United States put Soviet scientific documents on secret list

USSR had A-bomb data in 1940.

72-million
U.S. jobless
drew benefit

WASHINGTON

ven as President Truman pro-
elaimed to the U.S. Congress that
the “state of the union continues
to be good,” two government de-
partments reported that the na-
tion's economic health wasn’t good
at all.

The commerce and labor depart-
ments revealed that during the
year:

@ More than 2,500,000 work-
ecs exhausted their unemploy-
ment benefits.

@ 7,500,000 workers lived on
meager unemployment benefits.

© 16,500,000 workers were
working short time and receiv-
img short wages.

®© 276,000 industrial jobs had
vanished.

“We have met and reversed the
first significant downturn in ec-
ewomic activity since the war,”
Truman insisted before Congress,
yet the commerce department re-
ported that unemployment contin-
ued its steady rise to reach 3,489,000
between November and December.}
Unemployment a year ago was
1,941,000. .

“Our nation has grown enorm-
‘ously in material well-being,” Tru-
man declared. “This growth has
come about, not by concentrating
the benefits of our progress in the
hands of a few, but by increasing
the wealth of the great body of
our citizens.”

The day before, the Federal
Trade Commission had reported
that industry profits climbed from
$2 billion to $2.3 billion between
July and September. This 15 per-
cent increase was accomplished on
less than one percent increase in
sales of the manufacturing corpor-
ations..

And, at the same time, Robert
Goodwin, director of the labor de-
partment’s bureau of employment

security, stated that 7,500,000 work-

evs had drawn unemployment bene-
fits in the year.

100,000 layoffs
prevented by
Italian labor

During 1949 the Italian General
Confederation of Labor (CGIL)
succeeded in preventing the layoff
of 100,000 workers in the metal,
textile and chemical industries,
CGIL secretary Giuseppe di Vittor-
io told a press conference here.

The Italian labor leader added |

that tens of thousands of acres
of uncultivated land had been ob-
tained through the heroic struggle
of the organized landless peasants,
representing the opening wedge to-
ward land reform.

Despite these achievements, he
said, the. situation remains criti-
cal, “There are two million per-
manent unemployed, two million
who work only part-time, and 1%
million farm workers who work
only; several months during the
year, while several million pension-
ed and disabled workers barely
exist on their monthly allowances.

Turning to the CGIL’s construc-
tive economic plan, he said unem-

ployment could not be solved by,

.Mass emigration, as had been sug-
gested in some quarters. It could
be solved, he asserted, with the
adoption of the CGIL’s plan to ab-
sorb’ the unemployed in the power,
production and building industries
which could provide the country

with all the electricity, schools,
houses and hospitals it needs.

U.S. aircraft carrier goes to Formosan waters

Although President Truman has declared that the U.S. will not send troops to Formosa to furnish
military aid to help Chiang Kai-shek hold his last stronghold, the 27,000-ton aircraft carrier, USS
Boxer (above), has been ordered to join the 7th Task Fleet in Asiatic waters. The fleet patrols waters

around Formosa,

U.S. big business pushes
FBI-army ‘loyalty check’

By GEORGE MORRIS

NEW YORK

Recent ehnouncement of the Stewart-Warner Corporation it in the U.S. that all its 2,500 employees

will be required to sign “‘loyalty”’

affidavits or be fired, is only the latest example of the vast nation-wide

purge of active unionists launched by the government in collusion with employers. This purge will affect
millions of workers in private industries.

The sweeping witch-hunt directives, extending to private industries the loyalty purge carried through
among government employees, were unfolded in the September i issue of Factory Management and Mainten-
ance, McGraw-Hill magazine for plant managements.

The plan adds up to a police
state supervision over the lives
of privately employed workers. It
dwarfs anything seen since Hit-
ler’s Gestapo was in operation.

. The directives to employers de-
scribed as “the Military’s program
for screening” workers, calls for:

“>. .a minute accounting of the
employes’ life for the past 15 years.
It requires an outline of his racial
antecedents, his citizenship status,
his parents’ and his wife’s citizen-
ship status.

