761.5611/10–651: Telegram
The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Cumming) to the Secretary of State
594. Fol are Emb’s preliminary first thoughts on Stalin Pravda interview re atomic explosion.1
Interview is strong aggressive statement directed particularly to US with clearest statement yet Amers intent attack USSR with atomic bomb.
Statement must have come as considerable surprise to Sov citizenry who for years have been drilled in belief that Sov Union, altho having capacity produce anything anybody else can produce, concentrating all efforts in atomic research, as in other fields, to peaceful application for betterment mankind.
Stalin now talks of “atom bomb”. Atomic explosions no longer are related to reworking nature as for example in Tass Sept 25, 1949 statement.2 The world is put on notice that bombs of “different calibers” will be tested in future. Big brother apparently has matter well enough in hand now to warrant belligerent statement and assurance satellites and Sov people that armament gap has been spanned.
In good dialectical fashion unconditional prohibition of atomic weapon can only be achieved after Sov development of same in order to break Amer monopoly.
Tone of last answer re controls wld seem indicate that door no less firmly shut on possibility negot compromise atomic control.
Interesting perversion of Amer control plan. Attack is no longer based on invasion of sovereignty of nations. Plan is described only as permitting production atomic weapons by countries having necessary raw materials in the amount possible with such materials.
Perhaps statement is designed to frighten West into seeking “control” as proposed by USSR altho tone of statement is not really a call for agreement even along those lines. Interesting to note that there is no mention of UN or internatl aspect of control.
Statement cld be helpful to “peace campaign” to extent that it more attractive to Western fuzzy thinkers if USSR now presumably in possession equal atomic armament continues present self as main supporter campaign for peace among peoples of world.
[Page 538]On basis published statement and information available here Service Attachés unable at this time comment on technical implications.
Dept pass Defense, London, Paris, Rome; sent Dept 594, rptd info London 81, Paris 163, Rome 16.
- On October 3, the White House announced that an atomic bomb had recently been exploded within the Soviet Union, the first such known occurrence since the initial Soviet test in 1949. For additional information, see editorial note on p. 773. On October 6, Marshal Joseph V. Stalin, President of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union, answered questions by a correspondent of Pravda regarding the recent atomic explosion. For text of this interview, see Denise Folliot, ed., Documents on International Affairs, 1951 (London, Oxford University Press, 1954), pp. 341–42.↩
- The statement under reference, which confirmed reports that the Soviet Union now possessed atomic weapons, appears in telegram 2406 from Moscow, September 25, 1949, Foreign Relations, 1949, vol. v, p. 656. For other documentation on the Soviet test of 1949, see ibid., vol. i, pp. 419 ff.↩