THE ABC OF ATOMIC AGREEMENT

...Without a control system already in operation, no one can check on which nations are actually destroying their weapons...

...Under the current Soviet plan, atomic stockpiles would be destroyed within three months after tho effective date of the convention But before a control system could yet under way, every nation would have to submit extensive lists of atomic facilities- Then all the nations would have to agree on a program for periodic inspection...

...peputy Undersecretary of State Sean Rusk replied that barring the rest of the world from atomic deliberations would not only alienate the other nations, but would seriously undermine the UN itself...

...It certainly would have been "sensible" for the Soviets to participate in the Marshall Plan, or at least allow their satellites to do so- And it "stands to reason" that an alliance with the West against Hitler in 19119 might have averted the ravages of World War II...

...Refusing to yield an inch of sovereignty, the Soviets propose periodic inspection of the declared facilities...

...A defective agreement Is infinitely more dangerous than no agreement at all...

...PUBLIC DECLARATION of atomic facilities, as the basis for both destruction of existing bombs and for future periodic inspections, is another feature of the Soviet plan...

...They point to the five-year deadlock over the details of an international police force, the difficulties which beset international control of even something as non-political as the dope traffic...

...One is forced to conclude, from these three instances alone, that the Soviet leaders are less interested in the welfare of their nation than in the advancement of world communism...

...But the fight over the Chinese delegation, and the UN-vs-Big Three debate, tend to obscure the main issue: Can the Soviet and majority views on atomic energy be reconciled...

...This stalemate has caused manyT—including Harold Stassen and Winston Churchill—to urge bypassing the UN in favor of a Big Three meeting...

...A close look at the Soviet proposals is most revealing...

...Acceptance by the free world of anything short of genuine control—like tho Soviet proposal would be tantamount to suicide...

...Only continuous, and in some cases daily, checks of all branches of atomic mining and production can enable anyone to determine the quantity of atomic materials processed...

...But none of their delegates—political, military or scientific—-lias shown how periodic inspection could accurately determine the amount of atomic materials beinj/, processed—either at the lime of inspection, or between inspections...

...And, of course, the continental expanse of Russia easily permits the existence of declared and undeclared facilities...

...But such "common sense" projections are generally misleading when applied to international communism...

...British Foreign {Secretary Ernest Bevin and U.S...

...Only some form of international management can insure such inspection...

...In October 1948, the Soviets "modified" this to "simultaneous" prohibition and control...

...THE MOST SERIOUS divergence between the Soviet and UN majority plans is over the question of management and operation of atomic facilities...

...This is a hard physical technicality of the atomic industry of which the Soviets are well aware...

...Moreover, I he truth coming out of Russia would be crippling to Communist movements all over the world...

...With a hostile, poverty-stricken population still smarting under the impact of the "stolen victory" and the never-ending postwar purges, the presence of thousands of atomic inspectors would hardly 1h» conducive to the stability of the Soviet regime...

...V THE SOVIET PLAN calls for the ?;doptiori of two simultaneous international conventions, one on the prohibition of atomic weapons, the other on control...

...The majority plan proposes, for all intents and purposes, international ownership of world atomic power It makes about the same concessions to national sovereignty as the Tennessee Valley Authority does to local soverignty...

...A control commission operating within the framework of the . UN Security Council...

...Although communist theory sanctions tactical retreat, international management and operation of atomic facilities behind the Iron Curtain would mean more than mere tactical retreat...

...m A NEW APPROACH, some argue, might persuade the Soviet leaders to abandon this proposal, since it obviously cannot be reconciled with the majority plan...

...Since only a small installation is needed to turn nuclear fuels into atomic weapons, Westerners reject this feature of the Soviet plan, too, as resting entirely on good faith...

...Then all the nations would have to agree to put it into operation...

...it would represent the complete abandonment of the most vital part of Soviet strategy—the isolation of the Soviet people...

...This statement is the very core of the Soviet atomic energy plan...

...Acceptance of any effective agreement for internal control of atomic energy would thus deal serious blows to both the global arm and the Soviet heart of world communism...

...Where, they ask, are the guarantees that nations will not build atom bombs outside the declared facilities...

...Periodic inspection of declared atomic facilities...

...It would also have been "sensible" for the Kremlin to throw open postwar Russia to the thousands of American engineers who regard that nation's great resources as an ideal field for development...

...And after the "destruction" of atomic bombs, only the good word of the signatories of the control convention remains as a guarantee that control machinery would ever be set up...

...The ABC of Atomic Agreement Soviet Proposals Preclude Effective Atom Control By ANATOLE SHUB WITH THE hydrogen bomb has come a great shout for a "hew approach" to the question of international control <if atomic energy...

...Western observers say that this "simultaneous" plan really involves a long and perhaps infinite wait between "destruction" and control...

...The heart of the majority plan is its insistence on control first, destruction later...

...Westerners reply that some sort of "international management and operation" is a .sine qua non of effective control because (1) atomic materials can be easily diverted from peacetime uses to atomic bombs, and (2) atomic bombs can by their very nature be manufactured secretly, also with ease...

...Stalin can I never accept a really effective) atomic agreement...

...Although the entire non-Soviet world has endorsed a modified version of the Baruch plan, a number of understandably frightened Westerners have hastily called for new attempts to reconcile the majority and the Soviet views on atomic control...

...Russia, if is argued, is doing herself a disservice by continuing an atomic armaments race in which she is destined to lag for many years...

...Nor can the majority accept the Soviet proposal for a control commission which could only advise individual nations, and which could only recommend measures against, violators to the Security Council...

...The official American position at the moment, as laid down by President Truman, Secretary Acheson, UN delegates Warren Austin and Frederick Osborn, and Baruch himself, is this: * Any atomic agreement must be concluded through the United Nations...

...The U. S. S. R. insists, instead, on full sovereignty rights...

...Public declaration of all atomic facilities...

...Ironically enough, "the fatherland of international Socialism" gags at any proposal involving "international management and operation" of what may be the basic fuel of all industry...

...As a matter of fact, the Soviet plan substitutes for the detailed majority plan of supervision and safeguard, checking and crosschecking, the following declaration: "Governments responsible undor tho convention for tho implementation of measures on lholr territory tako the obligation to implement tho convention, and from this it follows that secret activities would be excluded...

...Its proposed control commission would be allowed to inspect only those facilities previously declared by the individual governments...

...Within the UN, further discussion of atomic proposals was stymied a month ago by the Soviet walkout over the seating of Nationalist China...

...Under the system of national management proposed by the So-) \ lids, the international commission could do no more than request individual governments for information of this sort...

...To guard against these twin dangers, the majority feels, a system of continuous and universal inspection is absolutely necessary...

...The plan rests on four main points: * Destruction of all existing atomic stockpiles...

...At first the Soviets demanded that the destruction of existing atomic bombs precede a control convention...

...Such a control commission would be powerless, capable only of referring its findings to a Security Council still operating under the veto...