Atomic Energy for Peace

by GORDON DEAN

IT REQUIRED a presidential voice from the podium of the General Assembly of the United Nations to direct world thinking toward the dual truth of the utter frightfulness of atomic war and the great hope and challenge of atomic peace. One was reminded of a similar message of seven years ago from the voice of Bernard Baruch, who said, “We are here to make a choice between the quick and the dead.”President Eisenhower made it clear also that the world had best be quick about the choice. Seven years had seen every effort at international control of the atom end in dismal frustrating failure while stockpiles of increasingly powerful bombs accumulated on both sides of the iron curtain.

During the post-war era the United States newer once resorted to the use of the atomic bomb to settle international differences even in the face of great provocation and despite the fact that for a brief period we had exclusive possession of the atomic bomb. The moral factor played an important, role, and I believe the Soviet Russians have been keenly aware of just how important a role it played in our deliberations and in our thinking. They counted on it heavily, taking advantage of it in such instances as the Czechoslovakian coup d’état, the North Korean aggression, the Chinese revolution, the Berlin blockade, and their flagrant violations of the Balkan peace treaties. We have been obviously reluctant to unleash upon the world the horrors of atomic warfare, as the world visualized those horrors through the ruins of Nagasaki and Hiroshima; and the Russians have consequently been granted a freedom of action they would otherwise have been denied. In the meantime they have also been left free to pursue an atomic weapons program of their own.

It became clear by 1948, if not before, that there was little hope of reaching agreement with the Russians on any total plan for world peace and disarmament. In September of 1949 the United States announced that the Russians had exploded their first atomic bomb. Our monopoly was gone. The United States had no alternative but to engage in a gigantic step-up of its atomic program to build its stockpile to meet any threat. This it set out to do. While the end product of this effort, could be utilized for peacetime, uses, none of our great expansions, involving a total capital expenditure of $7.5 billion, could be justified on that basis. They were frankly designed to get bombs fast.

The Russians at first represented to the world that their atomic energy program was for peaceful ends — for moving mountains, changing the courses of rivers, making deserts fertile. But this was false, and when we asked what rivers, what mountains, we were met only with a silence-which masked the lie. By 1951, when the Russians tested two more atomic weapons, Stalin was forced to admit that these were part of a weapons test and that the Russians were engaged in the development of new types of atomic weapons.

Copyright 1954, by The Atlantic Monthly Company, Boston 16, Mass. All rights reserved.

Last summer the U.S.S.R. exploded its first thermonuclear weapon. We entered the fall of 1953 apparently no closer to solution of this problem of atomic control than we were in 1946. Several months ago, in an effort to stimulate thinking upon this problem, I suggested that time was fast running out; that the Russians had the capability of badly hurting us and within a matter of two years the capability of wiping out a large segment of our industrial population. Others suggested a policy of candor in which the President would point out just how destructive these weapons are and what we face.

It was in this setting and at this point in history that the President chose to speak, and it was most fortunate that he did. He graphically described the power of a modern atomic bomb (equivalent in destruction to 500,000 tons of TNT). He referred to the Russian atomic effort, which evidently is strong. He reiterated America’s desire for peace — for construction, not destruction — but in so doing left no doubt as to the retaliatory destruction which we would inflict upon an attacker.

He then proposed a plan whereby the countries principally involved might again tackle the problem of disarmament by taking a first step toward eventual disarmament. This proposal would not for the present, at least, affect in any way the existing stockpiles of bombs on either side of the curtain. But it would, slowly at first, reduce the flow of fissionable material into future bombs.

It would set up, under the aegis of the UN, an international pool or bank of fissionable material upon which all countries could draw, for research, experimentation, and presumably for fuel for reactors to make isotopes or power.

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MOST discussion of President Eisenhower’s proposal has appropriately been concerned with its ultimate effect upon our relations with the Russians. Will they in good faith agree to procedures which would make implementation of the proposal possible? All the world hopes they will. It would be tragic indeed if they should “Panuiunjom ” the conference to death in endless negotiation.

But most of the discussion of the President’s message has overlooked what to my mind is one of the principal premises of the message. It is contained in these words: —

Who can doubt, if the entire body of the world’s scientists and engineers had adequate amounts of fissionable material with which to test and develop their ideas, that this capability would be rapidly transformed into universal efficient and economic usage?

The premise is just as valid if, not the entire body of the world’s scientists, but a substantial number — say all those this side of the curtain— are set free to develop their ideas.

I am forced to read into this premise more than appears in the actual words employed, but something which I believe to be implicit in the President’s words—namely, that we would send to all countries of the world, through the international agency, not simply samples of fissionable material but scientific skills and engineering techniques as well. Any country interested in atomic energy would of course be delighted to have even small quantities of fissionable material for research purposes if for nothing else, inasmuch as few countries can afford the costly facilities for the production of fissionable material such as the giant plants at Oak Ridge, which turn out uranium 235, and the equally giant facilities at Hanford, Washington, which turn out plutonium. Rut a few grams or even kilograms of this precious material in the hands of the now nationally isolated scientists of the world is not enough to capture the great dream contained in the President’s speech. Implicit in the speech is the notion that with the fissionable material will go the knowledge necessary to safe handling and intelligent use; in short, the information necessary for a country such as Belgium or Brazil or India to build reactors which will produce isotopes for use in medicine, agriculture, and industry, and reactors which will produce power.

