The Pittsburgh Press (February 2, 1946)
Stokes: A-bomb test
By Thomas L. Stokes
WASHINGTON – Sen. Scott Lucas, Illinois Democrat, got up in the Senate and “thought out loud” about something he believes may be worrying a lot of people in the country.
It was about the projected atomic bomb experiments in the Pacific with 96 naval vessels as the guinea pigs.
He spoke first of the destruction of that many naval vessels, and whether they could not be put to some better use. Then he touched on the other question:
“Another thing which disturbs me is this: If we are to outlaw the use of the atomic bomb for military purposes, why should we be making plans to display atomic power as an instrument of destruction?
“I am sure that the people of the world witnessed enough spectacular display of instruments of warfare during the last war to last them for a long time. Yet we continue to talk about atomic power, atomic bombs, and rockets that will go to the moon, and so forth.
“Perhaps it is proper to do so. But I wonder sometimes whether the planned display of atomic power to take place at some future time in the Pacific, is proper. I may be wrong in my views with regard to the matter. I am merely thinking more or less out loud.
“But the more I think about it, the more I am convinced we should stop, look, listen and hesitate and pause before going through with this particular project.”
Suppose shoe were on other foot
He said he was just tossing this subject into debate “for whatever it may be worth.” He added that he thought the joint Congressional Committee Atomic Energy should consider carefully “whether or not we should destroy all the ships it is being planned to use in connection with the experiment.”
This display of atomic might for experimental purposes has concerned others here, too, along with a related question as to continued Army control of atomic energy.
It has been asked, for example. what we might think, if we didn’t have the bomb, if some other nation put on such a terrifying experiment of wholesale destruction – if Russia, for instance, tossed a few around in the Pacific, or England set off a few in the Atlantic.
There is. it appears, a good deal of anti-Russian and anti-British sentiment in this country. There is undoubtedly a feeling about us, too, in other nations. We know how virtuous we are, but others don’t always understand that, just as they probably can’t understand why some people here are suspicious of them.
We are, all of us, trying to remove mutual suspicion and to build up trust through our common co-operative endeavors in the United Nations Organization and all its adjuncts, political, educational, economic and financial.
Increasing demand for civilian control
Should we swing our weight around and fill up the ocean with destruction when we seem well on the way to getting a common understanding with other nations?
Sen. Lucas has fossed in a good question for debate.
There is also increasing demand here for taking control of atomic energy away from the Army and lodging it in civilian hands. Secretary of Commerce Wallace put this emphatically before the Senate Atomic Energy Committee.
His expression of view was followed a few hours later by assurance from President Truman that control would be placed in a civilian commission as soon as Congress authorized such an agency.
Mr. Wallace gave voice to a fear felt also among scientists that Army control not only would hamper development for civilian uses but also would give too much power to “a small group of men, perhaps a military clique, who could use this fearful power to impose new and more terrible forms of authoritarianism and imperialism.”