Los Alamos, The Manhattan Project, and "The Greatest Generation"

The Manhattan Project is not a new Donald Trump-inspired hotel and condominium development in New York City.  Nor is it the name of the Grammy-Award winning mixed music group, best known for the hit “Boy From New York City.”  Every American should, but does not know that it was the code name given to the United States’ research and development project that produced the atomic bomb during World War II.  President Harry Truman’s decision to deploy these revolutionary weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the late summer of 1945 promptly persuaded the Japanese government, led by Emperor Hirohito, to surrender unconditionally.  Military leaders and historians agree that Truman’s approval to drop “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” rather than invade the Japanese mainland saved hundreds of thousands of U.S. casualties, to say nothing of those Japanese military and civilians.  Los Alamos, New Mexico was the primary research and design laboratory for the Manhattan Project.  Now, some 68 years after the introduction of the atomic age on the world’s military landscape, the Unites States Interior Department has recommended that a portion of Los Alamos and two other Manhattan Project sites, Hanford, WA and Oak Ridge, TN, be transformed into national parks.  The key word here is “recommended.”  Not surprisingly, the anti-nukes crowd is protesting the concept.

“It is a debasement of the national parks idea” barks Greg Mello, co-founder of Los Alamos Study Group, a New Mexico-based organization that has campaigned for nuclear disarmament since 1989.  In an open letter dated November 29, 2013 to Senator Mark Lee, R-Utah, Mr. Mello itemizes a host of reasons to nuke (my verb use; not his) the park proposal, the most notable to me of which states, “The proposal does not involve significant natural or national resources and is therefore not fully harmonious with core National Park missions.”

With that type of rationale, I suppose that Mount Vernon (home of George Washington) and Monticello (Thomas Jefferson) fall into the same category! Perhaps their designation as national historic landmarks and parks should be revoked!  Mr. Mello also goes on to insinuate that Los Alamos will not be a tourist draw, derive little to no positive economic impact on the surrounding community, and “will compete with the massive maintenance backlog in the National Park system.” Lame excuses for his real gripe, which is that Los Alamos will somehow glorify the onset of the atomic age.

On the contrary, the Manhattan Project should be celebrated as a world-changing event that hassaved far more lives than it destroyed.  True enough, the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined killed 150,000 Japanese and caused injuries to roughly the same number.  Compare those horrible results with the projected U.S. military casualties that the planned invasion of the Japanese mainland, code-named “Operation Downfall” would have inflicted:  A study done for Secretary of War Henry Stimson’s staff estimated that conquering Japan would cost 1.7 to 4 million American casualties, including 400,000 to 800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities.

Rather than railing against the planned Los Alamos national park project, anti-nukes crusaders ought to instead embrace the idea!  Thanks to the thousands of dedicated Americans who labored for years (some gave their lives) on the Manhattan Project and a President who, like a true patriot, exhibited courage in making his priority the lives of American soldiers, hundreds of thousands of sons and fathers came home to their families in the fall of 1945, instead of leaving behind grieving children, widows and parents.

eople like Greg Mello should be ashamed of themselves!  How soon too many Americans have all but forgotten “the greatest generation” and the sacrifices they made for us today………and for generations to come.  And it seems only fitting that Truman, who’s nickname “Give’em Hell Harry”, was the man to pull the atomic trigger.  Here was a President who simply spoke his mind.  How refreshing!  As Truman answered when questioned by a reporter how he received his famous moniker, “I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.”  Mr. Mello and your kind, please take note:  the truth about Los Alamos, for you at least, is hell.