Where We Stand

Last week at Lake Success, Russia's Gromyko made incandescently clear what should have been understood long ago: Russia fears real international control of atomic energy more than she fears The Bomb itself. Gromyko's speech ended hope of genuine internationalization of the atom, even though some atomic convention may yet be signed.

Vicious & Unacceptable. For nine months Russian and U.S. delegates to the Atomic Energy Commission and the U.N. Security Council have weaved through a maze of procedural and technical arguments. The U.S. press and public got the idea that the two countries were not far apart on the basic question of whether the atom should be controlled. Behind this U.S. error lay the assumption that Russia, lacking The Bomb now and the industrial capacity to compete with the U.S. in future manufacture of it, would find control preferable to inferiority. But the men who make Kremlin policy, tougher-minded than Americans think, apparently did not reason that way.

Moscow chooses competition because it does not regard U.S. possession of The Bomb as much of a danger. Russia does not think the U.S. will use The Bomb unless a complete clash between the U.S. and Russia occurs. Any crisis that would lead to such a clash would be of Russia's making, and Moscow could always back down and cool off the crisis in time. Meanwhile, the Russians will continue their efforts to get enough atomic bombs.

Only on the basis of such reasoning is Gromyko's speech comprehensible. He knows that international inspection and control of atomic materials presupposes a limitation on national sovereignty. His main argument against the U.S. plan is that it infringes upon the state sovereignty of every nation (as indeed it does, and as every real control plan would). Gromyko was even more violent in his attack on proposals for international development of atomic power for peaceful purposes. He called them "thoroughly vicious and unacceptable," and said: "The Soviet Union . . . cannot allow that the fate of its national economy be handed over. . . ."

There it is. Gromyko is not talking about procedural technicalities, although he still tosses around glittering dust in the form of proposals to "outlaw" The Bomb (a la Kellogg-Briand).

The Implacable Struggle. On the atomic bomb, as on every other vital issue, Moscow is governed by Lenin's dictum: "Victory over the bourgeoisie is impossible without a long, persistent, desperate life and death struggle: a struggle which requires persistence, discipline, firmness, inflexibility and concerted will power."

In the light of that, Gromyko's speech makes sense.

U.S. Delegate Warren Austin, however, preferred not to discuss Gromyko's speech in that light. In his reply, Austin defended U.S. motives, kicked the procedural issue around gently, and wound up hoping that "the next report" (in September) of the Atomic Energy Commission would move the world closer to "the establishment of collective security and the development of better living for all."

Apparently, Austin, like a lot of other Americans, had a much brighter view of the Communist nature than the Communists had.

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