Gays and LPYS

Scan page 13

The story of the nuclear bomb, as recounted in Rober Jungk's 'Brighter than a thousand suns' A WORKSHOP on gays. and socialism at the LPYS summer camp? What, an official one? Yep, YS summer camp actually did have a gay workshop this year.

Class Fighter supporters have been arguing for the last seven or eight years that the YS should start fighting for gay and lesbian rights. during this time our gay comrades have been harassed, threatened and abused at YS national events. Gay rights has not even been timetabled for conference debate - "it isn't a priority". In fact there has been no debate because the YS NC is scared. they cannot be confident that their supporters will not changed his approach.

Misunderstandings caused physicists outside Germany to fear that Hitler was proceeding full-speed towards the A-bomb and Szilard helped organise an appeal, signed by Einstein, to the US President. America was to build an A-bomb to pre-émpt Nazi Germany who would have no scruples about using such a weapon. Ultimately it was "democratic" America which lacked the scruples.r Germany did not even try to construct the Bomb due to the loss of many exiled physicists; the poor organisation . of research by the Nazis; and the attitudes of the remaining physicists. The Nazis did not understand the possibilities of uranium fission and the physicists were not keen to enlighten them.

Incidentally, Russia might have achieved the Bomb first had Stalin not decided that all foreign physicists in Russia were spies.

Meanwhile the Manhattan Project was initiated, under the military control of General Leslie Groves, with the Gottingen graduate Robert Oppenheimer as scientific director from 1943 at the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico.

Jungk describes in detail the scientific triumph and moral failure of Oppenheimer. A former socialist, he became a willing and uncritical tool of American imperialism but was cynically destroyed in the anticommunist hysteria of the 1950s.

To the disappointment of display their backwardness and embarrass them with anti-gay bigotry.

Nothing practical came out of the workshop in terms of activity but it has served its purpose in placating the NC supporters among the 300 who signed a petition demanding a debate and the 200 who came along to the Gay YS fringe meeting at the last conference.

A single workshop, which doesn't even have a gay activist on the platform does not constitute a youth movement taking up the fight for gay and lesbian rights, but it may be a start.

LINDA JOHNSON, London.

US military, the Germans surrendered before the bomb was ready. An atomic physicist working with the US Army, Sam Goudsmit, established that the Germans were at least two years behind the Americans in developing the Bomb. Though this information was top secret, it still got back to Los Alamos, where the scientists found that their justification for working on the bomb had gone. The majority were in favour of finishing their work but against bombing Japan.

Groves on the other hand set up a study group to work out where to drop the Bomb. It was to be a target with military importance and lots of houses and buildings nearby which would be susceptible to blast and fire dámage. The built-up area was to be about a mile in radius.

In addition the target was to have been spared previous bombing so the Americans could see exactly what damage an A-Bomb would do and the bomb was to be dropped without warning.

It was at this stage that the Franck Report was presented to the Secretary of War. This prophetic document pointed out that there was no effective defence against A-bombs; that failing international agreement and cooperation, use of the Bomb on Japan would start an extremely dangerous arms race as the bomb could not be kept secret.

Finally Franck, Sziland and the other authors pleaded that the Bomb be demonstrated to the Japanese on an uninhabited island, to encourage surrender without firther bloodshed.

Nevertheless, 38 years ago this month, two A-Bombs were dropped and the world continues to live with the aweful consequences. 'Brighter than a thousand suns' by Robert Jungk is published by Penguin at $2.25.