A MATCHLESS MOMENT
A Matchless Moment Two MONTHS ago in this space we ventured the cautious hope that a tender plant called peace might be taking root despite the alien soil and stormy weather of the Cold War. That...
...His was a creative drive—a drive to make the instruments of political democracy more responsive to the will of the people and a drive to provide greater equality of social and economic opportunity for every American, whatever his creed or color...
...Or so they say to a listening world...
...Immediately before us are specific issues in conflict, some of which are being reduced at long last to what seem like manageable proportions...
...Conditions were thus right for McCarthy's decision to ride this complex of frustrations in the age of anxiety that followed World War II, and he rode it recklessly for all it was worth—rode it to the pinnacle of world notoriety and then as swiftly down to the bottomless pit of censure and repudiation from which he could never return...
...The Kremlin is stepping up its drive to pose as the champion of the swelling numbers of humanity demanding an end to the testing of nuclear weapons...
...There is still much to be done by way of rehabilitation and reconstruction...
...His name appears on no legislation worth remembering...
...For Dr...
...This isn't the point, Dr...
...Willard F. Libby, renewed the AEC's basic argument— that radiation produced by fall-out from nuclear tests was far less than the natural radiation to which everyone is exposed...
...Libby's ability or integrity as a scientist...
...Time," Lawrence mused, "sometimes makes martyrs out of men who were pilloried during their lifetime...
...McCarthy was a shoddy workman, a skimmer and skipper in pursuit of sensation—forever on the hunt for headlines...
...The conference proceeded to cap the climax of a spectacular American success by unanimously approving a charter for the International Atomic Energy Agency, the organization that would administer and safeguard a world pool of fissionable materials to be used for the betterment of mankind everywhere...
...Even if not directly affected by the radioactive material in the air, we are indirectly affected through that which has fallen down, is falling down, and will fall down...
...The Soviets are making great advances even now in another and equally significant struggle of our nuclear age...
...Libby's "safeguarded disarmament" into the realm of the possible...
...Schweitzer has warned so urgently...
...They didn't think the Kremlin was proposing a fair trade of inspection sites, but they were impressed by the Soviet acceptance of the underlying principle and hopeful that a basis for bargaining had been established...
...But this is still on the far horizon of hope...
...He worked prodigiously, mastered the subjects on which he spoke, and earned a reputation for being one of the toughest yet fairest debaters of his time...
...Libby exposed himself to attack on political and moral grounds when he ventured into realms of politics and morals in his reply to Dr...
...It is the United States that has refused to budge up to now...
...His was a destructive drive—a drive for power for its own sake, a drive that was barren of creative purpose or achievement...
...Schweitzer's moving appeal by inviting the Russians to join us at once in negotiating an enforceable prohibition on the further testing of nuclear weapons...
...McCarthy's career represented the reverse in every respect...
...The President, catching Stassen's contagious optimism, spoke warmly of the new hope generated by genuine negotiations and promised that the United States would study the newest Soviet proposals "very sympathetically" and "very earnestly"—a considerable change from the automatic cry of "propaganda" with which we usually greet Kremlin suggestions in world affairs...
...The Soviet Union, first to approve President Eisenhower's great dream, could hope to inherit at least some of the moral stature that the President sought to claim for America...
...Even if the radiation of H-bomb tests were as harmless as Dr...
...And such an agreement might go far toward carrying Dr...
...The claim, advanced by our government and others, that the increase in radioactivity does not exceed the amount the human body can tolerate without harm "is just evading the problem," Dr...
...Such an agreement, in Dr...
...he gave it only to an ism which shook the foundations of freedom at home and gravely weakened our stature abroad...
...It is not too much to hope, Lawrence seemed wistfully to be hoping, that time may deal as kindly with McCarthy...
...But Dr...
...in fact he was intimately aligned with the very forces in American life that LaFollette had dedicated himself to expose and dethrone...
...For McCarthy the fear of Communism that hung over the nation became a vehicle to achieve power...
...In another sphere of international relations—the atoms-for-peace program—the Soviets have met us not halfway but all the way, to the great embarrassment of the Eisenhower Administration...
...But not before great damage was done to our rights and liberties...
...Schweitzer powerful plea against continuation of H-bomb tests, the Atomic Energy Commission, through its scientist member, Dr...
...Here is a matchless moment for Mr...
...It isn't the amount of radiation in the atmosphere that is decisive...
...LaFollette saw and said with extraordinary clarity that the roots of Communism lie not in subversive instincts of political opponents, but in hunger, privation, discrimination, and the hopelessness that comes to those who are denied a fair chance in life...
...Other Senators have expressed the fear that some of the fissionable material might be siphoned off for destructive purposes— despite the fact that the agency charter requires, at American insistence, continuous inspection to prevent agency-provided nuclear materials from being used for any purpose remotely military...
...Schweitzer to weigh the "small" risk of radiation from nuclear tests against "the far greater risk, to freedom-loving people everywhere in the world, of not maintaining our defenses against the totalitarian forces at large in the world until such time as safeguarded disarmament is achieved...
