Evening star., 1953-09-27
As a Thief in the Niqht


It is hardly possible to review the news
of the past few days without finding ones
thoughts turning to somber warning written
nearly 1900 years ago.
The news does not make pleasant reading
Far from it. For the tidings are of the kind to
cast brooding pail over any one who will
pause, If just for moment or two, to reflect
on the meaning of it all.
President Eisenhower sees fit to tell group
of visitors that "every new invention of the
scientists seems to make it more nearly possible
for man to insure his own elimination from the
globe" Val Peterson, Civil Defense head, says
that "the whole world is hiding from the ter
rible implications of atomic weapons" Up in
New Hampshire, speech is made by Gordon
Dean, until recently chairman of the Atomic
Energy Commission. Mr.. Dean is neither igno-
rant nor an alarmist. He says that within two
years Russia will have the capability to virtually
destroy the United States if she strikes first
And, sounding note which seems to border on
desperation, he asks whether the free world can
permit the Soviet to reach this position of
power"
There is still more. Mark Watson, able
military correspondent of the Baltimore Sun,
"conjectures" that it may soon be possible to
produce hydrogen bombs of unimaginable de-
Underlying all of this, one reads of scientific
speculation concerning weapon capable Of
devastating 100 square miles, weapon which
could "vaporize" our largest city and leave
smoking crater in the midst of the blast area
some three miles wide and several hundred feet
deep.
If this were mere street-corner gossip it
could be brushed aside. But it is not that. No
layman can pretend to say precisely where we
stand. 1t is certain, however, that both we and
our potential enemies are closer much closer
than would have been deemed possible mere
decade ago. to having achieved the means Of
almost total destruction.
Where can we turn? Is it possible to erect
an adequate defense within any bearable range
of cost? Probably not in any circumstance, and
certainly not if we are going to think in terms
of lowered taxes and a balanced budget. Is
there assurance of safety in maintaining an
overwhelming capacity to strike back against
an aggreSSor? Some, perhaps, but if we should
be struck first there is small comfort in the
prospect of retaliation. Is there some other
alternative? Mr.. Dean spoke, somewhat in the
spirit OF man graSping at Straws, of rallying
world opinion against Russian aggression, and
of investing the Statesmen" of the free world
with the duty of finding an answer.
The poverty of these suggestions speaks for
itself. There is little real hope in any of them.
The race upon which man is embarked is a race
to contrive the means of destroying the human
species. If Mr. Dean is correct, the race will be
over within year, or, almost, two years. BY
that time both we and the Russians will possess
the weapons of total destruction
So it may be profitable, while a little time
remains, to turn our minds back to the second
epistle of the Apostle Peter. This is what he
wrote:
But the day of the Lord will come as thief
in the night; in the which the heavens shall
pass away with a great noise, and the ele-
ments shall melt with fervent heat the earth
also and the works that are therein shall be
burned up.
AS we reckon time, these words were writ
ten long ago-in the first century after the
birth of Christ But, though penned with a diff
ferent thought in mind it is not necessarily a
message so remote in point of time that it is
robbed of all significance for us today. In that
same epistle, Peter also wrote: "Be not ignorant
of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord
as thousand years, and thousand years as
one day"