Linus Pauling: We have had one principle reason for hope during the last three years, the negotiations
for a bomb test agreement being carried out in Geneva, and now there is a great effort
being made by the forces of militarism in the United States to break off the negotiations
in Geneva and to start up bomb tests again.
The greatest foe of the peace movement and the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy
is Senator Thomas J. Dodd. He, in his speech on the 12th of May 1960, urged that we
stop trying to make an international agreement to stop the testing of all nuclear
weapons, that the United States immediately resume the testing of nuclear weapons,
and now he is ballyhooing what he calls a neutron bomb. This is a great fraud. Senator
Dodd said "If the Soviets were to get it first, it might well cost us our freedom.
If the day should ever come when the Kremlin forces a showdown crisis over Berlin
and then demonstrates its posession of the neutron bomb, we would find ourselves confronted
with the choice of capitulation in Europe or all-out nuclear war." Representative
Craig Hosmer of California two days ago joined with him in supporting the neutron
bomb and urging that we resume bomb tests in order to develop the neutron bomb.
This is pure poppycock! The neutron bomb is a fraud, a hoax, and nothing more. The
neutron bomb is a superbomb such as we have, a 20-megaton bomb, but with something
removed. The 20-megaton bomb kills people and damages structures by the blastfire
and the immediate radiation effects and local radioactive fallout, which is the the
most imporant of all of them. The so-called "clean bomb" was a fraud -- it damages
people also by blastfire and immediate radiation effects but without the fallout.
Because of that, although we and the Russians know how to make these so-called "clean
bombs" or nearly clean bombs, they are not stock-piled, the generals are not interested
in them.
The neutron bomb would not have blast or fire or fallout, but only immediate radiation
effects. It would be something like having a bow and arrow in combat with someone
with a machine gun. It is absolute nonsense. You know, if Senator Dodd knew enough
about science to make any statement about nuclear weapons on his own authority, I
would just say that this was a deliberate lie. As it is, I ask who is it who is duping
Senator Dodd or subverting him to fight to work against peace and for war in this
way.
