Atomic bomb international control

A. Let me remind you of the names of General Johnson and Bernard Baruch. This is the same Baruch who is now working on the international control of the atom bomb and is making proposals in that connection. 

The idea of bringing a country to its knees by inducing wholesale starvation was not original. The British, for example, had used a naval blockade against the Germans in the First World War with just such an intention. But, as the authors of the post-war paper pointed out, here was a weapon which would be more speedy than blockade and less repugnant than the atomic bomb . They also foresaw ... their possible use for the purposes of internal security within the Empire, e.g. for the destruction of food supplies of dissident tribes in order to control an area. ., 67... 

He went on to the United States, where until 1945 he worked with other physicists on the atomic bomb development at Los Alamos, New Mexico. His insistence on sharing the secret of the atomic bomb with other allies, to permit international control over nuclear energy, so angered Winston Churchill that he had to be restrained from ordering Bohr s arrest. Bohr worked hard and long on behalf of the development and use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes. For his efforts, he was awarded the first Atoms for Peace Prize in 1957. He died in Copenhagen on November 18,1962. 

Sdentists at the Metallurgical Laboratory issue the Franck Report, advocating international control of atomic research and proposing a demonstration of the atomic bomb prior to its combat use. 

J. Robert Oppenheimer, who headed the Manhattan Project that produced the atomic bomb, was later denied security clearance when he lobbied for international control of atomic energy and openly opposed the further development of nuclear weapons and the dangers he saw lining that path. 

The third comment concerns external radiation from direct exposure to the fallout. It was obviously difficult to find a control population. A few subjects were found who could serve as control for this part of the survey, because they had not been exposed to external radiation, living behind a mountain which protected them. The results showed clearly that the prevalence of nodular goiter was 5-fold higher in subjects who had been exposed to external radiation than in the control population. The dose calculated was at a maximum of 20-40 Rads. Unfortunately, it was not possible to assess what the potential role of accompanying internal radiation might have been, since this was not available at that time. The important conclusion is that 40 years after the atomic bombs, a significant increase in thyroid nodular disease was clearly evident. 

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