• U.S.

THE ATOMIC AGE: No Progress

2 minute read
TIME

At Lake Success last week, forlornly huddled at one end of a vast committee room, the Atomic Energy Commission held its first meeting since September. It set up a control committee to go ahead with the ‘”majority plan” (the U.S. plan), blueprinting the structure and operations of an international control body, even down to financing. Russia’s Andrei Gromyko, the deadpan diplomat, did not vote against this project, but he scorned it. Since Russia’s current line is to do nothing and to blame the U.S. for the fact that nothing is done, Gromyko did not want people to get the idea that the AEC was gaining ground.

Any impression that progress is being made, he said, would be “a wrong one.” He added: “I do not consider that it would be in the interest of the peoples of our nations to create such a wrong impression.”

While the AEC stood still, military staffs and armchair strategists toyed (that seemed to be the word) with the possibilities of the atom. One current and quite plausible notion of how to keep the Red Army from seizing Europe: drop intensely poisonous atomic dust to form a barrier between the U.S.S.R. and the land to the west of it. Such a cordon might last for years; it would not, however, prevent the Russians from developing bacteriological weapons, possibly more deadly than the atom (see MEDICINE), which could be sent across the barrier.

The AEC is supposed to work out control of germ warfare, too. It will get around to that when & if the Russians ever agree to atomic control.

More Must-Reads from TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com