The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
THE HOME FRONT Atomic Power For Peace By William E. Bohn We have come through a startling reversal in the course of a little more than ten years. In 1944 and 1945, I often used to meet...
...The young man said to me: "Those cosmic rays have been going through you all your life, but this is the first time you were ever conscious of them...
...During the past few years, we have had a veritable hurricane of propaganda against Federal activities and Federal expenditures...
...It is the Atoms for Peace show sponsored by the Atomic Industrial Forum, the Fund for Peaceful Atomic Development and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace...
...In 1944 and 1945, I often used to meet tight-lipped young scientists hurrying to or from conferences...
...But I have not heard of any big businessman or Republican leader who has protested against Government leadership in the field of nuclear development...
...I have just returned from the first exhibition of atomic power techniques ever presented in America...
...The show gave me a crack over the head, roused me to a consciousness of what is going on...
...And there were dozens of young scientists...
...I was given a sense of the mystery involved in all this development...
...But, far from being secretive as were their predecessors, these smiling young men seemed eager to instruct the uninformed public...
...Atomic Energy Commission...
...At its basis is the exhibit shown at Geneva last summer by the U.S...
...But displays by 36 industrial organizations have been added...
...We knew that they were at work on something tremendous, but we knew not what it was...
...Brookhaven, for example, is managed by seven or eight of our greatest universities joined in an association...
...On the other hand, anyone who takes in the scope of the exhibition must come away with increased respect for American industrial leadership...
...While we were looking at this exhibition, the delegates across First Avenue in the UN Building were getting together on a plan for the co-operation of 60 nations in the development of peaceful uses of atom power...
...This thing is going ahead at breathtaking speed...
...It is to be seen at the Carnegie Endowment Building across from the UN at the corner of East 46th Street and First Avenue until November 3...
...So in research the Government must take the lead...
...This plant will produce heat, the heat will produce steam, and with the steam you can do any sort of work that needs doing...
...However, I did get two things which seem to me worthwhile...
...And there are industrial groups, too...
...That was eleven or twelve years ago...
...And yesterday's papers carried an item about an atomic power plant which is to be given to India by the United States...
...He kept his look completely blank and said: "I can't tell you what it is, but I can say that we are working on something so terrible that we wish it had never been thought of...
...You can buy a big or little atom power plant...
...The patient young men in charge of the exhibits did their best to enlighten me, but in this field I am beyond help...
...There I saw scores of exhibits showing how power from the atomic pile can be turned to useful purposes in medicine, agriculture, industry and research...
...The scientific and industrial leaders in a country dedicated to individual enterprise have shown an extraordinary gift for pulling together when the size of the effort demanded it...
...Our great manufacturing concerns and power companies have been amazingly quick to see the possibilities involved in the development of nuclear power and have without hesitation invested the capital necessary to begin operations...
...In connection with the Brook-haven research exhibit, we are told that nuclear research requires unique machinery which is so costly that it cannot be provided by private institutions and industries...
...I stood before a chamber devised in the University of California and saw the tiny slivers of electric fire produced by atomic particles and cosmic rays as they shot through us and through everything...
...In between Government and private industry, there is evidence in this exhibition of extraordinary movements in the direction of cooperation...
...This show serves as a fine example of cooperation between Government and private industry...
...You will note that I am not trying to give you any scientific explanations...
...I even asked one of the bright boys whether that was it...
...As a result of all of this activity, the business of getting power from the atom and applying it to serve all sorts of human needs has gone much further than I thought possible before I saw this show...
...The private industries, like the universities, have joined forces to tackle jobs which were too big for the resources of any one of them...
...You can, right now, buy all the equipment necessary to go on a prospecting tour in search of fissionable material...
...All our bigger industrial enterprises have exhibits to show what they are doing--Westinghouse, Consolidated Edison, Allis-Chalmers and so on...
...Naturally, like a lot of other people, I thought of splitting the atom...
Vol. 38 • October 1955 • No. 43
