Evening star., 1951-08-26
Peace or AnnihiIotion?

Senator Hill of Alabama member of the
Military Appropriations Subcommittee may
have exaggerated bit in declaring that 1T
won't be long, before American fighter planes
will be able to carry A-weapons for use as
kind of aerial artillery" Nevertheless, although
the Atomic Energy Commission has at all times
employed guarded and noncommital language
in commenting on the subject, there is ample
reason to- believe that the development of our
nuclear armaments has reached point where
their size, power variety and deliverablity repre-
sent vast and potentially revolutionary advance
from the relatively crude beginning marked by
the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.
At the time of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and
for considerable period afterward, all the evl
dence indicated that only giants like the B-29
and B-36 were capable of carrying and delivering
the atomic bomb. The popular assumption then
was that the bomb could not be handled by
anything smaller because of the bulk and weight
of the shielding and intricate mechaniSmS sur
rounding its explosive heart which in itself is
possibly no heavier than the average famiys
weekend bag of groceries But today. even
though Senator Hill may have overstated the
matter as regards fighter planes, there can be
little or no doubt on the basis of numerous
authoritative statements, that the weapon can
be taken aloft to targets-for either tactical or
strategical attack-by aircraft whose dimensions
are markedly less formidable than those of the
BIG or B-36
This fact-and we can reasonably regard it
as a fact, not umor-undoubtedly has added
greatly to the capacity of the United States Air
Force to display tremendous versatility and dead
illness in case of the outbreak of an all-out war.
Further than that it is thing of exceptional
significance in terms Of naval aviation. The big
carrier now under construction and the ones in
hn -to plA IF
commodating aircraft equipped to take on with
the atomic bomb on far-ranging round-trip
attacks. Further, it has been announced that
the current modernization work on the 27 1000
ton Essex class carriers involves modernization
designed to convert them into mighty fleet of
middle-siZe and highly maneuverable seagoing
bases for Navy planes built to make the same
kind of attackS-a development that promises
a very important increase in the Nations Of
fensive power.
Over and above all this, and wholly apart
from things like the near-futurea probability of
omic-powered submarines and the eventual
possibility of atomic powered aircraft our
senal of nuclear ornaments may even now con-
tain-or be close to containing-artillery shells"
and guided missiles with A-bomb warheads Such
weapons (anOther might be non-eXploding, silent,
invisible and highly lethal radioactive dust)
would lend themselves readily to both tactical
or strategical operations in which they would
be deliverable by either the Army on the ground,
planes in the sky ships at sea. 1t is not diff
cult to imagine how they could revolutionize
every past concept-including Soviet concepts
built around the idea of huge land forces of
infantry and heavy armor-of the grim art of
modern warfare. Certainly, pre- Hiroshima mill
tary thinking and planning have already been
upended by them
All signs strongly suggest that this in
describably deadly arsenal of ours Git may yet
include the hydrogen bomb, which could be at
least 1000 times as powerful as the terribly
powerful A-bomb) is far bigger and far more
advanced than the one at the Kremlins disposal.
AS time goes on, however, as the Soviet stockpile
gains in quality and quantity, the present wide
margin of advantage that apparently is ours
probably will lose good deal of its significance.
That is to say, should there be no-quarter
global war some years from now, our country
conceivably could be so devastated that it could
derive precious little comfort from inf1icting
double or triple that devastation on the enemy.
Actually, looked at in that light, the weapons
on hand and or the way are making war sheer
madness for everybody. In that sense, the
greatest blessing implicit in the atom may be
that it will yet frighten the whole world-not
least of all the Soviet Union-into rigdy con-
trolling it and deciding to embark on genuine,
universal cooperation for decent and enduring
peace. Otherwise, as has been repeatedly OBJ
served, mankind is likely to drift wily-nilly to-
ward self-annihilation on q scale too awful to
think about n