THE UNITED NATIONS: Atomic Talk

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For nine talk-filled years, the U.N. has attempted to work out a plan for disarmament and the prohibition of atomic weapons. Though Russia unceasingly proclaimed its desire to "ban the bomb," it would not consent to a foolproof system of inspection and controls. Then, five weeks ago, Russia's Vishinsky quickened a few U.N. pulses by hinting that Russia might agree to a British-French plan for a step-by-step suppression of nuclear weapons. To U.S. experts, Vishinsky's seeming concession still looked like a plan with a built-in veto against thorough inspection—and the stalemate continued. Last week in the U.N. Political Committee, India's Krishna Menon rose to comment: "Let us decide this matter once and for all."

Menon's "solution": there should be an immediate, worldwide stoppage of arms manufacture while East and West worked out both a disarmament agreement and a complete ban on nuclear weapons. Menon argued that if the world's present rate of nuclear test explosions is maintained, the air would become so radioactive that "it will be impossible for the human race to survive." His proposal had one surprising effect: in rare concert, the U.S. and Soviet Russia both voted to shelve it.

Instead, the Political Committee unanimously approved a resolution calling for renewed private disarmament talks by the five leading atomic powers (U.S., Russia, Britain, France and Canada), who met for six futile weeks in London last spring. Vishinsky got headlines by merely assenting to the resolution and maintaining a moderate air on the whole subject.

This week the U.S. will submit to the committee a resolution embracing Dwight Eisenhower's "atoms for peace" proposal. While West and East debate, perhaps endlessly, the thorny problem of nuclear disarmament, the U.S. offers to make available atomic materials and knowledge to other nations for peacetime uses.