Word: thermonuclear
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Informed opinion is shifting more and more to the view that U.S. strategic planning lags dangerously behind atomic-thermonuclear development. Last week, speaking to a Tulsa business group, American Airlines' President Cyrus Rowlett Smith, an Army Air Forces major general in World War II, put the case for a radical change in defense policy. "Is it not sensible," asked Smith, "to question that adequate security can best be provided merely by numbers of men? Has the time not come to re-examine the old criterion-divisions, divisions, divisions-in light of the effectiveness of new weapons...
Should the U.S. build up an elaborate and expensive system of defense against atomic-thermonuclear attack, or can it rely on retaliatory striking power to deter attack? Last week two of the nation's most respected atomic scientists argued that deterrent power is necessary but not sufficient...
Speaking in Buffalo, Dr. Ralph E. Lapp, director of the Nuclear Science Service, blasted the deterrent theory as a doctrine of "peace through mutual terror." Instead of assuring peace, said Lapp, possession of retaliatory atomic-thermonuclear weapons by both sides will create an "utterly unstable" situation in which one side or the other might attempt to strike a devastating first blow. Therefore, the nation needs both "sword and shield." An effective defense system against atomic-thermonuclear attack is possible, Lapp insisted, "if we really give our scientists their heads." But would the U.S. public be willing...
Both to help deter aggression and to help avert defeat, Seitz calls for "a defensive net." But he warns that the nation must also be ready to strike with "the most fearsome of our weapons." In discussing the morality of employing atomic or thermonuclear weapons, Seitz indulges in none of the hand-wringing that scientists often display in the pages of the Bulletin. It would be immoral, he says, "not to restrain Soviet aggression by any means which will be effective...
...York's Representative W. Sterling Cole, chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy, countered that, by his information, the Russians had a thermonuclear bomb all ready for delivery. Cole, a conservative Republican, believes that the alarming extent of Russian atomic power must now outweigh all considerations of balancing the budget. "I don't find it hard." said Cole, "to choose between financial ruination for my country and atomic devastation." His recommendation: $10 billion more a year for air defense...