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My open letters to the candidates called attention—in necessarily guarded fashion, owing to security regulations—to the possibility of revolutionary new weapons. Doubt has been publicly cast on the military value of these new weapons by Dr. David R. Inglis, past Chairman of the Federation of American Scientists. He could readily clear up his doubt by reference to the official request of the armed services—the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force—for a study, on an urgent basis, of such weapons.
I must also advert to the charge of "irresponsibility" made against me by Dr. Jerome B. Wiesner, member of the President's Science Advisory Committee. His position apparently is that all discussion of new possibilities in nuclear technology is "irresponsible" and "scare" talk. From a nuclear scientist who must know that nuclear technology is in its infancy and that its possibilities are almost endless this statement is incomprehensible. He further maintains that nothing must "inhibit the government" in its endeavor to reach an agreement with the Soviet Union on the cessation of nuclear tests. He apparently shares the current obsession, prevalent in a sector of the scientific community and unfortunately communicated to the government, that a treaty to end nuclear tests is somehow inevitably the beginning of disarmament and a guarantee of peace. This is nonsense. For my part I maintain that nothing should inhibit the government in providing for the nuclear progress of the U.S. in the interests of military security. If we can think of nothing in the field of arms control about which to negotiate except a ban on nuclear tests we are indeed at the end of our political and diplomatic rope.
THOMAS E. MURRAY New York City
¶Reader Murray, former member of the AEC (1950-57) is special consultant to the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy.—ED.