Monopoly of
the A-bomb?

By James S. Allen

B ARUCH’S attempt to in-

timidate Wallace is a
Sign of weakness and not of
strength. I suspect some of
our high statesmen begin to
understand that the United
States, after all, does not
enjoy unlimited advantages
in the field of atomic energy,
as originally imagined.
Because the concentration has
been upon the atom bomb, and
only upon one method of fission

restricted to uranium, other Lf :
“sources and methods of produc- & BaANCHoRAG
ing atomic energy have been J
neglected.

‘The field is new, and many

Giscoveries are to be expected.
At present, the United States
has an arsenal of atom bombs
and an industry devoted to their
output. But Hanford and Oak

Ridge and other centers may o ee NTRY DIVISIONS
i IL
be quickly outmoded, and not 14,000 to ee FROM

necessarily by discoveries made
in America. i

Only by drawing upon. the
stock-pile of world-wide scien-

N
BERING SEA

eons To WER. GROUP
: ~ AIRBANKS

Sure t
forward in, they

Wr

tiie knowledge, to which the : : hat the UssR the Noren.°2 having » tine
American contribution is minor, Union has made many innova- 1S the tar, here has 2Opoly- °f the
was it possible to engincer the tions in the field of technology. set. been no Eet4. vom. ean :
atom bomb. We had the neces- Besides, its social organization : ‘ OREN-With the or © the S0-calleg
sary resources, the wartime permits a more flexible and bet- fare—to appreciate the explosive 4aI-bears Policy
Safety and leisure, and the tech- ter planned development and effect of his words among those . ; :
nology. application of science to a given who think they are the masters And if the Waited States is go-

All preliminary Scientific work task. of the atom. ing to lose its monopoly any- become more profitable to agree
had already been done, mostly = If there is no immediate dan- HOw, and af Obs USS tctuses. toy etomic disarmament and to
abroad, when we collected scien- Oi. =e as has © be terrorized, then it be- destroy bombs which Truman

tists from many parts of the
world and put them to work on
making the bomb.

is admitted by

e@

[* generally
qualified persons that the lead
of the United States is due, not
to superior scientifis knowledge,

| (eee things being generally
known, Stalin’s recent state-
ment was certainly not com-
forting to our atomic diplomats.

it is necessary only to com-
bine three elements of Stalin’s
statement — no immediate war
danger, no American atom mon-
opoly, outlawing of atomic war-

ger everyone
hastened to say following Stalin
—then the temporary advantage
of the atom bmob arsenal is
lost. This is of practical value
- only if its use is in immediate
prospect, or if its existence has
the effect of intimidating the
world.

comes advantageous to give up
that monopoly voluntarily in re-
turn for information on new
discoveries in other countries, to
be universally shared.

Instead of an armaments race,
in which our advantage may
prove an utter illusion, it may

and Brynes say we have no in-
tention to use.

if there is to be no immediate
War, then the real race is in the
application of atomic energy to
peacetime construction. And if
this is the case, the Baruch plan
is worthless.

but to the mastery of technique
and abundance of resources.
This advantage is overrated.
These factors are very import-
ant, but they are not decisive
in an age when the advance of

A tycoon explains the mysterious obvious

technology is universal among By MIKE QUIN

Soe ge eae ae céYyVOU must understand,” _Said “How about the nation’s: manu- controversial that it is ridicu- “I admit,” said Toidey, “that
boasts that only 10 percent of Mr. B. M. Toidey, the distin- facturers,” said another reporter. lous for any man to say he EEALES of a normal postwar re-
all expenditures on the atom guisheq Wall Street economist, “They're refusing to manufac- knows the answer.” : cession might have .. something
bomb was devoted to research, “that slumps in the stock mar- eure anything but the most “There’s something else,” said to do with it.” :

while the remainder was on en- ket may be accountable to any high-priced, deluxe goods. On a reporter. “According to gov- “Why say recession, when you
gineering and construction. He number of factors. No one really top of that, they have 18 billion ernment figures there are 130 mean depression, and what's
finds a naive sense of security knows what causes them. Of dollars worth of goods in their billion dollars in cash bank ace normal about a depression,” said
in the supposition that another course, there have been these Warehouses that they’re holding counts and government saving a reporter.

