Evening star., 1948-10-19
Aqreement-or Else


In calling upon the United Nations to
turn back the atomic problem to the Big
Five and Canada, Warren Austin, our CHIEF
delegate, has merely advocated step made
necessary by the Soviet Unions steadfast
refusal to cooperate with the overwhelm-
ing majority in establishing an effective
system of world control.
What the majority has sought (the only
dissenters have been the Russians and
their servile satellites) is the adoption OF
the American plan for an international
authority to own, operate or otherwise
manage all dangerous atomic facilities and
activities throughout the globe. AS soon
as the authority became effective-with
power to carry out vetoless inspection and
vetoless enforcement measures against the
dangers of violations and evasions-A-
weapons would be outlawed and existing
stockpiles destroyed.
Alone among the great powers, however,
and backed by none but its stooge govern
ments behind the Iron Curtain, the Soviet
Union has said mo" thousand times over
It's counterproposal boils down simply to
an arrangement under which the United
States would be obliged Immediately to
give up its A-weapons in exchange for a
control system permitting the Kremlin
to veto any international effort to inspect
Russian nuclear -f1ssion activities or take
action against them If they were illegal
In other words, there would be unilateral
American disarmament, but no real assur-
ance whatever against the possibility OF
an all-out Soviet effort to become atomi-
cally supreme after the destruction of our
stockpile.
Last May, after two years of painstaking
but futile effort to persuade the Kremlin
to stop advocating such palpable fraud,
the vast majority of the eleven-nation
U. N. Atomic Energy Commission voted to
suspend all further consideration of the
Russian arguments. 1t did so because 1t
finally had become convinced that it was
beating its head against stone wall and
that reason common sense and appeals to
sanity and good faith could not break
down the Soviet Unions ominous resist
ance to genuine world control. 1t Is solely
because of this terrible dead end, this
fateful impasse, that Mr.. Austin, support
ing formal Canadian proposal for the
transfer, has asked the United Nations to
return the issue to direct negotiations
among the major powers concerned,
Canada being included because of having
worked with Britain and the United States
In developing the A-bomb.
If the General Assembly approves this
proposals. appears likely-the whole
question will be back where 1t was when
first formed. But 1t will be handled
through diplomatic channels, with China,
France, Britain, Canada and the United
States presumably working together to
negotiate directly with the Kremlin for
the kind of agreement the U. N. effort has
failed to produce. 1t seems doubtful in the
extreme, however, that such negotia-
ton will get anywhere as long as the
Russians, in Mr.. Austin's words, refuse to
participate in the world community on
a cooperative basis"
Nevertheless, since the u. N. commission
has suspended its work. some continuing
effort must be made to bring about an
atomic meeting of minds with Russia.
The current deadlock is far too dangerous
in it's potentialities to be regarded with
indifference or treated with international
silence and inaction. The longer it lasts,
the more fearsome will become the nuclear
ornaments race. Sooner or later there
must be a peaceful agreement establish
ing strict international control or the
world must live in constant fear of waking
up one day amid the horrors of war with
A-weapons. There is no other alternative.
Mass Picketinq