Urgent Shriek

Are there any atomic bombs in existence (assuming that Russia has none) outside the U.S.? This explosive question has been the subject of hole-&-corner discussions in at least three capitals--London, Washington, Ottawa--for months. Some time ago it was rumored that Britain had obtained atomic bombs from the U.S. for stockpiling in the United Kingdom. The rumor proved false. It was also whispered that the U.S. carrier Franklin D. Roosevelt, on its recent visit to the eastern Mediterranean, had The Bomb on board. That one also proved untrue.

The British first asked the U.S. for bombs about six months ago, and have repeated the request at least once. The U.S. refused. Reasons: 1) if Britain needed A-bombs, it could only be in case of war with Russia, in which case Britain would be assured of prompt and effective U.S. help; 2) the Atomic Energy Act would have to be changed if bombs are to be exported; 3) if Russia heard about such a move, there would be a terrible uproar.

Recently sensation-loving Lord Beaverbrook's London Daily Express aired the report that Britain had asked for bombs. Last week, in the U.S., conscientious Columnist Marquis W. Childs aired It further. Childs told how Bernard Baruch, chief U.S. atomic negotiator in the U.N., had been at great pains first to assure himself that there were no A-bombs in Britain, then to assure Russia's Andrei Gromyko of that same fact. Gromyko, at first dubious, came to believe Baruch.

Childs also disclosed--"although it may have been no more than a coincidence"--that shipments of thorium to the U.S. from the state of Travancore, in southern India, had been stopped. Travancore, one of India's least backward states, used to supply three-fourths of the world's thorium (for gaslight mantles, radio tubes, carbon terminals, luminous watch dials).

Thorium is not itself a chain-reacting substance or "nuclear fuel" like plutonium or U-235, but when placed in a pile with U-235 it yields a third kind of fuel known as U-233. So far as is known, only theoretical work has been done on U-233. Last year, however, Canada announced that she would explore thorium's possibilities at the big Chalk River project in Ontario (TIME, Dec. 31).

Was the stoppage of thorium shipments from Travancore to the U.S. a sign of British displeasure? Possibly. But the British pointed out that they could not give orders to Travancore's Maharaja, an independent ruler. The handsome, enlightened, 34-year-old Maharaja, who in 1937 established a university for technological research, has now said that he wants to build thorium refining plants, and perhaps even experiment with nuclear fission, in Travancore. That was a reminder that the great powers had no permanent monopoly on the atom.

The whole business sounded like an urgent shriek to the U.N.'s atomic negotiators to get going on world control--and fast.

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