The proposal, therefore, has many ramifications not apparent at first perusal. To understand some of these let us ask some questions: —

Would this plan free the atomic scientists and engineers of the world and accelerate the day when wholesale blessings will flow from the atom? With complete access to information and material, what would they produce?

Let us examine the first question. Are the atomic scientists and engineers of the world operating under restrictions which slow down the rate of discovery of peaceful uses? I believe they are. The first restriction is that which obtains in such countries as the U.S., U.S.S.R., U.K., and Canada, where the atomic programs operate in considerable secrecy. Ideas never flow as fast if, even in the period of gestation, they must bear the label “Secret” or “Top Secret.” This is true even as between the laboratories within a single country. The physical nuisance of document security and the responsibility which falls upon the originator of the secret, the receiver, the courier, and the custodian of it tend to restrict the creation and the interchange of good secret ideas.

The Atomic Energy Act of the United States establishes another barrier. Under its terms there shall be no transmission of information to any foreign power dealing with the commercial applications of atomic energy. As a consequence, the able scientists of Canada or Great Britain, for example, cannot communicate on power reactors with the scientists of the United States. Each must independently go through the empirical process of making mistakes avoided elsewhere, probing dead ends explored elsewhere. In the field of power reactors (and particularly as between allies) this is, without question, a hurdle obstructing speedy realization of peaceful atomic uses. Behind the present legislative prohibition there were, when the Act was written in 1946, security considerations; but the day is here when this factor should be weighted realistically and reactor technology should be declassified. Much has happened since 1946. The Russians make bombs. The British and Canadians can make power.

Another limitation imposed upon the world body of atomic scientists and engineers was referred to specifically by the President; namely, their inability to secure the base materials for their work, either highly purified uranium or the two fissionable materials, uranium 235 and plutonium. Some countries, through their own ingenuity, have produced purified uranium — such countries as Canada, Great Britain, France, Sweden. Other countries would like to have it; and those which do have it would like more. But none, outside the U.S., U.S.S.R, and U.K., have the facilities for making enriched uranium — enriched, that is, with the precious atoms of U-235. And it is this material which becomes of great interest to those countries which look someday to this material as the fuel for reactors to produce power. Our Atomic Energy Act today prevents the sale of such material even to the friendliest of countries — even to those countries now supplying us with uranium. Some legislative changes will have to be made if the President’s proposal is to be implemented.

In short, we have a situation in which the iron curtain (and our own fear of assisting any atomic program going on behind it) has caused us to throw up scores of our own curtains — curtains between the U.S. and our allied friends throughout the world. Yet some of these countries have helped us immeasurably by supplying us with uranium. The real premise, therefore, behind the proposal which the President has made (made with the hope that it might be the beginning of disarmament) fortifies the point that with or without Russian concurrence, we must soon share “non-weapons” atomic information with our friends. As for the material we would share, prudent measures can be taken to see to it that they won’t make bombs out of it. This is not hard to control. But actually we would do well to realize that they don’t really want to make bombs— they want blessings.

Any one of our allies would be quite happy, appreciating fully the destructive potential of certain quantities of fissionable material, to give us regular accountings as to the whereabouts of the fissionable material, the uses to which it is to be put, and the results of research. With such a program we would buy far more than we have bought anywhere in the world with the expenditure of mere dollars.

Precisely how would such a scheme work? Frankly, I don’t know. But I do know that there are hundreds of ways in which it could be made to work. And this is the task of those who would negotiate the procedures. Certainly there should be the greatest flexibility in approaches. There are almost a score of countries in the world today with atomic energy programs. While uninterested in weapons, they do seek the information and the material to exploit the peaceful uses of atomic energy.

Let us assume for the moment that the Russians will refuse to participate in the arrangement which the President has suggested. And let me make it plain that I make this assumption only because the past illustrates that the Russians, who are so strongly motivated by fear, frequently reject proposals which could mean much to their own economy and their own peace of mind.

How would the proposal work if confined to the non-Russian world? Country X, typical of many countries, is short in supply on the basic fuels — coal, oil, and natural gas. It must import coal and oil at great cost each year from great distances in order to fire its boilers to produce steam to generate electricity. It is looking hungrily to the day of cheaper power — a cheaper fuel. It has several universities with competent scientists. They are aware of what the atom may someday do. But they have no uranium available. At least their government hasn’t spent enough time and energy in locating uranium deposits (ultimately, of course, they will find such deposits).

Country X is desirous of building a research reactor and requests from the international pool information and small amounts of either natural uranium or uranium 235, first for research and experimentation, later as the fuel for its reactor. It takes about two years to build such a reactor. From it may come radioactive isotopes for diagnosis and treatment of cancer, for experimentation with fertilizers, for uses in industry.

But country X wants power and subsequently it requests design information for a power reactor. This is forthcoming, and eventually also the fuel elements for the reactor. Three years are required to engineer and construct the reactor. Whether it is successful is not so important as that knowledge is being gained, research conducted, and discoveries made — discoveries for all the world to know and to enjoy. And these discoveries may be in fields other than reactor design.

No one knows. Nor can anyone safely predict. We are at about the same stage in atomic energy today as those who in the field of electricity attempted to predict its future uses only ten years after Franklin experimented with his kite.