The hell bomb

by William L. Laurence

It has become customary to think of the A-bomb, and now of the H-bomb, as purely strategic weapons for destroying industrial centers producing war materials, thus depriving the armies at the front of the vital sinews of war. It is also regarded as a weapon of superterror to bring a nation to its knees, as the A-bomb did in Japan. Since industrial centers, particularly in the United States, are densely populated areas, and since, conversely, all large cities are also important industrial centers, it has become almost axiomatic that the A-bomb and the H-bomb could be used only in strategic bombing of large centers of population, which, of course, means the wholesale slaughter of millions of civilians and the wiping out of cities with populations of more than 200,000.

But to think along such lines would be thinking of World War III, which we must do our utmost to prevent, in terms of World War II, which would be just as fatal as thinking in terms of World War I was to the French in World War II. For even a cursory examination of the situation should reveal that strategic bombing of cities may, and very likely would be, as obsolete in the next war as trench warfare was in the last. One does not have to be a military expert to know the reason why. In the last war strategic bombing was resorted to in order to deprive the army at the front of weapons and supplies. Obviously, if you had a superweapon that could wipe out an entire army in the field or on the march at one blow, there would be no further need of depriving an army that was no longer in being.

That is exactly what the non-rigged H-bomb is. As a blast weapon, we have seen, it can cause total destruction of everything within an area of more than 300 square miles. As an incinerator it would severely burn everything within an area of more than 1,200 square miles. It is thus the tactical weapon par excellence. No army in the field or on the march could stand up against it. Had we possessed it at the Battle of the Bulge, just one could have wiped out the entire Bulge. If the Nazis had had it before D-Day, one would have been enough to wipe out our entire invasion army even before it landed; or they could have waited and wiped out our entire Normandy beachhead. In a word, the non-rigged H-bomb has produced a major revolution in tactics and strategy. It has made strategic bombing of cities as obsolete as the trench of World War I, except as a weapon of pure terror and wanton wholesale destruction of life and property. It would be absolutely useless to the victor as well as to the vanquished, as the victor would have no spoils of victory left and would have to rebuild what he had needlessly destroyed.

Viewed in this light, the non-rigged H-bomb, just because it is the weapon for the annihilation of armies, becomes vis-à-vis Russia, the greatest deterrent against war that could possibly be devised in the present state of affairs. For, after all, the only great advantage Russia has over us today is her land army and her great reserve of manpower. The non-rigged H-bomb, supported by a large and up-to-date air force capable of delivering it either by air or from a seized airhead behind the lines, could nullify that advantage in a few hours. At least the threat of such a possibility will always be there. It is therefore doubtful, to say the least, that any group of men would willingly take such a risk.

Since the greatest and most effective use of the non-rigged H-bomb would thus be as a tactical weapon against armies in the field, while its strategic use against civilian populations would be simple wanton destruction from the point of view of both victor and vanquished, then not only morality and Christian civilization but plain common sense would dictate the wisdom of our solemnly declaring right now that we will never be the first to use either the non-rigged H-bomb or even the A-bomb against civilian populations, and that the only circumstance that would compel us to use them so would be in retaliation for their use against us or our allies. In fact, we could renounce strategic bombing altogether. By doing so we would gain one of the greatest moral victories, for then if Russia failed to make a similar declaration, as she most likely would, she would stand before the world as a nation bent on wholesale slaughter of civilian populations. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain by such a declaration, and the sooner we make it the better.

Should we make such a declaration, it would place Russia in an embarrassing position indeed. For while as a tactical weapon the non-rigged H-bomb offers us great advantages as a counterforce to neutralize her huge army, she can use the H-bomb, both the rigged and the non-rigged, as a constant threat against our densely populated cities. As Senator Brien McMahon, of Connecticut, chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy, has warned, an H-bomb attack “might incinerate 50,000,000 Americans—not in the space of an evening but in the space of a few minutes.” We have eleven cities of one million or more inhabitants, whereas Russia has only three or four. We have forty cities of 200,000 and over, inhabited by 40,000,000, or 27 per cent of our population, whereas Russia has only twenty cities of 200,000 and over, inhabited by only 20,000,000, or 10 per cent of her population. Furthermore, her industries are now largely dispersed, whereas our industries are highly centralized. Russia would thus get much the worse of the bargain if she were to accept our challenge to renounce the use of strategic bombing, particularly that of the A- and H-bombs, while we still retain the right to use them in tactical bombing against her armies.

