With all this in mind, it behooves us to take a closer look at our program for the outlawing of atomic weapons and the placing of atomic energy under international control. It was a noble ideal, one of the noblest conceived by man: the most powerful nation in the world voluntarily offered to give up the right to produce or use the greatest weapon ever designed. Alas, it almost died at birth, and now, after four years of nursing in an incubator, the Korean guns have given it a fatal blow. We might as well face the facts squarely: the majority plan for the international control of atomic energy, the only acceptable plan possible, is dead, one of the first casualties of the Korean guns. We still talk about trying to find ways for compromise between our plan, accepted by all the nations outside the Iron Curtain, and that of Russia. We are still talking, at least officially, as though somehow a compromise can and will be found. The truth of the matter is that the plan as it stands today is completely out of tune with the times. As we look on it by the light of the North Korean guns, it becomes clear that it is wholly visionary, without any relation to the realities. We still talk as though our original offer still stands. The truth of the matter is that even were the impossible to happen and Russia were to say to the world: “We have been mistaken. We accept the American and the majority plan _in toto_ without any reservations,” we should be forced to say: “Sorry, it is too late, you have missed your chance. Your actions have made the plan unworkable, since it cannot possibly work in an atmosphere of mutual distrust and the constant threat of little wars!” And even if wise diplomacy prevented us from saying it in such blunt language, and though we may still find it expedient to pay lip service to the majority plan, so that Russia could not use it in her propaganda war as evidence that we were insincere from the very beginning, we would have to wriggle to get out of the very serious predicament in which Russia’s acceptance would place us. And even if diplomacy dictated that we sign a convention with Russia to outlaw production and use of all atomic weapons, to destroy our stockpiles and hand over all our atomic plants to an international atomic authority, as our present plan calls for, there can be no question that such a convention could never muster the approval of even a majority of the Senate, and certainly not the required consent of two thirds of the Senate called for by the Constitution. What is more, such a rejection would have the overwhelming approval of American people, once the facts were made clear to them, and any administration daring to enter such a pact would be overwhelmingly defeated.