THE NOME NUGGET
Published Monday, Wednesday and Friday by the
NOME PUBLISHING CO.
NOME, ALASKA
Telephone: Main 125 P. O. Box 618
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W. A. Boucher . .•.Owner-Publisher
Emily Boucher ..Local Editor
Jim Frye . Editor
Entered as second class ma4ter Ocfober 14, 1943, at he postoffice
at Nome, Alaska, under the Act of March 3 1879.
Nome, Alaska, Monday, October 18, 1948
(ALASKA DAY)
THE QUICK, THE DEAD AND MR. VISHINSKY
(By Palmer Hoyt)
The Russians are so devious—and so obvious. After
more than two years of bullheaded insistence upon their
own formula for atomic disarmament, they have not of
fered a “compromise.”
But their new offer is nothing more than a transoar
ent device to divide the democratic nations, which on
this transcendant question are now solidly aligned
against them.
Since 1946, the Soviets have monotonously reiterated
their Gromyko plan. The United States, they insisted,
should destroy its stockpile of atomic bombs immedi
ately. Then, after the U. S. “imperalists” presumably
were reduced to a state of atomic impotence, the world
would talk about a “treaty” for the control of mass-de
struction weapons. In their new “compromise” offer,
they now suggest that these two matters be agreed upon
simultaneously.
“Control,” like so many words in the Soviet diction
ary, however, has a different meaning than in our plain
language of democracy. To the Russians, it does not in
volve the three essential atomic safeguards demanded
by the United States and supported by the rest of the
non-Soviet world.
These safeguards are, first, an international monop
oly of fissionable materials and of all potentially dan
gerous atomic processes; second, a “foolproof” system
of inspection; and, third, as Bernard Baruch declared in
presenting the original American plan in June, 1946,
“There must be no veto to protect those who violate
their solemn agreements not to develop or use atomic
energy for destructive purposes.”
When the Russians are willing to come around on
these points—which, incidentally, invojve a degree of
international “socialism” beyond anything Karl Marx
dreamed of—then we shall at last be readv to control
the atom. Until then, so-called “compromises” will be
merely smoke-screens to hide Russia’s continuing, re
fusal to get down to fundamentals.
We need not and will not be frightened by the red
faced fulminations of Mr. Vishinskv with his assertions
that Russia has already broken the U. S. atomic monop
oly. He sounded for all the world like a boastful school
child’s “My dad can lick your dad.”
As the able British delegate, Hector McNeil, told the
United Nations, “We don’t know whether Russia has
th ebomb or not... On the other hand, everyone knows
the United States has the bomb. And, equally, everyone
knows she is willing to make her information available
for international control, provided she obtains by agree
ment reciprocity from other nations regarding interna
tional control and inspection.”
The world is still confronted with what wise old Bar
ney Baruch called “a choice between the quick and the
dead.” The failure to reach an agreement will, if pur
sued, lead to destructive arms race and to the ultimate
danger of an atomic war which could destroy our civil
ization.
But the Russians have limited our field of choice. If
the alternatives are an arms race in which the demo
cratic world holds a tremendous lead in atomic science
and technology or an unsafeguarded treaty which could
be no more than a piece of paper, then our decision is
plain. We must choose the former.
Once again the United Nations has stumbled upon a
problem which it can do no more than assess Russian
indictment grows longer.
TRYING TO TELL WHICH WAY THE WIND PLOWS
■HR
RIGHT MAN ON THE JOB
(Rocky Mountain News)
Paul G. Hoffman, the foreign aid administrator, has
told a delegation of Southern Congressmen and tobacco
growers that he will not use the European recovery pro
gram to “distort” trade among nations abroad for the
benefit of American producers.
The delegation complained that European countries,
by buying tobacco from Greece, Turkey and Rhodesia,
are cutting the export market for American tobacco. It
wanted Mr. Hoffman to do something about that. It ar
gued that Congress, when it passed the European Re
covery Act, intended that American products should be
protected against development of unfavorable foreign
trade patterns. •
Mr. Hoffman flatly rejected this argument. He said
that he will not attempt to prevent European countries
from using their own currencies to buy tobacco and
other commodities wherever they choose. He added:
“I’m sorry, gentlemen, if you don’t like it, but that’s
where I stand. I don’t believe that American industry
and agriculture are entitled to a subsidy under this pro
gram. If that was the intent of the law, then I don’t be
i long down here.”
