by Tim Sherratt
[paper presented at Australian War Memorial conference, Canberra, 1995]

Some weeks later, a fifth atomic bomb was detonated, again at Bikini. The blue waters of the atoll’s idyllic lagoon erupted skyward with the force of the explosion, signalling a dramatic end to the USA’s first peacetime atomic ‘test’ programme. The ‘target’ for these tests was a fleet of retired American and captured enemy warships, ‘manned’ by pigs, goats and other animals - some in uniform.^[2] By blowing up this junkyard menagerie the USA confirmed its status as the world’s only atomic power, marking its usual independence celebrations, commented the communist Tribune, with an ‘outsize in fireworks’.^[3] Indeed, while the first three atomic explosions were planned and executed in secrecy, the Bikini atomic tests were conducted amidst well-organized publicity and accompanied by ‘all the apparatus of showmanship’.^[4] The organizing authority, Joint Task Force One, arranged for extensive media coverage, aiming to make the test programme ‘the best-reported as well as the most-reported technical experiment of all time’.^[5] Absolutes abounded in descriptions of this scientific spectacular, with the chief of the air force photographic crew boasting that the first test would be ‘the most photographed event in history’.^[6]

Australia was not left out of the 42,000 strong cast of this atomic circus. By virtue of its appointment to the newly-formed United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (UNAEC), Australia was invited to send press and government repesentatives to observe the tests.^[7] S.H.K. Spurgeon, Australia’s Naval Attache in Washington, attended on behalf of the government and the armed services, finding his way into the Official Pictorial Record of the tests amidst a group of ‘foreign’ observers.^[8] E.W. McAlpine, the Editor-in-Chief of Consolidated Press Ltd., was nominated as press observer by the Australian Newspaper Proprietor’s Association, which undertook to make his coverage available to all media outlets.^[9] McAlpine joined 200 or so other journalists from a variety of press agencies, even travelling aboard the ‘Atomic Express’, a US Navy train that carried journalists and scientists across America on their way to Bikini.^[10]

As a result of this massive public relations effort, a steady stream of newspaper articles appeared in the weeks leading up to the tests, detailing some of the preparations and generally helping to establish a feeling of expectation.^[11] On 27 June, an evening lecture on cosmic rays by Melbourne University’s professor of physics, L.H. Martin, drew an unexpectedly large crowd of 500 people, overwhelming the 200 seat lecture theatre. This sudden interest in nuclear physics, it was claimed, was ‘whetted by the forthcoming atomic bomb test at Bikini Atoll’.^[12] Likewise, in its report of a national radio broadcast by the Adelaide chemist S.W. Pennycuick, the Listener-In claimed, ‘All the world is waiting for the results of the atomic bomb tests’. Pennycuick himself, the article continued, had given a ‘vivid picture’ of the likely events at Bikini.^[13] Even the Sydney Morning Herald which commented in an editorial that the event had been ‘heavily dramatised in the American fashion’, included a ‘Programme for Bikini’ which summarized the first test as if it was the latest Hollywood epic, listing ‘Title’, ‘Scene’, ‘Target’ and ‘Director’!^[14] Elsewhere, as the time set for the first explosion neared, Australian seismologists readied their instruments, waiting to play their part by recording any disturbance in the earth’s crust.^[15]

However, this high level of public interest was driven by more than just curiosity or anticipation. On the day of the first explosion the Sydney Morning Herald’s editorial cartoon pictured an nervous world removing the cover from a large, gleaming statue, labelled ‘ATOM’. The cartoon was entitled ‘Unveiling Ceremony’, and it conveyed a sense of the anxiety that surrounded the Bikini tests.^[16] This unease arose not from the tests alone, but from the whole issue of atomic energy. Widespread public interest, derived from ‘the awesome and controversial nature of the bomb’ had turned a simple weapons test into an ‘epochal event’, argued the Sydney Morning Herald: ‘It is as though the first, not the fourth atomic bomb were being discharged’.^[17] Bikini refocused attention on the moral and political dilemmas that atomic energy had brought to the world, it thus ‘revived’ many of the feelings that had accompanied the news of the destruction of Hiroshima.^[18] The atomic tests at Bikini were more than just a scientific extravaganza, they were a reminder to humankind ‘that a moral and physical crisis of the first magnitude still confront[ed] it’.^[19]

