The American people, and the other free peoples of the world, could not agree to such a scheme to disarm them in advance and thus give the masters of the Kremlin a free hand. To do so would not prevent war, it would encourage it. It would not even delay it, it would hasten it. Instead of being preventable, it would become inevitable. We wouldn’t even save our cities from the fate of strategic bombing with A- and H-bombs, since the Kremlin has never kept its promises when they did not suit its purposes. When we had lost our greatest chance to wipe out her armies in one mighty blow, Russia would be in a position to trade our industries and cities for her dispersed and still primitive industrial plants and cities. If at that stage she should offer us, as well as our neighbors to the south and Britain and her Dominions, independence and complete sovereignty, while she assumed hegemony over all of Europe and Asia, could we then refuse, at the risk of the lives of our millions? Supposing the nations of western Europe, overrun by the Red Army, become “people’s democracies,” Russian style, would we risk our millions to liberate nations whose governments would by then have joined the ranks of our enemy? These are the brutal facts that would confront us were we to renounce the right to use A- and H-bombs as tactical weapons against armies in the field. As long as we retain that right, the chances are good that we could prevent global war, for no nation would be likely to risk such a war in the face of the possibility that the main bulk of its armies might be wiped out at the outset. If we give up that right, we would also prevent war—by surrendering in advance. Russia, of course, might figure that she could still make war, when she decides the time is ripe, taking the calculated risk that we would not use the A- and H-bombs against her armies for fear of her retaliation against our cities and industries. But whether she would consider that calculated risk worth taking would depend on how good our defenses were. Senator McMahon’s warning that an H-bomb attack “might incinerate 50,000,000 Americans ... in the space of a few minutes” would become a possibility only if we allowed ourselves to be surprised for a second time by a “super Pearl Harbor,” which, of course, is inconceivable. While it is generally agreed that it is impossible to decentralize our cities and industries, because of the tremendous cost (estimated at $300 billion) and the short time at our disposal between now and the ultimate showdown, when Russia is expected to be ready to make major moves at the risk of “accepting” war, we have many advantages not possessed by Britain and Germany during the last war as far as defenses against strategic bombing were concerned. Britain, as well as Poland, Holland, and Belgium—little, densely populated countries—were within very short range of Germany’s airfields. So was Germany, in her turn, within easy range from Britain.