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Author's note: this article appeared in the May-June 2002 issue of Topical Time, the Journal of Thematic Philately of the American Topical Association. Several of the stamp images shown have already appeared in the Modern Physics and Chemistry sections of SCI-PHILATELY, but I wanted to bring them all together to underscore the negative feelings they express and the universal disapproval they arouse. |
| One of the most powerful symbols to come out of the 20th
century and World War II is the mushroom shaped cloud accompanying an
atomic bomb explosion. It is instantly recognizable as a sign of war,
death, and destruction. The grim reaper and the horsemen of the apocalypse
of earlier times have been superseded by the monstrous cloud that sucks
up what the fireball of the explosion has destroyed and carries it to
ever greater heights, only to shower down as a toxic, lethal rain of radioactive
fallout in areas far beyond its origin. The destructive power of such
a bomb is vastly greater than that of any explosive known to earlier generations
of belligerents. For lack of a better measure it is expressed as equivalent
to tons of TNT, the material of heretofore conventional weapons. But mere
tons do not adequately describe it; this power is measured in kilotons,
and even megatons, of TNT. It is small wonder, then, that there are few
stamps that bear this frightening image. The few nations which possess
nuclear weapons have been reluctant to issue postal reminders of the destructive
powers they control, while non-members of the nuclear club can only hint
at their apprehension of a world engulfed in nuclear war. In this article
we will examine the few examples of mushroom clouds on stamps that have
been issued. Even stamps that commemorate treaties designed to limit or
ban the use and spread of nuclear weapons rarely incorporate such a design.
The atomic bomb was the culmination of an intensive, secret WWII scientific venture called the Manhattan Project. Discoveries in physics described in the Modern Physics sections were the basis of this project. The United States was in a race with Germany to be the first to have such a weapon which could determine the outcome of the war. The theoretical and experimental aspects of nuclear fission had been explored in earlier years, leading to the splitting of the uranium atom under slow neutron bombardment by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann in 1938. If a chain reaction of the fission process could be sustained, an explosion would likely result. The US in a concerted effort was first able to produce such a weapon, test it, and use it against Japan on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. So massive were the effects of these bombs that Japan surrendered to end the war. This was the only time nuclear weapons were used against another nation. However, the successful application of nuclear fission was now known and before too many years had passed, by fair means or foul, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France had acquired the secrets of nuclear bomb production. They were followed by Peoples' Republic of China and later by India and Pakistan. There ensued a period of building and testing of nuclear weapons, particularly by the superpowers, stockpiling them and achieving ever more powerful weapons and the capability to annihilate all mankind many times over. The testing did not take place in the homeland because of the recognized danger from fallout. Rather, the US moved its testing operations to the South Pacific, namely the Marshall Islands, specifically Bikini. Here, far from scrutiny, the first test detonations after Hiroshima and Nagasaki took place, totally polluting and poisoning the atoll. The Marshall Islands in 1996 issued a set of semi-postals intended to assist the Bikini refugees on the 50th anniversary of their displacement. |
 
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| Two of these stamps (shown above) are based on actual
photos of the first two US nuclear tests in 1946. This test series was
called Operation Crossroads and the tests were named Able (left), an airdrop,
and Baker (right), an underwater shot. The awesome size of the Baker test
can be appreciated by noting the naval vessels in the foreground, dwarfed
by the ascending fireball. The Marshall Islands also issued a souvenir
sheet of 15, named Events of the 20th Century 1940-1949, which makes a
reference to nuclear destruction with a stamp showing a grinning skull
against a mushroom cloud. This stamp is described as "Mankind faces Atomic
Age" and is shown at the top of this page. The evacuated population of
Bikini has yet to return to its homeland.
From 1945 to 1988 the U.S. conducted a total of 930 known nuclear tests with a combined yield estimated to be 174 megatons. Approximately 137 megatons of that total was detonated in the atmosphere. Similarly, the British government conducted tests on islands off Australia; the USSR, in the Ustyurt desert and on islands off Siberia; France, in the Algerian desert. All these tests were atmospheric or under water. There was wide-spread, loud condemnation of testing both home and abroad, and the world was gripped by the fear that an accidental release of a nuclear weapon could result in instant retaliation, followed by the global destruction of all life and environment. The drive for nuclear superiority was finally suspended by the 1963 "hot line" agreement between the US and the USSR, which kept a telecommunications line open between Washington and Moscow to avoid any accidental start to a war. This was followed by the limited Test Ban Treaty of August 1963 between the US, UK, and USSR, prohibiting tests of nuclear devices in the atmosphere, in outer space, and underwater, while allowing nuclear testing to continue underground. |
 
