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Better A Shield Than A Sword (1987-10-19)
About this film
A radiant hour with a man who has spent half a century at the highest levels of nuclear physics and has never checked his conscience at the laboratory door. The discussion begins with the Space Shield--SDI--but Mr. Buckley is soon leading his guest into reminiscences. Dr. Teller: "We now know that the dropping of the bomb did not change a single vote in the Japanese war cabinet: three of them were for unconditional surrender before Hiroshima, and three for fighting on for better terms, and not a single vote was changed, except that the Emperor violated the constitution and appealed to the people.... Had we demonstrated, had we dropped an atomic bomb at 30,000 feet over Tokyo Bay that would have lit up the evening sky, that would have been seen and heard by 10 million Japanese--heard like thunder--not a single person would have been killed. I think the Emperor would have acted."
Directors & creators
Southern Educational Communications Association
Subjects
public broadcasting, AAPB, William F. Buckley Jr., Edward Teller, Strategic Defense Initiative, SDI, nuclear weapons, atomic bomb, Hiroshima, Tokyo Bay, World War II, Japanese surrender, nuclear physics, national security, Cold War, military ethics, Hirohito
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