Opinion: Bomb Shock

Nikita Khrushchev's nuclear fireworks displays over the Soviet skies last week were a devastating shock to the illusions of a small but hardy Western breed: the ban-the-bomb campaigners, who are dedicated to the dubious proposition that any political fate is preferable to the horror of atomic war ("I'd rather be Red than dead"). Covertly but vigorously backed by local Communists, the ban-the-bombers typically make U.S. military bases their target in the hope that with the U.S. gone from their homelands, they will have a better chance of sitting out a nuclear holocaust on the sidelines. Some more fatuously imagine, as in Britain, that by disarming themselves, they can shame the U.S. and Russia by "moral example."

Britain's Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament mustered 1,000 marchers to the Soviet embassy in London, but only 200 turned up to picket the U.S. embassy after the U.S. announced it would resume tests. C.N.D. Chairman Canon Collins insisted halfheartedly: "At present, it is Mr. Khrushchev who is shouting threats loudest, but we have to remember that both sides are to blame." Bertrand Russell's Committee of 100 was more inflexible, handed out blue leaflets declaring, "America, we denounce you. The decision by the American Government to resume nuclear tests is criminal. It in no way is justified by Russian resumption."

But a scheduled 5,000-marcher protest against German NATO Panzer divisions now training in Wales fizzled out: only 400 marchers appeared. British labor refused a C.N.D. plea for a two-day strike against the resumption of nuclear testing. More important was the effect on Britain's powerful Trades Union Congress, representing 8,000,000 workers, and the backbone of the Labor Party. A year ago the T.U.C. embarrassed Labor Leader Hugh Gaitskell by voting a resolution urging Britain's unilateral nuclear disarmament. Meeting for the annual conference last week in the wake of Russia's new tests, the T.U.C. reversed itself, resoundingly defeated an effort to renew the resolution. Instead, the members approved by an impressive 3,730,000 majority Gaitskell's policy supporting continued British participation of NATO and retention of a British nuclear bomb. A resolution seeking to oust U.S. Polaris bases from Britain was rejected by a 1,554,000 majority.

Communists Embarrassed. Japan's emotional ban-the-bombers suffered less schizophrenia about who was to blame, though the illusion of moral influence still persisted in spots: the conservative Nihon Keizai Shimbun wistfully editorialized that "our fondest hope is for the U.S. to reconsider its decision on resumption, and by so doing compel Russia to follow suit." But even Zengakuren, the extreme leftist student organization whose screaming mobs forced President Eisenhower to cancel his trip to Japan a year ago, turned about and labeled the Russian decision "Stalinist power diplomacy," and began gathering a nationwide petition of protest signatures to deliver to the Russian embassy.