Modest Cheer

A world living with the atomic bomb last week heard two notes of modest cheer.

The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission announced that plutonium, core of the atomic bomb that devastated Nagasaki, had, to a certain extent, been tamed. It would still be a long time before atomic energy would turn a wheel or drive a plane, but the new "fast reactor" (see SCIENCE) was a long step beyond the apocalyptic vision of Bikini.

President Truman got ready to offer the world's scientists free access to an atomic byproduct--the radioisotopes produced in Oak Ridge's atomic piles, generally considered the most important aid to medical research since the invention of the microscope.

There were conditions: 1) the recipients must state the purpose for which they intend to use the isotopes and agree to stick to that purpose; 2) they must make progress reports to the U.S.; 3) they must open their laboratories to visiting scientists from other countries. Prices were low, but F.O.B. Oak Ridge.

Under these conditions, Russia was unlikely to accept. Nor was the gesture counted on to alter Russia's truculent hostility toward any and all U.S. atomic proposals. But to the world, the offer was a small, unmistakable earnest of U.S. willingness to share the atom's benefits.

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