America and the Bomb
President Truman told the Press last Sunday that he was studying the question of the development of atomic energy, but that no decision had yet been reached. He admitted that .the question had recently been discussed by the Cabinet, but was unwilling to say anything about the debatable question whether the secret of the new weapon was to be made known to other Powers. But it is now generally accepted that this secret cannot in any case be kept for long. The supreme problem is so to control research and production as to prevent its misuse by gangster Powers, and, so far as concerns other Powers which might not be so described, how to prevent war itself. Only the World Security Organisation is capable of exer- cising control on a big enough scale. It is obvious that every country will want to engage in research and experiment, if only to equip itself with atomic power for industrial purposes. Senator Brian McMahon suggests that there should be for his own country a Board of National Control, which would license research and production subject to agreement with the Security Council and approval by Congress ; that all nations should turn over their information to the Security Council ; and that the Council should have far-reaching powers of inspection of armaments research and production of muni- tions of war. The conferring of such powers will raise much opposi- tion. But will anything less than this serve to eliminate a danger which threatens the whole of civilised society? This is inter- nationalism on a scale beyond precedent, but the alternative is nationalism armed with an explosive that can destroy the world.