Mr. Hoffman is a successful American industrialist.
He has proved his deep concern for maintaining pros
perity in the United States. And by his statement to the
tobacco growers and their congressmen, we think, he has
proved again that he belongs right where he is as ad
ministrator of ERP.
For, as he said, “The most important thing on earth is
to keep the free nations united.” That calls both for
American prosperity and European recovery. And Eu
I ropean recovery depends largely upon increasing trade
i among European nations in European products.
TYPICAL ICKICAL
“In good time,’’ to use his own words, Harold Ickes
will issue a statement telling how he stands on Truman
for 1948.
'This from Ickes after a 15-minute call on the Presi
dent which indicated what the longword boys described
as a rapprochement, Ickes having been pretty bitter
toward Mr. Truman since he left the cabinet.
We doubt whether his delayed fuse, when it finally
ignites, will blow the top off the Presidential campaign.
It will take more than Mr. Ickes’ customarily high ap
praisal of his own importance to determine who will be
our next occupant of the White House.
But, may we observe, the publicity play by Mr. Ickes
was certainly characteristic.
REINFORCED SILENCE
Ten Russians—Instead of the usual four—sat behind
Vishinsky as he maintained complete silence through
the Security Council hearing on the Berlin blockade.
(Apparently it’s taking more manpower for the Rus
Federation?
Agreed!
(By Barnet Nover)
In his recent Salt Lake City ad
dress, Gov. Thomas E. Dewey
spoke earnestly and feelingly of
the need of “a great European fed
era ion,” “whose formation,” he
said, “must be a major objective
of our American foreign policy.”
The governor went even fur
ther. Praising the European recov
ery program as a ‘‘great adven
1 ture,” he argued that the ERP be
used not only as an instrument to
help restore the shattered econo
mic systems of the participating
nations but also as a “menas for
pushing, prodding and encourag
; ing” them toward the federation
goal.
. rWith all this few Americans, be
I they Republicans or Democrats,
' will quarrel.
The need of such a federation—
at the moment more particularly
of a federation of west European
nations—has never been more ap
parent.
The disunity that continues to
plague Europe retards their econo
mic recovery and is a major fac
tor behind their military weak
ness.
It is fair to recognize that the
nations of western Europe have in
creasingly recognized the urgent
need of unity among them and
have taken at least the first steps
in that direction.
At any other time but this, in
fact, we would have reason to be
i encouraged by the progress al
ready made. The creation of the
Belgium-Netherlands-Luxembourg
customs union, the moves made in
i
1 the direction of a similar arrange
ment between France and Italy
and the formation of the West Eu
ropean Union, consisting of Great
Britain, France and the Benelux
(Countries, are all constructive de
velopments pointing toward the
goal envisaged by Governor
Dewey.
The same is true of the setting
up of a five-power military high
command by the western union
bloc, with Viscount Field Mar
shal Montgomery at its head.
It took sixjnonths for the latter
arrangement to come into being.
Many more months are, under the
best of circumstances, likely to go
by before the military power of
the western union can begin to
weigh in the scales.
Even then, that may require not
only a vast outlay of funds and
productive resources which those
I nations badly need to achieve
| their economic recovery but also
j help from us.
j So far Washington has been si
lent on the subject of extending
military aid, i. e., peace time lend
! lease, to nations whom we regard
as potential allies in the event of
another clash. Nor, in his Salt Lake
City speech, did Governor Dewey
touch upon this aspect of the de
veloping situation. Yet we cannot
delay much longer grappling with
this issu.e
In the meantime, the dispute
between the British and the
French over the question of lead
ership of the western union's mili
tary defense organisation a dis
pute patched up but not settled
by .the arrangement finally agreed
on, shows how enormously compli
cated the problem of military co
operation between this country
and its potential allies in Europe
is likely to be.
When Montgomery was named
head of the defense organization,
the French protested strenuously
on the ground that it foreshadow
ed mnVinp O^nt rather