A Cure for the Jitters ?
This week the Swedish Government published a booklet about the hydrogen bomb in which extravagant rumours about its destructive powers are put into some sort of perspective. Some of these rumours, the Swedes think, " may have been put out purposely as 'a move in the cold war," and the booklet disposes of various popular (if you can call them that) fallacies, such as the belief that radio-activity from a hydrogen bomb can cause fatal casualties 155 miles from its point of impact. For myself, I doubt the Swedish hypothesis about the origin of the rumours, but it seems a sound idea to give the public some authoritative information about these weapons. It would hardly be of a very reassuring nature, but at least people would know (or think they knew, which in this case is just as good) the rough dimensions of a threat which seems to obsess so many of them. At present anyone who, in a discussion about atomic warfare, dares to suggest that, in Caithness or in Cornwall, there might be one or two Britons left alive after the first bomb had exploded over London is branded as a wishful thinker, an irresponsible ostrich. The prophets of gloom rule the roost, and the more horrific their prognostications the more readily they are believed. If the British Government followed the example set by Sweden there would be a sensible diminution of alarm and despondency, and many bores would have to find new hobby-horses.
Previous page
