Not Even Half an Inch

At Lake Success last week a Russian scientist created a minor sensation in a very major matter when it appeared that he was moving his country approximately half an inch toward international control of the atom. The sensation promptly collapsed.

Since last June the U.N.'s Atomic Energy Commission had floundered in a deadlock between the U.S. desire for international inspection and the Soviet objection that such inspection would violate national sovereignty. The UNAEC has sidetracked political debate for technical fact-finding; the Scientific & Technical Committee at length surfaced with a report, unanimously agreed to by twelve nations, that control is technologically feasible. Whether control is politically acceptable the committee did not discuss.

Thirsty for atomic news, good or bad, the Manhattan dailies last week pounced on some remarks made by Soviet scientific adviser Semen P. Alexandrov. who is a bigwig at Moscow's Central Institute of Research in Non-Ferrous Metals, and was one of Russia's two official witnesses at Bikini. It might be useful, Professor Alexandrov had suggested, to have a "balance sheet" which would show the amount of each nation's raw material and the efficiency of mining methods. It might also be useful to compare notes on how uranium and thorium deposits were classified. Russia, he said, had set up three categories: visible, probable and possible resources.

In the body of their stories, the papers reported Professor Alexandrov's remarks more or less accurately, but in their headlines and leads they gave the impression that he was talking about international "control" and "supervision." Since the Russian had no such things in mind, he denounced the stories as "sensation" reporting. Delegate Andrei Gromyko further squelched the matter by claiming that Alexandrov had merely drawn attention to the lack of information on raw materials --that and nothing more. As for controls, Gromyko added, "the Soviet delegation considers the national control to be sufficient. . . ."

Meanwhile, however, the U.S. delegates had perked up when they heard Alexandrov talking about "balance sheets." Would the balance sheets, they asked, be "audited"--that is, checked by some outside agency? Remembering that he is more of a scientist than a diplomat, Professor Alexandrov pulled in his neck. He was not prepared to answer right away, he said, but would bring the matter up again at some later time.

The deadlock continued--and so did the atomic arms race which the UNAEC was set up to prevent.

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