Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-04-15
Conscience and Arms

AS a veteran member Of the Atomic
Energy Commission, Thomas E. Murray
has played an important role in the
development and production of our coun-
try'S A-WeaponS and hydrogen bombs.
So his views on the subject. as just pre-
Sented to the disarmament subcommittee
of the Senate Foreign Relations Commit
tee, are knoWledgeable ones that merit
the careful attention of all Americans.
And the next thing to be said about
those vieWS-Which in some respects are
highly debatabe--iS that they are not
paciflStic in an unrealiStic sense Far
from it. Mr. Murray, in fact, apparently
believes that nuclear arms are here to
stay and that future wars, if any, will
lneScapably involve their use regardless
of disarmament agreements. Accordingly,
warning against the false idealism" of
the KremlinS ban the bomb" slogan,
he holds that it would be "sheer folly"
Tor the United States to let itself be be-
guiled into making "a blanket renuncia-
ton of such weapons
But Mr. Murray is a devoutly reli-
glouS man whose conscience has long been
haunted by the fact that the new weapons
are capable-given unrestricted armed
conflict-of wiping out the whole of hui
manity. SO his own brooding thoughts
have led him to the belief that moral
principle, military practically and simple
sanity make 1t imperative for all nations
particularly our own-to realize that
they do not have to choose between the
extremes of a bad kind of peaceful CO.
existence" on the one hand and the ire
mendouS evil of an all-out, all-destroying
acknowledgement war on the other.
However, in Mr.. MurrayS judgment,
"a limited nuclear war is a possibility
that our conScienceS can face and &C
cept." And he goes on to add, In the
different kinds of limited war that might
confront us, certain types of nuclear
weapons have a military usefulness. 1t
would therefore be wrong on our part
to deprive ourselves of these weapons"
But he would stop making hydrogen
bombs (Which have no upper limit) any
bigger than they already are Instead
he would put major emphasis on the
output of tactical atomic arms because
he is convinced, morally and militarily
that they will serve us better than
program concentrated on producing Their
monuclear deStroyerS of ever-increaSing
agnitude-destroyers whose wartime
practically is dubious and whose poten-
tialitieS run counter to the limitations
imposed by moral law in nation under
God"
AS he himself has summed it up, Mr..
Murray'S plan for rational nuclear arma-
ment" consists of four proposals to be
carried out by the United States regard
less of Russia. The first of these would
set an upper limit on the size of our H
bombs, some of which. he suspects, may
be already too big. The second would
place ceiling on the number of such
bombs to be stored in our stockpile. The
third would greatly increase the output
of very small" atomic weaponS-an in
crease that would produce tens of
thousands" of them to form a huge and
diversified arsenal equipped to handle
all the various wartime CONTINGENCIES
that might arise" And the fourth would
put an immediate stop to multimegaton
thermonuclear tests not because the tests
are menacing to health and safety (the
evidence shows otherWise), but because
the hydrogen destroyers I'VE now have in
hand are large enough"
One has only to glance at these pro-
poSalS to appreciate why they have been
received with great reserve by members
of the Senate subcommittee But Mr.
Murray, who in this instance has once
again spoken for himself and not for
the Acc. has nonetheless made a number
of persuasive points. Certainly, taken as
whole, his thesis, even though chal-
lengeable and bit fuzzy in several par
ticularS, we'll deserves to be studied---if
only as measure of the complexities and
dangers confronting all mankind in the
atomic-hydrogen age.