrium had to be achieved by the means prescribed by Wilkie Collins, without adding much new to the discourse, except some intelligence about Soviet progress on nuclear research and preliminary time tables, which were studied with intense interest.
“I think it is safe to assume that a nuclear attack on Russia is imminent and will take place just before Communists achieve the ability to retaliate. This will not destroy the Soviet Union, but force it to declare war, and in sympathy with it many nations will gather around it, seeking to strike back before the US nuclear arsenal grows so overwhelming America effectively achieves immunity from war. Countries will fall to Marxism like dominoes, and by the end of it we may see American and European cities hit by nuclear attacks. I have gotten hold of a couple of MI6 documents outlining this scenario.”
Robert Oppenheimer was in a gloomy mood, listening intensely with the palm of his head resting on his fingertips. When he spoke he spoke slowly as if with difficulties, like a man making a statement after an accident or a long time of crippling illness:
“For this to work out we need an acute peace, a forcefully imposed peace, which will pressure both sides to focus on something other than deployment of forces and strategic use of atomic bombs. We need a Frozen War for at least 20 years, perhaps even 40, so Europe can be rebuilt and the industries of USA and Russia can prosper to a point where wealth is an added incentive not to risk a war of mass destruction. The problem that leads to war is shortage of ressources, but with modern technology this will soon be a problem of the past.“
“As you probably are aware I can personally testify that the climate in USA is toxic. I have no doubt it is the same in Russia. Both sides are preparing for war. The only way to avoid it is to favor a regime that stands against everything we believe, and give them a weapon that may be developed to a point, where one single detonation can split the Earth’s core and destroy the entire planet. I have heard rumors of such a weapon, at least as a theoretical possibility. But I do not believe that either USA or Russia would go to such an extreme.”
“It was something that John said earlier today, by the Roman Baths, that made me think of it: The birth myth of a culture or tribe and how it determines the actions of a great nation. In the USA we believe that God has selected our country for a special purpose, to begin with to expand across the Americas but later on also to spread democratic institutions all over the world and to remake the world in the image of USA. It is a curious turn of events that through the military build-up for The Second World War this prophesy appears to have been fulfilled, or at least be at the verge of fulfillment.
“I have also acquainted myself a bit with Marxism, and as I understand it they have their own version of Manifest Destiny, a firm belief that on some mechanical level the world will automatically revolve towards the end goal called Communism, which is defined as the dictatorship of the proletariat, meaning that the workers hold all ownership of the means of production.”
Here Oppenheimer looked about to see if anybody contested his definition, apparently far from sure he had caught the essence of this new rivaling ideology of which he was accused or, at least, under suspicion of promoting in his home country.
Bertrand Russell, who was by all immediately accepted as the authority on politics and in particular the exact definition of political concepts, nodded.
“So, my point is that self-destruction is highly unlikely, because self-destruction directly negates the various Utopian myths that drive the nations. If they engage in a self-destructive war their birth myths cannot come to fruition. In other words, USA will refrain, because it is primarily motivated by the will to distribute the virtues of the republic to other countries. Likewise, Soviet Russia has to refrain from self-destructive policies, because its birth myth prompts the politicians to seek a world, where all countries are Communist.”
“One could imagine a planet buster used as a last resort, when all hope is out, but this could come into existence anywhere, eventually, as nuclear technology becomes commonplace. I do not believe anybody can contain the knowledge, not even the CIA. It is speculative at this point. The acute problem is the risk of wanton use of nuclear arms, and even if it would, at this point, benefit us, so to speak, our side in the equation, it will eventually also lead to nuclear weapons being actively used against us.”
“MAD, as you call it, Albert, is already active in a hypothetical sense: In order to prevent nuclear vengeance in the future we must immediately stop this trend of using nuclear bombs as a method of coercion or for strategic advantage except for the sole purpose of prevention.”
Bertrand Russell was the last to speak, starting out by lauding the contributions of the others and expressing his gratitude for a moment he described as “energizing” and “awe-inspiring.”
“I cannot recall having ever been exposed to so many thought-provoking, almost mind-altering conceptualizations in the course of a few hours, and I almost feel sad that I know that this will likely also be the last time it happens. The contract we have signed, so to speak, is not only to be silent about our exchanges, but also to dissolve the committee upon departure. I do not know which channels you will use to exercise your influence in accordance with the Bath Somerset Referendum, if I may call it that, but I get the feeling that some of you already have the tactical part covered and mainly display prudence by calling for the critique and feedback of others.”
“I am flattered to be consulted with regards to this matter, and my main concern is to make sure that what I see as a budding consensus among us all will not be overthrown by lack of concern for the doubts and objections of some.”
Turning towards Clive Lewis, intuiting that he was most likely to vote against or pass on the referendum, Russell said:
“We are on opposite sides of the fence, but we are also both wise enough, both clever enough not to take a fight to the bitter end, and both capable of recognizing a good argument. As I see it, Clive, our hands are tied, because it all boils down to two questions or issues: One is the question of the lesser evil, which can be measured crudely by the number of deaths, and the other is the question of law and order, which is a concern that binds us together, in spite of metaphysical differences.
“On my side: I do not believe in God, but I have to accept Hobbes’ thesis that order is better than anarchy, and the centralization of power is generally preferable to natural law, where all men fight against each other for what they perceive to be their right.”
“Similarly, you do believe in God, but you must acknowledge that God, if he exists, has handed over much responsibility to men, and that this responsibility must be carried out according to ability, not least insight and wisdom. Once you have knowledge, you must act in accordance. If you have knowledge of a crime or an act of evil about to be committed, you must do what you can to prevent it from taking place. There will always be uncertainty about the outcome, and we cannot tell in advance if one decision will, through a complex pattern of causality, cause more grief than the other, or if an action will, eventually, cause more deaths than abstinence of action. All we can do is act spontaneously, naturally, and hopefully gracefully, in accordance with the moment.”
“I vote in favor of the referendum, but I will also stress that I have no sympathy for Communism, which is a case of muddled logic combined with an almost religious fanaticism. No, I vote in favor because to the best of my judgment it presents more of a prospect of peace than voting against it. It offers more promise of a future, more hope. It offers the promise of a temporary peace during which mankind can grow, learn, evolve, and eventually overcome the urge of one group to destroy another.”
“Not acting will throw the world back into the cesspool of conflicting interests pursued by military means. Not acting will cause more death. It is the conclusion of our deliberations, as I see it, that we must seek to shorten the time of production of means of symmetric retaliation. We must carefully construct and engineer a false peace, not based on a piece of paper that can be violated, but a threat of assured destruction so overwhelming that men will be waned off its perverse blood thirst, its lust for war.”
“As for the question of legitimacy, I think it is safe to say that none of us intend to end our lives in jail. None of us have the urge to betray our various nations, or to sacrifice democracy for the serfdom of dictatorship. The question that remains is a purely technical one: How do we go about it? Can it be done? Some of us here have already performed unimaginable feats, and looking around at your faces one thought eradicates all others: Anything can be done, anything, if you put your mind to it.”
“And what is more: Some of you have been in a race against time to secure that this weapon fell into the hands of the Allies before the Nazis were able to produce it and use it, which they no doubt would have. Now we are again in a race against time, a race where timing is crucial, because we cannot act too soon or too late. If we act, once we have acted, our action will fuse with chaos, and only through the course of history as it unfolds before our eyes can we know if we made the right or the wrong judgment.”
Part 7
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