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"THIS WEEK AT THE UNITED NATIONS "
A Report from the, International Staff of United Nati . s Radi o
Programme No . 3 6
, .:Sdptgnbdi 195 8
lf @
I
OUTER SPACE
Mr . Henry Cabot Lodge makes a statement about th e
inclusion of the subject of outer space in the 13t h
Session of the General Assembly .
2ND . UN CONFERENCE ON THE PEACEFUL USES OF ATOMIC ENERG Y
Professor Francis Perrin, President of Conference .
Mr . John Cockroft, United Kingdom
Sir George Thompson, United Kingdo m
Dr . Henry Seligman, Intl . Atomic Energy Agenc y
Dr . Edward Teller, United State s
Professor Abdus Salam, Pakista n
Mr . Dag Hammarskjold
WRITTEN AN D
PRODUCED BY : George Movsho n
ASSISTED BY : Erik Valters
1 ^
5 September 195 8
ANNOUNCER:
OPENING ANNOUNCEMEN T
NARRATOR :
The United Nations Secretary-General Dag Mammarskjol d
continued his Near Eastern mission this week . Mr .
Hammarskjold visited Cairo for talks with President
Nasser and planned thereafter to go to Jerusalem ,
Beirut and Baghdad for further consultations wit h
national leaders . No reports were made public o n
the details of Mr . Hammarskjold t s meetings .
Meanwhile, emphasis here turned towards the matter s
of substance to be considered soon by the Genera l
Assembly .
As in past years the delegates who assemble here o n
the 16th of September will be confronted with man y
asps cts of Middle East tension . In a report release d
early in the week the Secretary-General recounts the
events of the year as they have affected UNEF -- the
United Nations 5,000 man strong Emergency Force in
the Middle East . Along the Egypt/Israel line ther e
has been "virtually" unbroken quiet during the year
gone by ; but Mr . H4mnnarskjold says that any reductio n
in UNEF t s strength would impair its effectiveness .
The coming General Assembly session will be lookin g
upwards as well as Eastwards . The United States ha s
asked it to consider a programme for internationa l
co-operation in the field of outer space s
When Mr . Henry Cabot Lodge announced this proposa l
during the week, he described it in these words . . .
5 September 1958 .
LODGE :
It is good to announce here today that Presiden t
Eisenhower has instructed me to include the importan t
and urgent subject of outer space at the next regula r
session of the General Assembly which meets in a few
weeks . Specifically, the United States will propose a
programme for international cooperation in the fiel d
of outer space . The United Nations should immediatel y
consider what it can do in this field ; what oute r
space projects for peaceful purposes can be undertake n
under United Nations auspices ; and . what sort o f
organization the United Nations can build so that th e
nations will work together in outer space .
NARRATOR p
Earlier this year the Soviet Union proposed th e
creation of a United Nations agency for peaceful
studies of cosmic space . This proposal will als o
go before the General Assembly .
South West Africa .
The possibility that partition might provide a basi s
for solving the problem of South West Africa is raise d
this week in a Report by a UN Gbod Offices Committe e
which visited the Union of South Africa three month s
ago .
Tre proposal is tentative ; the Genera l
Assembly is asked to encourage the South Africa n
Government to investigate how practical the idea woul d
be . If this suggestion were implemented, part o f
South West Africa would be incorporated in the Unio n
and the remainder would become a United Nations Trus t
Territory under South African Administration,
-3-
NARRATOR :
5 September 1958 .
The main interest of the United Nations n , vewegk
lay overseas in Geneva where a massive scientifi c
conference was under way . We devote the rest of ou r
programme to a report prepared•by,United Nations Radi o
in Geneva .
GENEVA NARR :
Last Monday morning in the Assembly Hall at th e
Palais des Nations in Geneva, these words wer e
spoken :
PERRIN :
G . NARRATOR :
is
an exact symbol of th e
(FRENCH) Atomic energy
predominating role of science in modern living .
