Discouraging

The current debate between the U.S. and Russia in the U.N. Security Council has succeeded in making dull and difficult the world's most enthralling question--can the atomic bomb be controlled?

The discussion is fuzzy, although the underlying policies of both countries are clear enough. The U.S., realizing that it may not be able to keep indefinitely its head start in the atomic armaments race, wants international control of atomic energy, and takes it as obvious that "control" includes the right to look into all countries and see what they are doing with fissionable material, and to punish them by international action if they break the rules. Until the U.S. Government is sure that control is defined in those terms, the U.S. has no intention of giving up its head start in atomic development. The Russians apparently are even more distrustful; although they now lack The Bomb, they prefer to rely on their chance of getting it and on the improbability that the U.S. will use it meanwhile, rather than submit to the kind of international inspection and control the U.S. wants.

Last week, Russian Security Council Delegate Andrei Gromyko and U.S. Delegate Warren Austin were engaged in a verbal pillow fight that was not easy to connect with the basic policies of their countries. Gromyko seemed to be pleading for immediate consideration of general disarmament, atoms & all, while Austin seemed to be insisting that discussion of the Report of the Atomic Energy Commission be separated from any other subject.

The man in the street, reading columns of this procedural argument, was likely to ask: "What's the difference?"

That was, in fact, the reaction the Russians wanted. They wanted to talk about everything except effective inspection, control and punishment. The U.S. figured that if the Russians would not agree to genuine control of the atom (which the U.S. has and Russia has not), then it would be a waste of time to talk about other kinds of weapons.

All this added up to a very discouraging picture of the chances of getting international control of the atom. Reading the stories of the procedural merry-go-round at Lake Success, the public might not realize how discouraging the picture was--and the fact that it had got that way because of Russian reluctance to accept genuine atomic control.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.