~93reason to ask ourselves whether some significant use could not and should not be
made of it while it lasts.
The fact that this country is temporarily enjoying
absolute security from atomic attack means little because no major conflagration
was likely to occur so soon after the close of a world war anyway.
It is being asked whether the spectacular increase in our military power,
occurring at the very time when ticklish postwar problems are being thrashed out
between the Allies, should not be helping our diplomats to obtain results more
nearly in line with American views and principles.
Heevitence so far indicates
fe
that the atomic bomb has exerted no such influence. \Rather “than being a suitable
“yr
instrument through which to obtain concessions from the Russians, it may have been
an impediment to our diplomacy,
There are good reasons why this should be so.
Current negotiations with the Soviet Union bear on matters which from the view~
point of the American public are of secondary interest; they bear an NPar-away
regions," to use the words Neville Chamberlain applied to Czechoslovakia,
The
United States will not attack Russia with atom bombs over such issues as democracy
in Eastern Zurope or "autonomy movements" in Asia, and the Soviet leaders know it.
American and Pritish statesmen, as a matter of fact, have assured the Russians
that they do not have the remotest intention of using the bomb as a means of
diplomatic pressure , 07
In saying so, they are promising little.
It may be
praiseworthy of them not to want to swing the "biz stick," but it would not be
much of a stick if they did, All they could achieve would be to arouse resentment
and to vrovoke the Russians to more vigorous resistance to their desires.
The
mere suspicion on the part of the Russians that the imglish-speaicing statesmen
te Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin addressing the House of Commons stated, "I
have never once allowed myself to think that I could arrive at this or that
decision because Britain was in possession of the atomic bomb, or whether she was
not." Wew York Times, November 8, 195.
Secretary of State James F, Byrnes on November 16, 19)5: "The suggestion that
we are using the atomic bomb as a diplomatic or military threat against any
nation is not only untrue in fact but is a wholly unwarranted reflection upon
the American Government and people." New York Times, November 17, 1945.