‘It askg about his visits to for-
eign countries and his connections
with fraternal, civic and political
organizations. His fingerprints are
taken, He has to list three citizens
who have known him for at least
10 years.”

After that, says the magazine,
the government “goes to work”:

- “The man’s neighbors are visit-
ed by investigators from the FBI,
the Military Police or other inves-
tigatory agencies. The state coun-
ty and local police files are check-
ed for any records of arrests. . . .
Depending upon circumstances,
other agencies concerned with
such things as immigration and
naturalization, internal revenue
and narcotics may also be called
into the investigation.”

While the principal stress is on
the search for “subversives” and
the elimination of active unionists
on that ground, the magazine ad-
vises employers that broad latitude

tis given for riddance of “undesir-

ables” on other grounds.

“He may drink too much on Sat-
urday night. He may be emotion-
ally unstable. He may be just a
weak character. ...

The purge pian, giving the mil-
itary brass hats unlimited power
to order the firing of any worker
who displeases them or whom they
consider a “bad risk,” is so sweep-
ing that even a spokesman of the
CIO in Chicago found it necessary
to protest against it.

At Paterson, N.J., the rightwing-
controlled Local 669 of the United
Automobile. Workers in Wright
Aeronautical rejected a contract
with the company that would have
required the 5,500 employees to be
“loyalty” checked.

More and more as the plan un-
folds in practice, it is becoming

Thousands enlisted
in Viet Nam army

NORTH VIET NAM

A congress of all labor unions
in the independent Viet Nam re-
public was held here last month.
Delegates reported that 45,000
workers had joined the Viet Nam
army to fight the French occu-
pation during the past three
years, and an additional 30,000
bore arms in guerrilla and militia
units,

In French - controlled South
Viet Nam, special “economic
battle” groups of workers de-
stroyed 15,000 acres, of rubber
plantations with 25,000 tons of
accumulated rubber stocks, blew
up over 300 bridges, smashed 100
locomotives and 461 freight cars
and pulled up over 1,500 miles of
railroad track.

the weapon for elimination of the
live-wire unionists in plants; main-
taining an atmosphere of fear
among the employees; and discour-
aging such elementary union activ-
ities as pressing the settlement of
grievances. or even filing com-
plaints. against foremen.
* * *

The plan as outlined in Factory
Management opens a vast prospect
for revival of the ‘industrial spy
agencies that have been dormant
and unprofitable since they were
exposed by the Senate LaFollette
Committee. The operatives are now
needed to spy on workers, gather
“derogatory information” upon
which charges could be filed
against victims and on which the
new blacklist could be built.

A worker discharged or a re-
jected job applicant may appeal
to an appeal board. But he has two
strikes against him, even before the
hearing. He doesn’t: know who ac-
cuses him or what the charges are.

“He may send in written com-
ments and explanations on his
case—if he can guess why he was
turned down. in the first place,’
explains the magazine.

“Not before he has appeared
before the appeal board, however,
is he told the specific charge

against him. Before this he has
known only that there is deroga-
tory information alleged.

“But as in other ‘loyalty’ cases,
he is not allowed to cross-examine
the accuser. The burden of proof
in this case is on the accused.”

After describing the police-state
dragnet that is now spreading to
industries employing millions, and

noting that “the number of people
under investigation is swelling
daily,” the magazine says, “the mil-

itary deny that ‘security check’ is
an invasion of civil rights.”

“They consider it even more
important in peacetime than in
war,” explains the magazine.

The purgers minimize the effect
of their plan and claim only a
tiny minority will be victimized.
They play on the cooperation of
rightwing labor leaders on the
claim that only leftwing support-
ers would be hurt.

As the pattern works out, how-
ever, the axe falls quite indiscrim-
inately. Among the first victims
were a group of strike leaders dis-
missed as “poor security risks” af-
ter the strike at Bell Aircraft in
Buffalo, The bulk of those dis-
missed. supported Walter Reuther
in the United Automobile Workers.