Franci s
The speaker was Profemor Perrin of France, Presiden t
of the United Nations 2nd Conference on the Peaceful
Uses of Atomic Energy, in his opening address to th e
5,000 delegates and observers from more than 6 0
countries, who have assembled for what is almost
certainly the greates t ' international scientifi c
gathering of all time .
In that memorable address, Professor Perrin was a t
his most stimulating when he analysed thi s
predominating role of science today both practically
and socially . An extract . '
PERRIN :
(FRENCH) We recognise the primacy of pure scienc e
which is both the conscientious expression of th e
living urge of spirit to dominate matter and the
great liberator of mankind from strangling mythologie s
and cruel superstitions ; the fruit of its firs t
unsuccessful speculations . Nevertheless we must no t
disregard the value of the wide and direc t
application of the most abstract and fundamenta l
scientific concepts . The extent and success of suc h
applications, as for example of an explosion or of a
large. power plant utilizing atomic energy, are a
decisive experimental verification of the basi c
4 -
5 September 1958 .
PERRIN :
(Cont'd .)
concepts of science because everyone can understan d
their meaning . They show without possible argument
that science is not an intellectual exercise, a wil d
speculation unrelated to reality as are so man y
systems, doctrines and theories on which mankind ha s
so often and for so long wandered lost . Like
astrology which carries forward into the modern worl d
the modes of thought of the primative human mind .
G . NARRATOR :
In the first week of the Conference, the dail y
techniçal sessions -- sometimes five of the m
conducted simultaneously — have ranged widely an d
excitingly over the whole field of nuclear science .
They were the discussions on the future of nuclea r
,power . Reports from many countries on presen t
achievements and plans . Britain spoke of Calder Hall ,
the United States of Shippingport, France of Chinon .
A .. prediction we's that by 1990 over 15 millio n
kilowatts of electric capacity will be availabl e
throughout the world with an atomic source .
Here is Sir Jon Cockroft of the United Kingdo m
reporting a typical prospect to the press . The
prospect in the Soviet Union .
COCKROFT :
Then we had Professor Emelyanov from Russia wh o
explained that they have ah almost infinite reserv e
of fossil fuels and oil reserves in the eastern par t
of the country, but there are parts in the wes t
where they are likely to install nuclear power station s
fairly soon and he tells about their plans . In
particular , they are building one power station fo r
420 megowatts using two reactors with enriched fuel
1 .5% uranium ; and then another four reactor statio n
in the Urals . He also tells about other plans for
fast reactors . At present they have a fast reacto r
operating at 5 megowatts ; they are planning to build
one of 50 megowatts on the Volga and beyond that on e
for 250 megowatts at a site which he said the y
haven't yet determined .' He also showed us a ver y
tantalising photograph at the end, of an apparatu s
looking very much like ZETA, perhaps a little bigger ,
but he didn't tell us how well it was performing -perhaps you can ask him that question . (LAUGHTER)
5 September 1958 .
NARRATOR : Laughter in+ the eConfere»cte room . An amiabl e
reflection . of. the ,cooper .tve,spirit of thi s
great Conference .
But Sir .'John Cdckroft'sr'eference there to the Sovie t
apparatus bringsJus to one of the main topics -- the
research into the possibility of power fro m
controlled fusion reactions . All the papers and
discussions so far on this subject agree that whil e
astonishing progress is being made, we still have a
long time to wait before fusion power become s
a practical reality . Dr . Edward Teller of th e
United States drew an analogy between our presen t
position in fusion with the position in the approac h
to human flight 100 years ago . Dr . Teller .
TELLER :
1 have mentioned an analogy and I mean it . Th e
analogy of flying 100 years ago . At that time th e
question Was to understand a very difficult subject ,
namely the subject of hydrodynamics and i n
particular the subject of turbulent hydrodynamics .
We are now similarly trying to understand the subjec t
of magneto hydrodynamics .. . This is a new subjec t
for which experience, single pieces of experience ar e
harder tq come by because you have to work with more
intricate machines and you cannot work so easily wit h
your eyes . I . personally believe that there will b e
such a time, but that there will be surprises on th e
basis of the general situation of questions of ne w
facts which we shall learn by the very kind of
experimentation which we are undergoing today . Today
we are not even clever enough, I believe, t o
recognise : the surprise if it came along . We haven' t
started to ask,the really'significant questions an d
we have, to go farther ,on :the straight forward way ,
and it is not coincidence that we are all going mor e
or less in that direction .
