ATOMIC POWER

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 66, Issue 197, 3 June 1946, Page 3

ATOMIC POWER

U.S. GOVERNMENT, MONOPOLY BILL PASSES SENATE (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright.) WASHINGTON, June 2. The Senate passed and sent to the House the domestic atomic energy control legislation designed to operate smoothly with any international control. The agreement bill, sponsored by both the Democrats and Republicans, establishes a Government monopoly over the production and use of fissionable materials like U. 235 plutonium. The bill provides for five members of the civilian control commission to be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The military liaison committee appointed by the Secretaries of War and the Navy would be empowered to protest to the President against any action infringing national security. The president would also appoint a board of civilian advisers. Congress would name nine members from each House to check the commission’s work. The commission would foster research through contracts, loans' and grants to private agencies as well as through its own activities. Private ownership of fissionable material or facilities to produce it would be banned, but the Government could make contracts for private management.

Secrecy about the atom bomb had poisoned international relations, said Professor Harold Laski (chairman of the Labour Party) at Saffron Walden, according to a London message.

He added that scientists could not do their best in a concentration camp atmosphere. The Labour Government would continue in power for a long time. The decision to set India free was noble. Britain might be able to turn lots of enemies into friends if only Mr Churchill would stop talking.

A memorandum prepared by the new Atomic Scientists’ Association for submission to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission recommends the lifting of all secrecy.

It proposes a start with the release of all basic scientific information, also that eventually all research development should be carried on freely and openly with the duty to report to the United Nations any significant results which would, in general, also be published. The memorandum, which is stated to have received wide support from leading scientists, emphasises the ‘‘urgency of securing early international agreement for an effective system of international control based on the principle that production of material essential for the manufacture of the atom bomb should be carried out under the direction of an international authority responsible .to the United Nations.

“This control should be implemented by a system of inspection giving inspectors appointed by the United Nations the right of access to any place in any- country. All major sources of raw materials and all major production plants should be handed over to the United Nations to be operated possibly by national contractors and guarded by men who would also be responsible to the United Nations.”

The memorandum recommends that a United Nations Commission should construct and operate new large-scale plants throughout the world to ensure that if any nation seized control of local plants the remainder of the United Nations would jointly possess overwhelming superiority in the production of fissionable material.

Storing of Bombs

Recommending that the disposal of active materials produced at such plants should he reserved to the United Nations, and that any bombs made before or after the introduction of the scheme should be kept in stores distributed throughout the world, the memorandum states: “This does not imply that the signatories regard the atom bomb as a desirable weapon for carrying out the United Nations’ political functions.

“In the present state of world apprehension. it seems necessary that atom bombs should be produced and controlled internationally to prevent any ill-disposed nation holding the threat of atomic warfare over the peaceloving nations. When, however, the control authority is functioning effectively, it should be possible to envisage a cessation of the production of atomic weapons and the destruction of the existing stocks. Then an atomic explosive could be used for peaceful purpose's only.” The memorandum proposed that the free movement and interchange of ail scientists should be permitted. ’ The signatories to the memorandum include Professor M. L. Oliphant, Professor P. M. S. Blanket, Professor H. S. Hassey, Sir Geoffrej r Taylor, and Sir George Thomson, also Professor M. H. L. Pryce Wykeman, Professor of Theoretical Physics at Oxford.