ON August 6 and 9, 57 years will have elapsed since Hiroshima and Nagasaki were obliterated with atomic bombs.

The claim that this action was justified because it saved Allied lives and shortened the war is both immoral and untrue. Immoral, in that Allied lives are thereby seen as more valuable/sacred/important than Japanese lives. Untrue, because the war could have been ended months earlier if the US had not wished to impress the Soviet Union with a demonstration of its military might. (That is the conclusion of Alperovitz's definitive study, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb)

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was, in fact, a crime against humanity. The denial of its criminality has led to a world where there is a steadily increasing likelihood of nuclear war, as the recent crisis between India and Pakistan has demonstrated. No country is seriously interested in nuclear disarmament: on the contrary, more and more of them are obtaining nuclear weapons, and any inhibition about using them again is steadily diminishing. The Prime Minister and the current Minister of Defence have both gone on record as being willing to contemplate nuclear war, while the US is developing battlefield nuclear weapons that it intends to use.

We in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament try to keep alive the memory of the crime that was committed in 1945, and to demonstrate our commitment to a peacefyl world. So, in Bolton, we will be holding a silent vigil in front of the War Memorial in Victoria Square from 1.30pm-2pm on Saturday, August 3, and calling on our own Government to rid itself of its nuclear weapons. Join us.

Neil McAlister (Chairman)

Malcolm Pittock (Secretary)

Keith Dewhurst (Minutes Secretary)

Bolton CND/Stop the War Coalition