Evening star., 1947-08-06
Fear and the Atom


opened with binding and annihilating
flash at Hiroshima. BY now the world
hardly needs to be told that the new force
unleashed there is at once the most
promising and most threatening ever
harnessed by mana preternatural power
capable of doing either enormous good or
enormous evil. The point has been made
over and over again. Indeed, it has been
heard so often and become so hackneyed
that it tends-like the too-frequent cry of
"Wolf!"-to create boredom and indif-
ference
This is problem in itself Despite the
somber clicheS that have come to sur
round the subject. the interest of peoples
everywhere must somehow be maintained
at high pitch in the overshadowing
significance of the atom and the fateful
task of international control. Nothing
could be worse than apathy on this score
Nothing could do more to make nations
drift, willy-nilly, into the deadliest arma-
ments race since the beginning of time
situation in which suspicion and fear
would fatten on themselves and in which
one or another power, in a moment of
panic, might act in a way that could end
with the world reduced to a radioactiyated
Sf1ambles.
In an Interview marking the second an
niversary of Hiroshima, David E. Lilienthal,
chairman of our Atomic Energy Commits
sion, has just deplored the widespread
tendency to overemphasize this frighten-
ing aspect Of nuclear power. Up to a point
ne is right, OF course. The atom has revo-
lutionary potentialities in terms of i'm
proved health and higher and happier
living standards throughout the world. In
that sense. 1t is bright; it is cheering: it
holds out great hope; and it should impel
nations to affirmative action for Joint con-
troll and development-action springine
not from sterile fears but from creative
faith In the ability of mankind to CO.
operate In this field and achieve the great
things that can be achieved for the well
ware Of all peoples in all lands.
Nevertheless, despite his good and timely
words on this point, Mr.. Llienthal probably
would be the last to deny that the fear
factor Is the prime factor at this time.
How could it be otherwise? More than a
year has passed since the American plan
for vetoless world control was first sub
nnitted to the United Nations Atomic
Energy Commission. But it has led to
nothing so far except a clearer definition
of the gulf existing between Russia and
the west. Together with satellite Poland,
the Soviet Union has frustrated the effort
of the ten other members of the commits
sion to set up effective safeguards. Mean
while, because of the lack of such safe
guards and because Of international ten
sions In general, the agency headed by Mr.
Lilienthal has been devoting It's greatest
energy-for the sake of national security
to the development of bigger and better
A-weapons. Meanwhile, too other coun-
tries-particularly the U. S. s. R-have
been doing all that they can, as fast as they
can, to catch up.
SO today the grim fact Is that nuclear
armaments race is already on. Until 1t
is stopped, the hope implicit in the atom
will have to be deferred in large measure.
Irrespective of Russian intransigeance,
however, the United Nations effort to
establish strict control must be carried on
without letup. Fear can have its uses in
this sense; it can play role in convincing
the different powers that common agree
ment Is essential to common survival. Ger
tainly, without such an agreement, the
world will have nothing but collective in
security in an atomic balance of power
full Of almost unimaginable dangers. Two
years after Hiroshima, nothing could be
clearer than that There is real reason
for peoples and governments to be afraid.