Pope Condemns Atom Arms Race

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28261, 26 April 1957, Page 11

Pope Condemns Atom Arms Race

(Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON, April 24. The Pope has urged that the leaders of all nations and faiths should turn nuclear energy to the service of man instead of pursuing “a terrifying and costly race towards death.”

He did so in a Note to Japan’s special antinuclear test envoy, Mr Masatoshi Matsushita, whom he received at the Vatican 10 days ago.

The Pope said: “The wise men » of all nations and all faiths must feel the grave moral obligation to pursue the noble aim of mastering ■ these energies in the service of man, instead of this useless waste : of scientific research, of work and • material resources represented by ; the preparation of such a catastrophe—those ultimate biological, especially hereditary, effects on the living species, apart from the immense immediate harm, nobody ; could predict with certainty—and instead of this terrifying and costly race towards death. “Man’s growing mastery of the ; terrifying forces of nature causes new and insistent anxiety. In effect, the destructive power of nuclear weapons has become un- ■ limited. It is no longer braked by the critical mass, which put a natural limit on the already terrible power of the first atomic weapons. “Now this unlimited power is being used as a threat which, shifted from one field to another, is becoming ever more catastrophic, because everybody seeks to surpass the other with the growing and unfortunately real terror,” the Pope said. “In the case of natural disasters one cannot but bow before what happens at the command of the Almighty. But if disaster were to be caused by one man’s perverse lust for dominion—with all the reprisals implied in it —how could such action not be condemned by every righteous soul?” Dr. Schweitzer’s Appeal The appeal yesterday by the Nobel peace prize winner. Dr. Albert Schweitzer, for an end to nuclear tests was welcomed in Bonn today by Professor Otto Hahn, himself a Nobel prize winner and one of the 18 leading West German scientists who have declared that they will not work on atomic weapons. “We hope that the respect which Dr. Schweitzer commands will succeed in bringing mankind to reason,” Professor Hahn said. Norwegian newspapers gave prominence to Dr. Schweitzer’s message, and their leading articles welcomed it. In Japan the Council for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons announced that copies of Dr. Schweitzer’s appeal would be sent into every village and hamlet in the country. Ban on Broadcast The French State-controlled radio banned a broadcast last night by the Nobel prize-winner French physicist, Professor Frederic Joliot-Curie, calling for an end to hydrogen bomb tests. A spokesman for the radio said the ban was imposed because Professor Joliot-Curie had planned to use a scientific programme for political ends. He said the programme, which had earlier been approved, was banned just as it was about to go on the air because Professor Joliot-Curie had released its text to the press before the broadcast. The spokesman added that Professor Joliot-Curie, who was dismissed from his post as French High Commissioner for Atomic

Energy in 1950 when he sponsored the Stockholm appeal to ban the atom boipb, “seemed to be trying to launch another Stockholm appeal” Professor Joliot-Curie said in his text thait radioactive elements in the atmosphere would poison food and cause outbreaks of cancer if H-bomb tests were not halted. A “wind of madness” was forcing nations to join in an atomic arms race.