BBC2, good morning Sunday interview with Group Captain Leonard Cheshire
Title
BBC2, good morning Sunday interview with Group Captain Leonard Cheshire
Description
Nuclear deterrent Good Morning, Sunday on BBC2 presented by Paul McDowell. GLC speaks on the nuclear deterrent and his experience of being an observer at Nagasaki. Tape starts with radio chatter and interview with Leonard Cheshire starts at 3 minutes 14 seconds. Describes being observer for atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki and his feelings at the time. Asked if he still thought dropping the atom bomb was right. Goes on to discuss nuclear deterrence and nuclear arms race. Finally discusses question of defence spending. Submitted with caption 'Original insert says "Paul McDowell says Good Morning Sunday 11th December 1983 BBC Radio 2, Producer: Chris Rees. Sunday 11/12/83 Nuclear Deterrent".
Side 1: Recording of BBC radio show where Leonard Cheshire is interviewed about his experiences of observing Nagasaki in 1945
Side 2: Introduction to the segment by Paul McDowell, talking and playing music (Leonard Cheshire is not on this side)'.
This item is available only at the University of Lincoln.
Side 1: Recording of BBC radio show where Leonard Cheshire is interviewed about his experiences of observing Nagasaki in 1945
Side 2: Introduction to the segment by Paul McDowell, talking and playing music (Leonard Cheshire is not on this side)'.
This item is available only at the University of Lincoln.
Creator
Date
1983-04-20
Language
Type
Format
Audio recording 00:42:31
Publisher
Rights
This content is property of the Leonard Cheshire Archive which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre.
Identifier
SCheshireGL72021v20010-0001, SCheshireGL72021v20010-0001-Transcript
Transcription
Leonard Cheshire Resonate Project
File Title: 11.12.83 Nuclear deterrent Good Morning Sunday on BBC2 presented by Paul McDowell. GLC speaks on the nuclear deterrent and his experience of being an observer at Nagasaki.
Duration: 42:35 mins
Transcription Date: 23/04/20
Archive Number: AV-S_206 Side 1
Start of Transcription
00:01 Paul McDowell: [Speech fades in]… the air all in the ferries, except the Stranraer Larne route which is reduced by two round trips each day. Engineering works in many places on the British Rail network make it desirable to check times and services before leaving home. That’s the travel news this Sunday morning at 18 minutes past 8.
00:20 [Background music starts to play] ‘Sing Children Sing’, Lesley Duncan. We'll be talking to Group Captain Leonard Cheshire after this, the whole question of the nuclear debate.
00:30 [Musical interlude - Sing Children Sing, Lesley Duncan] to 03:14
03:14 PM: Group Captain Cheshire, you were an observer when they dropped the A-bomb in 1945 in Nagasaki, what did that actually involve?
03:22 Group Captain Leonard Cheshire: Well there were two observers, the chief observer was Lord Pinney, who had been part of the team building the bomb. I think that my role was more to look at it from a tactical point of view as a pilot, and to report on what the implications were as regards dropping it and getting away from the target and...
03:48 PM: - So where were you then when the bomb was dropped?
03:50 G.C: We were in the second plane - there were 3 planes all together, one carrying the bomb. There was actually a muddle that day, the Nagasaki was not the primary target, diverted from the primary target because of bad weather. So we were in fact 50 miles away when the bomb detonated. But even so, in bright sunlight, there was a huge flash inside our cockpit.
04:18 PM: Given your part in the war, in the Second World War, at that stage were you quite ready to see a nuclear bomb being used?
04:27 G.C: Well I think we have to look back as to what was actually happening and what had happened at that time, August 1945. The war had been fought for 6 years. Already, over 50 million people had been killed and that means something like 180 thousand every week every year of those 6 years of war, and out of those at least 80 percent were civilians not military. The Japanese military command was completely dedicated to fighting to the last man, although they realised they couldn't… win. There were probably peace feelers by the politicians but the military high command were going to ignore these. My role at that time was part of the planning team for the frontal assault, the invasion of Japan. That meant 5 million men across the Pacific into Japan, it was estimated it would take another year of fighting and they thought another 3 million deaths. By that time the whole business of war was so terrible that the dominant thought in my mind was, 'What do we do to stop a third World War?', and I think that once I got over the terrible shock of being told what an atom bomb was, and knowing that I was going to sit in the sky and actually watch one go over, once I got over - if one can - that shock, my hope was, 'Would it bring the war to a sudden end? Would it stop this awful business of a frontal assault on Japan?'.
06:23 PM: So with that hope then in your heart in the cockpit in that August day, was there no shock no sense of revulsion when you saw that cloud of smoke?
