ATOMIC ENERGY CONTROL

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25129, 10 March 1947, Page 7

ATOMIC ENERGY CONTROL

MESSAGE TO BEVIN

IMMEDIATE DISCUSSION IN MOSCOW URGED

LONDON, March 7. “Mr Bevin will find awaiting him in Moscow an urgent communication from a committee of distinguished British atomic scientists and politicians, urging him to raise immediately with Mr Stalin and the United States Secretary of State (General Marshall) the vital question of agreement on atomic energy and a plan for control which can be imposed throughout the world,” says Reuter’s diplomatic correspondent. The committee, in its statement, declares that it beliexes “we shall face a desperate world situation” unless strict international control is established over atomic energy within the very near future. It calls for a master plan that will resolve international differences on atomic energy and be embodied forthwith in an international convention.

The committee includes Professor M. L. Oliphant. Professor R. E. Peierls, and Professor A. S. Massey, all atom science authorities, and also Lord Brabazon, Mr Clement Davies, M.P., MF Raymond Blackburn, M.P., Mr Michael Foot, M.P., Mr Harold Nicholson, and Mr David Grenfell, M.P., the former Labour Secretary of Mines. Contending that the statements by the Big Three Powers on the international control of atomic energy do -not disclose any differences in principle which are necessarily insoluble, the committee says that Russia has accepted the principle of international inspection unhampered by the veto. Moreover, discussions in the Scientific and Technical Sub-committee of the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission, which is composed of the leading scientists of 12 countries, and in the Security Council, have shown that international control is a practical possibility. They reveal that the issues dividing the Powers have been narrowed to three. These issues are: (1) The time at which the pact prohibiting the manufacture of atomic weapons shall become operative. (2) The timing and nature of the stages by which the international authority is to take control of raw materials and plant. (3) The question whether the Security Council’s measures against violators of the control plan shall be subject to the big Powers’ Veto.