“Crucial Drama” Seen

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 September 1949, Page 5

“Crucial Drama” Seen

Dr Harold Urey, one of the United States top atomic scientists, said: “I am flattened like everybody else by the news. There is only one thing worse than one nation having the bomb; that is two nations having it.” He added that it was inevitable that Russia would produce the atomic bomb, but apparently had developed it faster than most people thought. ‘This shows how foolish has been the excessive worry about keeping the atomic secret. It could not be kept. Other scientists can do what we do,” he said. Caused A Stir Mr Truman’s announcement caused a stir in the United Nations’ Assembly. The leading Soviet delegate, Mr Arutinian, said Mr Truman’s announcement was the first he had heard of the news. He added: “If it is true the Russians have the atomic bomb, it shows how indespensible international agreement is.” Mr Truman’s announcement was given to reporters after his usual press conference and the news was flashed over the nation’s radio networks within minutes. Musical programmes were interrupted as the announcers gave the news and asked listeners to stand by for further statements. Senator McMahon, in a later formal statement, said the news faced the United States with the most crucial drama in its history. What Soviet Preferred “Now we know the Soviet masters

preferred to forge their own atomic weapons rather than support the plan for universal abolition which the United States proposed in 1946,” he said. “If we have been wrong, arbitary or unfair in our approach to the atomic problem, Mr Stalin should tell us so in his own words. I am convinced that a way can be found to pierce the Iron Curtain and place the atomic issue before the Russian people. We cannot allow to drift upon us a hideous conflict in which the great mass of the Russians would be as innocent of evil intent as we ourselves,

‘The Kremlin will bargain for peace in its own time on its own terms. We must alert the entire civilised world to the peril which the Kremlin policy involves. We must employ to the utmost every channel of diplomacy which yields the slightest hope, of finding a way out of the impasse.”