The problem of the disposition of existing stocks of fissionable materials was given little consideration because it was too hot to handle. From the very beginning Russia insisted that all atomic bombs be destroyed, and she left no doubt that she meant the destruction of the fissionable materials with which bombs could be quickly assembled. Even before the H-bomb, such destruction might have meant suicide to nations that complied, since they would have been at the complete mercy of noncomplying nations. The advent of the H-bomb makes all talk of such destruction, wholly apart from the waste of a priceless, irreplaceable natural resource, completely unrealistic, as any such act would be tantamount to abdication, a prelude to a super-Munich by the free nations. Denaturing, which makes fissionable materials temporarily useless for bombs, is also out of the question, since it would take a long time to reconcentrate them, giving nations with a hidden stock of nondenatured material a tremendous advantage that might well mean the difference between survival and annihilation for a nation that acted in good faith. All this also applies to the destruction of stocks of deuterium and tritium. 13. HOW DOES THE H-BOMB BEAR UPON “QUOTAS”? The United Nations plan envisages that reactors and other atomic facilities will be distributed among the nations according to “quotas” and a “strategic balance”—whereby no one nation, by seizing the plants within or near its borders, could gain an undue military advantage over innocent nations. This “quota” feature has been criticized as unnecessary and as likely to hinder individual countries in developing the peacetime uses of atomic energy to the maximum extent. Does the fact that reactor fuels, if seized by an aggressor, might make available H-bomb “triggers” tend to render all the more desirable the “quota” idea? How long a time would an aggressor require to make enough deuterium and tritium for H-bombs in seized plants? Could a world control authority, by requiring that certain design features be incorporated in the plants under its control, extend this time period? What should be done with plants in existence at the time a control agreement takes effect and well suited to H-bomb production but poorly suited to peacetime uses? How should such plants, if they were not dismantled, figure in “quota” allotments? AUTHOR’S COMMENT From its very inception the quota system was totally impossible of realization. Today it is likely to prove a snare and a delusion, giving a false sense of security, since it could not guarantee against the clandestine production of at least one H-bomb a year. The plutonium for the trigger could be produced in hidden small reactors, while the deuterium and tritium could be produced in other small plants that could be equally hidden. As we have seen, tritium production does not even require a nuclear reactor.