Joseph Rotblat, a Polish-born British physicist, was the only scientist ever to quit working on the Manhattan Project. In the interview Rotblat conducted for War and Peace in the Nuclear Age: Dawn, he reveals the depths of the dilemma he faced: although the idea that science could be used to destroy many people was completely abhorrent to me, he understood the threat to all of civilization should the Nazis win World War II. Having left behind his wife and family in Poland and watched as Germany invaded his homeland, Rotblat followed his mentor, Sir James Chadwick, to the Manhattan Project in 1944, convinced that the Allies must possess the bomb so that they might ultimately deter Hitler from using it. Once he ascertained that the bomb would not be ready before the war ended in Europe, Rotblats sole reason for being at Los Alamos vanished, and he petitioned to return to the University of Liverpool. Rotblat recounts his moment of disillusionment: realizing that stopping Hitler may not have been the objective of developing the atomic bomb. In his interview, he recounts how U.S. authorities nearly blocked his departure and instructed him not to discuss his reasons for leaving with anyone at Los Alamos. After the war, Rotblat shifted the focus of his research to medical physics and became a leading critic of the arms race. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995.
![Interview with Kenneth Nichols, 1986 [1]](https://bpldcassets.blob.core.windows.net/derivatives/metadata/commonwealth-oai:c534hm503/image_thumbnail_300.jpg)