This crisis, however, was already finding expression according to a simple formula that seemed to encompass all the implications of atomic energy. Imagine again the radio broadcast on the morning of the first atomic test at Bikini, relayed nationally from the National Broadcasting Company of America.^[20] The technical distortions add a sense of otherwordliness as the commentators set the scene. The dramatic tension is heightened by the ticking of a metronome that continues right up until the point of the explosion.^[21] Finally the call comes through, ‘Bombs away!’, but then another voice cuts across the broadcast with a chilling warning: ‘Listen world, this is the crossroads’.^[22]

At some point marked vaguely by the destruction of Hiroshima, atomic energy was assumed to have split the future of the world into two. Humankind was suddenly confronted by a ‘choice’, for atomic energy offered it the chance to pursue the well-worn path of war to its inevitable apocalyptic end, or to strike out anew towards a miraculous vision of peace and prosperity. The world was standing at a ‘turning-point’ where these two roads could be seen leading off into the future, the alternatives made clear by a signpost pointing one way to ‘Destruction’ and the other way to ‘Progress’ - this was the ‘crossroads’.

The atomic crossroads was a hackneyed image, recycled, reworked and re-emphasised many times following its original formulation. It became one of the favourite clichés of authors, speechmakers, commentators and journalists grasping for a pithy summation of the implications of atomic energy - a representation of the fundamental dualism that characterised reactions to this new technology.^[23] The crossroads often appeared in formation with its associates, ‘turning-point’ and ‘choice’, and many other variations appeared that reinforced its central theme of diverging future prospects. The Sydney Morning Herald’s first editorial after the news of Hiroshima’s devastation spoke of a ‘turning-point in human history’.^[24] A few days later, an article on atomic energy reprinted from The Times was prefaced: ‘Humanity now stands at the crossroads. It has to choose the road of peace or the road of annihilation.’^[25] This schema found expression in many different forums and formats. ‘Humanity is at the cross-roads’, the Reverend Dr. C.N. Button told the congregation of St. Andrew’s Kirk in Ballarat, ‘This is a turning-point in history.’^[26] A poem entitled ‘Atomic Bomb’ published in the Spring 1945 edition of Meanjin demonstrates that poets also drew inspiration from this metaphorical landscape: ‘This is a challenge to the human race - / This is a focal-point from which diverge/ Two ways’.^[27] The imagery of the crossroads was remarkably effective and influential in encapsulating the perceived implications of atomic energy. It provided a pattern, a template, which enabled complex and controversial issues to be interpreted within a framework that was not only manageable, but familiar.

The crossroads was not an image especially tailor-made to fit atomic energy. It was a metaphor plucked from the rack, simply dusted off and modified, here and there, to suit the latest fashion. It thus brought to the atomic energy question a wealth of symbolic meaning. If, as travellers in an unfamiliar land, we come to a meeting of roads, we have to make a decision - which way? A wrong choice could leave us lost, abandoned, in danger, even doomed. How are we to be certain? The crossroads marks the boundary for us between the known and the unknown, between our past and our future. We may seek guidance, from a map, a signpost, or a passing stranger, but ultimately we must make the choice ourselves and merely hope that our judgement is sound. It is a disturbing prospect, so it is not difficult to understand why, in ancient times, deities were worshipped at crossroads to provide the uncertain traveller with guidance.^[28] Crossroads have thus come to be associated with the supernatural, with gods, demons and witches. More generally, they represent uncertainty or difficulty, movement into a new realm, the conjunction or union of opposites. Atomic energy was slotted into this pre-existing pattern, and these layers of meaning became cultural resources to be exploited in attempts to understand its impact. Humankind’s response to the new technology could thus be readily comprehended as a choice between opposites, a choice made inevitable by our crossing of the threshold into the ‘atomic age’. The crossroads provided a conceptual identikit that enabled people to recognize in atomic energy a familiar sort of problem. Its form, its habits, its dangers were all filed away within our cultural heritage. And if identification practise was required, then why not organize a field trip? - the Bikini tests gave the world a chance to observe the atomic crossroads in its unnatural state.

