Quotes about Nuclear Responsibility

Hillary Clinton

Donald Trump can't even handle the rough and tumble of a presidential campaign. He loses his cool at the slightest provocation. When he has gotten a tough question from a reporter, when he is challenged in a debate. When he sees a protester at a rally. Imagine, if you dare imagine, imagine him in the Oval Office facing a real crisis. A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons. And in the end, it comes down to what Donald Trump doesn't get, America is great because America is good.

Roger Ailes

Take the [1980] Jimmy Carter-Ronald Reagan debate. Carter kept trying to imply that somehow Ronald Reagan was going to push the button, or was irresponsible with nuclear war. You might have been able to make the case that Carter was responsible. But it's very tough when you see a person with Reagan's nice-guy persona up there to believe this guy somehow wants nuclear war, that he somehow wants to antagonize the Russians into an attack. It's just not credible; it doesn't cut with what all your other senses are telling you.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

The physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.

Edward Teller

For the things we [scientists] are working on no amount of protesting or fiddling with politics will save our souls. The accident that we worked out this terrible thing [nuclear weapons] should not give us the responsibility of having a voice in how it is to be used. The responsibility must in the end be shifted to the people as a whole and that can only be done by making the facts known.

This quotation not only illustrates the discomfort of the atomic scientists who developed the atomic bomb regarding the ethics and decision making regarding use, but also how complex a man Teller himself was. Here he sounds like a left-leaning centrist. A little later he would side with the hawks in the military and the political world and slander his colleague Oppenheimer publicly advocating an arms race and the development of the hydrogen bomb when the existing technology of the atom bomb could wipe out Russia or any other nation. His new allies however kept everything about nuclear weapons a secret and thus the public could never weigh in and influence any nuclear decision making. This state existed until President Eisenhower declassified much of the nuclear weapons information as part of his Atoms for Peace program.

Vladimir Putin

Russia and the United States are the biggest nuclear powers, this leaves us with an extra special responsibility. By the way, we manage to deal with it and work together in certain fields, particularly in resolving the issue of the Iranian nuclear programme. We worked together and we achieved positive results on the whole.

Manmohan Singh

I can assure you we are a responsible nuclear power.

Manmohan Singh

Indians, we would like to be a part of the nuclear world order, accepting all the responsibilities that go with being a responsible nuclear power, and at the same time enlarging our options with regard to energy security of our country.

Hillary Clinton

The bottom line on nuclear weapons is that when the president gives the order, it must be followed. There's about four minutes between the order being given and the people responsible for launching nuclear weapons to do so. And that's why 10 people who have had that awesome responsibility have come out and, in an unprecedented way, said they would not trust Donald Trump with the nuclear codes or to have his finger on the nuclear button.

Nuclear Responsibility Quotes