06:31 G.C: There was a terrible shock... I think the chief impact on me was a feeling of power, I’d never seen anything that had that degree of power. It was so sort of symmetrical, so silent, so it was just... it overwhelmed you with its power, that was my main impression. Of course I had to struggle with myself to keep my mind on what I was supposed to do, that required quite a mental effort. And through it all came two thoughts, 'What's happening to the people on the ground?' and 'Is this going to save the lives of those higher than many who are going to have to die otherwise?'.
07:19 PM: How did you focus you thoughts on those people on the ground? Were you aware of the horrible suffering that still goes on because of it?
07:28 G.C: Well obviously I wasn't, overhead, because what could you see the whole city was shrouded in black cloud... but remember that… burned into my mind, like as with everybody else, was a thought of the simply appalling suffering that had already taken place. The whole war was just a period of intense suffering. I think the one concrete thought that came out of my mind was, we must stop it happening again. I felt that the atom bomb... symbolised the horror of World War, and drew our attention to the need to stop it ever happening again.
08:17 [Musical interlude - So This is Christmas, John Lennon and Yoko Ono] to 11:27
11:26 PM: Happy Christmas, ‘War is Over’ John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Wondering if you have been reading John Lennon's life story for the tenth time in one of the popular daily papers this week. And no matter what you say about his search for happiness or how he went about it, no doubt about it, that only enforces that song only enforces what a marvellous musician he really was. ‘War is over’, or is it? This morning we are talking to Group Captain Leonard Cheshire who was there when they dropped the atom bomb in Nagasaki.
11:57 Group Captain, after 40 years, despite all the suffering, do you still believe that the dropping of that atom bomb was in fact right?
12:07 G.C: Well, as I've said, that World War cost 55 million lives, 20 million of them were civilians put to death in a terrible way in the concentration camps - the Nazi concentration camps - so surely the overriding need is to see that it doesn't happen again. And if we're looking for fault, for blame, then I would say that it lay on the nation as a whole in the 1930's but particularly on the two political parties, for not taking the political and the military steps necessary to stop Hitler. And I think that if you ask me what my conclusion is... at the time that I saw that go off, I felt convinced that nations that held that atom bomb would never be attacked by another major nation, that the bomb is just so terrible that it makes no sense it’s just unimaginable to make war against another nuclear power. But of course in the intervening years, I've realised that... war is not made by the weapon, that war and peace depend upon what's in man’s heart and it’s a question of whether we're willing to make the sacrifice to build peace, to build justice, to eradicate the - for instance the injustice of gross poverty - to do what we can to help people that are suffering under an unjust regime, whilst at the same time, keeping up our defences so that nobody is able to use force to impose their will upon another nation.
14:09 PM: Is that then the basis of your beliefs that the writing of this pamphlet 'The Nuclear Dilemma'?
14:15 G.C: The nuclear problem, the nuclear threat, presents us obviously with an enormous moral dilemma. Whichever the two roads you choose, whether it's disarmament or deterrence, you're faced with very great moral problems. Neither solution offers a solution that's morally completely acceptable.
14:44 PM: But do you approach it from a moral standpoint or from a Christian standpoint?
14:50 G.C: I approach it from a Christian moral standpoint, obviously people have different views of morality... I'm trying to approach it from the point of view of what best accords with our Christian duty to love all our fellow men. I believe that's the only criteria that you can apply in attempting to resolve the dilemma.
15:17 PM: But if you start on the basis of loving you fellow men, is loving your fellow men building up these weapons - if you like - behind their backs just in case they should take action?
15:29 G.C: Well you'll have to answer the basic question, what do I do if I'm walking down the street and a gang of thugs attack a bunch of ladies - or anybody you like... and... are doing physical harm or perhaps - as is happening - putting them to death? What is my Christian duty? I can't stand back and do nothing about it, in my opinion. It's quite clear that evil cannot be overcome by force... but the problem is that you have to consider evil both in itself and in its consequences. One of the consequences of evil is that it is able to use force to destroy or to impose somebody else's will on a group of innocent people. So as I see it, the role of force is to limit the effects of evil - in other words to limit the harm that evil can do through the use of violence. And if you build your weapons to stop that, I don't see that that's morally wrong.
16:47 PM: So you see the nuclear arms race as one of two sides building up weapons which are deterrents, which are part of the defences, but you think will never be used?