There was no subtlety in the message that emanated from Bikini. In case its significance might be overlooked, the whole undertaking was code-named ‘Operation Crossroads’. The label, it seemed, simply represented the reality of the world situation. The Commander of Joint Task Force One, explained that the operation was so named because the impact of atomic energy on an ‘already chaotic world’ was such that ‘civilization itself literally stands at the crossroads’.^[29] This analysis was never questioned, on the contrary, it appeared self-evident. On day of the first Bikini test, the Age’s leader was simply titled ‘Mankind at the Crossroad’s’, while the Sydney Morning Herald’s effort, entitled ‘Atom facts and fantasies’, concluded that the Bikini tests ‘may very well mark the crossroads of mankind’.^[30] The following day the Sydney Morning Herald published a cartoon entitled ‘Still at the crossroads’, that depicted the alternatives in terms of a battle for custody between the atom’s ‘parents’, science and war, with both exclaiming, ‘...I’ll bring him up my way’.^[31] This was a way of representing the nature of the paths that diverged from the crossroads, paths between which, claimed the Argus, ‘Mankind must choose’.^[32]

The Bikini tests helped to establish the crossroads as the most obvious and effective summary of the implications of atomic energy. In his book published some years after the tests, Melbourne x-ray therapist, John Bowker, claimed that he could imagine ‘no better description’ of the American undertaking: ‘When the loudspeakers blared out, “Listen world, this is [the] Crossroads”, they were stating what everyone tuned in to the significance of atomic energy fully realised’.^[33] Even those who were concerned about the continued development of the bomb resorted to the same phraseology. A letter to the Prime Minister from the Women’s Service Guilds of Western Australia concluded:

we realise that a stupendous power for good and evil has been placed in the hand of man: that this power opens vistas of wondrous beauty, vistas of hellish inferno and - nothingness, and as women we are greatly concerned and pray that this power will be used only for the good of humanity and not for its destruction.^[34]

There is no turning back from the Atomic Age. The Destiny of all people of the world is locked within a scientific formula, it is an equation that can be written in blood or in gleaming symbols to light up the path to boundless progress in the peaceful pursuits of mankind.
OURS IS THE CHOICE.^[36]

What happened? Did we choose? We have suffered neither annihilation, nor been propelled into an atomic utopia, how can this be? Visitors to the Atomic Age Exhibition in 1948 were left in no doubt as to the urgency of their predicament. Hovering over a diorama representing the world’s first atomic explosion in New Mexico was a large, glowing figure, emerging from the radioactive cloud, electrons whizzing around his head like bushflies - this was the atomic genie, the exhibition’s pin-up boy. The atomic genie had been let out of the bottle, and now impatiently awaited our command - for good or evil. There was no way back, and there was little time.

Nearly fifty years later, on the anniversary of the destruction of Hiroshima, the atomic genie was pressed into service once more. The editorial cartoon of the Canberra Times showed the genie offering a dove in one hand, skull in the other. It is a cartoon that could easily have been published in 1945. Indeed, both the genie and the crossroads have been regularly recycled over the years. Canon E.J. Davidson, speaking at a public meeting on the Hydrogen Bomb in 1954, cautioned grimly: ‘Our civilization stands at the point of decision...It must conform to the moral order of the universe or perish.’^[37] 1945’s headlines of ‘Triumph and Menace’ turned up in later years as ‘Blessing or Curse?’ and ‘Menace or Miracle?’^[38] Ernest Briggs poetic invocation of the ‘two ways’ was echoed in the late 1950s by Rodney Hall’s poem Hiroshima-Calder Hall, which contrasted the destructive power of the atomic bomb with the ‘shiny, white spires’ of Britain’s first atomic reactor.^[39] Another poem on the same page portrayed the desperate wasteland that an atomic war could create. It was simply titled ‘Crossroads’.^[40]

The idea of the choice also remained within the rhetorical armoury of politicians, whether announcing Australia’s plans for research, or seeking to quell public concern about the hydrogen bomb. Thus J.J. Dedman’s description of the CSIR’s program of work in the area was headed by the Argus, ‘Threat and hope in use of atomic energy’. When it seemed, in the early 1950s, that the Labour Opposition might successfully capitalize on widespread anxiety about the testing of H-bombs, Prime Minister Menzies made a major statement on the new weapon. He argued that it might ‘paradoxically enough, provide the world with the first gleam of of hope that war might be outlawed and mankind might live in peace, a peace in which the energies and capacity of man may be devoted to human wellbeing’. This hope was linked with the UN Disarmament Commission and US President Eisenhower’s ‘Atoms for Peace’ plan, an ‘imaginative offer’ by which atomic energy ‘could be harnessed peacefully for the benefit of men of all nations’.^[41] Indeed, ‘Atoms for Peace’ propaganda was heavily dependent on crossroads imagery.^[42]

