Evening star., 1951-06-10
Our Atomic Insurance


In his address to the New York State
Chamber of Commerce, Chairman Gordon Dean
of the Atomic Energy Commission has left no
room for doubt that the United States has made,
and is continuing to make, highly significant
progress in the field of nuclear armamentS. Ger
tainly Judging from his remarks in that respect,
the American people have every reason to feei
reaSsured' and to remind themselves-Witnout
complacency-that the Soviet Union does not
by any means hold all the trump cards in the
grim and dangerous power contest it has forced
upon the free world Il
Actually, speaking with quiet but emphatic
confidence, Mr. Dean-whose views on the atom
are uniquely authoritative-has plainly inti-
mated that the Russians lag considerably behind
us in atomic development. In his judgment,
they have been deferred from large-scale ag-
greSsion principally because they have very
healthy respect for our superior stockpile OF
mass produced A-weaponS. Further he has
expressed it as his firm conviction that ii the
present competition" between them and us
explodes into about war, 1--WE shall win 1t in
a military way" and if the struggle remains
indefinitely in the spheres of international
politics and economics, we shall win 1t on those
grounds too."
In saying this, Mr. Dean has not given voice
to mere wishfulneSs. His relative optimism Che
its military character and take the form of
great international enterprise richly benef1ting
all mankind) is based on the concrete achieve
mentS of our American atomic project. and
presumably on sound intelligence evaluation
of Soviet progress we'll. More specifically
than at any time in the past, he has commented
on those achievements in a way that justifies
a good measure of confidence in the idea that
the United States, as far as the atom is con-
cerned continues to maintain decidedly
important advantage in the world balance Of
power-an advantage that may well be great
enough to vitiate the value of Russias huge land
armies prevent another global war and eventu-
ally oblige the men of the Kremlin to abandon
their policy of aggression and stop sabotaging
the effort to establish a decent and enduring
peace.
It is fact, in any case, that whereas only
one Soviet nuclear explosion" has been reported
to date, the United States has staged a large
number of such tests. and it plans, according
to Mr.. Dean, to hold many more "as our develop
mental program continues to produce improved
types of weapons that must be proof-tested"
before they can be manufactured. AS for the
latest of these experiments-the series early this
year near Las Vegas, Nevada, and the recent
ones at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacihc-he has
made clear that they have contributed among
other things to work on atomic warheads for
artillery shells and guided missiles and to the
development of the hydrogen bomb. which could
be at least 1000 times deadlier than the A-bomb,
which in turn is now considerably" more power
full ian understatement) than the type that
shattered Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Beyond that, in Mr. Deans words, we are
concentrating right now developing atomic
engines for the propulsion of submarines and
aircraft We are much farther along on the
submarine reactor than we are on the aircraft
one, but I am sure in my own mind that
eventually we are going to have BOTH" This is
prospect full of the most revolutionary poten-
tialities. When it materializes-and the Acc
chairman is convinced that it will materialize-
the range of naval vessels and military planes,
and probably their speed as well, will be vastly
increased; they will no longer be dependent on
bases for fuel supply; and the art of warfare
will thus undergo another far-reaching change
bringing us all closer to the fantasies of
Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon.
In the kind of world we have-a world In
which the survival of our own and other free
nations depends on alertness and armed power
all this is reassuring. We must hope and strive
for the day when it will be possible to devote
to peacetime atomic development the billions
we are now spending on our expanded A-weapons
program. Meanwhile, however simple sanity
demands that that program be carried out with
the greatest speed and efficiency to keep us
we'll ahead in this deadliest of ornaments races
AS Mr. Dean has said, the money we are thus
investing is buying us one of the best insurance
policies available in our tme-a policy giving
us strength of a sort that the Kremlin may
never dare to challenge. .... .-.....