The Ditherers

The President's statement (see above) was occasioned by an outbreak of atomic dithering among some top Government officials.

On the one hand, Defense Mobilizer Arthur S. Flemming said flatly in his quarterly report: "Soviet Russia is capable of delivering the most destructive weapon ever devised by man on chosen targets in the U.S." But Secretary of Defense Wilson, at his press conference, cast doubt on a suggestion that the Russians had a thermonuclear bomb "in droppable form." He added: "It may be that within a year they could drop a bomb, but they couldn't wage a war."

Civil Defense Administrator Val Peterson assured the U.S. public that the Russians do not yet have a super-bomb--just a "thermonuclear device." But he later expressed his belief that war is inevitable, anyway. Said Peterson: "The weight of human nature and human experience runs contrary to the hope of a peaceful settlement."

New 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.

This week of confusion and contradiction, about a matter of such primary importance, put the Eisenhower Administration in its worst light to date. Only the President could halt the hand-wringing with an authoritative summary of the U.S.-Russian atomic position. He tried to prevent a repetition of it by ordering all Administration officials to clear all future statements on the subject with Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Lewis Strauss, who knows what he is talking about and who bears his awful responsibility without jittering.

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