Better than Dynamite?

From Newport, Ark., a farmer wrote a letter to the nonexistent "Atomic Bomb Co." of Oak Ridge, Tenn.: "I have some stumps in my field that I should like to blow out. Have you got any atomic bombs the right size for the job? If you have let me know by return mail, and let me know how much they cost. I think I should like them better than dynamite."

In Paris, General Charles de Gaulle, more noted for courage than for prudence, declared that France was not worried about the Anglo-American monopoly on the atomic bomb. Smilingly he said: "We think we have plenty of time."

From Prague came a report that the Red Army had taken control of uranium deposits at Jachymov, Czechoslovakia.

In ignorance, frivolity and rivalry the world played with the awful atom. Last week the U.S. Congress became the focus of the world's hopes and fears. The U.S. had the bomb; had it the genius to lay down an initial policy which would grow into man's domination of atomic power?

H.R. 4280. The Truman Administration had drawn together proposals which bore the symbol "H.R. 4280" and the name of irascible Representative Andrew Jackson May, chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee. May's group and a special Senate committee held hearings, got advice from scientists so strongly worded and with such a weight of learning behind it that something like the May bill seemed sure to pass.

Some Congressmen at first were inclined to mistrust the May bill's sweeping delegation of powers to a nine-man, part-time board. Its members would be paid $50 a day (when working) to make decisions bearing with appalling directness on the survival of civilization.

The Atomic Energy Commission to be appointed by the President would have power to seize property needed to develop atomic energy, to control raw materials entering the process, to forbid or subsidize private research, to direct Government research. Stiff penalties, ranging up to 30 years in prison, were provided for infractions of the commission's rulings.

This was the key to the kingdom. The May bill made proposals for nationalization of coal and electric power look like peanuts.

Poison & Push Buttons. Congressmen listening to last week's testimony soon learned that the bill could not be judged by ordinary standards. Said Major General Leslie R. Groves, head of the Manhattan Project which developed the bomb: "We are flirting with national suicide if this thing gets out of control. If one mistake is made, we may face national disaster."

What did "out of control" mean? There were many possibilities. Dr. Vannevar Bush, head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, described some: "I certainly . . . want to see rigid federal control of what is done in this area [atomic research]. I certainly do not wish to think that some group of [atomic] experimenters might set up a laboratory half a mile from my home and family and . . . poison the neighborhood, or possibly blow it up. . . .I say we are faced with a very difficult thing to control . . . and I would make a very strong commission to do it." Bush added that radioactivity from careless experiments might "sterilize everyone who passed by" in the immediate vicinity.

At the other end of the scale of danger, General Electric's famed Dr. Irving Langmuir told a Senate committee that the Russians, in ten or 20 years, might be able to push a button and thereby destroy "not only our cities, but every man, woman and child in the United States."

Scientists seemed agreed on two points: 1) atomic energy is too big for uncontrolled private enterprise, and 2) in national defense the U.S. would be mad to suppose that the secret of the bomb could long be kept.

The Dissenters. By no means all scientists supported the May bill. Some, fed up with Army bureaucracy, asked in vain for further hearings on the bill. Some thought that the current concepts of control ignored the real nature of pure research. Said one such doubter: "A lot of nuclear research is done with a brain, a pencil and a piece of paper. How can you control that?"

In Los Alamos, N.Mex., Dr. Robert R. Wilson (see LETTERS), speaking for a group of scientists who had worked on the bomb, saw two alternatives: world control of atomic energy and research, or "unending war."

One falsetto note of cheer was struck by the House Naval Affairs Committee. When reporters sought the committee's authority for saying that electronic detonation of approaching bombs promised to provide an effective defense, the committee turned out to have nothing more solid in mind than a newspaper interview with Crooner Bing Crosby's somewhat scientific brother Larry.

There was no real defense against the atom bomb. There was no precedent for handling atomic energy. There was no sure and safe policy. Congress would just have to do its frightened best. The rest of the world would act accordingly.

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