174 FOREIGN RELATIONS, 1950, VOLUME I

is atomic weapons. He suggested that the ultimate horror is not so
much death by this or that weapon but simply the fact of a conflict
for survival. Dr. Oppenheimer replied that such a formula left out
the important element of the good opinion of mankind. He said that
we must believe in ourselves without talking about it so much.

Mr. Lay said that on the subject of international control our plan,
as he understood it, is not simply designed to stop production of atomic
weapons but also to open up the iron curtain. That is one of the ways
we are trying to do it, and he asked if there were others. Dr. Oppen-
heimer said that while it may have been a visionary but certainly an
interesting hope in 1945, there is no chance today. Our present position
is very hard to maintain and we have no bargaining point[s] left. He
said further that one of the important questions on this general sub-
ject was that, given a desire on the part of the Russians to get rid of
the atomic weapon, under what conditions would it also be in our inter-
est to do so? Mr. Nitze said that another of the pertinent questions is,
who controls the controllers? He pointed out that if the European
land-mass came under Communist control, we should no longer have
a free majority to constitute the control: body; and in order to avoid
that, we must have, in the last analysis, freedom of movement and
thought. In response to Mr. Arneson’s question as to the tolerable
limits of freedom of movement, Dr. Oppenheimer said that this ob-
viously required more study but that it seemed to him to have been
thought of to date only in terms of absolute security. Mr. Arneson
suggested that in the last analysis we may find that we have to drive
out the rulers of the Kremlin completely. Mr. Nitze suggested that
ours should be a search fora reasonable gamble and pointed out that
the eight points mentioned in VIII of our paper obviously : amounted
to less than our ultimate obj ective.

Mr. Halaby asked if Dr. Oppenheimer had any explanation for
what. appeared to be a sort of delayed catharsis in the public’ s mind
‘between September and January both in this country and in Europe,
to which the latter replied that at first glance the people might have
‘seen it as a situation calling for no particular action and in any case
no particular action occurred to them. He also added that the an-
nouncements were pomaded with statements that this new develop-
ment really didn’t mean very much.

Dr. Oppenheimer suggested tentatively that the Soviets: 3 might be
planting information with us to give a false impression of their
strength, and Mr. LeBaron and General Landon said that they did
not agree that our estimates were overly pessimistic or based on false
information. |