Interview with the Reverend Dr. Theodore McCluskey, SJ

This is a nice facility.

We call it home. They treat us retired Jesuits pretty well. We have a little community here with our chapel and dining room and old colleagues around. I'm lucky because the University is only a couple blocks away. Up until last year I still had an office there.

How long did you teach there?

Only the last twelve or so years before I retired, though I kept on with a bit of teaching several years after that.

And before?

Years of academic training, languages, post-doctoral work and part-time teaching stints at various places in the world. I've taught in Beirut, San Salvador, a couple of years in Nairobi.

That's quite a career. Some of those are challenging places to live.

I've been fortunate. I'd say blessed. The people and places were always interesting.

So your field of teaching was ...?

It's been variously described, but I would call it international relations.

You're not a theologian then?

Oh, I've taught theology too. Every Jesuit is a theologian of some kind by training. But no, theology as such is not my major subject or interest.

I gather they call you Father Teddy around here. The receptionist said, "Oh, you want Father Teddy. Down that hall on the right side. We all love him."

The privileges of growing old and being thought harmless. But over the years I seem to have been 'Father Teddy' to a lot of people.

And for the record here, you were once stationed as a chaplain at the Polebrook airbase in England during the second World War?

I was. At Mendenhall, too, but each time only for a few months.

It was through the Army enlistment records that I was able to get your name and track you down. Do you remember meeting this bombardier, or someone like him?

Probably someone like him for sure, but I can't honestly say I remember him specifically. You can imagine that I met a lot of young fliers on that base, and it was a long time ago.

You were a young man yourself. How about any of the conversation? What did you think of the way he remembers you, or could it have been another chaplain he talked with?

 (He laughs.) I'd like to think I had somewhat better responses to his questions than the ones he remembers. The part that I'm afraid might ring true is his description of me. Look at me. I'm still kind of "shrimpy", but mind you, a tough, wiry shrimpy—if a bit frail.

So you can imagine it was you he talked to. Do you think you could remember giving him the book of prayers and that little book that had the Transfiguration story in it?

I can believe the book of prayers. You tried to help in any way you could. A lot of their questions were darn hard to answer. They still are. What do you tell the soldiers in Korea, in Vietnam, or in Iraq or Afghanistan today? In some ways the easiest answer was to tell them to go pray about it. Maybe it was the best answer, too. It's what I have to do myself. What does surprise me is that I would have given him my book of the Sunday and Feast Day devotions. But I could have. He makes it sound like I was trying to reach out to him. And here, I got this out for you. It could be very much like that one. This one has an engraving of Jesus being transfigured—not a very good one, I'm afraid, but then what would do that moment justice? He didn't say anything about a picture, but here on the facing page is the story from the Gospel of Matthew and Psalm 139, although in a more contemporary translation. I was impressed that he could remember them so well, if in an Anglican version--I who apparently questioned his knowledge of scripture. And you see, it is, indeed, August 6 that the Transfiguration is celebrated.

What do you think he made of the Transfiguration story? In a way, it seemed confusing to him.

I can understand that. On the surface the story from scripture and his experience have much in common. Jesus is high up with other disciples. There is going to be a cloud over them and a human being glowing. But then, it's just the opposite, isn't it? There in Hiroshima, humans will radiate and die but not to give life and beauty to the world. For some people that dark mushroom cloud will perhaps forever hide God from human sight. But yet the bombardier also couldn't let go of it that easily. What got to me was his talking about "the shining Jesus," and then Jesus "all beaten up," as he put it, and then "the burning Jesus." Do you remember that? He was asking and trying to figure out how they were the same Jesus.

Are they?

The divine in Jesus' humanity shining both in glory and in the world's agony and burning? Yes. The Gospel of John tries to find words for that when it says that the "lifting up" to glory of Jesus comes first through his being lifted up to crucifixion. It has to do with both the light and darkness of the psalm he was reading—God being in both, somehow transforming or transfiguring, if you will, the darkness. But how can that be so after two terrible holocausts—the smoke from the ovens of the Jewish death camps and then atomic burning and annihilation?

There are of course people who don't think all of those stories about Jesus are true—that it may a myth.

It's tough to prove anything from history, but even so, stories can be true in different ways. I'm sure that must be so for parts of his story after all. The Jesus story is about wrong and evil in the world and God's attempt to take that on and redeem it.

God's attempt?

To get us to believe in it.

And to somehow turn dark into light?

Or to see the darkness in other ways—an absence of light that can yet be given value and redeemed. I believe that.

That's a lot to believe.

