fictional “doomsday machine” triggered when only one bomb falls to earth.
Although this chain reaction is not real, it plays to fears that many lay
people and some scientists had that the U.S. and the USSR each created
such demonic devices. In that spirit, during the 1950 s, the Atomic Scientists
of Chicago and the Federation of American Scientists, in their magazine
titled The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,adopted a “Doomsday Clock” that
they intended to symbolize the world’s proximity to self-destruction—a
surreal but reasonable presumption.
Absurdity reigned during the nuclear age and afterward. In 1995 ,
the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II, the United States
Postal Service planned to issue a postage stamp showing the Hiroshima
atomic mushroom cloud with the words: “Atomic bombs hasten war’s end,
August 1945 .” The Japanese government protested, and the stamp was
canceled. For the mushroom to be so commemorated would be an affront
to the memory of those killed, but would also serve to legitimize this
endgame trademark rather than underscore that the mushroom cloud is
and will remain the world’s most wicked icon.
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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