As with the Bikini tests, protests throughout the period, whether about the H-bomb, or about British atomic testing in Australia, often echoed the formula according to which the Government sought to phrase its reassurances. For example, the Society of Friends in Hobart called on the Prime Minister to work for an international agreement banning hydrogen and atomic bomb tests, at the same time encouraging research ‘directed to exploiting the apparently immense potentialities of this field for the peaceful well-being of mankind’.^[43] Similarly, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union of Victoria passed a resolution at its annual convention in 1956 which protested about the testing of atomic bombs in Australia, yet noting the convention’s appreciation of the Government’s efforts in co-operative atomic research - ‘whereby the atomic power may be used for the good instead of the destruction of mankind’.^[44]

What we can see from these examples, separated in time and referring to different facets of the atomic age, is that while the crossroads seemed to offer a particular choice at a particular point in time, neither the choice nor the time was fixed. The signpost which pointed out the two paths into the future was not anchored in 1945 or 1946, instead it was quietly carried along through history, bringing with it its own mythologized sense of urgency. Every now and then someone would notice it anew and the world would be reminded of the choice that it always had to make, but never did.

What sort of choice was this? Having invoked the crossroads in his 1945 sermon, Rev. C.N. Button went on to warn his congregation:

with the coming of the Atomic Bomb, we stand at what is perhaps the most solemn turning-point of all history, we may well imagine God saying once more, - can it be for the last time? - ‘I have set before you life and death, cursing and blessing. Therefore choose life, that thou and thy seed may live.’ For the last time? It is no extravagance which leads to the asking of that question, for with this bomb we cannot choose both. It is one or the other now, life or death, blessing or cursing.^[45]

The parallels between this choice and that presented by atomic energy were made quite explicit by religious thinkers after the destruction of Hiroshima. The Dean of Salisbury was reported as commenting: ‘God made the atom and gave scientists the skill to release its energy, with all its vast potentialities for good or evil’.^[47] Atomic energy was thus not something simply ‘discovered’ by humankind; ‘like human free will’, argued a Catholic writer in his book God and the Atom, it was ‘a gift bestowed on us to make what we will of it’.^[48] Furthermore, warned the Rev. Alan Walker in Sydney, ‘[a]s with all God’s gifts, this can bring blessing or cursing, life or death’.^[49] In bestowing the gift of atomic energy on the world God was repeating the offer made to Israel, to either accept His purpose or be destroyed, it was a challenge, a choice.

However, while God did offer Israel a choice between ‘life and death’, it was a loaded choice. The options were not equally weighted, for in presenting them God commanded His people to ‘choose life’. The free-will, granted by God, which makes the choice possible does not render it value-free. The choice itself is established within a framework engineered by God who actively seeks His will to be done. As one commentator on the nature of unbelief comments: ‘He does not merely permit men to find Him. He commands them to seek him with all their strength.’^[50] God is not suggesting to the people of Israel that they might like to consider idolatry, he is seeking to make his will known by imposing a particular conceptual structure upon options that already exist. What is offered is no real choice, but rather an affirmation of an pre-established order.

It is this type of ‘choice’ which is central to the crossroads image. The options it presents are not real alternatives, for it is assumed that you will want to travel along the positive route. The whole structure is organized around this assumption: the negative route is not given as a reasonable alternative, rather it is the threat, the punishment, which enforces the ‘correct’ choice. The crossroads were not invoked so that humankind could choose to go to hell or to be annihilated by atomic bombs - this could only happen if something went wrong with the whole set-up. The question with which the crossroads image confronted humankind was not which path to choose, but how to avoid straying down the wrong one. It did not offer the opportunity to make a decision about the priorities of human existence, instead it set the limits of what was assumed to be possible. A discussion about the social impact of a new technology was transformed through the language of the crossroads into an imperative to develop that technology. Humankind was called upon to follow the path sanctioned and defined by its presence in the crossroads structure as the only reasonable vision of the future - progress.

The Atomic Age Exhibition toured Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. The Melbourne Herald promoted the event with a series of articles, including one headed, ‘Phyllis in Atomic Wonderland’:

Phyllis Nichols, 13, of Clifton Hill, stood at the crossroads yesterday. She looked at the sign fingers which pointed to Destruction and Progress. She had covered the path of destruction and she turned with hope to the road to progress.

