\ 38° sorts of contingencies would have to be provided for. Moreover, nations wiil be eager to make whatever political capital (in the narrovest sense of the term) can be made out of superiority in numbers, But it nevertheless remains true that superiority in numbers of bombs does not endow its possesor with the kind of military security a: i esulte toe and air forces, . VI. oe on ele Aare Coe, from su persorsty in armies, navies, a , 4 tye etx Pe ft BRheaie Nate. a he Ld tea An, \ A A aD 2 The new potentialities which the atomic bomb gives to sabotage, must not be overrated, With ordinary explosives it was hitherto physically impossible for agents to smuggle into another country, either prior to or during hostilities, a sufficient quantity of materials to blow up more than a very few specially chosen objectives. The possibility of really serious damage to a great power resulting from such enterprises was practically nil. A wholly new situation arises, howe ever, where such materials as U-235 or Pu-239 are employed, for only a few pounds of either substance is sufficient, when used in appropriate engines, to blow up the major part of a large city. Should those possibilities be developed, an extraordinarily high premium will be attached to national competence in sabotage on the one hand and in cowter-sabotage on the other. The F,B.I. or its counter~ part would become the first line of national defense, and the encroachment on civil liberties which would necessarily follow would far exceed in magnitude and pervasiveness anything which democracies have thus far tolerated in peace- time, | However, it would be easy to exacgerate the threat inherent in that situa- tion, at least for the present, 26. Henry D. Smyth, From various hints contained in the Smyth Report 26 Atomic inergy for Wlitary Purposes» The Official Report on the Development of the Atomic Bomb under the Auspices of the United States . Government, 1940-1915 Frinceton University Press, paragraphs 12,9-12.22, tf