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Moriarty, J., April 1, 1947
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APR 2 RECD
New York, 327 W. 56 St., Apl. 1st '47
Committee of Atomic Scientists Princeton, New Jersey.
Gentlemen:
I have your letter of March 20th.
There is nothing in the history of the U.S. so opaque in its underlying conditions as the sudden inscrutable change in the reorientation of the country's destiny to a new end totally opposite direction. One may ask what transpired to account for this revolution? The main factor, of course, was the loss of the keystone binding the various elements of its Population and the installation of a new man around whom gravitated the forces which had been predominant during the war, spear-headed by the mad militarists apparently.
Here seems to have the genesis of the new movement, but nothing has appeared of its incipient designs and deliberations. Suddenly burst forth the theories evolved. Gone was the pastwith all its glories and struggles, gone was the vision of that beacon illuminated every part of world for over a century and a half and which struck a responsive cord in the breast of every American, gone was the "one world" theory and all it connoted. Everything erased. Allies became covert enemies overnight, a policy still pursued regardless of results as may he seen in the outpourings of the daily press.
Men were now creating a new system in their own image which turns out to be nothing more than the old in a new guise. Its gleams are becoming daily more concrete: Empires dissolving, every western European nation wrangling with its neighbor, new nations appearing in the orient cast in the old mould, and the new dreadful mammoth sprawling over half the world raising insane fears because of its very hugeness. Friction, disagreement and discord everywhere. And over all the atom bomb to secure conformity - the new dispenser of justice and good will to men.
The voices of men are being raised throughout the world against this reversion to barbarism, but the bomb will brook no opposition to its sway. It will secure compliance or destruction. What a criterion this of our civilised status and its protagonists. Nero was a piker in comparison. He had only one night and one Rome for his shambles but our modern Neroes have the whole world , and all time for their pastimes.
The efforts of Your committee, headed as it is by the greatest mind in time should merit the approval and support of every real American proud of his country and its great part and greater outlook within the confines of decent human procedure.
I wish I could make my contribution many times more than the enclosed mite of $10. but that is all I can afford.
Ardently hoping for Your success.
Very truly yours, J. Moriarty
$10.00 ma