NO ATOMIC SECRET

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21962, 5 March 1946, Page 3

NO ATOMIC SECRET

SCIENTIST’S CLAIM SPY SCARE RIDICULED SOVIET QUEST WORTHLESS LONDON. March 3. The Canadian spy scare was ridiculed by Dr. Harold Urey, a Nobel Prize winner and a leader in the development of the atomic bomb, in an interview with the New York Times. Dr. Urey emphasised that there was no atomic bomb secret. He added that, at any rate, there was no particular odium on Russia for trying, to obtain the information. “All nations will spy, including our own,” he said. “The spy scare occupied a great deal of space in the press, but the only statement which so far makes sense is Russia's, which stated that the information obtained was valueless because it is told in greater detail in. the Smyth report.” Dr. Urey said that most of the information that spies could possibly collect was contained .in the Smyth report. Furthermore. . detailed information about the atomic bomb would require 60 to 80 volumes of close print, and would be readable only by scientists and engineers.

“Spies will get information more rapidly by staying at home and working in their own laboratories,” he said. Dr. Urey drew attention to the deplorable trend in Congress toward revising the present plans in order to vest atomic control in military rather than in scientific hands. He said the trend was encouraged by spy scare stories and stories that a defence had been found against the atomic bomb. “The truth is that there is no real defence.” he asserted.

Dr. Urey said the reports of a quarrel between the atomic scientists and the United States Army were untrue. Small quantities of uranium had been found in rocks in Cornwall, stated the director of the Bristol Museum. Dr. F. Wallis, at a conference of the Association of Scientific Workers.