A leading British scientist
calls on people of the west

By PROF. J. D. BERNAL

T#E DECISION to continue
i oe the cold war cannot
will } off much longer. It
Sie to be settled in a
rn in which now not
nie y. governments. and par-

€nts, but the whole of the

oe must take part before
1S too late.

ny
ee ae material danger is
: Indeed, j ;
* eater, “eS ge
Planes

bombs carrying hydrogen

faa flying overhead,
Soe rocket bases, aimed
in ee cities, are planned
tikes tain and Europe. The

d States military budget

has *

eae increased by $6 bil-
What

Cretely? - ettat Joy O08

ea moment a hydrogen-
crash j Carrying plane may
aisin flames somewhere in
g0 eee bomb may not
its ee ut-merely burn, and
ioe _aré. very com-
Way. able in- the ordinary

Eee the smoke carrying
Hin um comes down — and
country be quite a stretch of
will es or town a there
Worse x contamination far
ae an that at Windscale
cee and it will last
i tT: the half life of pluton-

1S over 20,000 years.
Sa will be nothing to
erica ould happen if an Am-
‘ N pilot were to drop a
adda bomb by mistake
ing 5 €re in the world. Bomb-
be i counter-bombing will
> saving little but corpses
oo, en and only a remn-
~Wher the human_ race any-
oF e else. For now the cities
; sce United States are also

nge, and war has become
Madness and mass sui-

pl
it

Cide.

_ Instead of plunging deeper
Preparations for faster
wa See expensive slaughter,
‘ Should be finding the way
_ international agreement.
ay 1s fully realized in the
bec. Union. Khrushchev
ig told me: “Coexistence
ne @ only sane policy left
mankind.”
Ut it is still a lesson that
ea be driven home to poli-
A Oe: on both sides of the
antic,

Scientists, who saw the dan-

Stop this
madness now

ger first, have been getting
together from all parts of the
world to denounce the folly
and wickedness of nuclear
war and its preparation.
Nearly 10,000 of the most
eminent — from the United
States and the Soviet Union,
from Britain, France, Japan
and Germany — enemies of
the cold war as of the world

wars, all united in signing
Professor Pauling’s anti-war
protest.

Long and serious discussions
on the dangers of nuclear war
and nuclear tests have been
held on the same wide basis,
and, this is perhaps more im-
portant, no body of scientists
has dared publicily to take an
opposite view. They cannot
deny the facts, and, in Bert-
rand Russell’s phrase, “Those
who know most are the most
concerned.”

In the face of this, it is Ye-
doubled folly to cling to poli-
cies of building more and
more bombs and rockets and
rejecting any serious talk
about disarmament, the ban-
ning of bomb tests and the
settlement of outstanding dis-
putes in Germany and the
Middle East. j

This is (stripped of its
phrases) the present United
States policy.

It can lead to nothing ex- ©

cept war, and it may not al-
ways be possible in the fu-
ture, as it has been in the past,
to stop right on the brink.

It depends ho

TS NOT the first time the
Lae has been told but it
took General Alfred Gruen-
ther, ex-NATO boss and now
president of the American Red
Cross, to tell this one at the re-
cent AFL-CIO convention.
The whole convention broke
up in laughter at the tale, but
whether they were laughing
at the general or the joke is
not known, Here it is.

5°)

{7 SEEMS a Soviet purchas-

ing agent had come to the
U.S. during the Second World
War on a mission. He visited
Detroit and an auto plant there.
After thanking his host, he
asked whether he could talk
to some of the workers.

Some of the military men
and their political and busi-
ness backers, who persist in
this policy, have put forward
a half-way house of “Jimited”
nuclear war, where bombs far
greater than those which des-
troyed Hiroshima are to be
used on selected military
targets.

The deaths of hundreds of
millions of people who, in a
crowded country like Britain
or Germany, happen to live
near military targets, would
be incidental.

And once the bombs start
falling, how will it be pos-
sible to avoid slipping into a
general indiscriminate bomb-
dropping of total and final
war?

No, the only good rule is
to abolish nuclear warfare al-
together and to stop all other
kinds of warfare as well.

Most people in the world
have enough sense to want to
stop it all as from now in one
great international decision.

But if there is still too
much distrust to do this, we
could proceed. by stages, as
long~as there was a clear de-
cision that we were going in
the direction of peace, and
not just marking time, as dis-
armament discussions have
done for 12 years.

We could start with such
proposals as an atom-free
zone in Central Europe, as the
Poles have suggested, and
stopping arms exports to the

“Go right to it,” he was told
“there’s a whole yard full of
them. Go ahead and talk to
one.”

With the boss standing by,
the Soviet citizen crossed the
yard and tapped one worker
on the shoulder. “Would you
te!l me — ate you in favor of
the capitalist or Communist

on

system:

The worker replied: “Oh,
the capitalist system, I guess.”

“Tell me why,” the Rus-
sian continued.

The worker took a deep
breath and explained, “Weil,
it’s like this. Here it is about
time to leave work and you're
standing here at the corner

Middle East, the next most
likely starting point of an-
other war.

That is why it is essential,
as soon as possible, to get the
heads of governments  to-
gether.

waiting for a bus and up
comes a big black limousine.
It stops in front of you and
you look up and it’s your
boss. He beckons you to get
in and you drive away.

‘After a couple of blocks
the boss says, ‘How about
stopping out at my estate and
having a swim?’ So you go
to his estate and have a cool
refreshing swim in his swim-
ming pool. When you finish
he serves you a tall, cool
drink and after a while he
says, ‘Why don’t you stay and
join me while we have some-
thing to eat?’ Following a
long, delicious dinner, the
boss says, ‘Why don't you stay

This time, the peoples of
the world are anxious, aware;
and determined to. see that
the declaration of peace is

not whittled away in Foreign
Offices but leads to immedi-
ate and effective . action.

w the system treats you

and have another drink or
two?’

“So you stay and have a
couple more drinks with him
in his luxurious library. Then
afier a while the boss looks’ at
his watch and says, “It’s got-
ten pretty late and it’t a long
trip back to town. Why don’t
you spend the night?” So you
stay all night and then next
morning you have breakfast
and ride back in style with
the boss to the factory.”

The Russian was astounded.
“Good heavens, man,” he ex-
claimed, “has that happened
to you?” The worker replied
“Oh, no, it’s never happened
to me, but it’s happened to my
sister twice.”

January 24, 1958 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 9