Evening star., 1951-05-13

showing how completely wide O
occurred. This last development
to public confidence in our top
strategic capacity. civil as well as
military.
Now the President has swung
the spotlight back on the A-bomh
by his I'VE are vulnerable
speech. Is this simply an act OF
defensive desperation. or is it the
forerunner of great national
service? If it is narrowly de-
fensive, it seems to be poor
strategy. but If it means q change
of policy as to traitors within our
midst. it is the boldest and best
strategy.
There are three reasons for
questioning this strategy if it is
on merely defensive level.
Stain Had Drawings
In the first place. the state
ment that Russia can A-bomh
America can hardly be rated
higher than a calculated guess by
the man who admittedly has the
facilities for being the best in
formed person this side Of the
iron curtain. But he also had
access to the same information
sources when he told Stain ut
Potsdam that we had the A-bomb
and when he thought that 1t was
Q spy-tight secret which guar
anteed the future peace Of the
world. The only trouble was that
Stain already had the A-bomb
drawings himself. Worst of all,
Stain had our top secrets because
Of the overriding of the military
by the civilian branches OF the
Government in the zone where
civilian and military administra-
tion merge.
No man in the West can know
Russia's bombing potential. It is
doubtful II any man in Russia
really knows it, in the final sense.
That Is, no man there or here
can know-until the irretrievable
test Is made in action-whether
Russia can use the bomb without
forcing a retaliatory stroke so
lethal that it would mean her
ruin rather than ours. Or it might
mean mutual ruin, though that
is still highly doubtful.
That being the case, even the
Presidents calculated guess on
RuSsia's power to bomb loses some
OF its relevancy in the present
debate. For one thing. it is too
close kin to that military chest
nut, the calculated risk"
The next reason for questioning
this second rebuttal speech against
Macarthur is the disadvantage of
having the President get the repu-
tation of crying wolf" too often.
He already has constituted him
self kind Of herald for Russia
on the A-bomb. Many months
ago he made the announcement
that Russia had just exploded an
A-bomb. Had Stain repaid the
courtesy Of the scoop which the
President gave him years ago by
telling him through leak" chan
nels that Russia now had it, too,
and in actual use? Was the story
genuine or a plant? Was Stain
as foxy in allowing this story to
get out to the President as he
had been in listening without
comment to the Presidents gen.
uine first story?
Easy Prey for Spies
The third reason that it is sur
prising that the administration
has resorted to I'VE are vul-
nerable tactics" Is that 1t amounts
to throwing away the chief ad-
vantage which came to 1t from
the %ousting Of Macarthur. The
very magnitude of the reaction
to his discharge had a negotiable,
long-term psychological value. It
turned public thought away from
the terrible implications of the
A-bomb spy scandals. Those
scandals showed that for years we
have been easy prey of the Rus
sian secret service. We have, If
the President Is correct, devel-
oped, paid for and made our
enemy q present of q weapon
which depriveS us of the power,
which We once had, to disarm him
or to fight him without grave
risk to ourselves. Alongside this,
the firing Of even the most tai
ented general is q trif1e. After
all, every one Of our top military
leaders will almost certainly have
to be replaced If the present
armed truce is strung out over a
period of years.
The President cannot be blamed
for the spy scandals. They date
back to 1888 and 1899, when we
allowed ourselves to be so worked
up against Nazism that we lost all
power to reason on its twin men
ace, communism.
The steps by which we let Rus
sia into our secrets were extraor-
dinary and against the strenuous
resistance Of our military. We let
Russia in by first letting Britain
in. Britain had her back to the
wall. She had slipped far be-
hind Germany in scientific war
fare and in the technique Of
power. She had to grab at straws.
One Of these straws was DR.. Kraus
Julius Emil Fuchs, uper-scientist,
son Of an avowed German Com
munist, and himself lifted out of
an alien prison and put to work on
the greatest weapon in the history
of warfare.
British Screened Fuchs