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Did John von Neumann really advocate a nuclear first strike on the USSR? He is oft quoted as follows:
If you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say why not today? If you say today at 5 o’clock, I say why not 1 o’clock?
The source for this quote is his obituary in Life magazine [1] , which does not cite a source.
A review of Ananyo Bhattacharya’s biography "The Man From the Future" says:
[Bhattacharya] repeatedly claims that von Neumann advocated a preemptive nuclear strike against the Soviet Union, but nothing in von Neumann’s actual writings, public or private, support this often-made assertion, which I believe is based on a fundamental misinterpretation of his views. [2]
Bhattacharya responded:
As von Neumann’s second wife, Klara Dan, notes in her journal, “In the immediate postwar years, Johnny quite openly advocated preventive war before the Russians became too strong.” Marina, von Neumann’s daughter, mentions in her memoirs “his extremely hard-line ideas on U.S. policy towards the Soviet Union, which included the possibility of preventive war on the latter.” Her father, she says, “made his feelings crystal clear in an interview with Life magazine: ‘If you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say, why not today? If you say at five o’clock, I say why not one o’clock?’” [3]
(So apparently the Life obituary quote came from an interview? Or perhaps Marina von Neumann Whitman forgot that it was an obituary and not an interview.)
It's frustrating that apparently John von Neumann "quite openly" advocated preventative war, but apparently we have nothing on the subject written by the man himself — no strategic analyses, no persuasive essays, no list of targets. What ultimatum shall be made to the enemy before declaring war? How many bombs will be needed? What kind of government shall replace the defeated USSR? Which country will be next? Perhaps the answer is in the 22 feet of paper in the John and Klára Dán von Neumann archive in the Library of Congress. [4]
Or perhaps von Neumann didn't call for preventive war after all, because it's insane.
Blair, Clay (February 25, 1957). “Passing of a great mind: John von Neumann, a brilliant, jovial Mathematician, was a prodigious servant of science and his country,” Life: p 96, https://books.google.com/books?id=rEEEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA89. See also the nicely-formatted copy at Qualia Computing. ↩︎
Stephen Budiansky, ‘The Man From the Future’ Review: The Genius of John von Neumann. Wall Street Journal, Feb. 25, 2022. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-man-from-the-future-review-the-genius-of-john-von-neumann-11645810799. archived ↩︎
Ananyo Bhattacharya, "Genius, War and Risk in John von Neumann". Letter to the Wall Street Journal. March 4, 2022. https://www.wsj.com/opinion/john-von-neumann-math-genius-war-soviet-union-risk-11646350849. archived ↩︎
John Von Neumann and Klára Dán Von Neumann papers, 1912-2000 ↩︎