RACE FOR NUCLEAR ARMAMENT: THREAT TO WORLD PEACE
Introduction
Nuclear weapons are, simply, the most indiscriminately inhumane weapons ever invented, and the only ones capable of destroying life on this planet as we know it. There is only one other global policy issue remotely comparable in terms of its impact on planetary survivability and that is climate change: but nuclear bombs can kill us a lot faster than CO2.
Harry Truman (1884-1972) was the most influential person in the race for the super bomb. As President Roosevelt’s Vice President, he knew nothing about the development of the atomic bomb. But within months of assuming the office of President of the United States on April 12, 1945, he became the first and only American leader to authorize the use of atomic weapons against an enemy target. Truman’s era only marked the beginning of the race for nuclear weapons. The development of nuclear weapons is still an issue today, decades after Truman left office.

Enrico Fermi (1901-1954) succeeded in splitting the uranium atom and the Nobel Committee later awarded him the 1938 prize for physics. At Columbia University in New York, Fermi realized that if neutrons are emitted in the fissioning of uranium then the emitted neutrons might proceed to split other uranium atoms, setting in motion a chain reaction that would release enormous amounts of energy.(1) Fermi had succeeded in taking one of the first steps to making an atomic bomb.

A decade later on July 16, 1945, the U.S. detonated the first Atomic Bomb near Alamogordo, New Mexico. It was called the "Trinity" test and exploded with a force equivalent to 18,000 tons of TNT.(2) Truman then made the controversial decision to drop the bomb over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The "Little Boy" Atomic Bomb exploded 1,900 feet above Hiroshima with a force equivalent to 12,500 tons of TNT.(3) Bomb related deaths totaled