Youngstown Vindicator (January 3, 1947)
On the Record…
Russia wants atomic ‘law’ which would have no force
By Dorothy Thompson
In the answers which Premier Stalin addressed to questions asked him last September by the Moscow correspondent of the London Times, he said:
(1) “I do not think the atomic bomb to be as serious a force as certain politicians are inclined to regard it… It cannot decide the outcome of a war…”
(2) “Monopolistic possession cannot last long…”
(3) “Use of the atomic bomb will be prohibited.”
Answers 2 and 3 are interesting - but tantalizing. Mr. Stalin said in effect that the Soviets would get the atomic bomb and then its use would be abolished. The question left open was: By what means? That great question has never been answered by Premier Stalin, nor by Mr. Gromyko.
The United States has stockpiles of bombs. We do not know whether they could determine the outcome of any war, but we do know they are apocalyptic weapons. We do know that scientists responsible for the epochal discovery (not politicians) took the lead in warning that limited world government is essential for the survival of the human race.
The United States has, therefore, proposed to destroy its existing stock piles and refrain from further manufacture of these and other mass destruction weapons in return for guarantees that all other powers do the same. The United States conceives minimum guarantees to consist, first, in an international treaty, forbidding the manufacture of bombs; second, in the creation of an international authority under the treaty to set up world-wide control of the sources of atomic energy and world-wide inspection of its uses; and, third, provision for immediate sanctions against a treaty violator.
This is the most radical move ever made by a great power, particularly because that power uniquely possesses the weapon to be eliminated and the technical equipment to maintain its lead in mass destruction weapons for a long time to come. The strongest power thus offers to place limitations on its own strength and relinquish what has always been considered a right of national sovereignty, on a basis of exact equality with all other powers.
Furthermore, a “capitalistic” and “reactionary” power, as modem left-wing semantics has it, has proposed what amounts to national and international socialization of the raw material which promises to be the basic source of industrial energy in the future.
On what does this epochal proposal bog down? It bogs down on the resistance of Soviet Russia. What does the USSR resist? What Mr. Gromyko extolls as the “principle of unanimity.” Is that principle violated by the U.S. plan? It is not violated. The Americans submit for unanimous acceptance, certain basic postulates: A treaty; an international controlling and inspection force; swift and inexorable punishment for violators – all violators, including, should occasion arise, the United States.
We insist that no treaty (law) has reality unless it provides means of enforcement, and request nations to make a law which, once being made, they must stand by under all circumstances.
But the USSR insists that though it will agree to a law, no sanctions, whatever they may be, shall be applied if any power refuses to accept judgment and desist. It interprets the veto to be the right to nullify the legal results of violation. That is what it calls “unanimity.” And the result is that no international law to control mass destruction can be made.
Unfortunately, the issue is beclouded by some of our own publicists. Thus “Time” recently commented:
“This (Mr. Baruch’s obstinacy) gave the Russians, at least, some slight ground for yelling ‘atomic blackmail.’ Baruch did nothing to improve the atmosphere by harping on ‘punishment,’ for ‘punishment’ is not a diplomatic word… and in the context not realistic. … If a nation is immoral enough to commit major violation, it is probably immoral enough to refuse punishment.”
Now the atomic bomb is not a diplomatic “word” either, but a real and terrible thing. And it is odd to suggest that a penal code is “unrealistic” because a criminal who may violate it resists accepting punishment. Provision for punishment is, on the contrary, exactly what makes any penal code “realistic.”
So when Mr. Baruch used the word “punishment,” he said exactly what he meant and exactly what had to be said. It is the crux of the matter. The argument of Time’s writer is that nothing can be done against a resistant violator. If that is true, let us abandon as farce all attempts to create collective guarantees, and substitute law for international anarchy. A treaty or law which any signatory reserves the right to nullify, without punishment in his own case or in the case of an ally or satellite, is no law but just another of those worthless scraps of paper with which history is strewn.
The statesmen of the United Nations have been charged by the world’s peoples to see that international relations are conducted under law. That is the sole purpose of the United Nations. Law which is not enforceable is anti-law. That punishment is correlated to crime in the basis of all law. Any denial of this primary thesis is double-talk.