NOTES

^[1]A recording of this broadcast, relayed through many Australian stations, is held by the National Film and Sound Archive, ‘Bikini Atom Bomb Test’, 7HT collection, AUDN d16 2051; see also William Laurence’s description of the explosion, Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), 2 July 1946, p.3
^[2]The Australian Women’s Weekly (AWW) explained that the skin of pigs closely resembled human skin, scientists thus hoped to learn about the effectivness of protective clothing by dressing-up the unfortunate animals, 29 June 1946, p.17. In fact the fate of the test animals caused one of the major public relations problems for American authorities, see Stephen Hilgartner, Richard C. Bell & Rory O’Connor, Nukespeak, Penguin, 1983, p.73.
^[3]Tribune, 2 July 1946, p.4
^[4]SMH, 1 July 1946, p.2
^[5]From the official history of the test programme, Bombs at Bikini, quoted in, Stephen Hilgartner, Ricard C. Bell & Rory O’Connor, Nukespeak, Penguin, 1983, p.73. See also: Neal O. Hines, Proving Ground - An account of the radiobiological studies in the PAcific, 1946-1961, University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1962, p.32; Robert C. Kiste, The Bikinians: A study in forced migration, Cummings Publishing Company, Menlo Park (California), 1974, pp.31-34; Stewart Firth, Nuclear Playground, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1987, p.5
^[6]Quoted in, Paul Boyer, By The Bomb’s Early Light: American thought and culture at the dawn of the atomic age, Pantheon Books, New York, 1985, p.83
^[7]The USA invited observers from all of the countries represented on the UNAEC, Neal O. Hines, Proving Ground, p.32. See also, ‘United States Atomic Bomb Tests on War Vessels’, memorandum from the Secretary of Defence to the Minister, 23 May 1946, Australian Archives, A5954 Box 1384/3
^[8]Spurgeon’s selection is discussed in the previously cited memorandum, ‘United States Atomic Bomb Tests on War Vessels’, Australian Archives, A5954 Box 1384/3. See also: Argus, 31 May 1946, p.2. The Photograph of Spurgeon and others is titled ‘The Eyes Have It’, Joint Task Force One, The Office of the Historian, Operation Crossroads - The Official Pictorial Record, W.H. Wise & Co., New York, 1946, p.214
^[9]Memorandum from S.S. Brown (PM’s Department) to the Secretary of External Affairs, 23 May 1946, Australian Archives, A461/2 H341/1/1; Argus, 31 May 1946, p.2
^[10]The official history of the tests comments that correspondents were deliberately chosen from a range of press outlets, including ‘feminine’ magazines - quoted in Hilgartner et al, Nukespeak, p.72. For the atomic express see SMH, 11 June 1946, p.3
^[11]For example: ‘How atom bomb test will be recorded’, Age, 6 May 1946 p.2; ‘Question marks surround atoll in West Pacific’, Age, 29 May 1946, p.2; ‘Three Australians to see atomic bomb tests’, Argus, 31 May 1946, p.2; ‘Atom bomb tests grimly awaited’, SMH, 4 June 1946, p.3; ‘Observers leave for Bikini’, SMH, 11 June 1946, p.3
^[12]Argus, 28 June 1946, p.1
^[13]Listener-In, vol.22 no.25 (June 29-July 5), p.2
^[14]SMH, 1 July 1946, p.1 & 2
^[15]The Riverview Observatory in Sydney reportedly had seven instruments at the ready, some mechanical to allay concern about frequent electricity blackouts, SMH, 28 June 1946, p.5; Argus, 28 June 1946, p.1.
^[16]SMH, 1 July 1946, p.2. See Figure 1. Cf. the Argus effort, ‘Bikinniny!’, which exploited racial stereotypes to portray a similar message, 1 July 1946, p.3
^[17]SMH, 1 July 1946, p.2
^[18]SMH, 16 July 1946, p.2. Similarly, J.J. Dedman, the Minister for Post-war Reconstruction, described in parliament how a ‘stage of wild popular speculation’ that had followed the first use of the atomic bomb had been ‘recently stimulated by the much publicised Bikini tests’ - Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates (CPD), vol.187 (12 July 1946), p.2476
^[19]SMH, 1 July 1946, p.2
^[20]SMH, 1 July 1946, p.1
^[21]Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light, p.83
