Governments can invest vast resources in an atomic or nuclear bomb program, but without the extraordinary talents and efforts of a large pool of scientists, that program is unlikely to produce a viable weapon. But once a bomb has been created, scientists often have little say in how it is used.

For the individual scientists themselves, working on a nuclear bomb program can pose profound moral and ethical questions. Some have come to regret their creation and become leading voices in the antinuclear, abolutionist, and arms control movements. Others have become vocal advocates for continued development of new generations of nuclear weapons.

The readings this week concern scientists' involvement in several atomic or nuclear bomb projects (American, Soviet, German, and Iraqi). In class we will discuss how and why these scientists have contributed to the development of atomic or nuclear weapons and how they have grappled with the dilemmas they have faced in making that contribution.

What responsibility do the atomic scientists bear for the way in which their creations were used (or abused)? (NB. "Responsibility" is not necessarily the same as "blame," although you could argue that that is a part of it. But you should think about the issue more broadly. For example, what role should the bomb's creators play in policy decisions on the bomb's use? How do scientists defend their involvement publicly?)

• Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986) 617-78
• Thomas Powers Heisenberg's War (1993) vii-xi
• Edward Teller, Memoirs (2001) 273-308
• Glenn Seaborg, Adventures in the Atomic Age (2001) 86-103
• David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb (1994) 72-95
• Khidhir Hamza, "Inside Saddam's Secret Nuclear Program" (1998)
• Hans Bethe, "Science and Morality," The Road from Los Alamos (1991) 175-82
• James Hershberg, James B. Conant, 225-34