While reading “American Prometheus,” the biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, I was amazed to realize that he began advocating against the proliferation of nuclear weapons almost 80 years ago. Yet despite his efforts and those of many other individuals, the threat of nuclear war is greater now than ever before. The “doomsday clock” of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is 90 seconds to midnight; the closest it has ever been. I hope this fact will make you listen carefully at 8:15 a.m. on the morning of Aug. 6 to the bells ringing around the Valley. On that day and at that time 79 years ago, the United States dropped the first nuclear bomb, destroying the city of Hiroshima, Japan, and three days later, Nagasaki, killing between 129,000 and 226,000 people, and ushering in the threat of nuclear war. The bells also remind us that the countries possessing nuclear weapons have a choice — between continuing on this self-destructive path or working to abolish them. Like the Hibakusha, survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, many people and groups in western Massachusetts are working to eliminate nuclear weapons. One of these, Back from the Brink (of nuclear war) calls on the United States government to implement safeguards to reduce the danger of nuclear war and bring to an end this threat to all life on earth. (see https://preventnuclearwar.org/our-five-policy-solutions/) Now is time for each of us to double our efforts to help solve this most existential of all the challenges we face.

Thomas E. Wartenberg

Goshen