MOVE IN U.S. FOR DISARMAMENT

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26032, 8 February 1950, Page 5

MOVE IN U.S. FOR DISARMAMENT

Senator Seeks World Conference MOTION TABLED IN CONGRESS (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 8 p.m.) WASHINGTON. Feb. 6. President Truman was urged in the Senate to-day to summon a w r orld disarmament conference. Senator Millard Tydings, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee , called for world disarmament even down to rifles.” He introduced a resolution urging prohibition of the manufacture and use of any arms except those used by occupation and police forces within individual countries. Senator Tydings said: “If you want to outlaw atomic and hydrogen bombs, the only way to do it is by a programme of world disarmament with complete and constant inspection. You cannot keep the world armed to the teeth. The next "war will not be one hour old before the belligerents will immediately begin building atomic or hydrogen bombs.” It was a defeatist attitude, he said, to think that the Russians would not agree to a conference. “I assume that the Russian people would welcome the lifting pf the great weight of fear which must now or eventually hang over their heads, in common with most people on earth,” he said.

Senator Tydings added that he did not favour having such a conference in the United Nations. It had too many other problems, with disputes overlapping into too many fields. “I would like to see our President undertake to invite all nations to sit down v.. th the single purpose of accomplishing world disarmament,” he said.