I want to believe that. I want to believe that life—full of both darkness and light—is ultimately worth living. I want to believe that it is finally good and that God is goodness itself.

But you can't know that.

Of course not. It has to be a matter of faith that one is willing to stake one's life on. I think it was something like that your young man was struggling with too—and trying to fit an atomic bomb into all of it.

Do you blame him for not being able to figure it out?

I try to imagine being in his front seat position. Can you imagine putting anyone into that position? Making any human being responsible for that? Such power over death and life? No wonder he was mixed up. No wonder he wanted to think up a plan B, or how did he put it?—to try to reshuffle the cards. I can understand why you and he would want to imagine things differently. Imagination is needed if we are to see other possibilities in time of war.

Though , as he says, it wasn't really his decision.

But he could make it his. That's what is so terrifying.

Do you think he saw himself as some kind of Jesus figure?

No. No. What he was trying to think about was what a Christian, some kind of a follower of Jesus would do, while knowing he didn't know how to do that very well. He picks up on that from the mix of vengeance and justice that is going on in "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and from that line about "a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me." What do you do if you believe that? What do you do if you believe that Jesus' violent death was meant to put an end to human violence and killing?

Do you think he believed that? It doesn't sound like his church and religion were all that much help to him. It seems he was asking too about God's plan—was this a second coming of Christ in judgment to destroy? Or, maybe worse, God didn't even care?

I would say he was more wondering than he was asking. Maybe that's on the way to believing in God's justice. Maybe his belief came out in what he did. As to whether church and religion were helpful to him, maybe somewhat, maybe not.  Perhaps "somewhat" is all you can ask for in circumstances like that. There were, after all, other uncertainties: the bombing of civilians, trying to justify ends and  means. At times how he was remembering and thinking so hard came across to me like a sustained meditation on all this.

Do you believe the use of nuclear bombs can ever be justified?

No. I don't. I think the use of them or the threat to use them has done something to change our world and our being human.  I am also fearful that our country's first use of them has given a kind of permission for someone else to use them, if they think their security is sufficiently threatened or their cause is justified.  These were after all the first weapons of mass destruction and were being used as weapons of terrorism.

Although it also has been argued that, in showing how terrible they are, we ensured that no one would ever dare to use them again.

I wish I could believe that. But that doesn't mean that I can't understand the moral dilemmas of those who think of them as a way to end war and other killing. But I still think nuclear weapons are wrong, and I have a lot of trouble with so-called "just war" theories that can imagine their use. Even in any just war people are supposed to make strong moral distinctions between jus ad bellum and jus in bello. Sorry. That's fancy Latin for justice in going to war and legitimacy in how it is fought. For a war to be just the means of fighting have to be in some measure reasonably proportionate to the ends you are trying to achieve. Otherwise the ends end up distorted. In your case, the bombardier had somehow figured that out: just because you're fighting evil doesn't make everything you're doing right. What I ultimately believe is that it is very hard to get to a peaceful and fairer world by using violence—no matter what the provocation. Dr. King was right in recognizing that violence just brings on more violence—maybe a kind of tense peace for a while, but ultimately more violence.

But the second World War? People always cite that as the one war—the good war—that had to be fought?

Why? To save the Jews? To stop the Japanese? Yes, though we didn't save many Jewish people. And one can argue that there might have been other ways—better ones in the long run. You can also argue that World War I led to World War II and World War II to Korea and the Cold War and other wars. But I can't answer all the moral dilemmas for you. I'll just say I do understand the agonizing concerns regarding the use of every weapon involving civilian populations to such a degree in war. We like to call that "collateral damage" today and talk about unintended deaths, but back then it would seem there were some who didn't regard it as all that collateral. Maybe in part because when you use bombs, you can't see the people that are burned and blasted to death.  Remember the napalm in Vietnam too, and Agent Orange, the anti-personnel bombs and now those white phosphorus bombs or shells.

Science and technology get out ahead of ethical considerations.

You betcha. That's part of it. Scientists can try to be moral, but science and technology themselves provide no guidelines, not for the politicians either. That Church of England bishop he remembered ... I can't remember his name either.

Bishop Bell. Bishop George Bell.

I've heard that he would have been the Archbishop of Canterbury if he hadn't questioned the firebombing of German cities. In any case, that's what I mean. One can see that your friend wasn't equipped with all the ethical and theological tools to think about such issues, but that's my point: it has confused a lot of people who should have been thinking more about it. And another thing people are quick to forget is what someone like a Bishop Bell understood. War does something to the people who do the killing. In that sense, World War II has had a profound effect on this country. If you want to get some better sense of that, go to the novelists. Go to Catch-22 and Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five about those firebombings. They've got it right. War is crazy, and it can make people do crazy things. We're learning that again in Iraq. I hear that Churchill let himself be bothered by the firebombings, but  apparently not enough to put a stop to them.  After all, he was the same Churchill who was all in favor of using poison gas on the Shiites clear back in 1920.