^[22]‘Bikini Atom Bomb Test’, National Film and Sound Archive, 7HT Collection, AUDN d16 2051. See also: SMH, 2 July 1946, p.3
^[23]Hilgartner, Bell & O’Connor, Nukespeak, p.38; Weart, Nuclear Fear, p.115
^[24]SMH, 8 August 1945, p.2
^[25]SMH, 11 August 1945, p.7
^[26]Rev.Dr.C.N. Button, God, Man, and the Bomb, St.Andrew’s Kirk, Ballarat, no date, p.8 - A note inside this pamphlet explains: ‘A considerable part of what appears herein was delivered in the form of two addresses at St Andrew’s Kirk, Ballarat, on the Sunday following the announcement of the invention and use of the Atomic Bomb.’
^[27]Ernest Briggs, ‘Atomic Bomb’, Meanjin Papers, vol.4 no.3 (Spring 1945), p.175
^[28]Gertrude Jobes, Dictionary of Mythology, Folklore and Symbols, Scarecrow Press, New York, 1962, p.388. On associations with, and the symbolism of, crossroads see also: Man, Myth and Magic: The Illustrated Encylopedia of Mythology, Religion and the Unknown, ed. Richard Cavendish, Marshall Cavendish Ltd, New York, 1983, p.555; Steven Older, Symbolism: A Comprehensive Dictionary, McFarland & Co, Jefferson (North Carolina), 1986, p.32; Barbara G. Walker, The Women’s Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects, Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1988, p.131
^[29]The Office of the Historian, Joint Task Force One, Operation Crossroads - The Official Pictorial Record, p.6
^[30]Age, 1 July 1946, p.2; SMH, 1 July 1946, p.2
^[31]SMH, 2 July 1946, p.2
^[32]Argus, 1 July 1946, p.2
^[33]John Earl Bowker, This Atomic Age - And You!, E & E Publishing Co., Melbourne, [1948], p.62
^[34]Letter from M.J. Howard, State Secretary of Women’s Service Guilds of Western Australia Inc., to Prime Minister, 11 July 1946, Australian Archives, A461 J341/1/1
^[35]Copy of resolutions passed at ‘Combined Women’s Organisations Protest Meeting, re Destructive Atomic Energy, 9th August, 1946’, Australian Archives, A461 J341/1/1; see also Argus, 11 July 1946, p.9 & 10 August 1946, p.8; Australian Women’s Digest???
^[36]The Atomic Age Exhibition will be discussed more fully in Chapter.?. The film is held by the National Film & Sound Archive, ‘Atomic Power’, ABB000029 CP001070-001
^[37]Canon E.J. Davidson, ‘Challenge to Human Nature’, Voice, vol.3 no.7 (April 1954), p.19-20; this issue of Voice contains reports on all the talks given at this meeting on 8 April, 1954, in Sydney Town Hall; ASIO’s comments etc
^[38]‘Triumph and Menace’, Age, 8 August 1945, p.2; C.B.O. Mohr, ‘Atomic Energy / Blessing or Curse?’, Science Review, no.12 (August 1949), p.66; ‘What does the atomic age mean to you? Menace or Miracle?’, leaflet advertising public meeting organized by the Camberwell Citizen’s Group on Atomic Issues, 15 February 1955, Australian National Library RIL GEN ‘Atomic & nuclear physics’
^[39]Rodney Hall, ‘Hiroshima - Calder Hall’, Overland, no.10 (September 1957), p.5
^[40]Race Mathews, ‘Crossroads’, Overland, no.10 (September 1957) p.5
^[41]‘Draft Statement by the Prime Minister - Hydrogen Bomb’, April 1954, Australian Archives, A462 449/31; get reference from CPD
^[42]Weart, Ch.8
^[43]Letter from Society of Friends, Hobart, to Prime Minister, 18 April 1954, Australian Archives, A462 449/2 Pt.1
^[44]Letter from Marjorie Nichol, Secretary of Woman’s Christian Temperance Union of Victoria, to Prime Minister, 2 May 1956, Australian Archives, A462 449/7 Pt.2
^[45]Rev. Dr. C.N. Button, God, Man and The Bomb, p.9
^[46]Peake’s Commentary on the Bible, eds. M. Black & H.H. Rowley, Thomas Nelson & Sons, London, 1962, p.282; Deuteronomy, XXX: 19-20
^[47]Age, 11 August 1945, p.1; SMH, 11 August 1945, p.3
^[48]Ronald Knox, God and the Atom, quoted in a review by James G. Murtagh, ‘A Christian Guide to the Atomic Age’, Advocate, 3 July 1946, p.9
^[49]Quoted from his sermon ‘Religion faces the Atomic Age’, SMH, 1 July 1946, p.5
^[50]John Reid, Man Without God - An Introduction to Unbelief, Corpus Instrumentorum, New York, 1971, p.43