The tumult and the shouting about the Bikini atomic bomb explosions have died down and the time has come for serious thinking about the net results and their implications, national and international.

To evaluate the two tests in Bikini Lagoon it is not enough to determine the effects of the atomic bomb on naval vessels of various types artificially placed at varying distances from the center of the explosion.

Scientists and others closely connected with the development of the bomb, who know its potentialities for wholesale destruction and who devoted their energies during the last year to arouse public awareness of the danger confronting civilization, consider it of vastly greater importance to gauge the effect of the Bikini tests on the change of attitude of the public toward the greatest problem facing mankind today.

Considered from this point of view, the Bikini tests add up to a tragedy of errors for which the world may pay a heavy price unless measures are taken in time to counteract them.

On returning from Bikini, one is amazed to find the profound change in the public attitude toward the problem of the atomic bomb.

Before Bikini the world stood in awe of this new cosmic force which, concentrated in one rather small package, could destroy a large city, kill and maim hundreds of thousands and bring the surrender of an army of 5,000,000 men without the firing of a shot.

Facts Given to Truman

Since Bikini this feeling of awe has largely evaporated and has been supplanted by a sense of relief unrelated to the grim reality of the situation. Having lived with a nightmare for nearly a year, the average citizen is now only too glad to grasp at the flimsiest means that would enable him to regain his peace of mind.

He had expected one bomb to sink the entire Bikini fleet, kill all the animals aboard, make a hole in the bottom of the ocean and create tidal waves that would be felt for thousands of miles. He had even been told that every one participating in the test would die.

Since none of these happened, he is only too eager to conclude that the atomic bomb is, after all, just another weapon. As such it is a problem concerning only the military and nothing for the average citizen to be worried about. Or so the average citizen feels.

How far from reality is such an attitude is revealed by the two reports submitted to President Truman by his two evaluation boards. Nevertheless, it is doubtful that these reports will be sufficient to undo the damage. This factor in itself may far outweigh whatever gains may have been derived from the Bikini tests.

If there is anything the world needs much more than further Bikini tests, it is a reawakening of its consciousness to the fact that the atomic bomb is not just another weapon against which our military minds will find a defense, but the greatest cataclysmic force ever released on earth. Unless some means are found for its control, it will inevitably lead to the destruction of civilization.

Despite the unanimous warnings of the leading scientists who developed the bomb and know its potentialities, this appalling fact had not yet been fully impressed on the minds and hearts of the peoples of the world when the Bikini tests were made. Nor judging by their remarks, had this been fully grasped by the representatives of some of the world’s leading nations.

The Bikini tests diverted, at least temporarily, the world’s attention from the greatest danger that had ever faced it.

What the reports by the President’s evaluation boards did not emphasize is that future wars will employ not atomic bombs singly but by hundreds and thousands.

Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, under whose direction the bomb was developed at Los Alamos, N. M., has testified that in the not too distant future atomic bombs will be easy to make and will cost no “more than $1,000,000 each. There is enough uranium and thorium in the earth’s crust to manufacture them by the thousands, once adequate plants have been built.”

While the secret of their manufacture is possessed largely by us, it will take only a relatively short time, five to ten years, before other nations will have it.

The Bikini tests have yielded another lesson of utmost significance to our strategists that is not touched on in the reports to the President. Watching the cloud of death that spread over the Bikini fleet, this observer considered it obvious that amphibious invasions such as that in North Africa, Italy and Normandy would become impossible against an enemy possessing atomic bombs.

A few atomic bombs exploded in the air and under water would not only sink all the invasion craft but also kill every man aboard them. Those who by miracle might escape the blast and heat would surely die by the invisible, all-penetrating radiation.

Had the Germans possessed an atomic bomb, they would not have had to wait until the invasion got under way. They could have destroyed all England before the invasion could be organized.

Another vital fact must be impressed on the public mind and on some of the world’s statesmen who still seem to think and talk in terms of pre-atomic diplomacy. The atomic bomb is not primarily a tactical weapon against navies or task forces spread out over several miles of ocean but the ideal terror weapon, to be used strategically for the wholesale destruction of cities, industries and populations.

In the case of an atomic war against the United States, an enemy could well afford to ignore the existence of our Navy at sea. Professor Oppenheimer has testified that a rain of atomic bombs could wipe out 40,000,000 of our population in one night.

Such an attack would destroy most of our vital industrial centers and the industries where the sinews of war are produced, including the shells for the Navy’s guns, torpedoes, electrical equipment and all the thousands of items of paraphernalia without which a modern navy could not exist. It would also destroy the harbors to which all ships must eventually return, the naval bases and the naval supply depots.

Deprived of these, ships at sea would be left completely helpless after their supplies of ammunition, food and fuel had been exhausted.

Enemy Gleans Data

Furthermore, the Bikini tests, while they have given us some lessons considered valuable, have furnished valuable lessons to a potential enemy. We have revealed to him, at great expense to ourselves, that one atomic bomb exploded in the air “does great harm to superstructures of major ships within a half-mile radius” and that “no ship within a mile could have escaped without some damage to itself and serious injury to a large number of its crew.”

We have further revealed to him that unprotected personnel within one mile of an air-burst atomic bomb would suffer high casualties by intense neutron and gamma radiation as well as by blast and heat, whereas the underwater explosion could sink a battleship well over 500 feet away, an aircraft carrier more than 1,000 feet away and another battleship about 1,500 feet away. (The distances of the last two are conservative estimates based on personal observation. Foreign naval observers no doubt made more accurate estimates.)

We have, moreover, informed him that in addition to doing great damage to hulls, the underwater explosion threw about 10,000,000 tons of highly radioactive water on the decks and into the hulls of vessels so that “the contaminated ships became radioactive stoves” that “would have burned all living things aboard them with invisible and painless but deadly radiation.”

With this information as a blueprint, an enemy would thus know how to use atomic bombs against a fleet in a harbor. He would know just how many bombs he would need and how to space them to destroy the harbor and the ships and all living things aboard them.

It must also be remembered that it is not likely that atomic bombs would be dropped from an airplane at high altitude or be surreptitiously planted below the surface. The development of the V-2 rocket makes it more probable that before long the long-range guided missile, hurtling at 5,000 miles an hour at altitudes of several miles, would be the choice method of dealing swift death to cities and populations.

These are the sober facts that the peoples and statesmen of the world must keep constantly in their minds. They must learn to heed the scientists’ warning that no defense against the atomic bomb is possible other than the elimination of war and the effective international control of atomic weapons.