§ 45. Mr. Wyattasked the Prime Minister after how many explosions, atomic and nuclear, and over what period, he is advised that a lethal atmosphere will be produced over substantial areas of the world.
§ The Prime Minister (Sir Winston Churchill)An answer to this Question would depend on an accurate assessment of a variety of immeasurables. I am advised that from our present knowledge the number of major experimental explosions required to produce lethal risks over an area beyond that immediately affected by the explosion would be very large indeed. On the most cautious assumptions it would be, so I am advised, considerably greater than the number which could conceivably be employed in any tests likely to be made by the Powers who possess these weapons. Investigation into this problem is proceeding actively and continuously.
§ Mr. WyattI hope that the Prime Minister will not try to make jokes about this matter. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Is it not a fact that Dr. Adrian, at the British Association in September, said:
… we must face the possibility that repeated atomic explosions would lead to a degree of general radioactivity which no one could tolerate or escape.Surely, the Prime Minister should consult with his scientific advisers to get some accurate information on this matter, because, I understand, it is possible to obtain it.
§ The Prime MinisterI have not had an opportunity of verifying the quotation to which the hon. Member refers.
§ Mr. Noel-BakerIs the Prime Minister aware that more than 300 people of various nationalities suffered physical damage from radioactivity after the experiments last spring, and that dangerously radioactive fish were caught in the Pacific three months later? In the light of these facts, will the Prime Minister reconsider the proposal made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. A. Henderson) that tests should be 1040 suspended while the United Nations consider the abolition of atomic weapons?
§ The Prime MinisterI do not think it would be within my power to take a decision of that kind.
§ Mr. Noel-BakerAs, while the tests go on, Her Majesty's Government will also be obliged, no doubt, to make further tests themselves, surely the Prime Minister could propose a suspension, which could very easily be made effective, because no test can take place in any part of the world without its being known to every other nation.
§ The Prime MinisterThere have been a number of experiments of which record has reached us of explosions in Russia, and then there were those which took place a year ago under the authority of the United States. But it is one thing to form a view about what would be the most agreeable course to be pursued in these matters by either of these two countries and quite another thing to persuade them, still more to compel them, not to have tests.
§ Mr. StracheyWould the Prime Minister not agree that not only for these reasons, but also for military reasons, a position has now been reached when it would be to the advantage of this country, as of the rest of the world, to achieve, if possible, a convention banning the further development of these weapons?
§ The Prime MinisterI am sure that it would have been a very good thing if none of these things had ever been discovered at all. At what stage in their discovery they should be arrested, and with what advantage to particular nations that are experimenting in them, is a much more complicated question to decide.
§ 47. Mr. Sorensenasked the Prime Minister what further information he has received in respect of the nature and extent of contamination or the immediate or delayed injurious effects of nuclear explosive radiation; and whether Her Majesty's Government have taken further steps towards securing international deliberation of this matter by medical experts.
§ The Prime MinisterWe have a great deal of information on this extremely complex question and we are continuing 1041 to pursue our researches intensively. As the hon. Member will now be aware, Her Majesty's Government, together with others, have proposed that an international conference of scientists on atomic energy be organised during the coming summer, and a resolution to this effect is now under discussion in the Political Committee of the United Nations. This conference will doubtless consider, among other matters, the effects of radiation on human beings.
§ Mr. EdelmanWill the Prime Minister say whether we are in direct communication with the Japanese medical experts, who have most direct experience of the noxious effects of radioactivity?
§ The Prime MinisterI am quite sure that all the information which is available here and in the United States on such aspects is at the disposal of our expert authorities.
§ Mr. SorensenMay I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the results of these deliberations will be made public and not kept secret?
§ The Prime MinisterI should like to see what they were before I even imagined that I had the authority to decide such a question.
§ Mr. PagetIs it not a fact that we know that these effects are cumulative and, as I think the right hon. Gentleman himself put it, that they endure for 5,000 years so that each explosion is building up a lethal atmosphere? In those circumstances, why cannot we suggest to the Americans and the Russians, "Let us stop these experiments now."?
§ The Prime MinisterThe hon. and learned Gentleman might, with all his eloquence and learning, go to both the Americans and the Russians—[An HON. MEMBER: "The right hon. Gentleman is Prime Minister."]—and suggest to them that they should alter the course on which they have embarked, but whether or not that would result in anything more than an abrupt termination of the talk, I cannot tell.