...as far as we know both are impeccable...
...If the Senate refuses to ratify, or if it surrounds approval with crippling reservations, American leadership for peace will be gravely impaired...
...Schweitzer insisted...
...it is the tendency of plant and animal life to accumulate and store radioactive elements...
...Typical was a column by David Lawrence, who wrote, in an obituary of McCarthy, of the furious vilification that beat down on LaFollette because he had dared oppose American involvement in World War I. Forty years afterward he was chosen one of the five all-time greats of the Senate...
...America's refusal to negotiate abandonment of the tests is today under greater worldwide fire than ever before, largely as a result of the recent pronouncement by Pope Pius, the warning of the German nuclear scientists, the official pleas of the Japanese government and people, and, most of all, the sober appeal of one of the world's best loved and most gifted men, Dr...
...The Soviets managed to set off seven test explosions in the interval between their appeals for an end to the tests, but built-in contradictions of their policy have not noticeably retarded their efforts to serve as spokesman for the moral conscience of mankind...
...The worldwide atoms-for-peace agency would be paralyzed at birth, its shining promise destroyed by the nation that conceived it...
...He risked the wrath of powerful interests in his dedicated service to the people he loved...
...he was calling for a mobilization of a public opinion "in the countries concerned and among all nations"—a public opinion strong enough to induce the statesmen of all countries "to reach an agreement to stop the experiments...
...We are absorbing this through radioactive drinking water and through animal and vegetable foodstuffs...
...Schweitzer's appeal, or in the proposals of others contending for a negotiated ban on all tests by all nations, that ranges the "small" risk of radiation against "the far greater risk" of exposing ourselves to attack by a totalitarian power...
...The limited Soviet approval takes the form of suggesting that an area in the West, including parts of Western Europe, parts of Western United States, and Alaska be open to Soviet aerial inspection in exchange for American aerial surveillance of Poland, part of the Balkans, a small part of Western Soviet Union, eastern Siberia, and the Soviet Far East...
...He left as his legacy countless wounds that will be a long time healing, many lives that were turned into tragedy by his bludgeoning methods, a weakened faith in some of the institutions of freedom, and a sense of national shame that so many had traveled with him before realizing the destination of his dark journey...
...He was a brawling, bullying debater, rarely in possession of facts, often quick to impugn the patriotism of his opponent, and always ready to turn on that tremolo of self-righteousness which became the trademark of his peculiar oratory...
...This strikes us as an outrageous distortion of the issue...
...Schweitzer's words, would "be like the early sunrays of hope which suffering humanity is longing for...
...Some of it was adopted in his time...
...What this storing of radioactive material implies is clearly demonstrated by the observations made when, at one occasion, the radioactivity of the Columbia River in North America was analyzed...
...Schweitzer's warning to the world, sent from his hospital in French Equatorial Africa to the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee in Oslo, was broadcast to 50 nations on a single day and commanded front-page attention in much of the world press...
...He was not concerned with political corruption or economic injustice...
...It was three and a half years ago that the President went to the United Nations to propose his dramatic plan to open a worldwide channel for the peaceful uses of atomic energy by providing an international organization to promote education, research, and utilization...
...It may be that it is seasonal madness, brought on by the sights and sounds and smells of springtime, that makes us think and write this way...
...Several months ago the Soviet Union and two other Communist members of the United Nations, Byelorussia and Rumania, ratified the Eisenhower program—but the U.S...
...The 82-year-old Nobel Prize-winning physicist struck hard at the complacent notion fostered by agencies like our Atomic Energy Commission that most people have already absorbed, without harmful effect, more radiation from dental or body X-rays and from shoe-testing machines than they will ever get from the nuclear weapons tested thus far or to be tested in the future...
...On the following day Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy died at age 48...
...But we are convinced that when one has said that both were Senators from Wisconsin, he has said all there is to say on the subject of similarities...
...Rebuffed in their efforts to modify the charter, the Soviets accepted defeat with uncommonly good grace...
...Eisenhower to respond affirmatively to Dr...
...If he were alive today, he would counsel us, we feel confident, that the first battle in the struggle against Communism is within ourselves—to strengthen our own dedication to democracy by living its principles in our daily lives...
...But President Eisenhower and the State Department were not so sure...
...Schweitzer was not appealing to the free world to abandon tests unilaterally...
...Senate hadn't even begun official consideration of U.S...
...Defense Secretary Wilson, commenting on the newest Soviet proposals at the London disarmament conference, delivered what was for him an extraordinary accolade when he said that they were "designed to contribute to the peace of the world...
...Here clearly is terrain where the layman is lost and honest scientists can and do differ...
...The Pentagon's initial response was automatic, ranging from politely phrased skepticism to angry rejection of the Soviet scheme as a trap and a hoax...
