Evening star., 1950-02-12
Who Has a Better Plan?

The President is on thoroughly sound ground
IN taking the position that nothing has happened
In recent weeks to justify any retreat from the
essentials of the American-sponsored atomic
control plan-a plan already approved by the
overwhelming majority of the United Nations.
With our scientists apparently doing their
best to produce hydrogen bomb-a weapon that
could prove to be 1000 times as deadly as the
superdeadly A-bomb-such retreat is being ad-
vocated at least implicitly, by some rather in
huential voices What the voices are calling for
are new starts" and fresh approaches" aimed
at persuading the Kremn to cooperate. In this
connection, one of the more popular arguments
is that the control plan approved by the U. N
majority - the so-called Baruch Plan = was
drafted on the assumption that the United States
would enjoy long-term atomic monopoly But
now that the Russians are making A-weapons
of their own, that monopoly obviously has ceased
to exist. So the argument goes on to contend
that the Baruch Plan therefore has been rendered
obsolete and that something quite different must
be thought up to replace it.
This view however does not conform with the
facts of history. 1t is misconception unsup-
ported by the record. For that record clearly
shows, among other things, that Britain, Canada
and the United StateS-in joint statement is
sued not long after Hiroshima by President
Truman and Prime Ministers Attlee and King
recognized at the very outset the n-monopo-
listic character of atomic energy. Actually, far
from being based on the illusion that our country
would have no rivals in the field for many years
the Baruch Plan assumed the contrary. 1t was
predicated on the idea that sooner or later (our
general official estimate was 1882 the Russians
would be able to make their own A-weapons
Accordingly, it was put forward with a sense of
great urgency to prevent the kind of armaments
race now going on.
To that end, the plan proposed the creation
OF powerful international authority to own,
operate or otherwise police all atomic facilities
and activities throughout the globe-an author
1ty equipped with vetoless inspection system
and punitive machinery effective enough to guard
against violations and evasons. But Russia,
standing alone with its handful of satellites
against every other member of the United
Nations fatty refused to have anything to do
with such system. 1t insisted instead, on an
arrangement that could not by any stretch of
the imagination lead to effective control 1t still
holds to that position. The deadlock is as COM
plete as it is ominous.
1t is idle, in these circumstances, to talk of
new starts" and fresh approaches" unless one
means by such phrases that the United States
and the rest of the free world ought to water
down the Baruch Plan until it amounts to some
thing like the Geneva convention against poison
gas. The Russians probably would agree to
that But what good would it be? Who in his
right mind believes thatSit would promote the
collective security of the world? How would it
encourage any nation to stop producing and
Stockpiling A-weapons?
The simple truth is that the atom including
the H-bomb cannot be controlled without the
essentials of the Baruch Plan. The President is
right in holding fast to them. If there is to be
any new start" in this field the Russians must
make 1t.