USE OF ATOMIC FORCE

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 55, 3 September 1945, Page 4

USE OF ATOMIC FORCE

SCIENTISTS HORRIFIED NEW YORK, September 2. Seventeen of the scientists who helped to discover the atomic bomb and who are still engaged on atomic experiments for peacetime purposes, said they were horrified by the tragic use made of their discovery, says the Chicago correspondent of the "New York Herald Tribune." Their spokesman, Dr. Samuel Allison, who was among those who directed the first atomic explosion in New Mexico, said that all the scientists concerned realised their efforts might shorten the war, but he had hoped this could be done merely by demonstrating that America possessed such a weapon; for example, by dropping a bomb on an unoccupied island or m Japanese home waters. Dr. Allison added: "Scientists are desperately trying to return to free research. We have been virtually locked ud ever since we started and don't like it. We scientists won't work on any study where free dissemination of knowledge is forbidden: "There is no real secret about the creation of energy. Much about that was printed in Russia long before we realised it. Our only secret is the bomb's capacity. If a stiff censorship is maintained we will begin an elaborate study of the colours of butterflies." ± _ . The United States representative of. the UNWO Preparatory Commission. Mr. Stettinius, at a Press conference, said that the whole question of placing the secret of the atomic bomb in the hands of the United Nations was under discussion. He did not think in view of the advent of the atomic bomb that there would be any alterations made in the basic United Nations' Charter signed at San Francisco. The military staff committee would meet soon after the establishment of the Security Council and the committee would deal with anything having to do with the use of "force.