ARMAMENTS: Better than Dynamite?

From Newport, Ark., a farmer wrote a letter to the nonexistent "Atomic Bomb Co." of Oak Ridge, Tenn.: "I have some stumps in my field that I should like to blow out. Have you got any atomic bombs the right size for the job? If you have let me know by return mail, and let me know how much they cost. I think I should like them better than dynamite."

In Paris, General Charles de Gaulle, more noted for courage than for prudence, declared that France was not worried about the Anglo-American monopoly on the atomic bomb. Smilingly he said: "We think we have plenty of time."

From Prague came a report that the Red Army had taken control of uranium deposits at Jachymov, Czechoslovakia.

In ignorance, frivolity and rivalry the world played with the awful atom. Last week the U.S. Congress became the focus of the world's hopes and fears. The U.S. had the bomb; had it the genius to lay down an initial policy which would grow into man's domination of atomic power?

H.R. 4280. The Truman Administration had drawn together proposals which bore the symbol "H.R. 4280" and the name of irascible Representative Andrew Jackson May, chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee. May's group and a special Senate committee held hearings, got advice from scientists so strongly worded and with such a weight of learning behind it that something like the May bill seemed sure to pass.

Some Congressmen at first were inclined to mistrust the May bill's sweeping delegation of powers to a nine-man, part-time board. Its members would be paid $50 a day (when working) to make decisions bearing with appalling directness on the survival of civilization.

The Atomic Energy Commission to be appointed by the President would have power to seize property needed to develop atomic energy, to control raw materials entering the process, to forbid or subsidize private research, to direct Government research. Stiff penalties, ranging up to 30 years in prison, were provided for infractions of the commission's rulings.

This was the key to the kingdom. The May bill made proposals for nationalization of coal and electric power look like peanuts.

Poison & Push Buttons. Congressmen listening to last week's testimony soon learned that the bill could not be judged by ordinary standards. Said Major General Leslie R. Groves, head of the Manhattan Project which developed the bomb: "We are flirting with national suicide if this thing gets out of control. If one mistake is made, we may face national disaster."

What did "out of control" mean? There were many possibilities. Dr. Vannevar Bush, head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, described some: "I certainly . . . want to see rigid federal control of what is done in this area [atomic research]. I certainly do not wish to think that some group of [atomic] experimenters might set up a laboratory half a mile from my home and family and . . . poison the neighborhood, or possibly blow it up. . . .I say we are faced with a very difficult thing to control . . . and I would make a very strong commission to do it." Bush added that radioactivity from careless experiments might "sterilize everyone who passed by" in the immediate vicinity.