Russo-American War Would Bring the End of Western Europe

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26582, 3 October 1947, Page 5

Russo-American War Would Bring the End of Western Europe

N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent Rec. 9 p.m. LONDON, Oct. 2. The peoples of western Europe are in imminent danger of becoming the helpless victims of a conflict of the giants, said Lord Bertrand Russell, in an address to the University of Amsterdam. He continued: “ For whatever our policy, we must perish as important nations if Russia and America go to war.” If war broke out after Russia had acquired a store of atomic bombs, the western part of the Continent would be occupied by Russian troops and. Great Britain by American troops, he said. America would bomb the Continent and Russia would bomb Great Britain. The next war* therefore, if it comes, would see the end of western Europe except as a site for a few military outposts.

"In view of the present intransigence of the Soviet Government,” Lord Russell continued, “ it is to be expected that when Russia has a store of atomic bombs demands will be put forward in China. Persia. Greece, and perhaps North Africa, which America will re-

sent, probably to the point of risking war. Our oVily hope lies in the creation of such international machinery as would make war much less likely. America has proposed such action. Russia alone hitherto has opposed it.”