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| This ratified treaty provided the occasion for the United Nations to issue the first stamp displaying a mushroom cloud, with a padlock inscribed "cessation of nuclear testing." But only a year later China, not a signatory, detonated its first bomb. In 1967 the three earlier signatories agreed to the Outer Space Treaty, banning nuclear weapons from space or any celestial body, such as the moon. In the same year, alarmed by the Cuban Missile Crisis, when Soviet missiles were brought to the Western hemisphere, Latin American countries banded together for the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America (also known as the Treaty of Tlatelolco). This treaty obligates Latin American parties not to acquire or possess nuclear weapons, nor to permit the storage or deployment of nuclear weapons on their territories by other countries. |
 
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| Mexico marked both the 10th and 30th anniversaries of
the Tlatelolco treaty with stamps showing mushroom clouds. The 10th anniversary
stamp on the left shows an adaptation of Leonardo da Vinci's drawing of
Vitruvian Man, a male figure inscribed both into a circle and a square.
Da Vinci based this figure on ideal human proportions from the writings
of the first century AD Roman architect Vitruvius who enjoyed a revival
in the Renaissance. On the stamp the human form has been replaced by a
skeleton topped by a grinning skull against the lurid background of a
nuclear explosion, a portent for humanity in the nuclear age. The 1997
stamp mirrors a healthy green tree over the shape of a mushroom cloud
in a red sky, signaling an alternative of fiery destruction.
1968 brought the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a multilateral agreement signed and ratified by the US, USSR, UK, and 133 non-nuclear-weapon states to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and to assure that the peaceful nuclear programs of non-nuclear-weapon states were not diverted to weapons production. The United Nations notes this event with a stamp in 1972 (above), showing an atomic cloud crossed out with an X. Belgium also observes the 25th anniversary of this treaty (but not till 1995) with another impressive example of a mushroom cloud inscribed with the words "plus jamais" - never again. |
 
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| The mushroom symbol is also used in an off-beat issue from Nicaragua. (above) Einstein's law E=mc2 is shown in a set of stamps showing the ten mathematical formulas that changed the face of the earth, and it features a stylized mushroom cloud. Inside the mushroom cap appears a beryllium atom with four electrons orbiting a nucleus of four protons and five neutrons. Beryllium is a highly efficient generator of slow neutrons when bombarded with alpha particles, and may serve as a source of neutrons to initiate nuclear fission. At the base of the mushroom are roiling churning clouds of debris as seen on many actual photos of nuclear events. However, front and center in the picture is a prone white-draped figure being irradiated from upper left, watched by a technician behind a window to the right. This peaceful application of nuclear energy somewhat mitigates the stark symbolism of the mushroom cloud. |
 Another unusual
example showing a nuclear explosion is from Upper Volta (Burkina Faso)
in 1977. Stamps showing Nobel laureates are popular with collectors and
many are issued by third world nations who have no Nobel laureates of
their own but want to share in the philatelic market. Here Linus Pauling
is commemorated for his Nobel prize in chemistry in 1954, "for the study
of the nature of the chemical bond and the determination of the structure
of molecules and crystals." But in the background, behind some molecular
structures, a vast fireball is rising, introducing a jarring element into
the stamp design. Why this strange juxtaposition? Pauling was deeply involved
in the peace movement and campaigned ceaselessly, "not only against nuclear
weapons tests, not only against the spread of these armaments, not only
against their very use, but against all warfare as a means of solving
international conflicts." He eloquently described "the consequences, should
there be a major war involving hydrogen bombs: a thousand million men
and women dead, and the earth's atmosphere permeated with toxic radioactive
substances, from which no human being, animal, or plant would be safe."
He initiated a declaration, signed by 52 Nobel prize winners, warning
"all nations must come to the decision to renounce force as a final resort.
If they are not prepared to do this, they will cease to exist." So, in
effect, this stamp not only celebrates Pauling's 1954 Nobel prize in chemistry,
but his 1962 Nobel prize for Peace as well.
Fifty years after the end of WWII, the USPS planned to include a picture of the Hiroshima bomb as a historic event in a souvenir sheet commemorating the end of the war (11). However, due to objections from Japan, followed by pressure from the White House, the design was replaced with a picture of President Truman announcing the end of war. According to Linn's Stamp News, five different private labels have been printed showing the A-bomb stamp design, or similar ones, in response to, or as a protest against the USPS action. The one shown below is the originally proposed USPS design which was subsequently duplicated on a label with replaced captions above and below: "Japan surrenders 1945" and "US surrenders 1994". Another label, shown on cover below with a legitimate US stamp, states "Atomic Bombs End WW II" |
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| Last Modified: 7 April 2005 mn URL: http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/units/asl/exhibits/stamps/bomb.html Comments to: mnaylor@buffalo.edu Back to: Arts & Sciences Libraries Copyright 2005 Maiken Naylor |
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