BOMB DISCOVERY

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 22689, 17 August 1945, Page 3

BOMB DISCOVERY

OUTLOOK TRANSFORMED DECISION AT POTSDAM MR CHURCHILL’S DEFENCE (United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyrlffbt) (Received Aug. 17, 12.15 p.m.) LONDON, Aug. 16 “It is to the atomic bomb more than any other factor that we must ascribe the sudden, swift ending of the war,” said Mr Churchill, speaking to the House of Commons ad-dress-in-reply. Mr Churchill said that news of the trial of the atomic bomb in the New Mexican Desert reached Potsdam on July 17. “Success beyond all dreams crowned this sombre, magnificent venture of our American Allies,” said Mr Churchill. “We possessed powers which were irresistible. President Truman and myself took the decision to use the atomic bomb at PotSdam and approved the military plans to unchain the dread pentup force. “From that moment the outlook on the future was transformed. President Truman informed Generalissimo Stalin that we contemplated using an explosive of incomparable power against the Japanese. He added that before using the bomb it was necessary to send an ultimatum to the Japanese. Magnanimity to Japan “No doubt the assurances we gave Japan about her future after unconditional surrender were generous to a point when we remember the cruel, treacherous nature of their utterly unprovoked attacks against Britain and America, and must be considered magnanimous in a high degree. We felt in view of the new and fearful changes of war power about to be employed that an inducement to surrender should be put before them. We owed this to our conscience before using the awful weapon.” Mr Churchill said he could not agree with those who felt that the atomic bomb should never be used. “Six years of total war have convinced most people that had the Germans and Japanese discovered the weapon they would have used it to our complete destruction with the utmost alacrity.

“Future generations will judge our dire decision. I believe that if they find themselves dwelling in a happier world from which war has been banished they will not condemn those who struggled for their benefit amid the horrors and miseries of this grim, ferocious epoch.” •Mr Churchill expressed entire agreement with President Truman’s view that the secret. should not be turned over at present to any other country. “This is not a desire for arbitrary power but for the common safety of the world,” he said. “Nothing can stay research experiments in any country and no doubt research is proceeding in many places, but construction of the immense plants necessary to transform theory into action cannot be provided in every country. •*-oi' fhis and other reasons the United States stand on the summit of the world. I rejoice that this is so. Let them act to th’e level of their power and responsibility. So far as we know there will perhaps be three or four years before their great progress can be overtaken. We in these three or four years must remodel our relations with other men in such a way that they will not wish or dare to fall upon each other for the sake of vulgar, out-dated ambition or passionate differences in ideologies, and that an international supreme authority may give peace on earth and justice among men.” Mr Churchill denied that the use of the*atomic bomb hastened Russia’s entry into the Far Eastern war. “My understanding with Generalissimo Stalin for considerable time past lias been that Russia would declare war on Japan within three months of of the German surrender.

“The delay was needed in order to move over the Tran-Siberian railway large reinforcements to convert the Russian Manchuria army from a defensive to an offensive army.” THANKSGIVING BANNED DEAN OF ST. ALBANS USE OF ATOMIC BOMB LONDON, Aug. 16 In order to demonstrate his disapproval of the use of the atomic bomb, the Dean of St. Albans, the Very Rev. C. C. Thicknesse, banned the civic peace thanksgiving service in St. Albans Abbey and forbade the ringing of a victory peal from the Abbey tower. He said: “I cannot honestly give thanks to God for an event brought about by the wrong use of force, by an act of wholesale and indiscriminate massacre which was different in kind from all acts of open warfare in the past, however brutal and hideous.”

The St. Albans Council hurriedly arranged a service in the Methodist Church, where the preacher thanked God “for the work of scientists who shortened the war and saved thousands of lives.”

Lieutenant-General Okamoto, Japanese military attache in Switzer’and, has committed suicide.