To Those of Little Thought

As chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, David E. Lilienthal is burdened with two huge and conflicting jobs. One job is to insure that the U.S. makes more and better bombs. The other job, as he sees it, is so to educate the U.S. people that no bombs shall ever be dropped, anywhere, by anybody.

Last week in Manhattan, before the Radio Executives Club, Lilienthal spoke his mind about the difficulties of his second job.

Misconceived Salvation. Of one thing he was certain: that fear is a poor teacher. Men began to fear the bomb from the moment they first heard about it--a fear fed by radio broadcasts, newspaper reports and magazine articles. The effect of these shivery reports--though not their purpose--was "to make the mysterious and the horrible even more mysterious and horrible."

Said Lilienthal: "We were to be frightened into our salvation. We were told that we must have world government and have it at once--within a definite and implacable time schedule--or we were goners. Our own special vulnerability to atomic warfare was told and retold in a way that was correct but fearsome in the extreme. Maps of New York City were published showing in detail just what ghastly horrors would occur if an atomic bomb . . . was dropped in the Hudson River. . . .

"To those who have given little thought to such matters, it might have seemed like a good idea to scare the world into being good, or at least sensible. But fear is brother to panic. Fear is an unreliable ally; it can never be depended upon to produce good. . . . Public thinking that is dominated by great fear . . . provides a sorry foundation for the strains we may find it necessary to withstand."

One Solid Hope. The pressure of time, David Lilienthal admitted, is enormous. But what little time men still have must be well and wisely used. It must be used not to spread fear, but to spread understanding.

Said he: "The principal and perhaps the only solid hope for preventing the use of atomic energy for destruction on a scale that has not yet been disclosed is for peoples everywhere to come to understand . . . this new critter, the atom, and what it holds for evil and for good . . . and to understand thereby the opportunities that lie before us.

"What goes on in people's minds--and in their hearts--is more important in determining the fateful future than what goes on in laboratories and production centers. . . . There are no supermen, all-wise, to solve these problems for us. [But] an informed and understanding people will [not] be taken in by sweet talk, or scared by shadows, or stumble--or be pushed--into some desperate finality. There is no substitute, no good substitute, for the common-sense judgment of a whole people."

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