If you don't mind my saying so, you seem a little worked up about it.

Good. I'm glad I can still get worked up. You know there were quite a few clergy and others who objected to the use of the atomic bomb right from the get-go—even conservatives like good old Bishop Fulton J. Sheen who was on TV so much in the early days. You remember him? But he may only have been following the Pope's line, though all of the popes have been against nuclear weapons. And you should have seen me during the Vietnam War, and I'll be glad to tell you what I think of some of our foreign adventures in the name of peace and security now. If someone will wheel me out, I'm ready to go to the next set of war protests.  It's like we still can't figure out how the mass violence of war will always lead to new and unexpected acts of violence. We think our latest weapons systems are so terrific and here we end up, a country that professes a lot of faith in the Jesus who was tortured to death, torturing other people. So yes, his story can get me worked up thinking about it again. After all is said and done, I'm proud of what he wanted to do with his plan B for that awful, awesome bomb. And I'll tell you another thing I don't think is in your story enough: maybe a major reason why Truman and Byrnes and his other advisors wanted so much to use the atomic bomb was to show the Russians we had it—and to try to cow them into accepting some of our demands about boundaries of influence and control as the war was ending. It was intended as a kind of demonstration in that sense—the Japanese cities and people were meant to be a kind of demonstration. We had the power of the atom, and the Russians had better look out. Only what we did is to help jump-start the invention of more nuclear and hydrogen weapons and a cold war of mutual terror, and now a world where eight or ten countries have nuclear weapons and terrorists itch to get their hands on them.

Do you have an answer for it?

Of course I wish I did. But I can tell you what an old man thinks, and let me tell you something even more important that I've learned over the years—maybe a reason why we have so many problems with our foreign policy and end up going to war and creating one hell of a lot of collateral damage in the world when we say we are trying to do otherwise. What we need to do in our foreign policy is to try better to love our neighbors as we would ourselves—including trying to love our so-called enemies.

That's a beautiful thought.

I don't mean it as a beautiful thought. I mean it as a hardheaded, realistic geopolitical thought—an essential principle of international relations. In order to understand other people— what their fears and hopes are, what they think about life and death and family and music and honor and shame and their religion and prejudices—you have to be sympathetic with them.  That will keep you from just treating them as evil foreigners whom you can't understand. Too many of our mistakes have come from failing to do this and from misunderstanding others in such a way as to misunderstand their motives, making it almost impossible really to meet them. It can also blind us to seeing ourselves in their eyes, and seeing some of our own very mixed motivations.

Maybe that's a good thought on which to end.

I'll let you go, but I'll tell you again, it's a lot more than a good thought.

Thanks for your time and reflections, Father McCluskey.  Or Doctor McCluskey.

You can call me Teddy, and if he's still around, give my regards to ... Babe. I like his nickname. I liked him. It feels now like I must have known someone like him. Tell him I'll try to find some better prayers, and  tell him ... tell him thanks.

I almost forgot. You of all people I wanted to ask about forgiveness and absolution ... about the bombardier being forgiven, and our forgiveness too.

Well ... darn if that may not be your hardest question. As far as he is concerned, it's a kind of a hypothetical one. I'd prefer to have him here like you to talk with and counsel. If you want to read a real mea culpa about what happened at Hiroshima, and even more on Nagasaki, as well as all the firebombings, you should hear what George Zabelka said years later. He was the Catholic chaplain who was there at Tinian.

Did he ever counsel with members of the crew?

He said that he offered the sacraments and tried to help at least one of them who was near a mental breakdown, but later agonized about how he had never said a damn thing about all the civilian deaths. He was kind of bitter about the ways he felt the church had let them down.

Sounds tough on himself.

Forgiveness is no easy matter. God is a merciful and forgiving God, all right, but for forgiveness to be effective you need also to be a forgiving person. They found that out in South Africa after the brutal business of apartheid, didn't they? People have to work at it to make forgiveness and reconciliation possible. From what I can tell about your bombardier friend, he was certainly searching for forgiveness and reconciliation, and I like to think he has found them. The tricky question for him and all the rest of us is the matter of repentance and not wanting to commit a terrible wrong again. That's what makes the forgiveness effective in our lives. God can forgive, but I'm not sure how repentant we are about the possibility of using nuclear weapons again, if we feel they are justified.