Suppose Russia in this dilemma, and recognizing the need to avoid the moral opprobrium of the peoples of the world that her refusal to meet our renunciation would entail, comes forth with a counterproposal to renounce the use of both A- and H-bombs altogether, as strategic as well as tactical weapons, thus exchanging the elimination of the threat of the annihilation of our teeming cities and industries, for the removal of the threat of destruction to her armies. Suppose that at the same time she repeats her demand, frequently voiced by her in the United Nations, that all stockpiles of A- and H-bombs be destroyed and a convention signed to outlaw their uses. The world already knows the answer, for we have already made it again and again.

Immediately after the close of the last war we declared our readiness to give up the A-bomb. In 1946, at a time when we were the sole possessor of the bomb, when we had every reason to believe that our monopoly would last for a number of years, we submitted a far-reaching plan for the international control of atomic energy, the most generous offer by far ever made by any nation in history. In this historic plan we not only declared our readiness to give up our stockpile of A-bombs and to agree to refrain from further production; we even offered to give up our sovereignty over our multibillion-dollar atomic plants to an international agency. We further agreed to submit to unhindered, free inspection by such an agency to assure the world, and Russia in particular, that we were not manufacturing A-bombs, or A-bomb materials, in secret. No nation in history had ever gone so far in its desire to show its goodwill and its peaceful intentions as to make a voluntary offer to surrender the world’s most powerful weapon of war, and an important part of its sovereignty to boot. The offer still stands. It has been enthusiastically endorsed by all the members of the United Nations except Russia and her satellites. After three years of futile negotiations and discussions Russia still insists that she would not surrender any part of her sovereignty or submit to the only kind of inspection that could assure the world against clandestine production of atomic bombs and materials.

Hence, should Russia demand that we renounce the right to use the A- and H-bombs not only as strategic but also as tactical weapons against her armies in exchange for a similar offer on her part, it would on the face of it be a mere repetition of her earlier efforts to trick us into giving up our greatest weapons while she remained free to produce them in secret, since she insists upon her right to retain ownership of the atomic plants and materials and upon the inspection of only those plants she acknowledges to exist, thus making it impossible to find plants whose existence she does not admit. To accept such an offer would be tantamount to surrender, since our giving up the right to use the H-bomb as a tactical weapon against her armies would leave her free to march into the countries of western Europe. It would then be too late to stop her, for we could not drop the H-bomb on the cities of western Europe. The only time to stop Russia’s armies is before they cross into the territory of our allies, during the crucial period when they are mobilized in large numbers and on the march.

The American people, and the other free peoples of the world, could not agree to such a scheme to disarm them in advance and thus give the masters of the Kremlin a free hand. To do so would not prevent war, it would encourage it. It would not even delay it, it would hasten it. Instead of being preventable, it would become inevitable. We wouldn’t even save our cities from the fate of strategic bombing with A- and H-bombs, since the Kremlin has never kept its promises when they did not suit its purposes. When we had lost our greatest chance to wipe out her armies in one mighty blow, Russia would be in a position to trade our industries and cities for her dispersed and still primitive industrial plants and cities. If at that stage she should offer us, as well as our neighbors to the south and Britain and her Dominions, independence and complete sovereignty, while she assumed hegemony over all of Europe and Asia, could we then refuse, at the risk of the lives of our millions? Supposing the nations of western Europe, overrun by the Red Army, become “people’s democracies,” Russian style, would we risk our millions to liberate nations whose governments would by then have joined the ranks of our enemy?