in the course of a few centuries, recover from the blow. but we now know, especially since the bikini test, that hydrogen bombs can gradually spread destruction over a much wider area than had been supposed. it is stated on very good authority that a bomb can now be manufactured which will be 25,000 times as powerful as that which destroyed hiroshima. such a bomb, if exploded near the ground or under water, sends radioactive particles into the upper air. they sink gradually and reach the surface of the earth in the form of a deadly dust or rain. it was this dust which infected the japanese fishermen and their catch of fish although they were outside what american experts believed to be the danger zone. no one knows how widely such lethal radioactive particles might be diffused, but the best authorities are unanimous in saying that a war with hydrogen bombs is quite likely to put an end to the human race. it is feared that if many hydrogen bombs are used there will be universal death - sudden only for a fortunate minority, but for the majority a slow torture of disease and disintegration...
here, then, is the problem which i present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: shall we put an end to the human race1 or shall mankind renounce war? people will not face this alternative because it is so difficult to abolish war. the abolition of war will demand distasteful limitations of national sovereignty. but what perhaps impedes understanding of the situation more than anything else is that the term 'mankind' feels vague and abstract. people scarcely realize in imagination that the danger is to themselves and their children and their grandchildren, and not only to a dimly apprehended humanity' and so they hope that perhaps war may be allowed to continue provided modern weapons are prohibited. i am afraid this hope is illusory. whatever agreements not to use hydrogen bombs had been reached in time of peace, they would no longer be considered binding in time
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