Application of “loyal oath” in
government employ drew the op-
position of the entire labor move-
ment, right and left. Its exten-
sion’ to private
easily put the bulk of the labor
movement at the mercy of an em-

industries could:

WASHINGTON

The U.S. government and its
Atomic Energy Commission has
known for nine years that the So-
viet Union had mastered all the

basic “‘secrets’’ of atomic energy
and atomic bombs—and its threat
to use its claimed monopoly of the
atom bomb to impose its policies
on the world has been a gigantic
hoax.

This was revealed last week when
the commission permitted a re-
porter to read translations of Soviet
scientific documents published in
1940, but put on the secret list in
the U.S. It was in 1940 that the
U.S. began to organize its own man-
ufacture of an atom bomb, the first
of which was finally produced and
exploded in New Mexico in 1945.
The papers now released by the
Atomic Energy +Commission show
that Soviet scientists in 1940:

@ Knew theoretically how to
make uranium 235 explode by
suddenly assembling it in “super-
critical” amounts.

_ @ Were acquainted with the
theory of the chain-reacting uran-
ium pile and the use of heavy
water to slow neutrong to the
most effective atom-splitting
speeds.

@ Were well aware that
“many attempts” to harness at-
omic energy “will be undertaken
in the near future.”

-@ Understood the problems
involved in separating U-235 from
the more plentiful but mon-ex-
plosive U-238 with which it is
mixed in nature.

Although the Russians had pub-
lished them openly, the Manhattan
District stamped the translations
“secret” to conceal the fact that
they were collecting such evidence
of Soviet atomic progress.

The documents reveal that So-
viet scientists were working on the
idea of a “nuclear chain reaction
in a mass of pure fissionable ele-
ment under the action of fast neut-
rons”—which is another way of
saying “atomic bomb.”

“The amount of uranium avail-
able in nature, and the cost of its
production could make the use of
uranium as a ‘fuel’ for certain prac-
tical applications possible,” said a
paper by J. B. Zeldovich and J. B.
Khariton, who were discussing
peacetime uses.

Like the Smyth report, publish-
ed by the U.S. Army in 1945, the
Soviet papers stressed the tendency
of atomic explosives to fly apart
before the reaction is complete.
Noting that the fission reaction
lasts only a split millionth of a
second, the scientists said a “spe-
cial device” or detonating mech-
anism, would be needed to achieve
the extreme speed required in
bringing “close together two
massés of uranium, each of which
separately is of sub-critical dimen-
sions. 4"

The Soviet scientists supported
‘their conclusions with elaborate
mathematical data. THey proclaim-
ed “a solution in principle of the
problem of the utilization of nuc-
lear energy by chain ey erion
of uranium.”

They added: “Before it will be
possible to speak of a practical
solution of this problem we will,
of course, have to surmount tre-
mendous difficulties.” j

Ultimately they ‘did surmount
them, as, Molotov announced in 1947
and Truman belatedly admitted in
1949.

ployer-military alliance.

Soviet building ‘ahead of -
whole world,’ say scientist.

LONDON

“Building in Moscow has been
taken away from its traditional
craft basis and made into a fully
mechanized industry,” the noted
British scientist J. D. Bernal said
here on his return from a visit to
the Soviet Union.

“Technique is ahead of the whole
world and building has entirely
ceased to be a Seasonal occupation.
They have many dodges to con-
tinue outside work in the winter—
special protective clothing, heated

cement, etc. No internal plumbing |
work has to be done at all. It is
all prefabricated. All internal ar-
chitectural components are pre-
fabricated. Complete components
for over a million houses under
the five-year plan are being manu-
factured in eight great factories.”
Reporting that Soviet plans call
for the reconstruction of entire
cities, Bernal said: “There is no
doubt that within the next 10
the people of the Soviet Union will
live in finer and healthier cities

than any other in the world.”

‘PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 13, 1950—PAGE 3