New Armaments and Disarmament
FINLETTER, THOMAS K.
Three Views of Sputnik In last week's issue, Tris Coffin reported that "Washington has the drawn face and wide pupils of a man suffering from shock" as a result of the Soviet Union's successful...
...It has been difficult for us to lake this Russian threat as seriously as we could, for we had the experience of having, for nearly ten years after the war...
...But Sputnik is not to be disregarded...
...There is no point in exaggerating Russian abilities in these matters...
...By this, I mean that Russia is trying to get such a superiority in the weapons of the future, especially in their quality, that it will be able to make an attack on the U.S...
...The third is the problem of re-entry —that is, how to prevent the ICBM from burning up when it re-enters the atmosphere after its long flight in the thin air above...
...They must also know that it is quite possible that this may happen even though they and we may not want it...
...Now it is up to us to do something about it...
...Three Views of Sputnik In last week's issue, Tris Coffin reported that "Washington has the drawn face and wide pupils of a man suffering from shock" as a result of the Soviet Union's successful earth satellite...
...In short, our superiority has gone and the safe period is over...
...It is sensational proof of something...
...Thus Sputnik calls on us for new policies, for a new determination to be strong, and for a new determination to work for peace...
...NEW ARMAMENTS AND DISARMAMENT By Thomas K. Finletter The Russian launching of an artificial earth satellite is a major event in modern history, technically and politically...
...This, I think, we must take as the meaning of the symbol of Sputnik...
...But now they are at least our approximate equals in modern weapons and are aiming to be our superiors...
...Sooner or later, it must be supposed, this shock will wear off and an earnest reappraisal of U. S. policy commence...
...Disarmament is now a practical policy for the United States, and therefore one which perhaps we would accept...
...All we need is a state of mind...
...They certainly are getting experience in it, since they seem to have fired many more intermediate-range ballistic missiles than we...
...and these need changing just as much as does our thinking about the weapons themselves...
...Sputnik has raised the question of how possible it is to keep secrets in science...
...The details of all these matters were known mainly by the experts and the specialists...
...We had fallen into the error of thinking that the Russians were not much good at electronics, and Sputnik seems to show that we were wrong...
...But we do need a further decision...
...Other views will follow in later issues...
...At first, in 1945 and 1946, when we had a monopoly in these weapons, we made generous proposals for a system of enforced disarmament...
...Edgar Ansel Mowrer, the famous prewar and wartime foreign correspondent of the Chicago Daily News, is now editor of Western World...
...During this "safe" phase when we were the strongest military power on earth, untouchable by anyone else, our foreign policy also took certain fixed lines...
...The political significance of Sputnik is more important...
...It is asking a good deal to expect a people with overwhelming superiority in weapons either to be willing to give them up or to understand that the superiority is not going to last...
...They apparently believe that Sputnik shows that the Russians have now built rocket engines with something like twice the thrust of our comparable engines...
...It is possible that it may be practical and acceptable for the Russians also...
...Perhaps the Russians have solved that, too...
...So the significance of all this in terms of weapons is that the Russians have developed a sufficient thrust in their rocket engines and are on the road to solving the problems of electronic guidance—thereby solving [wo out of the three basic problems of the intercontinental ballistic missile...
...Unfortunately, we cannot count on the wisdom of the Russian leaders to that extent—not when our survival is involved...
...This dramatic event shows beyond any doubt that the Russians are determined to get air-atomic supremacy over the United States...
...From the technical point of view, we have known for some time that the Russians were engaged in a crash program to catch up with and surpass the United States in air-atomic power...
...We are only now beginning to comprehend it...
...This is the phase when, if war comes, even if we win it (if there is any such thing as winning this kind of war) American cities will be destroyed by the dozens and Americans killed and injured by the millions...
...In the name of secrecy, we did some dreadful things to our traditional respect for human liberty, due process of law, and the rights of men...
...It may be that one of the reasons the Russians did not like our previous proposals was that when they were made the Russians would have been acting from a position of inferiority...
...The Russians have, as it were, told us what they are going to do...
...If the Russians ever get to that stage, and it is quite possible technically that they can—if we allow them to—we will be at their mercy...
...We have the scientists, we have the engineers, and we have the character to be superior to them in the race for the weapons of the future...
...Thomas K. Finletter, Air Secretary in the Truman Administration, is a member of the Democratic Advisory Council...
...We got to thinking of them as our exclusive property, and our main worry about them was that somebody would learn the secret...
...Even though it is our Government's policy to be most secret about these matters, enough has been told publicly for us to understand that the Russians have surpassed us in the thrust (horse-power) of their jet engines, that they have developed fine aircraft—both fighters and bombers, that they apparently are ahead of us in the intermediate-range ballistic missile (1,500 miles), that they have launched one intercontinental ballistic missile and, of course, that they have developed and have a stockpile of fission and hydrogen bombs...
...a monopoly or an overwhelming superiority in air-atomic weapons...
...All we need, as I say, is the decision to be superior so far as weapons are concerned...
...Obviously a world of the Communists and ourselves in a weapons race like this is not what we want to see in our day of world responsibility...
...One is to talk of an atomic stalemate, which is another way of saying that all this is too horrible to happen and that therefore the Russian leaders will not allow it to happen...
...We can stop them from getting it...
...There it is, up in the heavens, and we in America can see it at certain times and places...
...Lenin said that the capitalist and the Communist systems were doomed to fight it out in war...
...The public was not disturbed with them...
...And they also seem to think that the fact that the Russians have been able to put Sputnik into its orbit by a three-stage rocket shows a very high electronic ability...
...Wars have done this often in the past...
...If they ever get that, they will have us at their mercy—us and the rest of the world...
...let us not now overestimate them...
...The first thing to do is to decide that we are not going to allow them to get this air-atomic superiority over us...
...But of what...
...Now it is different...
...If we make it clear to them that they are not going to be our superiors and that it would be wise for them to settle for not blowing up the world, they may agree...
...Of course, the first thing we must do is to take this thing seriously...
...And so the Russians are driving to change this state of affairs...
...So, moving from a position of strength, that is, from being superior to the Russians in air-atomics, we should then lead in working for the control of these weapons of war...
...For a long time now we have been underestimating them...
...Their plan obviously is to get absolute air-atomic supremacy over the United States...
...Sputnik has an importance far beyond the technical conclusions which the scientists and the engineers may draw from it...
...Now we would not be giving up a monopoly or a superiority in the air-atomic weapons if we should agree to their control, limitation or even their elimination from all national arsenals...
...But these proposals were not acceptable to the Russians and there is indeed some question whether they would have been acceptable to the American people...
...This is a dreadful shock, and we have tried to avoid thinking of it by various devices...
...The Russians also do not seem to like the present state of affairs because they know that they would be destroyed if war were to break out...
...Arnold Wolfers, for many years .. professor of international relations at Yale, is now Director of the Washington Center of Foreign Policy Research...
...The present phase is what might be called the "unsafe" phase...
...which will knock out our ability to hit back at them, or at least will knock out enough of our strategic air forces so that our counter-attack will be one which it can accept...
...To aid this reappraisal, The New Leader here opens a discussion of the political, scientific and military implications of Sputnik...
...But then he knew only the weapons of World War I. It is possible that his successors are flexible enough to think that Communism will do better without a hydrogen war than with one...
Vol. 40 • October 1957 • No. 43
