Evening star., 1953-12-09
He Takes the High Road

If the address by President Eisenhower
to the United Nations General Assembly leaves
one with a sense of pride in being an American,
no apology need be offered. For the Presidents
wholly admirable bid to lead mankind away
from war and toward peace will constitute one
of the truly bright chapters in our history, and,
one may hope, in the history Of the world. It
is good to feel that the least among us may,
in some small degree, help transform this bright
vision into reality.
OF course, we must be prepared for diSap-
pointment The President made high-minded
appeal for peace in his talk last April to the
American Society of Newspaper Editors, and
nothing has come of that. But it will not be
so easy this time for the Russians to turn away
from the proposal which General Eisenhower
has made.
For this PROPOSAL proposal that the
incalcuable power of the split atom be har-
messed to the aims of a peaceful world-will
have an almost irresistible appeal to the minds
of all men.
If the proposal is accepted, if the first
step is taken, we may well then have come to
the dawn of new era-an era in which this
product of the genius of man will be gradually
applied to the elimination of much of the sorrow
and the suffering and the misery which afflict
this world What a magnificent prospect that
would be!
If it is rejected, one can only shudder at
the alternative: continuation of the mad
race to stockpie even more of these fantastic
weapons, when our own current Stockpie
already exceeds "by many times" the explosive
equivalent of all the bombs and shells fired
in all of the theaters through all the years
of World War II; the development of more
and still more powerful weapons. The President
said that atomic bombs today are more than
rs times as powerful as the early atomic
weapons. In other words, the Hiroshima bomb
was the equivalent of about 10000 tons of TINT;
today's A-bomb is the equivalent of something
like 100000 tons. And looming Somberly above
all are the hydrogen weapons, "in the ranges
OF millions of tons of INT equivalent"
Nor is this senseless arms race the whole
of the alternative. For if these weapons are
built and stockpiled there will be always with
us the dreadful possibility that they will be
used. And if they are uSed most of this world
Russia included-is going to emerge from the
struggle smoking ruin. Surely the President
was right when he said that mankind after
such a clash, would have to "begin all over
again the age-old struggle upward from
savagery toward decency. justice and right"
1t is hard to believe that the Kremlin,
either through stupidity or by design, will
condemn the world to this awful fate Ger
tainly such decision would not be compatible
with any assumption of sanity.
So this is the time to spare no effort in
seeing to it that the first step of which the
President spoke is taken. We should do every
thing that we can do to assist the first small
move away from disaster and toward peace
Our own peaceful intentions have been put
upon the record. The offer of friendly COL
hos hoo do r1aaI hos 6an-.
Sketched for all to see. II the end result is
to be one more disheartening failure, let it not
be through any fault of ours If man. in the
end, is to destroy himself, let us not, through
lack of diligence now, be party to that crime
against the human race.