Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1954-04-02
Not All Evil

at the Presidents news conference the other
day, Chairman Strauss Of the Atomic Energy
Commission has left no room for doubt that
the United States is now arming itself with
deliverable hydrogen bombs capable-each one
of virtually obliterating any city in the world
no matter how big. Moreover, he has strongly
suggested that the time is approaching, as
result of this revolutionary development, when
our arsenal will contain so many of these and
kindred instruments of mass destruction that
we will be able to stop producing them and
concentrate, instead, on Harvesting the atom
for peace.
Some idea of the new weapon-which is
being developed in Russia, too, and which ap-
parently can be made to unleash varying mag
nitudes of devastation ranging upward to total
annihilation-is being offered at present to the
American people in the much edited official
movie of the November 1852, Eniwetok test
But the movie, although it shows the mightiest
explosion ever set off by man up to that date,
actually constitutes great anti-climax or un-
reinstatement. It does so because it depicts
relatively small-scale thermonuclear detona-
tion-one equivalent perhaps (the figure is
still secret) to about million tons of INT or
roughly 100 times the force let loose by the
A-bomb that shattered Hiroshima.
Within the past month, however, the United
States has staged two additional H-bomb tests
in a series not yet completed. The power re-
leased by these tests has not been revealed by
Mr.. Strauss, but there is every reason to believe
that movie of it would make the 1852 blast
seem rather mild by comparison At any rate,
with the Acc neither denying nor qualifying
the estimates, well-informed congressional
sources have declared that at least one Of the
detonations-that of March 1-unleashed
ko, 49,
shima destroyer, which means a force of be-
tween IL and IA million tons of exploding TINT.
Further the scientific fact is that thermonu-
clear weapons can be made far more destruc-
tive than that-on scale theoretically without
limit.
AS Mr.. Strauss has declared all this has
added enormously to our military capabilities.
But that is not the only thing it has done. For
it has brought us very much nearer the day.
when H-bombs, coupled with our numerous and
very varied family" of A-weapons, will meet
every conceivable defensive and offensive need
of our armed forces That is to say, we are now
within sight" of the time when we will have
enough of these fearsome destroyers to make
their further production altogether superhuous.
Even before the 1852 Eniwetok defamation, Cor
don Dean, who was then Acc chairman pre-
dicted that such point would be reached in
to it to "see the ability" in Mr. Strauss words,
ito proceed aggressively with the peacetime
development" of atomic hydrogen power
Here is reality of the utmost significance,
and it should be kept in mind by all those who
have reacted in an excessively alarmist spirit to
our latest H-bomb tests. These people, it is
true, have not exaggerated the fearsomeness of
the new weapons, but neither have they looked
at the picture in balance. For atomic-hydrogen
power, now that it exists cannot be escaped.
Men and their governments have got to learn
to live with it, Actually, as far as potentials go,
there is at least as much good as evil in it, and
we can hope that it will never be used for war.
We can hope. in fact that the day will come
when nations Notwithstanding Soviet
Russia-will so control it, so exploit it, so gov
ern their own passions and the temptation to
use it for destruction, that the whole of hui
mainly will enter upon the finest era in history.