An astonishing 60 years: The legacy of Hiroshima

摘要

The most spectacular event of the past half century is one that did not occur. We have enjoyed 60 years without nuclear weapons exploded in anger. What a stunning achievement-or, if not achievement, what stunning good fortune. In 1960 the British novelist C. P. Snow said on the front page of The New York Times that unless the nuclear powers drastically reduced their armaments, thermonuclear warfare within the decade was a "mathematical certainty." Nobody appeared to think Snow's statement extravagant.