Appeal campaign launched

Pigs

MOSCOW

The Soviet Peace Committee has launched a nation-wide

Campaign to collect signatures
ment and production of atomic
At a plenary session of the

against West German rearma-
weapons. .
committee in Moscow last week,

leading personalities in Soviet art, literature and religious org-

anizations signed.

Collection of signatures has been going on for several
weeks in China and Far Eastern countries.

The campaign will culminate in the great World Assembly
for Peace in Helsinki on May 22.

The Metropolitan Nikolai, of the Russian Orthodox Church,
told the committee meeting here that “all believers will fulfil

the demand of their religious
Under the Vienna appeal.”

duty and put their signatures

What UN survey shows

Standards rising in
People’s Democracies

By SAM RUSSELL

LONDON

© ‘d A Striking picture of the improvements in health,education
n living conditions of the people in the Peoples’ Democracies

of E
'Ssued last week.
__ Tucked away in the staid
UN Economic Survey of Europe in)
1954 there is a picture of a new.
a such as the 100 millions in,
© five Peoples’ Democracies cov-
&red by the survey never before
dreamed possible.

af 4 the provision and extension |
. ealth and education services |

ie achievement’ of the Eastern |

& pean governments has been!
: Asiderable,” says the UN Sur-|
ey,
sae giving priority to the ex: |
The of medical schools at the
: Scene the authorities have,
en able to bring the ratio of |
aN Ts to population near to the,

is os Pean average, even in coun-
S Where the standard of medi-

ca :
Services was formerly very

}
1
!
)

by a Czechoslovakia the ratio is
Bo. nearly as high as in the
4 meveloped countries of West-
it sie and only in Poland is
Beate quite inadequate, mainly
ae use of the difficulties in mak-
i S00d in a few years the great
*S of doctors during the war.
thas he number of hospital beds
By een correspondingly expand-

Sabine main beneficiary from these
th advances has been so far
ae rial worker; in Czecho-
Overe and Eastern. Germany,
farms a members of cooperative
Sickness are now insured against
university doors have
“ned wide to talent.
fates wc have been published in
usual editions and sold at un-
theses. low prices, concerts and
srounds subsidized, and — sports
ten ded. and facilities greatly ex-
achic PaPs: the most characteristic
tion *Steotae in the field of educa-
Phiten ce os has been the ex-
deati of facilities for technical
FON
hoe number of pupils in
; Nical colleges is now twice
eer as before the war in
si Ht dada and Rumania and
Bulgaria, as great in Poland and :
industrigeety the number of
dergone workers who had un-
ing ey formal technical train-
11,000 | Se increased from a mere
Hlitereen oe, © 143,000 in 1952.”
infant 08S heen wiped out,
the ny Mortality greatly reduced,
increased» of university students
ave eae in the case of Pol-
War, —°2led compared with pre-

been

Bolan, .

ae si still has only 5.4 doctors
While + ae 210,000 inhabitants, and
War, is IS Is a ‘big increase on pre-
Nazi sir low, a reminder of the
tons Ollcy of exterminating doc-

a pier intellectuals.
Velopme apter on economic de-
Mie ents in the Soviet Union,
Urvey declares that “the

Cam .
Paign to plough up large

astern Europe was given by the United

Nations survey

and statistical columns of the

areas of virgin and unused land
in Central Asia and Siberia con-
stituted undoubtedly the most
important economic event of the
year.”

Marked improvements in the life
of the people are also recorded
here, with house building increas-
ing by 45 percent. between 1950
and 1953; more shops, schools
and other’ communal buildings
erected in 1954 than in previous
years and 20 percent more hos-
pitals too by 1954 than there were
in 1950.

The infant mortality rate in the
Soviet Union at 48 per 1,000 births
is now one-third of the 1940 level,
while the average expectation of
life is now over 60 years compar-
ed with a prewar League of Na-
tions calculation of 48 years.

The survey reports an increase
of 22 percent in European NBast-
West trade in the first nine months
of 1954 compared with 1953.

As for future prospects, says the
survey, the outcome depends in
large part on West European
countries and the next 12 months
may well be crucial for East-West
trade.

Scientists warn of

SAN FRANCISCO

“Fall-out adds a new dimension
to war,’ wrote Dr. Ralph E. Lapp,
noted physicist who worked on
the original atomic bomb, in ths
February Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists.

In fact, this is a dimension that
is added, even without war, when
atomic or hydrogen bombs are ex-
ploded in tests.

This fact was dramatically call-
ed to world attention last week
by the Federation of American
Scientists, which warned of the
danger from fallout from atomic
tests and called for United Na-
tions action to curb such’ tests.

Chinese sign world peace apped!

The new-type H-bomb  explod-
ed in the Pacific on March 1, 1954,
Lapp. points out, can contamin-
ate an area up to 300 square miles.

Another important effect of fall-
out, only beginning to be grasped
by scientists, was emphasized by
Dr. M. Stanley Livingston, Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology
professor, in releasing the federa-
tion’s demand for UN action.

Dr. Livingston pointed to “the
possibility- of long-term damage to
the human race through a general,
worldwide increase of the atmos-
phere.”