6
NARRATOR :
In the sessions on, the methods and machines bein g
used to achieve. areal, fusion reaction -- machine s
like Britain's Zeta, the Stellarator in the Unite d
States and the Soviet's Toroidal Chamber, one fac t
became abundantly clear . Sir George Thompson o f
the United Kingdom tells us what it is .
THOMPSON :
One of the most interesting factors to me when I
was listening to those papers was the very grea t
similarity in the method adopted . I ought to sa y
perhaps that this is not a complete account of th e
whole thing, there are several other methods ,
particularly adopted by the United States and Russia ,
which have not been described today .. But among
those that were described, the outstanding facto r
I think was the similarity . The other outstandin g
factor which perhaps is almost self-evident is tha t
nobody claims to have achieved with certainty a
thermo-nuclear reaction .
NARRATOR :
Though the prospects for fusion power may mak e
headlines, the sessions this week on the ever ,
expanding uses of radioactive isotopes were of equa l
if nor more significance . Many fascinating
applications were described and in a survey paper on
the whole subject, Dr . Henry Seligman of th e
International Atomic Energy Agency summed up lik e
this .
SELIGMAN :
It is not science which lends itself for grea t
showmanship, and therefore perhaps it doesn't belong
here in this Palais des Nations at all . But it i s
fundamental for our understanding of the world and t o
find out how the world ticks .
We still remember the days, they are not so long ago ,
when isotopes were spokem of as bi-products of atomi c
energy, a name which we fought against successfully.
It should be by now obvious to everybody that radio isotopes are one of the most important to scientist s
and in the future their radiations are likely to hav e
directly and indirectly a more widespread effect on
the world than in the past . Arid I personally never
SLLIGMAN :
(Cont'd .)'
doubted that their over all benefit to mankind
during the next few years may easily exceed those o f
atomic energy . , . ,
NARRATOR ;
Perhaps the mos t ' exciting news of the week -- a t
least for the physicists of the world -- came o n
Thursday when Professor Bernadini of Italy, wh o
works at the hiuropean .Centre for Nuclear Researc h
near Geneva, announced the results of a successfu l
experiment with the huge accelerator at CiRN . It
was an experiment in fundamental physics designe d
to solve one of the great puzzles surrounding th e
behaviour of one of the fundamental particles o f
all matter .
Professor Abdus Salam of Pakistan outlines th e
significance of the nbw discovery .
SALAM :
The significance of the discovery which Professo r
Bernadini and his co-workers have made is that a
great mental block is lifted from the thinking i n
this subject . Ukawa (?) 23 years ago said this
thing should happen, the pi-masons should deca y
into electrons . For 23 years we found no trac e
whatever from the experimental side of this thin g
happening . This was such a great mystery in physic s
that Pauli has always called this one of the mos t
mysterious things in physics -- something whic h
should happen by all reasonable standards and doe s
not . The point of the discovery now is that thes e
better experiments have established that the thin g
does happen and it happens at the rate at which w e
expected it to happen and therefore that seemin g
mystery of nature is no longer there .
NARRATOR :
And so the first week of the Atoms for Peac e
Conference is ended . Results have fulfilled th e
prediction made by the Secretary-General of th e
United Nations, Mr . Dag Hammarskjold, in his openin g
address to delegates last Monday mornin ;; .
a
HAMTBARSKJOLD :I am sure that this Second Conference will be highl y
successful . In the coming two intensive weeks'of
this Conferencem important scientific . history wil l
undoubtedly be made . Your activities here confor m
exactly to the most fundamental of United Nation s
aims and purposes ; yours is work which can mak e
peace even more vital, which holds forth increasin g
promise for man's well-being .
ANNOUNCER:
CLOSING ANNOUNCEMENT