Bombs for Everbody

Punctually to the second one morning last week, the wail of the air-raid sirens rose over New York City. Waved down by cops and white-helmeted wardens, the stream of auto traffic, from Staten Island to The Bronx, froze at the curbs; drivers and passengers scurried to shelter. In the schools, children left the classrooms, huddled together far down on inside corridors. Shoppers vanished from Fifth Avenue; the subway stations filled up. Television went off the air, and radio switched to the rotating CONELRAD emergency network (TIME, March 2). Within minutes, the city was silent, the streets deserted. Only the pigeons and 5,000 U.N. employees* paid no heed.

Fifteen minutes later, the all-clear sounded, the city came to life again, and the biggest public-participant practice drill/- in history was a resounding success. New Yorkers had cooperated willingly, and 400,000 police and Civil Defense workers had played their roles well.

New York's big drill and the wholehearted public cooperation was symptomatic of the growing concern over the atomic future. Across the land, there was a clearing, chilling awareness that America and the world might be moving toward a climax of the atomic age.

A Frightening Possibility. In Washington, a United Press reporter disclosed that the U.S. is nearly ready to start assembly-line production of thermonuclear bombs. The new weapon will cost but a fraction of the price of the Eniwetok model (which retails at an estimated $100,000,000 f.o.b., Hanford, Wash.). On the conveyor belt moreover, the superbomb will come in a handy new size. Last year's test bomb, was too crude and cumbersome to be delivered by air. The new model will fit snugly into a B-52.

It was news of great portent. Conceivably, cheap bombs might some day be within the reach of many nations, great and small. The possibility was almost as frightening as the news that the Russians could make the new weapon, and actually had fired one specimen (TIME, Aug. 31).

Officialdom was as concerned as the public over the lengthening shadow of the atom. The President and his National Security Council held a grim, top-secret meeting to study the problems of defense. After the conference, Vice President Nixon was the most talkative. Said he: "The council met, the President presided, and the meeting lasted three hours."

A Crushing Capability. In Wentworth-by-the-Sea, N.H., retired AEC Chairman Gordon Dean asked a blunt question. "Can we as a nation and can the nations of the now free world permit the Soviet to reach the position where, if it chooses, it can completely annihilate this country?" Dean asked a convention of textile manufacturers. "Time and the unwillingness of the free world to stop the clock combine to give her this power . . .

"While most of the world is fast becoming aware that it cannot afford war, all of the world is aware that wars cannot be effectively fought by any country whose hands are tied behind its back and that aggressions cannot be crushed without the employment of the most crushing weapons . . . Russia has the capability today to hurt us badly, and . . . within two years she will have the capability to virtually destroy us if she moves first. Since we have consistently underestimated the Russians, let's call it one year --not two."

-The U.N. felt it would be impolitic for a peace organization to recognize the drill.

/- The Civil Defense assumption for the drill: two 50-kiloton atom bombs had exploded over lower Manhattan and outer Queens, killed 1,104,814 and injured 512,000, knocked out Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, disabled public utilities.

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