OPINION: Bomb for Barbarians?

Five days a week, Maine's Senator Margaret Chase Smith writes a syndicated over-the-back-fence news report for 40-odd papers on what she is doing down in Washington. Besides discussing her serious business, such as investigating ammunition shortages, she lets the folks in on odd bits of personal gossip, e.g., how capital busybodies have tried to match-make Widow Smith with Georgia's Senator Richard B. Russell, one of the capital's more eligible bachelors.

Last week, however, chafed by a procession of headlines about Chinese Communist prisoner atrocities and obstructionist tactics, Maggie Smith's casual tone abruptly changed.

"If the current negotiations don't produce peace, but do break down and the war is resumed," she wrote, "then drop the atomic bomb on these barbarians who obviously in their past atrocities have proved that they have no concept of a desire for decency. Let us face the cruel facts—that we are confronted with a barbarous, unrelenting enemy who will stop at nothing short of our destruction—and that we have no choice but to destroy him first, as he will not listen to reason or respect decency and human life.

"We have tried everything else—maybe the atomic bomb will bring the Red barbarians to their senses as it did the Japanese. I know that some will protest that the atomic bomb is an immoral weapon. I agree that it is. But so are all other man-killing weapons of war . . . When will we learn that you don't stop the Red murderers by merely playing tiddlywinks with them?"

Last week Senator Smith's Armed Services Subcommittee, which earlier blasted U.S. ammunition shortages in Korea (TIME, June 1), took a second look at its problem—an encouraging sign in congressional-committee behavior. In its new report the committee stated that progress has been made. By May 1953, supplies of ammunition in Korea had been brought up to snuff, were adequate "to meet any contingency or emergency that may arise." At home, there are now more civilian factories producing ammunition, work is being better distributed, and low-cost producers are being encouraged. Planned production for the fiscal year 1954 will exceed the total produced during the last 36 months.

There are still some glaring weaknesses, e.g., the low stocks of ammunition available for the defense of Western Europe. Until they are remedied, Maggie Smith's committee will continue its investigations.