He said that atomic tests “will
ultimately reach a level which can

war, since the drive was first |

aunched on February 14.

radioactive fallout

be shown to be a serious threat
to the genetic safety of all people
of the world.”

_ In Denver, this week, two scien-
tists at the University of Colorado,
Dr. Ray R. Lanier, head of the
radiology’ department, and Dr.
Theodore Puck, head of the bio-
physics department, warned in a
joint statement that- radioactive
fallout from the Nevada nuclear
tests had reached a point in Color-
ado where it could no longer be
ignored.

Governor Edwin C. Johnson’s
only reaction was to term their
statement “phoney” and comment
that they “should be arrested.”

Millions of Chinese have already signed the World Peace Council’s appeal against nuclean
Delegates attending the Second Trade
Union Congress are pictured above adding their names to the same appeal which is now being circulat-
ed across Canada and all other countries.

How far apart are they on control?

USSR, U.S. stands on nuclear weapons

Can atomic bombs be banned
and the armaments burden upon
the world’s peoples be eased?

That’s the question occupying
a five-power conference in London.
Since the conference is being held
behind closed doors under a strict
veil of secrecy, there has been no
news of its progress.

A clue to what is going on,
however, was afforded by state-
ments made on the eve of the
sessions, indicating U.S. and Soviet
approaches to disarmament.

Aside from the U.S. and Soviet
Union, other conferees are Britain,
France and Canada. ‘These five
states constitute a sub-committee
of the United Nations Disarma-
ment Commission, and their ses-
sion is pursuant to a UN resolu-
tion.

On the eve of his departure for
the London disarmament confer-
ence U.S. Delegate Henry Cabot
Lodge Jr. declared: “We enter
these discussions confident of our
military: strength.” :

Lodge’s statement was also dis-
tinguished by the following points:
@ “The worst stumbling block

(to disarmament) has _ not
been technical problems — it
has been, and still is, the
distrust which the free world
necessarily feels for Commun-
ist imperialism.”

“Any real disarmament plan

must cover all the big coun-

tries and all kinds of arms —
including both nuclear weap-
ons and other weapons. A man
killed by a rifle shot is just as
dead as if he had been killed
by a bomb.”

@ “The plan must also include

a foolproof system of inspec- |

tion.”

The Soviet government, on the
eve of the talks, issued a declara-
tion proposing that all nations
assume the following obligations:
@ “To destroy entirely their

present stock of atomic and
hydrogen weapons, and to use
the atomic materials for peace-
ful purposes exclusively.

“Not to increase the size of

the armed forces and their
armaments above the level of
January 1, 1955, and also not to
increase their appropriations
for war purposes above the
level of 1955 budget alloca-
tions.”

The Soviet statement also had
made the following points:
@ The conference was not rep-
resentative in that four out
of five conferees were allied in
the North Atlantic Treaty Org-
anization, and Asia is totally
unrepresented. The Soviet gov-
ernment - proposed therefore
that China, Czechoslovakia and

India be added.

@ An _ immediate renunciation
by all nations for the use of

atomic weapons .“would great-
| ly facilitate their. reaching an |
| agreement on the full and un-
| conditional prohibition of such
| weapons.” . :
| Washington arguments

against |
the Soviet proposals were sum-|
| marized in a special New York,
‘Times feature, the tone of which.

Communists lose
seats in India

: DELHI |

Final results in the Andhra state |
elections in India give the United
| Congress Front 146 seats against
15 Communists, 13 Praja Social-
ists and 22 Independents.

The Congress party, principal
members of the coalition front,
won 119 seats. An absolute ma-
jority is 117. The Communists
had 40 seats in the old assembly.

Commenting on the election re-
sults, Ajoy Ghosh, secretary of the
Indian Communist party, said in
Delhi last week that it was an
urgent task “ito examine the fac-
tors that led to these serious re-
verses” and “draw the correct
Jessons from them.”

The “heavy defeats” in the gen-
eral elections in Andhra had come,
he said, as a “surprise and a

{
‘
'

j
|
i
|
;

is expressed in its headline: “Dis-

armament
Bright.”

The arguments were:
é

@. Freeze armaments as of Jan:
1, 1955. No, says the Times.

“Such a freeze . . . would pre-

vent the armament of Japan

and. more particularly, West

Germany.” The Times explain-

ed, “Of course, it is unaccept-

able to both the United States
and Britain.”
@ Prohibition of atomic weap-
ons and destruction of all
existing stockpiles of such
weapons? No, says the Times.

lt advanced two reasons: (1)

“This would deprive the West

of its principal weapon while

leaving intact Soviet prepon-

derance in other fields,” and (2)

“since the United States appar-

ently still has a quantitative

lead, the generals on our side
think that if war should come
we would have to use them

(atomic weapons) to overcome

the almost unlimited manpower

of the Soviet Union and Com-
munist China.”

The argument seemed to be
that if you limit conventional
arms that’s bad because it would
preclude rearmament of West
Germany; and if you don’t limit
conventional arms, you can’t ban

Outlook It Far From

, shock.”

the H-bomb.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MARCH 18, 1955 — PAGE 3