Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1946-07-30
Russia and the Atom

NuSSIu ono the AtOIH
With his latest definition of Rus
sia's views on international atomic
control. Andrei A. Gromyko has be-
gun to resemble not-too-artful
dodger. The thesis he defends seems
to boil down to this: That world
security in the uniquely dangerous
era ahead can be amply protected by
a simple treaty outlawing A-weap-
ons, with each country passing its
own laws, fixing its own penalties
and doing its own policing to insure
that neither it's citizens nor itself
violate the covenant. Challenged to
explain just how such setup could
conceivably be satisfactory guar
antee, Mr.. Gromyko has nothing
better to offer than vague and eva
sive talk about how nations have
lived up to the Geneva Convention
prohibiting the use of poison gas and
about how the Soviet plan is really
much more practical" and "con-
crete" than the American plan,
which may on the surface appear
to be radical but cannot carry us
to our goal"
AS every one knows by now. the
American plan calls for treaty out
having atomic weapons, but treaty
with real teeth in ia treaty that
would create an international au-
thority empowered, in conjunction
with the Security Council of the
United Nations, to exercise the
highest possible control over danger
Gus activities in the field of nuclear
flssion. Essential raw materials, vital
manufacturing processes, develop
mental policies-all these and other
matters related to the atom would
be subject, under our proposal, to
world ownership, management, in
spection, policing and similar ar
rangements definitely cutting across
national sovereignties and leaving
no country free to be its own master
in the field. with or without iron
curtains" The United States view
is that lacking such implementing
supervisory and enforcement ma
chinery mere treaty Of outlawry,
no matter how solemnly worded,
would be little more than pious
expression capable of being broken
at will and at any time by an am
bilious aggressor. as was the case
with the Kellogg BRAND pact against
war.
But Mr.. Gromyko appears to argue
completely to the contrary. More
practical" he says, more concrete"
is the idea of Just having a treaty
and letting each nation police itself.
His statement does not say so in
explicit terms, but it plainly seems
to imply that Russia will not agree
to the kind Of authority we envision,
that it will not surrender any meas
ure of its present sovereignty and
that it is unwilling to commit itself
to much more than pact like that
outlawing poison gases. OF course, as
Dr.. Van Kleffens of the Netherlands
has pointed out to Mr.. Gromyko,
there have been numerous solemn
treaties outlawing many kinds of
weapons from gas to dun dun"
bullets, but none of them has been
successful, and certainly the A-bomb
by far the deadliest and most de-
cisive explosive force ever devised by
man-cannot be controlled that
way.
Nevertheless Mr.. Gromyko insists
that Moscow's plan is more "practi-
cal" and concrete" than ours. The
best reply to that is that on the
U. N. Atomic Energy Commission,
with the possible exception of satel-
lite Poland, Russia is the only coun-
try that thinks so. In it's essentials,
our proposal has been almost uni
versally supported for the simple
reason that it is logically unanswer-
able. Through Mr.. Gromyko, the
Soviet Union may try to keep on
lodging that fact, but the more it
lodges, the more awkward and
alone it will look, and the more other
lands will wonder, not without mis-
givings, just why 1t wants, to act like
that