16:58 G.C: I’m absolutely convinced that there is no likelihood whatsoever of any form of war between - if I may call it East and West, the Soviet Union and the West. In my opinion, what we’ve got to aim for is not just stopping nuclear weapons being used, we've got to stop any form of World War - that is war between major nations. Now the disarmament lobby... do not believe that the nuclear weapon deters war, well if that is so, obviously conventional weapons deter war still less. So if you remove the nuclear weapons - assuming that were possible on both sides - you're then left with high probability of conventional war, and a conventional war would be as disaster of absolutely catastrophic proportions.
17:59 PM: But surely -
18:00 G.C: - Sorry -
18:00 PM: - What you must bring into this argument Group Captain -
18:00 G.C: [Speaking at the same time] - Yes -
PM: - Is the fact that we live in a fallen world and that evil does triumph and that humanity is frail and could very easily put their finger on the button.
18:11 G.C: Can we just consider that question, 'Fairly easily put its finger on the button'... the way that things are with a rough parity on both sides, each side knows that if they attempt any military attack against the other, there's a danger of it escalating to nuclear level in which case both are destroyed. Now I just do not believe that a nation will ever do something that it knows is going to destroy itself. I accept that obviously individuals are willing to give their lives for a cause that they think is greater than themselves, and they do, but what cause can you think of that would make a nation knowingly destroy itself? I just don't believe it.
19:06 PM: What about some of the smaller nations that are building up nuclear arms? I mean you're painting black and white, east and west, but what happens if our smaller nation who wants to attack?
19:15 G.C: Well I think you've put your finger on the big problem, I think that our attention is in the wrong place. I just don't believe there's the slightest likelihood of war between East and West - particularly with the Russians being as cautious as they are - and instead of concentrating on that and giving that all our time and energy, we should be concentrating on the second generation nuclear nations. Cuz suppose a Middle Eastern fanatical country thought that the solution to the Israeli problem was the nuclear bomb - and you can't stop nuclear knowledge it's quite possible for them to get it - where would we be then? I think that the world community should get itself together and get itself organised to find some way of stopping the effects of proliferation. I think it should put your finger on it.
20:12 PM: But you see, how can the world power the people get together because the nuclear arms race has created so much fear and distrust... and it’s put up so many barriers.
20:24 G.C: Well, to be honest, we've not had any form of military confrontation between the Soviet Union and the West in nearly 40 years despite one of the deepest ideological differences the world's known. So obviously it creates fear, but I think that fear is healthy because it makes us realise that no act of war between major powers is morally acceptable, that's my point. I don't believe that man will so change that he will refrain from using weapons against a weaker adverstry… out of good will. I think the only way that you're going to stop him is by letting him know that its self-destructive to do it, this is what I think at this stage in history.
21:20 PM: Well I'll tell you what, at this stage of the programme lets take a break and hear about programmes later on Radio 2.
21:25 [Advert, Man]: Our quiz 'Brain of Sport 1983' reaches the last of the semi-finals tonight. The programme will be coming from the Coventry and North Warwickshire cricket club where Peter Jones will be your quiz master. So join us at 7 o'clock tonight on Radio 2 and find out which of our contestants will prove his superior sporting knowledge and find a place in the final of 'Brain of Sport 1983'.
21:50 PM: 21 and half minutes to 9. Talking to Group Captain Cheshire this morning, this is Eric Clapton, ‘Promises’.
21:57 [Musical interlude - Eric Clapton, Promises] to 24:38
24:38 PM: Eric Clapton at 19 minutes to 9, and ‘Promises’. And I think I can safely promise that one of the themes that is going to dominate our news programmes today is the whole nuclear debate. The yays or nays after the programme last night, the day after the day there’s a huge peace rally round Greenham Common.
24:57 Well one man who has quite a close association for nuclear weapons and has seen the A-bomb used is our guest this morning, Group Captain Cheshire. Now Group Captain, you were saying that nuclear weapons can act as a deterrent but do you not think that they also encourage fear and mistrust between nations?
25:17 G.C: Well, would you agree the two are spectate - if you agree that the nuclear weapon acts as a policeman, it keeps peace, but of course it doesn't make peace. We've got to go out and build confidence, we've got to be generous, we've got to be willing to make sacrifices to help the poor - that's going to make a politically more stable international society - we've got to be willing to put ourselves in other people’s shoes - not always look at it from our point of view. Don't you think the two go side in side, the policeman and the peace maker?
25:55 PM: Well the peace maker is somebody essentially surely who turns the other cheek? You're talking about going out and helping and sacrificing, shall we not be doing that too with weapons?
