Word: atomically
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...Russian bomb (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS) struck with vastly varying impact. In some places, it cut deep along taut nerves; in others, it slid smoothly off the backs of nations long numbed by constant danger. Nowhere did it provoke the apocalyptic shudders which had attended the world's first atomic explosions; in the Atomic Year V, men still dreaded the unchained atom, but they had gotten used to the idea that they must live with it. The question was, how? How would the Other Bomb affect the great struggle between Communism and the West? How would it weigh...
Russia stood to gain from her atom bomb if it scared Europe's people into clamoring for appeasement of Communism, but the West itself stood to gain more: a new clarity of common purpose. The atom bomb in Russian hands was something so ominously specific that it was almost certain to impel a brand of Western unity which otherwise might be years in the forging. Plain common peril might be translated into plain common courage. Moscow's atom-smashing made obsolete no major part of a political strategy that embraced the Atlantic pact, U.S. military aid to Europe...
...Next day, Assembly Chairman General Carlos P. Romulo of the Philippines, a neat, brisk figure always dressed in immaculate black, was presiding with proud relish when he got the news of the year. A U.S. correspondent passed him a note: "President Truman has just announced that Russia has the atom bomb. Amen." Trygve Lie, at Romulo's side, scribbled a quick reply: "If true, it makes the U.N. all the more indispensable." Then he sat back to await Andrei Vishinsky's scheduled address...
...buzzing tenseness following Washington's atom-bomb announcement, Vishinsky's speech lacked even the bang of an old-fashioned blockbuster. It was sparked with the standard vituperation. The peace-loving U.S.S.R., cried Vishinsky, was "ready to answer . . . blow for blow" any threats of "the black array of warmongers" in the West. He called on the Assembly to 1) condemn Anglo-American warmongers, 2) impose an "unconditional prohibition of atomic weapons and . . . rigid international control," and 3) call upon the Big Five to sign "a pact for the strengthening of peace...
...warn you: don't overplay this." Many newspapers gave the story no more play than the devaluation of the pound. (The equally restrained attitude of London's newspapers was summed up by one Fleet Streeter, who made the obvious crack: "Now they've devalued the atom.") The New York Post Home News omitted the usual front-page baseball scores, solemnly explained later: "Fateful as the Yankee defeat . . . might prove, we felt the juxtaposition of this news with President Truman's disclosure . . . might have been viewed as savage satire." Next day, many editorials were so determinedly unexcited...