An Analysis of Leo Szilard's Report on 'Grand Central Terminal'

In Leo Szilard's short science fiction tale, "Report on 'Grand Central Terminal,'" he speculates on how an alien culture might interpret earthly artifacts, if they were to find the planet empty of all life. Under the guise of this familiar theme, he finds time to make a commentary on an issue with which he was intimately connected.

The first thing for us to do was, of course, to find out how this came to pass and to learn whether the agent which destroyed life - whatever it may have been - was still active and perhaps endangering our own lives. Not that there was very much that we could do to protect ourselves, but we had to decide whether we should ask for further expeditions to be sent here or should advise against them...then...one of our physicists noticed - quite by accident - a slight trace of radioactivity in the air...it occurred to [one of the aliens] that perhaps these flashes had been uranium explosions...strong enough to destroy life on the planet...[he] thinks that there had been a war fought between the inhabitants of two continents, in which both sides were victorious (Szilard 116).

Being apparently enlightened, the aliens are baffled as to how intelligent beings could have allowed such a war to take place. The only explanation that makes sense to the nameless alien is a conflict between races; he extrapolates from "smoking" and "nonsmoking" compartments on the train that dark-skinned, or "smoky" humans were segregated from those with lighter skin.

Through the aliens, Szilard attempts to make us aware of the absurdity of a race capable of harnessing the power of the atom using that power to destroy itself. But is it actually so absurd? There are, of course, different kinds of intelligence. It is always easy in hindsight to mock humanity for allowing such things as the development of the bomb, or various pointless wars, or any number of genocides that could have been prevented had appropriate actions been taken. Szilard takes this future point of view in hopes of giving us a clearer look at the very real danger we are in, and how ridiculous it is.