SOVIET RESEARCH REPORTED

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25953, 5 November 1949, Page 7

SOVIET RESEARCH REPORTED

ATTEMPT TO PRODUCE “ATOMIC CLOUDS” (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, November 3. A warning that Russia is attempting to produce “atomic clouds” to use against troops is given by the International Committee for the Study of European Questions, in a report. Members of the committee Include Mr Paul Reynaud, Mr Matirice Schumann, Lord Vansittart, and Lord Brabazon. The report says that Soviet scientific journals indicate. that Russia has had atomic piles for some time. “It is technically possible to produce atomic clouds by allowing different kinds of gas to pass through atomic piles, and by concentrating them afterwards by pressure,” says the report. “Atomic clouds can cover a much wider area than any atomic bomb and, therefore, may be employed against troops in the field. "It is possible to produce large quantities of such clouds,' which can be concentrated in ordinary bombs in the same manner as poison gas. Such bombs would be easier to manufacture and be far less expensive. “The production of such clouds does not give rise to explosions, and we would, therefore, not be aware of their production, which could not be registered by our seismographs, as in the case of the atomic exnlosion which occurred in the U.S.S.R.” The report says it is believed that such gases would lose their radioactivity under storage, and that atomic cloud gas can only be produced for immediate use. However, it belittles Russian claims that the Soviet produced an atomic bomb two years ago.