There can be no question that Russia is already at work on an H-bomb. Like ourselves, she already has the plutonium plants for producing both A-bombs and tritium. She can produce deuterium in the same quantities as we can. In Professor Peter Kapitza she has the world’s greatest authority on liquid hydrogen. Furthermore, she has great incentives to produce H-bombs. Since she is still behind us in her A-bomb stockpile, she can, in a sense, catch up with us much more quickly by converting her fewer A-bombs into H-bombs that would be the equivalents of ten to thirty A-bombs each, thus increasing the power of her stockpile ten to thirty times. Equally if not more important from Russia’s point of view is the stark fact that an H-bomb could be much more easily exploded near a coastal city from a submarine or innocent-looking tramp steamer, since most of our great cities are on the seacoast, whereas Russia practically has no coastal cities. Even if we openly announced that we would not make any H-bombs, it would not deter Russia from making them as fast as she could, not only because she would not believe us but also because her sole possession would greatly weight the scales in her favor. If, God forbid, she finds herself one day with a stockpile of H-bombs when we have none, she would be in a position to send us an ultimatum similar to the one we sent to the Japanese after Hiroshima: “Surrender or be destroyed!” Valuing their liberty more than their lives, the American people will never surrender. But while there is time, would anyone advocate that we run the risk of ever facing such a choice? III SHALL WE RENOUNCE THE USE OF THE H-BOMB? A few days after President Truman announced that he had directed work “to continue” on “the so-called hydrogen, or super bomb,” a group of twelve eminent physicists, including half a dozen of the major architects of the atomic bomb at Los Alamos, who, no doubt, are playing a similar role in the development of the H-bomb, issued a statement urging the United States to make “a solemn declaration that we shall never use the bomb first,” and “that the only circumstances which might force us to use it would be if we or our allies were attacked by _this_ bomb.” They added that “there can be only one justification for our development of the hydrogen bomb, and that is to prevent its use.”