26:06 G.C: I think - I mean I mustn't repeat my point - but I am just convinced that weapons stop you fighting. If you remove those powerful weapons I think there might well be a limited conventional war and if you once have that it will almost certainly escalate. I really think we should see the weapons as a protector against world war - not against minor wars between minor nations, but world war - and if we're never going to see another world war that’s to me an unimaginable blessing. Let’s use that in two ways… a warning to us that we should be less materialistic, that our minds should be set more on the things of God and less on the things of this world, and secondly that we identify ourselves more with the struggle of the poor and those who are living under injustice, that's my view.
27:13 PM: But it’s strange that this issue should so split Christian people. You're taking one standpoint from a Christian point of view, pro-nuclear weapons, and yet at the same time the whole nuclear debate has created such objections from people, again from a Christian standpoint who are saying we should turn the other cheek.
27:36 G.C: Well, they're not all saying that. What they're trying to say, most of them, is that we should do away with nuclear weapons and rely upon conventional weapons. I have to say that I do not accept that, I do not accept the moral justification of any world war, of any war between major nations. I think we are split because it's a dilemma and I think the dilemma is that we've now entered the nuclear age... we've gone through many ages in the evolution of man, we're in a new era of rapidly advancing technology which is going to give us new sources of power, all kinds of weapons and means of doing both good and harm. So, our challenge is to see that we put these new inventions to the good of humanity, not to the harm of humanity and I think it may be saletry that we have this threat of destruction of the developed world hanging over our heads to make us realise we have to be responsible, to make us realise we can't decide the future on our own - as I think we’re trying to do - we must put ourselves more in the hands of God.
29:12 PM: How can people unite, how can we unite the two factions to get people working together?
29:19 G.C: Well I've given that a lot of thought. I think that we ought to unite on the one thing we're agreed about and that is the need to build peace. For instance it is said that the money we spend on arms is a theft from the poor, and that if we didn't spend money on arms that it would be used for the poor. But that isn't true, if we save money on arms it would go to lower taxes, higher wages, better social services, better roads, and if you don't believe that then how is it that we spend a lot more on alcohol and tobacco in a year than we do arms but nobody says cut back on that and give it to the poor. The fact is that our hearts are not in helping the poor, the developing world, they're about bottom on our priorities and I think that's the great charge against Christianity, that we are not decisively acting against world poverty.
30:37 PM: Group Captain Cheshire, thank you very much indeed.
30:40 G.C: Oh thank you, Paul. Thank you.
30:44 [Musical interlude - Sympathy, Rare Bird] to 33:07
33:07 PM: The sound from the 60s. ‘Sympathy’, ‘Not enough love to go round’ in a group called ‘Rare Bird’. It’s a rare few days for Charles Smith at the moment who writes to us from Woods Road Ford End in Chelmsford in Essex, a busy time indeed because he writes saying it's his daughter’s birthday - his daughter Thelma on Friday the 9th of December, last Friday - then it's his dear wife Emily, it was her birthday yesterday and his other daughter Pamela it's her birthday [laughs] tomorrow, and just to top it all off its Charles' birthday himself on Boxing Day. What a time of the year must've been terrible when the kids were young, Charles. I'm sure Santa Claus' sack was nearly empty by the time it got round to the 25th of December.
33:53 Now this morning on Good Morning Sunday we've just been talking to Group Captain Cheshire who I was saying earlier has written a pamphlet called 'The Nuclear Dilemma, a Moral Study' setting out his arguments for nuclear weapons. If you want to get this booklet it's published by the Commission for International Justice and Peace. If you write to 38 to 40 Eccleston Square, London, SW1V 1PD. The Commission for International Justice and Peace, 38 to 40 Eccleston Square, London. And we want you to write to us cuz we're having a competition this week, we've got 5 voices here talking in a theme of Christmas and something they particularly don't like about Christmas, who are the 5?
34:33 Man: You could say people over commercialise Christmas and sometimes it is just a case of having holidays, and having big blow outs with puddings and getting a bit drunk and things [unclear].
34:48 Man: I don't like the associations of Christmas with business, and particularly with the selfishness of expensive items which are advertised as being necessary for the wellbeing of those who can get on very much better without them.
35:06 Man: The only thing I've don't [laughing] like about Christmas I spose if there's snow about, so I always say [unclear] snow looks good on Christmas cards but when you've got to live in it and work in it it's lousy.
35:15 Man: I dislike the commercialism. Obviously there's just money, money, money, money and the vast majority seem to be so absorbed with money that the real meaning of it all is lost.
35:31 Man: I dislike the commercialisation, I know that's corny to say that, but I do dislike it.
35:38 PM: Now there's a challenge. Who were the 5 voices? And in the theme of a green Christmas, enter Stan Freberg.