country without the know-how radio-active clouds drifting about off the market in order to bonds. That’s purchasing power. “Well, gentlemen, there have
would take many years to dup- Since the Bikini explosion. Then break price ceilings. Wouldn’t But it so happens that the top always been depressions,” Toidey

licate our atomic plants because 1 understand some of the larger that have something to do with 10 percent of the population said. “Nobody seems able to ex-

of the magnitude of the en- Glaciers are cracking up in the the slump in stocks.” owns 60 percent of these say- plain them. They are due, no

gineering job and the great ex- Anarctic.” “Certainly not,” said Toidey. ings, and the bottom 40 percent doubt, to many different fac-
penditure. ‘ The assembled newspaper re- “There’s plenty of purchasing owns only one percent. With tors.”

e porters who had called on the power, If they don’t sell it to- prices the way they are, that “They are due,” said a re-

learned expert for an explana- day, they’ll sell it tomorrow.” bottom 40 percent ought to be porter, “to the fact that business

IS assumes that plutonium
and U-2385 are the only fissile
materials that can be used in
weapons, and that other meth-
ods would necessarily involve a

tion appeared dissatisfied. “Am
I to understand,’ said one of
them, “that you don’t know why
stocks have taken a dive?”

just about broke by this time.
That means purchasing power
isn’t what it’s cracked up to be,
and if I had any stocks right

loots the public of all its ready.
cash, and then the people are
unable to buy things.”

“T am afraid, gentlemen,” said!

@
@ne of the reporters scratched
his head. “How do you figure
that?” Ordinarily I buy a suit

similar engineering job. Per-
haps 90 percent on research
would produce a method requir-
ing only 10 percent on construc-
tion out of a much reduced total
expenditure.

Tt is also assumed that the
American engineering approach
is superior to any other. It is
Sometimes forgotten that the
Soviet Union reversed the cap-
italist experience in its own in-
dustrialization by building up
heavy industry almost from
secrateh, instead of the develop-
ment from light to heavy indus-
try characteristic of the capital-
ist countries.

In the process, the Soviet

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 12

“Qh, I wouldn’t say that,” de-
elared Toidey. “You'll find all
the experts are disagreed. No
one really knows the explana-
tion.”

Another of the reporters clear-
his throat. “Well, here you have
the meat industry sitting on a
mountain of beef and refusing
to let go of a rump steak be-
cause they want to break OPA.
Would you say that this was
having an adverse effect on busi-
ness generally?

“Oh, no,” said Mr. Toidey. ‘No
indeed. There again you have
something that is accountable to

-So Many various factors that
no one really knows the an-
swer.”

every year. I haven’t been able
to buy one for two years. Do
you think, when theyre avail-
able, I’m going to go in and
buy three suits? No. I’m going
to buy one. Those other two
suits are a total loss so far as
business is concerned.”

“And how about meat,” said
another reporter. “I usually eat
three steaks a week. Suppose I
can’t get any for six months?
Do you think I’m going to go in
and buy 75 steaks or so all at
once? No. Those steaks are a
total loss.”

Mr. Toidey took out his hand-
kerchief and mopped his brow.
“These are questions,’ he said,
“which are so complicated and

now, I’d begin unloading them.”

“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Toidey,
“these are unfathomable mys-
teries which baffle even the ex-
perts. It is absurd for an ordin-
ary citizen to even attempt to
discuss them.”

“There’s no
common sense,”

harm in using
Said one of the
reporters. “I don’t see how the
stock slump is any mystery.
Stock prices have gone as high
as they can ever be expected
to go. So a lot of guys feel
now is the time to sell. Hivery-
body says there’s going to be a
depression. Even you say that.
So why wouldn’t a guy try to
unload now while prices are
high?

Toidey, “that we are discussing
matters for too deep for any of
us. You will discover that the
editors of your newspapers see
eye to eye with me on this sub-
ject. Depressions and stock
market slumps are mysterious
occurrences which no man can
presume to explain. They are
due to an infinite number of
reasons, principally labor strikes.
I think you would please your
editors better if you would con-
centrate on denouncing labor,
and leave these questions of
economics and finance to the
experts who realize that no one
really knows the answer.”
(Reprinted from the TLWWU
Dispatcher)

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1946