New Weapons Of Terrible Power May Be Tested At Remote Island Of Eniwetok

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 14571, 15 January 1948, Page 4

New Weapons Of Terrible Power May Be Tested At Remote Island Of Eniwetok

POSSIBILITY OF NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN ATOMIC ENERGY Projected atomic tests behind ;l curtain o£ abaotutc secrecy'in the remote Pacific si,-rest that Ammucan natural scientists may be preparing new weapons based on tin ;> terrible power as the atom bomb, says the Christian Scui Monitor. . n ■ A terse announcement from the Atomic Energy Commission disclosed that the armed forces are making tiny .Lniuetok Atoll—lsoo miles from the nearest large land mass' mto a closed-off proving grounds for research on new tundaiUi n a As a climax tc. negotiations so secret that even the closest friends of the commanding general at Honolulu hadn t heard a whisper, the 147 Marshallese' on Eniwetok Atoll have agreed to move—to make way for Americas scheduled nen experiments in atomic warfare.

What goes on at Eniwetok, the Commission said, is expected to result in advances in “peaceful as well as in military applications of atomic energy,” Asked whether a reference _ co “atomic weapons” means that the United State's arsenal now includes a nuclear fission running mate for the atom bomb, one official replied: “You can draw your own conclusions.” Unlike the surface and underwater atom bomb tests at Bikini Atoll in the summer of 194 G, which were covered by several hundred reporters and foreign observers, the new experiments will be under “full security restrictions,” the announcement said. The area will be shut off from the world and the Security Council of the United Nations will be notified to this effect, as provided in the UN trusteeship agreement for the former Japanese-mandated islands. The 145 native inhabitants of the atoll islands of Aomon and Biijiri will leave for a permanent new home which they will select. Bikini was unsuitable for the now experiments, the Commission said, because it lacked land surface enough to contain “the instrumentation necessary to the scientific observations which must be made.” Isolated Area Eniwetok itself has only about two and a-quarter square miles of land. One big reason for choosing it is its isolation. There are hundreds of miles of open sea “in the direction in which winds carry radioactive particles.” It lies about halfway between Hawaii and the Philippines, and the closest big land area is New Guinea, 1500 miles to the southwest. After the Bikini tests there wore reports of unusual radio-activity, never officially confirmed, as far away as Franco and the West Coast of the United States. The Army, Navy and Air Force are installing the necessary housing, protective buildings for the researchers and control posts. Some military installations, put up after the marines killed the Japanese garrison in a six-day fig\t in February, 1944, will bo renovated for use. Lieut. General John E. Hull, Pacific commander of the Armv, has overall command of that job. PERILS OF ATOM SECRET ' ■AMERICA’S PLANS FOE THE FUTURE REVIEW BY CHAIRMAN OF COMMISSION Secrecy about the facts of atomic energy may weaken the security of the United States rather than help maintain it, according to David E. Lilienthal, Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission. “We are working in a scientific and technical field in which it is of the utmost importance that we develop new ideas,” Mr Lilenthal declared at a session of the 68th annual meeting of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. “it is vital that the public understand that we pay a price for secrecy in the technical field; that if we were to impose secrecy unintelligently the price of secrecy in terms of our own military security would then be so high as to impair rather than strengthen our own security.”

Mr Lilienthal’s address came on the heels of an announcement bj the Commission that an atomic experimental station will be established on the isolated Central Pacific atoll of Eniwetok.

Mr Lilienthal disclosed that the Atomic Energy Commission is in the midst of a large-scale programme Oj. expansion of facilities, major improvements of the plant and refinements, and new developments. Some £800,000,000 already have been spent on the whole atom enterprise, he said, and “if this country really means business,” the total expenditure will reach approximately £160,000,000 within the next few years. Displaying a cylinder of pure uranium, he declared: “Producing uranium _ metal at the purity of this cylinder is in itself an achievement which others will have some difficulty in attaining.” He also showed a piece of uranium developed by the Germans during the war, lout said they wore unable to reach the purity essential to the atomic process. Mr Lilienthal said that we arc still too close to the discovery of atomic energy to evaluate it. Understanding Needed

He warned that if the United States is to maintain its leadership in all phases of atomic energy, military and peacetime applications alike, far greater public understanding of the nature of the problem is necessary. “The policy of the country must take into account how scientific and engineering progress is made,” he said, urging the engineers to take! the lead in educating the public. Mr Lilienthal noted that the dissemination of any information would lead to differences of opinion as to the propriety of revealing certain facts. “On the one hand there arc the advantages that will accrue to us by reason of greater knowledge among our own people,” he said. “On the other hand, there are the possible advantages that such information may afford rival undertakings elsewhere.” Pointing out that the development of atomic energy in this country is today a business entirely owned by the Government, Mr Lilienthal said that this condition is.not liableto change under present world conditions. “The reason is a simple one,” he declared. “The peaceful and military aspects of the development of atomic energy are, as a matter of physical fact, not possible of effective separation.” Genii Out Of Bottle Discussing philosophically the whole question of atomic energy, Mr Lilienthal went on to say: “Only when we have more of that perspective whifh time and experience alone afford shall we bo able to say with any assurance whether this new knowledge, on balance, more greatly serves mankind and the forces of good than it serves evil- “ Whatever the future holds, this much I believe we must accept here and now; “There is, there can be, no putting the genii back into the bottle. To try to do so, to try to bury or to suppress new knowledge because we do not know how to prevent its use for desstructive or evil purposes—this is a pathetically futile gesture, a symbolic return to the methods of the Middle Ages.”