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Earlier, in midsummer, as Wilbur had been about to proceed with his demonstrations for the French, he had received a letter from his father urging him to “avoid all unnecessary personal risk.” Now Wilbur sent off much the same kind of warning to Orville, as older brother but also as one who had now experienced a number of turns onstage before enormous crowds and an ever-eager, ever-demanding press. I tell them plainly that I intend for the present to experiment only under the most favorable conditions. . . . I advise you most earnestly to stick to calms, till after you are sure of yourself. Don’t go out even for all the officers of the government unless you would go equally if they were absent. Do not let yourself be forced into doing anything before you are ready. Be very cautious and proceed slowly in attempting flights in the middle of the day when wind gusts are frequent. . . . Do not let people talk to you all day and all night. It will wear you out, before you are ready for real business. Courtesy has limits. If necessary appoint some hour in the daytime and refuse absolutely to receive visitors even for a minute at other times. Do not receive anyone after 8 o’clock at night. Then, after some technical discussion about the rudder, he wrote again. “I can only say be extraordinarily cautious.”
The Wright Brothers
David McCullough
We are beginning to learn that our brains are hardwired to react positively to water and that being near it can calm and connect us, increase innovation and insight, and even heal what’s broken. Healthy water is crucial to our physiological and psychological well-being, as well as our ecology and economy. We have a “blue mind”—and it’s perfectly tailored to make us happy in all sorts of ways that go far beyond relaxing in the surf, listening to the murmur of a stream, or floating quietly in a pool.
Blue Mind
Wallace J. Nichols, Celine Cousteau (Foreword)
Truman’s indignation disguised his own great uneasiness about bombs that destroyed entire cities. In the last days of the war, Los Alamos had cast a third plutonium core for shipment out to Tinian, where a Fat Man high-explosive assembly was ready to receive it. Truman decided not to authorize its use and told his Cabinet why; Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace noted the President’s reason in his diary: “Truman said he had given orders to stop the atomic bombing. He said the thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible. He didn’t like the idea of killing, as he said, ‘all those kids.’ ”881 In October, not long before his confrontation with Oppenheimer, already impatient with Soviet intransigence in Eastern Europe, Truman had complained to his budget director, Harold D. Smith, “There are some people in the world who do not seem to understand anything except the number of divisions you have.” Smith had rejoined in the Jimmy Byrnes mode, “Mr. President, you have an atomic bomb up your sleeve.” And Truman had concluded somberly, “Yes, but I am not sure it can ever be used.”
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