Evening star., 1949-09-27
Still Up to Russiu


an atomic explosion" of their own
which almost certainly means that they
are in the process of making A-weapons-
a new note of urgency has been injected
into the problem of establishing an
effective system of international control.
Despite the urgency, however, the grimly
simple fact is that the problem will con-
tinue to defy solution unless and until
Soviet policy undergoes fundamental
change.
OF course, as they have done again in
their weekend statement through the
Tass news agency, the Russians have been
paying lip service to the idea of world
control ever since the American plan for
an unprecedented international authority
was first presented to the United Nations
in June of 1916. But in all that time
we'll over three years-the only thing they
have done, with dreary and ominous per-
sistency, has been to drive the U. N.
Atomic Energy Commission into a COM
plete dead end.>
The record in this respect is altogether
clear. Alone with its small group OF
satellites the Soviet Union has blocked
every effort to adopt the essentials Of the
American plan. As approved by the over
whelming majority of the u. N, that plan
would do the following: Q 1t would
create a powerful world authority to own,
operate, supervise and otherwise regulate
all dangerous atomic facilities and opera
tions throughout the globe; (2} the au-
thority would be armed with a vetoless
inspection system and vetoless punitive
machinery to guard against the hazards
of Violations and evasions; and 60 step
by step, stage by stage, as this revolution
ary new policing agency went into effect,
outlawing nuclear armaments and cutting
across the prerogatives Of national SOW
ereignty, the United States would sur
render its lead in the field of A-weapons
and place itself on an equal atomic footing
with other countries. But the Russians,
backed only by their vassals behind the
Iron Curtain, have said mo" thousand
times over. Frustrating the will of every
body else in the United Nations, they have
adhered up to now to an obviously tooth
less and unacceptable counterproposal
offering no real control whatever
In essence, the Soviet "plan"-which has
10
delegates as an effort to perpetrate a
fraud upon the peoples of the world
calls for no more than a treaty under
which the United States would be obliged
forthwith to stop military atomic produc-
tion and destroy its stockpile of A-bombs.
Given that, the Russians would then be
willing to consider the establishment of
international control, but they would not
necessarily agree to 1t. In other words,
what they have asked for Is our unilateral
disarmament, without offering us the
slightest guarantee against the danger
that they themselves would keep on work.
ing in secret to achieve supremacy in
nuclear weapons.
1t is the fraudulent nature of this pro-
poSal, plus stubborn Soviet adherence to
1t to date, that has led the U. N Atomic
Energy Commission to suspend its deliber-
ations. Today, with the Russians appar-
emily producing their own A-weapons, and
with members of Congress, foreign spokes-
men and United Nations leaders calling
urgently for another effort to agree, the
chances are that the deliberations will be
resumed. But We ought not to delude our
serves about them: They will achieve
exactly nothing unless the men of the
kremlin are prepared to end their past
obstructionism.
M short, as it has been since the Begin
ming, the solution to the problem of atomic
control is primarily up to the Russians.
II the atom is to be harnessed for peace
they must come forward now with basic
policy change calculated to make CO.
operation and effective policing possible.
Short OF that, mankind will have to adjust
itself somehow to history's deadliest
ornaments race and the nightmare posi-
ollity OF annihilation. The current pros
pect is no brighter than that.
Richard Dix