Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/08/24
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]To answer Don Rorschach's points in order: First, reparations are the sort of thing Courts order folks to pay each other all the time in civil suits and criminal ones, to boot. It is NOT a felony, Attorney Don to the contrary, for one civilian to take another's property provided he does so in accordance with law. And, precisely as the loser in a civil lawsuit or a guilty party in a criminal case can be ordered to pay the prevailing party for their losses, so it is with nations. The losing nation can be required to cough up reparations to the winners. And so it was with a lot of military technology at the end of the Second World War: in civil cases, we call it a judgement at law, in criminal cases, we call it restitution, while in war it is known as reparations. In all three cases, it is perfectly legal. (I suspect that if Don's cameras were ripped off and the thief was caught, he would be swallowing all of his high-falutin' philosophy while demanding that the DA ask the Judge to order the thief to repay him for his losses by directing restitution as part of the sentence. And, if his gear were insured, then the insurance company would be so requesting -- folks, I DO defend criminals, and this is exactly what happens.) Second, von Braun may have been as polite as he wanted to be when Don heard him speak but the reality is that von Braun was not aware of Goddard until his own team's designs were in place. Von Braun was the team chief and had many talented engineers under him: he served, as a civilian before the War, as a German government employee during the War, and as a US Army and NASA employee after the War, as the team's administrator. His own math abilities really never came into play. (Again, see Ley's ROCKETS, MISSILES, AND SPACE TRAVEL: von Braun was a close friend to Ley, and Ley had served as his assistant before fleeing from Nazi Germany in the late 1930's. Ley HAD heard of Goddard, incidentally.) Third, it is a common myth spread by the ignorant that Einstein was involved in the development of the Atomic Bomb. He was not. Several of the other scientists, under the leadership of the American physicist Conant, asked Einstein, in 1938, to write a letter to FDR, as Einstein was the only one of them known outside the narrow world of nuclear physics. Einstein did so. The letter pointed out the significant German ability to build a bomb if they invested the resources, and calling on the US to do it first. End of his involvement. His own work was fundamental to the development of nuclear physics but he himself was not a nuclear physicist. Some months later, FDR set up the brain trust, under Conant, which subsequently was to transmogrify into the Manhatten Project, in which Einstein played no part at all. Einstein's only role was as a publicist, not as a mover-and-shaker. (After my first post on this subject, I did think of one, lone German scientist involved in the Manhatten Project, Klaus Fuchs. Fuchs was a Communist and fled Nazi Germany to settle in the UK and, I believe, later on in Canada. He was sent to the Manhatten Project as part of the UK's contribution when they merged TUBE ALLOYS into the American effort. He also was an active spy for the USSR and, as recent findings in the KGB files have revealed, gave the Soviets a substantial boost in their ability to process plutonium.) In general, the Manhatten Project was 95% engineering and 5% theory -- the theory of the A-Bomb had been developed, and publicized, a decade earlier. What the Manhatten Project did was to develop means of purifying uranium and processing plutonium to use in the A-Bomb. The rest of it was already pretty well established. (And, yes, the process to produce enriched U-235 or plutonium is ghastly expensive, which is the prime reason the Germans never came close to getting the Bomb.) Due to security concerns, the few Germans working in the Project, such as Meitner and Bethe, were almost all kept away from the hard engineering work which was the most deeply classified part of the Project. Don, you might want to subscribe to the WWII-L. These issues are commonly discussed there and in far more detail and with far more sources. It would be wonderful to see your intellectual development as you actually figure out what you're talking about before you post something. Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!