Overheard on BBC Radio 4

Did Melancholicus hear this correctly?

Tony Blair, the ultimate cafeteria Catholic and former prime minister of the UK, is currently in Jerusalem, ’mediating’ between the Israelis and the Palestinians, or at least trying to.

While listening to the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 this morning, Melancholicus was sure he heard the presenter say that Mr. Blair was trying to organise the Palestinians into “a viable nuclear state”.

Yes, yes, we know what he really meant, but what an unfortunate choice of words! With a vest like that, the Palestinians could give the world the mother of all suicide bombers.

Surely Melancholicus must have misheard.

No?

Enola Gay pilot dies aged 92

Gen. Paul Tibbets passed away peacefully at his home in Columbus, Ohio, on Thursday 1st November. He was 92 years of age.

Tibbets is most famous—or notorious, depending on one’s point of view—as having been, as a lieutenant colonel in 1945, the pilot of the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber which delivered the atomic bomb to Hiroshima.

This was the first of only two occasions in which nuclear weapons have been used against human beings in their 62-year history.

Arguments pro and contra have been raised ever since the bombing took place, and Melancholicus will not rehearse them here; they can be found in print and in many corners of the internet by those who care to look for them.

Regardless of how blessedly convenient was the atomic bomb as the device which finally brought World War II to its overdue end, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki cannot be morally justified. The full effects of a nuclear attack on an urban population were unknown before August 1945, but those who ordered the bombings or who argued that they ought to take place at least knew enough: they knew that these devices would cause massive destruction and the deaths of countless otherwise innocent people.

To his dying day, Tibbets was unrepentant over his role in the destruction of Hiroshima. He never expressed any remorse, at least not publicly. As far as he was concerned, he did no more than his duty as a soldier. However, the persistent vilification he has endured from opponents of the bombing, and which has dogged him for over sixty years, must have been a torment to him, and may well have played its part in hardening his view of his own role in the affair.

It being now the month of November (today in fact is All Souls’ day), it would be a kindness to say two prayers for the souls of the departed — the first for those who perished as a result of that terrible blast on 6th August 1945, and from its cumulative after-effects; the second for the repose of Paul Tibbets, whose soul is now in the hands of God in eternity.

Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. Requiescant in pace.

Tsar Bomba

The Islamic Republic of Iran and its nuclear ambitions have been much in the news lately, and this has reminded Melancholicus of yet another anniversary.

Forty-six years ago on this day, 30th October 1961, there occurred the biggest man-made explosion in history. This was a thermonuclear device tested by the Soviets, and by them nicknamed Big Ivan; in the west it became known as Tsar Bomba.

Tsar Bomba was designed to yield 100 megatons, making it—arguably—the most powerful weapon ever constructed. However, the device tested on this day in 1961 was a scaled-down version intended to yield only half that amount, as the Soviets were afraid of the perils of detonating such an unimaginably powerful bomb even in the remotest corner of their vast territory.

There has been much quibble over the precise output yielded by the Tsar Bomba explosion. The official yield provided by the Russians was, and remains, 50 megatons. The U.S. estimated the explosion to have been as powerful as 57 megatons. Melancholicus has seen other figures quoted passim in various sources, all ranging between 50 and 58 megatons. In any case, it makes no difference.

Enjoy the video.