Atoms for Peace

for Peace these words best express the fervent ATOMS hope of all mankind that the answer to the age-old problem of war and rumours of war be found before it is too late. The horrors of past wars give but small and totally inadequate indication of what another war would mean. Each of us knows that it would mean the death and maiming of millions, the obliteration of cities, the destruction even of the symbols and reminders of the art, the culture and the wisdom of the ages. This must not happen. But paradoxically, while all peoples of the world want peace, they find nevertheless that to obtain it requires every bit of energy and every particle of patience and wisdom. Certainly this is a time in the world's history when we should be thrilled to pay a heavy premium for creative thought. But again, paradoxically, we live in a world in which too frequently not a premium but a penalty is attached to creative thought. At the very time when no obstruction should be erected which would curb for one moment the free gushing of creative thought, we find great masses living under censorship, denied access to the ideas of their neighbours, forbidden to communicate, and regimented in their thinking. Such conditions breed misunderstanding and fear and these in turn resort to force. Viewing all this from our side of the iron curtain, we have, in our natural concern for the security of the West, thought it necessary to resort to measures which themselves at times have discouraged creative thought. Both scientists and non-scientists in the free world must at times have great difficulty in understanding the American approach to security in the atomic energy field. May I trace a few events which may lead to a better understanding of this approach

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