Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1953-08-10

Although only the foolishly wishful would
underestimate it's tremendous potential sig
nif1cance in terms of the worlds fate two, three
or four years from now, Premier Malenkovs
announcement regarding the Soviet Union and
the hydrogen bomb calls for the kind of skepti
cal and calm reserve with which knowing peo-
pie have received it here in the United States.
To begin with, Mr.. Malenkov has not said
that the Soviets are now armed with this most
terrible of all destroyerS He has merely said
that the United States-which up to the pres
ent has neither affirmed nor denied, officially,
that it has produced the hellish weapon-"no
longer has the monopoly of the hydrogen
bomb" He has merely said that Russia, as an
active and informed competitor in the field
of nuclear and thermonuclear ornaments, is
fully capable of producing the thing.
But to say this is not to say that Soviet
Hbomb already exists or is just around the
corner. Conceivably, of course, it may exist or
be just around the corner, but Mr. Malenkov
has been anything but specific on that point.
In fact, what he has said about the hydrogen
annihilator is markedly similar to what For
eign Minister Molotov said in 1947 about break
ing our American A-weapon "monopoly"-a
statement that remained largely academic
until the Russians finally succeeded, late in
the summer of 1949, in setting off their first
experimental atomic explosion.
Actually, unless our Government has been
deliberately withholding information from the
public the Soviet Union has staged only three
such explosions to date, the last in the fall
of 1951-aS against more than 40 staged by
us. Hence since test detonations are absolutely
indispensable to the development of nuclear
or thermonuclear (hydrogen) weapons, and
since it is improbable to the point of impos-
sibility that the Kremlin could have set off
additional ones without being detected in the
free world there is ample reason, very much
reason, to doubt that the Russians now have
the H-bomb.
BY the same token, there is good ground
for the speculation that Mr.. Malenkov, in
speaking out boastfully on this subject, has
given voice to kind of propaganda bluff de-
signed to intmidate the free world and i'm
press and hold in line the people of the
U. S. S. r., Red China and all the FESTIVE Satel-
lite lands behind the Iron Curtain To that
extent there is every reason why his announce
ment, far from being taken at face value,
should be viewed as an effort to build up his
own and the Kremlin's prestige at moment
when there is great doubt everywhere regard
ing the strength and unity of post-Stalin
Russia and it's dark empire.
With all that said however the fact re-
cause of the information betrayed to it by
Klaus Fuchs, the Rosenbergs and other deadly
spies undoubtedly is capable of arming itself
with hydrogen bombs at a relatively early
date. What this means is that the United
States and all its allies in the free world must
reckon with the probability that the Red
totalitarians are now coming into possession
of destroyer than can be at least 1000 times
as destructive as the "old-fashioned" atomic
weapon that shattered Hiroshima and Maya
saki-a weapon equivalent to 10000 tons of
TINT.
In other words, what we must reckon with
is this: A possible war with conspirators who
will have in their hands-in 1854 or 1855 or
1856, if not nova stockpile of bombs whose
destructive power (meaning the destructive
power of each and every one of them could
be equal to that of 20 million tons of explod-
ing TINT. AS Chairman Wiley of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee has said-with
perhaps some hyperbole, but not too much
a Soviet plane dropping single weapon of
this sort on Chicago could wipe out not only
Chicago but also Milwaukee 80 miles away.
So we and the rest of the world are faced
with a prospect unprecedented in history: a
prospect that conceivably could 1nateriaize in
nothing less than the extinction of mankind.
That is the unimaginably fearsome new di-
menSion that has been added to war by things
like the "hell bomb"
Clearly the human race is thus moving
rapidly to a point where it ought to feel
sense of appalling desperation in striving to
establish a good and enduring peace But Mr..
Malenkov, in coupling his H-bomb announce
ment with attacks on the Atlantic alliance and
American atomic blackmail," has spoken in
a spirit that holds out little hope for the early
attainment of such peace.