35:44 [Musical interlude - Stan Freberg, Green Christmas] to 41:49
41:48 PM: I love it, I love it, that's Stan Freberg and Green Christmas, a song would you believe that goes back a mere 25 years.
41:54 [Musical interlude] to 42:01
42:01 PM: Thanks to the many hard working people in the team who got the programme on the air, and the man with the smile as if to say he knows what's happening next week [laughing] it's the producer, Chris Reece, who hopefully will tell me in time by half past 7 next Sunday morning when we hope you can join us.
42:16 [Background music starts to play]
42:23 And on the telly 4:15 this afternoon on BBC1, Steve Crown for ‘BBC Sports Personality of the Year’, and mushrooms for breakfast, and David Geary.
42:31 Speech ends
42:35 End of recording
End of Transcription.
File Title: 11.12.83 Nuclear deterrent Good Morning Sunday on BBC2 presented by Paul McDowell. GLC speaks on the nuclear deterrent and his experience of being an observer at Nagasaki.
Duration: 42:35 mins
Transcription Date: 23/04/20
Archive Number: AV-S_206 Side 1
Start of Transcription
00:01 Paul McDowell: [Speech fades in]… the air all in the ferries, except the Stranraer Larne route which is reduced by two round trips each day. Engineering works in many places on the British Rail network make it desirable to check times and services before leaving home. That’s the travel news this Sunday morning at 18 minutes past 8.
00:20 [Background music starts to play] ‘Sing Children Sing’, Lesley Duncan. We'll be talking to Group Captain Leonard Cheshire after this, the whole question of the nuclear debate.
00:30 [Musical interlude - Sing Children Sing, Lesley Duncan] to 03:14
03:14 PM: Group Captain Cheshire, you were an observer when they dropped the A-bomb in 1945 in Nagasaki, what did that actually involve?
03:22 Group Captain Leonard Cheshire: Well there were two observers, the chief observer was Lord Pinney, who had been part of the team building the bomb. I think that my role was more to look at it from a tactical point of view as a pilot, and to report on what the implications were as regards dropping it and getting away from the target and...
03:48 PM: - So where were you then when the bomb was dropped?
03:50 G.C: We were in the second plane - there were 3 planes all together, one carrying the bomb. There was actually a muddle that day, the Nagasaki was not the primary target, diverted from the primary target because of bad weather. So we were in fact 50 miles away when the bomb detonated. But even so, in bright sunlight, there was a huge flash inside our cockpit.
04:18 PM: Given your part in the war, in the Second World War, at that stage were you quite ready to see a nuclear bomb being used?
04:27 G.C: Well I think we have to look back as to what was actually happening and what had happened at that time, August 1945. The war had been fought for 6 years. Already, over 50 million people had been killed and that means something like 180 thousand every week every year of those 6 years of war, and out of those at least 80 percent were civilians not military. The Japanese military command was completely dedicated to fighting to the last man, although they realised they couldn't… win. There were probably peace feelers by the politicians but the military high command were going to ignore these. My role at that time was part of the planning team for the frontal assault, the invasion of Japan. That meant 5 million men across the Pacific into Japan, it was estimated it would take another year of fighting and they thought another 3 million deaths. By that time the whole business of war was so terrible that the dominant thought in my mind was, 'What do we do to stop a third World War?', and I think that once I got over the terrible shock of being told what an atom bomb was, and knowing that I was going to sit in the sky and actually watch one go over, once I got over - if one can - that shock, my hope was, 'Would it bring the war to a sudden end? Would it stop this awful business of a frontal assault on Japan?'.
06:23 PM: So with that hope then in your heart in the cockpit in that August day, was there no shock no sense of revulsion when you saw that cloud of smoke?
06:31 G.C: There was a terrible shock... I think the chief impact on me was a feeling of power, I’d never seen anything that had that degree of power. It was so sort of symmetrical, so silent, so it was just... it overwhelmed you with its power, that was my main impression. Of course I had to struggle with myself to keep my mind on what I was supposed to do, that required quite a mental effort. And through it all came two thoughts, 'What's happening to the people on the ground?' and 'Is this going to save the lives of those higher than many who are going to have to die otherwise?'.
07:19 PM: How did you focus you thoughts on those people on the ground? Were you aware of the horrible suffering that still goes on because of it?
07:28 G.C: Well obviously I wasn't, overhead, because what could you see the whole city was shrouded in black cloud... but remember that… burned into my mind, like as with everybody else, was a thought of the simply appalling suffering that had already taken place. The whole war was just a period of intense suffering. I think the one concrete thought that came out of my mind was, we must stop it happening again. I felt that the atom bomb... symbolised the horror of World War, and drew our attention to the need to stop it ever happening again.
