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ON THE ADOLITION OF THE THREAT OF WAR 165
purpose of drawing attention far and wide to these fundamental
aspirations as a basis on which to restore the political health of
the peoples.
It was scarcely to be avoided that the Declaration should take
the form of a legalistic document, which in its rigidity may lead
to endless discussion. It is impossible for such a text to take
the great diversity of conditions of life in the different countries
fully into account; in addition, it is unavoidable that such
a text admits various interpretations of detail. The general
tendency of the Declaration, however, is unmistakable and provides
a suitable, generally acceptable basis for judgment and
action.
:To give formal recognition to standards and to adopt them
as the guiding lines of action in the teeth of all the adversities
of a changing situation are two very different things-as the
impartial observer may see particularly in the history of religious
institutions. Then and ouly then will the Declaration
exert effective influence, when the United Nations itself shows
by its decisions and actions that it does embody, de facto, the
spirit of this, its own Declaration.
ON THE fiOLITION OF THE THREAT OF WAR
Written September 20, 1952. Published in Japanese magazine,
Kaizo (Tokyo), Autumn, 1952.
My part in producing the atomic bomb consisted in a single
act: I signed a letter to President Roosevelt, pressing the need
for experiments on a large scale in order to explore the possibilities
for the production of an atomic bomb.
I was fully aware of the terrible danger to mankind in case
this attempt succeeded. But the likelihood that the Germans
were working on the same problem with a chance of succeeding
. forced me to this step. I could do nothing else although I have
always been a convinced pacifist. To my mind, to kill in war is
20t a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.
As long, however, as the nations are not resolved to abolish