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From Labor Action, Vol. 14 No. 4, 23 January 1950, pp. 1 & 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Ten days after an Atomic Energy Commission report attempted to minimize the destructive potentialities of even improved atom bombs, public announcement has been made of practical plans in readiness to produce a hydrogen atomic bomb which would be 1,000 times as deadly as the original A-bomb and could destroy an area of 50 to 100 square miles.
The latter disclosure also came only two days after the head of one of the country’s top scientific institutions had scored the effects of the administration cold-war program on scientific thought and research.
Estimates on the cost of producing the new super A-bomb had been put at from $2 to $4 billion, but the public announcement was accompanied by the “assurance” of officials that it would be “nearer $200 million.” How much nearer was not stated. In any case, it was made clear that cost was not a decisive factor; the government gives no weight to expenditures when they are for war purposes while warning direly of inflation and breakdown at the mention of increased wages and sharply raised social security.
It is revealed, however, that the White House is as yet holding up the green light for hydrogen-bomb production pending study of “the scientific, political and moral implications” by the AEC, State Department and Defense Department. In the light of past developments and brief references in the announcement, it would appear that the main reason for delay comes from opposition in the world of science.
N.Y. Times Washington correspondent James Reston reports that “One of the most distinguished scientists connected with the production of the first bomb has written a detailed report opposing any decision to proceed with the hydrogen bomb.” He also writes: “Some officials are revolted at the very idea of setting out to produce a weapon in which the possibilities for mass destruction of life are beyond human imagination.”
Indicated as the “compromise” to eliminate whatever scruples exist at the top is the proposal, possibly being pushed by AEC head David Lilienthal, for another attempt to reach an atom-control agreement
With Russia. Since there is little reason to believe that such an attempt, stimulated by the hydrogen-bomb prospect, could be any more successful in getting around the tensions inherent in the imperialist rivalry between Western capitalism and Russian Stalinist totalitarianism— it is admitted that Russia can get to produce the hydrogen bomb also —the weightiest argument for this step is undoubtedly that it would serve as a demonstration of “good will” to woo world public opinion.
Thus the cold-war imperialist tug-of-war raging over the planet jacks up. notch by notch, the potentialities for the ravaging of the planet in the threatened third world war.
The announcement of the hydrogen bomb, apparently precipitated by disclosures already made by the Alsop brothers, Washington columnists, followed a week and a half after publication of an AEC medical report which attempted to minimize the effectiveness of A-bomb improvement. Inspiring a headline like Atom Bomb Ratio of Havoc Limited, the report stressed that a bomb of twice the power of the Hiroshima bomb would increase the RADIUS of destruction by “only” one fourth. Not brought out, in the N.Y. Times item for example, was the fact that this itself means an increase in the AREA and therefore AMOUNT of destruction by more than one half. Instead the AEC report is quoted as saying that “very great increases in explosive force are necessary in order to accomplish RELATIVELY SMALL INCREASE IN THE AREA OF DAMAGE.”
In any case, even aside from the hydrogen bomb, the uranium-plutonium bomb which is to be tested soon at Eniwetok is already six times more powerful than the Nagasaki bomb, which is supposed to have been more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.
“The most obvious military value of the much more powerful hydrogen bomb,” says the press report, “is that it does not require anything like the accuracy of delivery of a uranium-plutonium bomb,” since its radius of destruction may be as much as over 5 miles. The most obvious social result of this “military value,” is, of course, that it makes it possible and even inevitable that an industrial plant area which is bombed from afar without any attempt at accuracy can be destroyed only by also destroying any attached urban area, with all its people.
While such possible consequences of modern imperialist war tend to make other considerations pale, they would come info play only if and when war is allowed to break out. Meanwhile, still in “peactime,” the race toward war brings in its train social consequences which are felt now, in the growing militarization of every aspect of American life, under the aegis of the current Fair Deal leadership of American capitalism no less than would be the case under Republican administration.
The president of the California Institute of Technology, itself a leading beneficiary of the government’s war-preparation scientific program, last week sharply attacked U.S. policy in that field. His remarks indicated growing fears in the educational world of the effect of the cold-war plans in militarizing science.
Dr. L.A. DuBridge, whose institute got nearly $4½ million (out of its total operating income for the past fiscal year of over $7½ million) from government research contracts, denounced the “widespread illusion that the chief function of science is to evolve weapons of war.” “As a result,” he said, “as far as the federal government is concerned, the support of science has been left largely with those agencies whose primary functions are military.”
The dangers, he said, are beginning to make themselves felt:
“(1) When basic science competes for funds with weapon development projects as well as with the heavy demands for the design and construction of battleships, airplanes and atomic bombs, science is certain to lose out as budget restrictions become necessary.
“(2) There is increasing pressure to extend to basic science the secrecy restrictions which necessarily pervade military weapon development programs.”
On the same day as the hydrogen-bomb announcement, another government agency, the National Advisory Council for Aeronautics, also (this time unintentionally) underlined the pressure of the military upon science. “The committee notes with satisfaction a healthy pressure upon it from the military air services and from the aircraft industry for advanced scientific data, declared its chairman. Never before in peacetime, he noted, had it been unable “to stockpile scientific knowledge for future use.” Truman’s new budget asks Congress to provide $63 million for his council, $7 million more than it expended in the present fiscal war.
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