...The radioactivity was caused by the atomic plants at Hanford (Washington), which produces atomic energy for industrial purposes, and which empty their waste water into the river...
...Schweitzer...
...Libby spoke...
...He introduced and fought for legislation to advance these ends...
...The radioactivity of the waste water was insignificant...
...Libby believes—and there are many scientists who disagree sharply with him—there is nothing in Dr...
...But harder-headed men than we have seen the plant and savored its hope...
...Bohlen, one of the world's ablest students of Soviet institutions and sharpest critics of Soviet policies, made it clear that the Russians will drive a hard bargain, of course, but they really want disarmament...
...Far more disturbing than the Senate's failure to act is the report of perceptive Washington correspondents that the Senate may refuse ratification when the vote does come...
...In response to Dr...
...In young swallows fed on insects caught by their parents in the river, the radioactivity was 500,000 times higher and in the egg yolks of the water birds more than 1,000,000 times higher...
...The Russians are ready to negotiate a moratorium on nuclear weapons tests...
...Some Senators have raised the objection that this is "just another giveaway"— despite the fact that nations obtaining fissionable material from the agency will be required to pay for it and all administrative expenses will be prorated among member nations on the basis of their payments to defray costs of the U.N...
...That plant is still fragile and undernourished today, but it is poking its head higher into the sun, reaching more confidently each day for the strength that may let it live and make it grow...
...Such "a catastrophe . . . must be prevented," Dr...
...Libby asked Dr...
...A nation that had just emerged from the bloodiest war in all history—victorious, it thought—only to find that it had exchanged a Nazi menace for a Communist menace, was in a mood to let McCarthy play on its doubts and fears with his devil theory of politics...
...Last October, an 82-nation conference responded to pleas of American spokesmen by rejecting a series of objections raised by Soviet and Indian delegates...
...Two Senators from Wisconsin WISCONSIN'S two best known names—LaFollette and McCarthy—passed each other in the headlines one week last month...
...much that was then spurned as radical was adopted years afterward when America was fighting its way out of the worst depression in its history...
...The new mood showed up most spectacularly at the London conference where the Soviet delegation unveiled a program that included a wide area of aerial inspection, representing the first significant Soviet acceptance of the "open skies" proposal proclaimed by President Eisenhower, amidst Soviet jeers, at the summit conference in Geneva nearly two years ago...
...We do not pretend to any considerable objectivity in appraising LaFollette, founder and first editor of The Progressive, or McCarthy, who was the object of our editorial contempt for more than a decade...
...His answer to the threat of repressive Communism was repression at home...
...Robert Marion LaFollette, Sr., was chosen, along with Clay, Webster, Calhoun, and Taft, to serve in the Senate's own Hall of Fame...
...It is to the everlasting credit of the great majority of Americans that they turned their backs on McCarthy after they had had a chance to see and hear him as he was...
...All men of good will yearn for that goal of "safeguarded disarmament" of which Dr...
...Men like Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson, Harold Stassen, Charles E. Bohlen, and President Eisenhower have testified in recent weeks, usually without commanding much attention in the press—for good news is seldom front-page news—that the Russians are not only behaving better and calling us by less loathsome names, but they are negotiating in earnest and meeting us part way in the quest for a modest beginning toward disarmament...
...Consider, for example: • Before leaving Moscow, where he served brilliantly as our ambassador for four years, Bohlen expressed the conviction that "the desire for peace among the Soviet leaders" is genuine...
...membership in the agency...
...In this task it is the kind of inspiration and leadership provided by Wisconsin's La Follette for his generation that America most needs today...
...He left as his legacy a strengthened democracy and a progressive program that was to serve his country for more than a generation after his death...
...Albert Schweitzer...
...LaFollette's whole life was a ceaseless struggle against political corruption and economic injustice...
...The result, the celebrated scientist warned, is that we are not only threatening our own health "but also that of our descendants" for "the cells of the reproductive organs are particularly vulnerable to radiation...
...Schweitzer pleaded...
...Schweitzer argued...
...Stassen, our top negotiator at the London talks, reported to President Eisenhower that a more sincere effort was being made to reach agreement than was ever the case before...
...The Russians do not now come close to accepting the whole of the Eisenhower program, but they do abandon their previous rejection of the basic principle that "open skies" will permit a measure of disarmament inspection and a degree of assurance against surprise attack...
...But the radioactivity of the river plankton was 2,000 times higher, that of the ducks eating the plankton 40,000 times higher, that of the fish 150,000 times higher...
...One that isn't is the one against which Dr...
...President Eisenhower and his aides have expressed controlled elation over what seems to them increased Soviet willingness to negotiate basic issues...
...It was inevitable that their names would be linked in many of the essays published in the nation's press...
...We don't for a second challenge Dr...
...Their task has been greatly simplified by the stubborn refusal of the United States to agree either to a permanent ban or an experimental moratorium on tests, either of which the Soviets have said they would accept as a start toward thermonuclear disarmament...
Vol. 21 • June 1957 • No. 6
