Evening star., 1955-07-11
The Heart of the Matter

The scientists who have Joined Lord
Russell in an appeal for the international
remuneration of war have not said any
thing that has not been said many times
before. They have merely given voice
to an eloquent restatement of what every
informed person has known for some
time past-namely, that all-out armed
conflict in the atomic-hydrogen age
could conceivably destroy the whole OF
humanity and that there is therefore
desperate need for men and nations to
establish an unbreakable world peace.
But it is one thing to call for such
a peace, and quite another thing to find
the ways and means of bringing it into
being There is the root fact, to begin
with, that system of international con-
troll and inspection must be set up in
any effort to eliminate the menace of war
with instruments of mass destruction.
Yet, with the advent of the hydrogen
bomb and a multitudinous family" of
big and little A-weapons (some of which
have become conventional for our
armed forces), the problem of policing
this field has grown increasingly more
difficult and complex with each passing
day.
Thus, as President Eisenhower de-
clared at his news conference the other
day, even a system of unlimited control
and inspection-assuming that all ma
tions agreed to submit to it-could not
offer truly effective guarantee against
concealment of the many atomic-hydro-
gen weapons that have already been
manufactured. It could not, for example,
detect the existence of such weapons If
Russia (or our own country, for that
matter) chose to store them away in
geniously in widely scattered hiding
places. Similarly, the most elaborate
kind of international policing could not
eliminate the possibility that peacetime
power reactors might be used for the
clandestine output of "extra" fashionable
material earmarked for the secret fabri-
cation Of outlawed nuclear ornaments.
Yet, despite all this, the President
on the eve of the Big Four summit"
meeting-has made clear his belief
that the United States, the Soviet Union
and other powers should be able eventu-
ally to agree upon a control plan that
could greatly reduce the danger of sneak
it, There are lots of ways in which this
thing can be approached. For ex-
ample, let us take the delivery schemes.
We know that when you get to long
range bombing, you need very large
machines and very large fields. Now,
those can be detected" Moreover, in
his Judgment, it ought to be possible
to build up rather strong safeguards
through policing methods thorough
enough to keep good check on every
nations big productive plants-plants of
the type required to prepare for and
launch full-scale war.
Be that as it may, however, the Presi-
dent has rightly cautioned that no dis
armament plan can give true safety
unless all countries display the good faith
needed to develop great new degree Of
mutual trust. In that respect, he has
gone to the heart of the matter with
these words: "In the long run =. the
kind of peace that will allow people to
be really tranquil and confident in their
daily pursuits :. will be achieved only
when nations have achieved that mutual
trust" Certainly, until then, mankind
will have reason to feel continuing
sense of collective insecurity, and all of
us-regardleSs of the fears expressed in
the scientists appeal-will have to repose
our hopes for preventing war in the
deterrent force of A and Fl weapons.