Morality and the Neutron Bomb

I met Thomas Murray in the summer of 1959, when I was to give him and a ranking Pentagon official a briefing on the neutron bomb. Murray was at that time a consultant to the Joint Atomic Energy Committee of the U.S. Congress. Previously, from 1950 to 1957, he had served on the Atomic Energy Commission. He held a number of highly controversial views—including the belief that the United States should develop small tactical nuclear weapons for use in ground wars rather than depend on massive thermonuclear retaliation to deter such wars.

Thomas Murray, a deeply devout Catholic and very active and influential in U.S. Catholic circles, brought to the AEC a concern that the U.S. nuclear-weapon program be based on moral as well as military and political considerations. He was often referred to as “the conscience of the [Atomic Energy] Commission” because of his moral convictions.

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Samuel T. Cohen

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I met Thomas Murray in the summer of 1959, when I was to give him and a ranking Pentagon official a briefing on the neutron bomb. Murray was at that time a consultant to the Joint Atomic Energy Committee of the U.S. Congress. Previously, from 1950 to 1957, he had served on the Atomic Energy Commission. He held a number of highly controversial views—including the belief that the United States should develop small tactical nuclear weapons for use in ground wars rather than depend on massive thermonuclear retaliation to deter such wars.

Thomas Murray, a deeply devout Catholic and very active and influential in U.S. Catholic circles, brought to the AEC a concern that the U.S. nuclear-weapon program be based on moral as well as military and political considerations. He was often referred to as “the conscience of the [Atomic Energy] Commission” because of his moral convictions.