Evening star., 1949-09-28
Peoce and the Iron Curtuin

AnOCner interesting aAAo AAA''A No0~'
aspect of the Soviet Unions recent atomic
explosion" is the manner IN which tne
Kremlin has handled it as news item
Nothing could better illustrate the vast
difference between the Western worlds
free way of life and the regimented way
of life in the dark world behind the
Iron Curtain. Nor could anything be more
Illuminating as an example OF why 1t
has been virtually impossible, since the
end of the war, to promote mutual under
standing and cooperation between the
two.
Consider the contrast. Almost as soon
as the first Abomb had been dropped
on Hiroshima, the United States-together
with Britain and Canada, our wartime
partners in developing the weapon-in-
formed the whole world of the awesome
advent of the Atomic Age. Here in our
own country, and in every other free
country with facilities to report 1t, the
earth-shaking story was told in great
detail with nothing left out except vital
security secrets. Through the press, radio
and movies, peoples in all uncensored
parts of the globe had an opportunity
to learn about the preternatural new
power and arrive at at least an elementary
understanding of the need to control its
enormous capacity for either good or evil.
But now, little more than four years
after Hiroshima, how does the Kremlin
report its apparent success in achieving
an atomic explosion? The story is one
of the utmost significance, leaving little
room for doubt that the Soviet Union
has broken our so-called monopoly in the
field and is in a position to make A
weapons of its own. Yet this all-important
news has been revealed not by the Stain
government but by the governments of
Britain, Canada and the United States.
Indeed, up to the present writing, the
Moscow propaganda machine has told the
Russian people practically nothing about
the event, and it has vouchsafed to the
outside world little more than cryptic,
semi mi-con1rming statement through TaSS.
In view of this tight-lipped treatment
of the news-no pictures, no long radio
reports no complete stories in the press,
no details of any kind-one is almost
tempted to suspect that the Soviet atomic
explosion" may have been an accidental
blowing up of a nuclear reactor rather
than the successful detonation of an A.
bomb. But the Anglo Canadian American
announcement clearly implying otherwise,
has offered no ground for such a sus-
picion, and so we may safely assume that
the Kremlin is not trying to cover up a
failure in keeping the story under wraps.
1t is merely doing what comes naturally
to it. As with everything else-only more
so-it can be counted upon to deal with
the atom as furtively and as secretively
as possible.
1t is this furtiveness, this secretiveness,
this hiding behind the Iron Curtain, this
deliberate and systematic policy of keeping
both the Russian people and the rest Of
us in the dark that has made it all but
impossible for the free West to come to a
meeting of minds with the Soviet Union
on atomic control and every other issue
vital to collective security. The situation
speaks for ITSELF Until the men of the
Kremlin come out of their shell, until they
open up, until they let light into their
land and out of it, there can be no mutual
trust, no true cooperation, no peace
worthy of the name between their world
and ours.