08:17 [Musical interlude - So This is Christmas, John Lennon and Yoko Ono] to 11:27
11:26 PM: Happy Christmas, ‘War is Over’ John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Wondering if you have been reading John Lennon's life story for the tenth time in one of the popular daily papers this week. And no matter what you say about his search for happiness or how he went about it, no doubt about it, that only enforces that song only enforces what a marvellous musician he really was. ‘War is over’, or is it? This morning we are talking to Group Captain Leonard Cheshire who was there when they dropped the atom bomb in Nagasaki.
11:57 Group Captain, after 40 years, despite all the suffering, do you still believe that the dropping of that atom bomb was in fact right?
12:07 G.C: Well, as I've said, that World War cost 55 million lives, 20 million of them were civilians put to death in a terrible way in the concentration camps - the Nazi concentration camps - so surely the overriding need is to see that it doesn't happen again. And if we're looking for fault, for blame, then I would say that it lay on the nation as a whole in the 1930's but particularly on the two political parties, for not taking the political and the military steps necessary to stop Hitler. And I think that if you ask me what my conclusion is... at the time that I saw that go off, I felt convinced that nations that held that atom bomb would never be attacked by another major nation, that the bomb is just so terrible that it makes no sense it’s just unimaginable to make war against another nuclear power. But of course in the intervening years, I've realised that... war is not made by the weapon, that war and peace depend upon what's in man’s heart and it’s a question of whether we're willing to make the sacrifice to build peace, to build justice, to eradicate the - for instance the injustice of gross poverty - to do what we can to help people that are suffering under an unjust regime, whilst at the same time, keeping up our defences so that nobody is able to use force to impose their will upon another nation.
14:09 PM: Is that then the basis of your beliefs that the writing of this pamphlet 'The Nuclear Dilemma'?
14:15 G.C: The nuclear problem, the nuclear threat, presents us obviously with an enormous moral dilemma. Whichever the two roads you choose, whether it's disarmament or deterrence, you're faced with very great moral problems. Neither solution offers a solution that's morally completely acceptable.
14:44 PM: But do you approach it from a moral standpoint or from a Christian standpoint?
14:50 G.C: I approach it from a Christian moral standpoint, obviously people have different views of morality... I'm trying to approach it from the point of view of what best accords with our Christian duty to love all our fellow men. I believe that's the only criteria that you can apply in attempting to resolve the dilemma.
15:17 PM: But if you start on the basis of loving you fellow men, is loving your fellow men building up these weapons - if you like - behind their backs just in case they should take action?
15:29 G.C: Well you'll have to answer the basic question, what do I do if I'm walking down the street and a gang of thugs attack a bunch of ladies - or anybody you like... and... are doing physical harm or perhaps - as is happening - putting them to death? What is my Christian duty? I can't stand back and do nothing about it, in my opinion. It's quite clear that evil cannot be overcome by force... but the problem is that you have to consider evil both in itself and in its consequences. One of the consequences of evil is that it is able to use force to destroy or to impose somebody else's will on a group of innocent people. So as I see it, the role of force is to limit the effects of evil - in other words to limit the harm that evil can do through the use of violence. And if you build your weapons to stop that, I don't see that that's morally wrong.
16:47 PM: So you see the nuclear arms race as one of two sides building up weapons which are deterrents, which are part of the defences, but you think will never be used?
16:58 G.C: I’m absolutely convinced that there is no likelihood whatsoever of any form of war between - if I may call it East and West, the Soviet Union and the West. In my opinion, what we’ve got to aim for is not just stopping nuclear weapons being used, we've got to stop any form of World War - that is war between major nations. Now the disarmament lobby... do not believe that the nuclear weapon deters war, well if that is so, obviously conventional weapons deter war still less. So if you remove the nuclear weapons - assuming that were possible on both sides - you're then left with high probability of conventional war, and a conventional war would be as disaster of absolutely catastrophic proportions.
17:59 PM: But surely -
18:00 G.C: - Sorry -
18:00 PM: - What you must bring into this argument Group Captain -
18:00 G.C: [Speaking at the same time] - Yes -
PM: - Is the fact that we live in a fallen world and that evil does triumph and that humanity is frail and could very easily put their finger on the button.
18:11 G.C: Can we just consider that question, 'Fairly easily put its finger on the button'... the way that things are with a rough parity on both sides, each side knows that if they attempt any military attack against the other, there's a danger of it escalating to nuclear level in which case both are destroyed. Now I just do not believe that a nation will ever do something that it knows is going to destroy itself. I accept that obviously individuals are willing to give their lives for a cause that they think is greater than themselves, and they do, but what cause can you think of that would make a nation knowingly destroy itself? I just don't believe it.
