NEW SECRET WEAPONS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27125, 22 August 1953, Page 7

NEW SECRET WEAPONS

Claims Made For Britain (N.Z. Press Association —Copyright) (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, August 20. The science correspondent of the “Daily Mail” says Britain may possess a new secret weapon of greater strategic importance than the hydrogen bomb which Russia today claimed to have exploded. Announcements are expected soon on remarkable developments made during recent months on British guided missiles and rockets. Experts believe they are ahead of the world in this form of weapon, capable of carrying an atomic warhead. ■

Radar and radio-guided missiles that fly at more than 2000 miles an hour have been already announced. The new weapons have been built at the Woomera rocket range, where the new series of British atomic tests will be held in the autumn.

Britain has no hydrogen bomb and at present there is no possibility of it being built, because of the enormous cost.

The science correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” says the news that the Russians have developed and exploded a hydrogen bomb will come as no surprise to scientists who have been studying the problem. Russia’s ability to explode one hydrogen bomb does not necessarily imply her possession of a plant capable of producing a succession of them.

This question, however, is purely academic for Britain, for a single hydrogen bomb, if properly delivered, would burn up most of London. The essential difference between the hydrogen bomb and its predecessors is that it can be added to ad infinitum whereas in the conventional atomic bomb the explosive power is limited to something like 10 times the power of those first tested on Japan.

Reactions in U.S. In Washington, Mr Sterling Cole, tfie chairman, today summoned members of the Congressional Atomic Energy Committee to an emergency session tomorrow for a secret briefing on the Soviet Union’s explosion of a hydrogen bomb. Mr Cole, a Republican member of the House of Representatives for New York, called for a speed-up of United States defence against “this most devastating weapon.” He said that members of the Congressional committee would be briefed on what the Atomic Energy Commission had learned about Soviet hydrogen bomb development. A United Press report quoted informed circles as saying that the United States was just about aready to announce the Soviet explosion when the Soviet issued its statement last night. They said that United States data on the explosion had been compiled, and were almost ready for publication. It adds that American officials studied carefully the section of the Soviet announcement that said there was not “anv foundation for alarm’’ as a result of Russia’s acquisition of the bomb.