Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1957-07-24
Up to the KremIin

At this stage, as indicated by Secre-
tary Dulles in his excellent but somber
speech the other night, the enormously
complex problem Of disarmament boils
down to relatively simple question:
Is the Soviet Union prepared to offer
convincing proof" that it is serious
when 1t talks about wanting to make
some real progress toward an effective
system Of arms limitation and control?
The only people who can answer
this with any authority are the men of
the Kremlin. They can do so by making
clear at the current five-power talks in
London their precise reactions to the
beginning" proposals put forward by
the United States with full Western sup
port The proposals are both modest
and realistic, having been predicated on
the twofold fact ~ that there is no
known method of detecting and surely
accounting for the nuclear weapons al
ready produced by Britain, Russia and
our own country and (2) that the world
must therefore assume that such weap-
ons will be used in the event of war.
But there is also another fact to be
reckoned with, an encouraging fact of
prime Importance. This is that the
future output of fashionable material
can be effectively policed and its use so
controlled or supervised as to insure
against its diversion into military chan
nelS. Accordingly, as Mr. Dulles has
said, we have proposed in London first
Cfan I'M fnI. RaII
would happen: ~ All nations would
agree to stop producing such material
for war purposes, with the stoppage date
depending on the prior establishment of
effective inspection and control. (2)
There would be ten-month suspension
OF the testing of nuclear weapons. (3)
During that period, other steps would be
taken to promote the atoms use for
peace and to set up genuine interna-
tional Safeguards-in the form of elab-
crate reciprocal aerial and ground sur
veillance-against the possibility of
surprise attack.
All this constitutes only a sketchy
summary of the main American-spon-
Sored Western proposals. Mr.. Dulles
has voiced some measure of hope. an
extremely qualified measure, that the
Kremlin will accept them for Russias
good as well as for the good of the whole
world. Given such an acceptance, then
mankind would be able to make a sig
nificant start on controlling forces lit
orally capable Of destroying the human
race. On the other hand, as the Secre-
tary has warned, persistent Soviet nay
saying would mean that our country
would have to keep on testing and pro-
ducing nuclear weapons. And it would
mean, too, that the problem of control
might rapidly become so unmanageable
as to lead to situation in which addi-
tional powers-not Just Britain, the
USSR and the United States-would
acquire these instruments of mass de-
struction and perhaps be disposed to
brandiSh them irreSponsibly.
In effect, in gravely thinning this
prospect, Mr.. Dulles has put it up to the
kremlin to stop saying ''nyet" and start
co-operating-as 1t has yet to do-in an
imperative effort, an effort that could
soon become almost desperate, to har-
ness the atom exclusively for peace lest
the world drift into a war that could
mean the end of everything that matters
on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
Nlkita Khrushchev and Company can
respond negatively only at the risk of
passing death sentence not merely on
themselves, but on all humanity.