19:06 PM: What about some of the smaller nations that are building up nuclear arms? I mean you're painting black and white, east and west, but what happens if our smaller nation who wants to attack?
19:15 G.C: Well I think you've put your finger on the big problem, I think that our attention is in the wrong place. I just don't believe there's the slightest likelihood of war between East and West - particularly with the Russians being as cautious as they are - and instead of concentrating on that and giving that all our time and energy, we should be concentrating on the second generation nuclear nations. Cuz suppose a Middle Eastern fanatical country thought that the solution to the Israeli problem was the nuclear bomb - and you can't stop nuclear knowledge it's quite possible for them to get it - where would we be then? I think that the world community should get itself together and get itself organised to find some way of stopping the effects of proliferation. I think it should put your finger on it.
20:12 PM: But you see, how can the world power the people get together because the nuclear arms race has created so much fear and distrust... and it’s put up so many barriers.
20:24 G.C: Well, to be honest, we've not had any form of military confrontation between the Soviet Union and the West in nearly 40 years despite one of the deepest ideological differences the world's known. So obviously it creates fear, but I think that fear is healthy because it makes us realise that no act of war between major powers is morally acceptable, that's my point. I don't believe that man will so change that he will refrain from using weapons against a weaker adverstry… out of good will. I think the only way that you're going to stop him is by letting him know that its self-destructive to do it, this is what I think at this stage in history.
21:20 PM: Well I'll tell you what, at this stage of the programme lets take a break and hear about programmes later on Radio 2.
21:25 [Advert, Man]: Our quiz 'Brain of Sport 1983' reaches the last of the semi-finals tonight. The programme will be coming from the Coventry and North Warwickshire cricket club where Peter Jones will be your quiz master. So join us at 7 o'clock tonight on Radio 2 and find out which of our contestants will prove his superior sporting knowledge and find a place in the final of 'Brain of Sport 1983'.
21:50 PM: 21 and half minutes to 9. Talking to Group Captain Cheshire this morning, this is Eric Clapton, ‘Promises’.
21:57 [Musical interlude - Eric Clapton, Promises] to 24:38
24:38 PM: Eric Clapton at 19 minutes to 9, and ‘Promises’. And I think I can safely promise that one of the themes that is going to dominate our news programmes today is the whole nuclear debate. The yays or nays after the programme last night, the day after the day there’s a huge peace rally round Greenham Common.
24:57 Well one man who has quite a close association for nuclear weapons and has seen the A-bomb used is our guest this morning, Group Captain Cheshire. Now Group Captain, you were saying that nuclear weapons can act as a deterrent but do you not think that they also encourage fear and mistrust between nations?
25:17 G.C: Well, would you agree the two are spectate - if you agree that the nuclear weapon acts as a policeman, it keeps peace, but of course it doesn't make peace. We've got to go out and build confidence, we've got to be generous, we've got to be willing to make sacrifices to help the poor - that's going to make a politically more stable international society - we've got to be willing to put ourselves in other people’s shoes - not always look at it from our point of view. Don't you think the two go side in side, the policeman and the peace maker?
25:55 PM: Well the peace maker is somebody essentially surely who turns the other cheek? You're talking about going out and helping and sacrificing, shall we not be doing that too with weapons?
26:06 G.C: I think - I mean I mustn't repeat my point - but I am just convinced that weapons stop you fighting. If you remove those powerful weapons I think there might well be a limited conventional war and if you once have that it will almost certainly escalate. I really think we should see the weapons as a protector against world war - not against minor wars between minor nations, but world war - and if we're never going to see another world war that’s to me an unimaginable blessing. Let’s use that in two ways… a warning to us that we should be less materialistic, that our minds should be set more on the things of God and less on the things of this world, and secondly that we identify ourselves more with the struggle of the poor and those who are living under injustice, that's my view.
27:13 PM: But it’s strange that this issue should so split Christian people. You're taking one standpoint from a Christian point of view, pro-nuclear weapons, and yet at the same time the whole nuclear debate has created such objections from people, again from a Christian standpoint who are saying we should turn the other cheek.
