Miss Torrey: Now perhaps I shouldn't make any mention of this, but actually you have a potential
convert here, me. I am not for the discontinuance of nuclear testing. I'm just afraid
of what might happen if the other side should toss one of those bombs. I'm terribly
concerned about it. I would like to hear why anyone here might disagree with me.
Ava Helen Pauling: You say if the other side tossed a bomb what would happen?
Miss Torrey: Yes. Let's say Russia tossed a bomb.
Ava Helen Pauling: Well then we'd toss the bombs, and the world would be practically gone. So this is
why we have to keep anyone from tossing that first bomb.
Miss Torrey: But still, if a bomb is gonna be tossed, I'd rather it be somewhere else than here.
Do you know what I mean?
Ava Helen Pauling: Well, this can't happen, you see, this is the difference, this is how the world has
changed. It used to be possible for one nation to surprise another nation and begin
a war. This is no longer possible, because even though a nation were to drop the first
bomb, it would be destroyed. The retaliation would go on, and so it would end with
the world being practically destroyed, and no one benefiting from this.
Miss Torrey: Oh, no one benefiting, undoubtedly.
Ava Helen Pauling: This is why you just must not say, Miss Torrey, that the first bomb could be dropped.
Because we just mustn't allow that first bomb, because it won't stop with one bomb.
Miss Torrey: Isn't it, Mrs. Pauling, a matter of perhaps reality, just trying to face up to it?
Ava Helen Pauling: The reality is that the world will be destroyed.