27:36 G.C: Well, they're not all saying that. What they're trying to say, most of them, is that we should do away with nuclear weapons and rely upon conventional weapons. I have to say that I do not accept that, I do not accept the moral justification of any world war, of any war between major nations. I think we are split because it's a dilemma and I think the dilemma is that we've now entered the nuclear age... we've gone through many ages in the evolution of man, we're in a new era of rapidly advancing technology which is going to give us new sources of power, all kinds of weapons and means of doing both good and harm. So, our challenge is to see that we put these new inventions to the good of humanity, not to the harm of humanity and I think it may be saletry that we have this threat of destruction of the developed world hanging over our heads to make us realise we have to be responsible, to make us realise we can't decide the future on our own - as I think we’re trying to do - we must put ourselves more in the hands of God.
29:12 PM: How can people unite, how can we unite the two factions to get people working together?
29:19 G.C: Well I've given that a lot of thought. I think that we ought to unite on the one thing we're agreed about and that is the need to build peace. For instance it is said that the money we spend on arms is a theft from the poor, and that if we didn't spend money on arms that it would be used for the poor. But that isn't true, if we save money on arms it would go to lower taxes, higher wages, better social services, better roads, and if you don't believe that then how is it that we spend a lot more on alcohol and tobacco in a year than we do arms but nobody says cut back on that and give it to the poor. The fact is that our hearts are not in helping the poor, the developing world, they're about bottom on our priorities and I think that's the great charge against Christianity, that we are not decisively acting against world poverty.
30:37 PM: Group Captain Cheshire, thank you very much indeed.
30:40 G.C: Oh thank you, Paul. Thank you.
30:44 [Musical interlude - Sympathy, Rare Bird] to 33:07
33:07 PM: The sound from the 60s. ‘Sympathy’, ‘Not enough love to go round’ in a group called ‘Rare Bird’. It’s a rare few days for Charles Smith at the moment who writes to us from Woods Road Ford End in Chelmsford in Essex, a busy time indeed because he writes saying it's his daughter’s birthday - his daughter Thelma on Friday the 9th of December, last Friday - then it's his dear wife Emily, it was her birthday yesterday and his other daughter Pamela it's her birthday [laughs] tomorrow, and just to top it all off its Charles' birthday himself on Boxing Day. What a time of the year must've been terrible when the kids were young, Charles. I'm sure Santa Claus' sack was nearly empty by the time it got round to the 25th of December.
33:53 Now this morning on Good Morning Sunday we've just been talking to Group Captain Cheshire who I was saying earlier has written a pamphlet called 'The Nuclear Dilemma, a Moral Study' setting out his arguments for nuclear weapons. If you want to get this booklet it's published by the Commission for International Justice and Peace. If you write to 38 to 40 Eccleston Square, London, SW1V 1PD. The Commission for International Justice and Peace, 38 to 40 Eccleston Square, London. And we want you to write to us cuz we're having a competition this week, we've got 5 voices here talking in a theme of Christmas and something they particularly don't like about Christmas, who are the 5?
34:33 Man: You could say people over commercialise Christmas and sometimes it is just a case of having holidays, and having big blow outs with puddings and getting a bit drunk and things [unclear].
34:48 Man: I don't like the associations of Christmas with business, and particularly with the selfishness of expensive items which are advertised as being necessary for the wellbeing of those who can get on very much better without them.
35:06 Man: The only thing I've don't [laughing] like about Christmas I spose if there's snow about, so I always say [unclear] snow looks good on Christmas cards but when you've got to live in it and work in it it's lousy.
35:15 Man: I dislike the commercialism. Obviously there's just money, money, money, money and the vast majority seem to be so absorbed with money that the real meaning of it all is lost.
35:31 Man: I dislike the commercialisation, I know that's corny to say that, but I do dislike it.
35:38 PM: Now there's a challenge. Who were the 5 voices? And in the theme of a green Christmas, enter Stan Freberg.
35:44 [Musical interlude - Stan Freberg, Green Christmas] to 41:49
41:48 PM: I love it, I love it, that's Stan Freberg and Green Christmas, a song would you believe that goes back a mere 25 years.
41:54 [Musical interlude] to 42:01
42:01 PM: Thanks to the many hard working people in the team who got the programme on the air, and the man with the smile as if to say he knows what's happening next week [laughing] it's the producer, Chris Reece, who hopefully will tell me in time by half past 7 next Sunday morning when we hope you can join us.
42:16 [Background music starts to play]
42:23 And on the telly 4:15 this afternoon on BBC1, Steve Crown for ‘BBC Sports Personality of the Year’, and mushrooms for breakfast, and David Geary.
42:31 Speech ends
42:35 End of recording
End of Transcription.
Collection
Citation
British Broadcasting Corporation, “BBC2, good morning Sunday interview with Group Captain Leonard Cheshire,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed June 15, 2025, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/40109.