This is why I say the Polaris H-rocket is a hopeless bet for Britain
By CHAPMAN PINCHER
IMAGINE that the Government has built or bought 10 atomic submarines, each equipped
rockets.
with 16 Polaris H-bomb-carrying Political tension is not running high, but eight of the submarines are out on patrols which keep the new British deterrent permanently mobile and invulnerable to Russian rocket fire,
Suddenly one of the sub- marines fails to report to the Admiralty,
even
There is suspicion, perhaps that it has been proof, sunk by non-atomic under- prowling Russian submarine.
but 10 H-bombs out the meagre stockpile go with it.
2
One of the Government's reasons for cancelling Blue Streak is that it is an inflexible weapon of use only in global wor. Yet Polaris is the same. What does the Government TL has no possible use in do? Does it Immediately order conventional "brush-fire" war the remaining submarines to fire as the V-bombers could have. their H-bombs at Russin, bring- Polaris submarines can work Ing inevitable retribution to the only
Of course not, homeland?
Notes would be exchanged
deny responsi- Russia would Ellity. The Americans, fearful of retaliation on the U.S.. would urge extreme caution. Eventually nothing would be done.
How many of our submarines could be picked off in this way? I suggest that all of them could be destroyed before either Britain or the U.S. would fire the first H-bomb to touch of global war.
Disturbed
•
believe the Russian leaders, who will certainly not leave the Polaris patrols unshadowed, take the same view. And as soon as a weapon ceases to be credible, it ceases to be a deterrent.
50
RS
THE CHINA MAIL, MONDAY, MAY 16, 1960.
Uere have
been dozens of "Chessmans"
JUSTICE IS CRUEL
BECAUSE IT'S TOO FAIR!
FIVE months ago two Americans in a New
Hampshire court were sentenced to die next year. And it is almost certain that by the time their appeals have been heard their executions—if proceeded with-will be postponed until 1962 or 263,
Certain, that is, unless public outcry against the judicial system which finally took Caryl Chess man, the 38-year-old kidnapper, thief and sexual pervert, to the gas chamber, is successful in obtaining a reform.
For although Cheskanan was in death row for nearly 12 years longer than anyone else in American prison history there have
dozens of been minor "Chessmans" who have lived for years in the shadow of the execution chamber,
Was innocent
no
Then, at a fifth trial, it was proved that Turner had been nowhere near the murder scene and he was acquitted,
well-meaning America's to anxiety,
ensure that
is killed is re- innocent man sponsible
the Intricate system of appeals and re-trials which, paradoxically, puts the criminal through years terment wondering when his life. is going to be suddenly cut off.
for
of
A Philadelphia Negro, Aaron Turner, was in the death cell for 11 years, during which There were long, agonising long
the
time he was tried four times delays in the celebrated cases commanders can be sure of re-
for hold-up murder and each of the Rosenbergs, executed for meining
1 touch with thume sentenced to death. Admiralty.
spying for the Russians, and in which Weapons touch off global war cannot bộ fired without repeated reference to Whitehall.
оп
The radio-signalling between the Admiralty and submarines could be put out of action.for 24 hours by a couple of Russian H-bombs exploded silently the edge of space. The immense shower cf electrons produced would blanket radio communica- flon, a U.S. experiments have proved.
Devastated
ever
com- злу
All of Britain and much of the U.S. could be devastated before the submarine mander
received That is why I am disturbed instructions to retaliate. by the news in the Blue Streak
When the U.S. Polaris-carry debate that the Admiralty is ing submarine George Washing- making an urgent study for ion was launched recently the British-but submarines to carry skipper said: "After firing our Polaris missiles.
missiles our war will be over There
further and we go home." reasons why, il. my view. Nobody had the heart to ask Britain should leave the Polaris him: "What home?" Fubmarines to the Americans— The Polaris-submarine is fine as ad additional form of deterrent for a wealthy nation which can afford land-base and airborne deterrents too, as the Americans can.
are
three
Because each
submarine
1
will cost at least £40,000,000, Britain could not afford more than 10, This means that one tenth of the nation's H-bomb eggs are, in the basket. When
submarine accident not only the vessel
A
It is a hopeless bet for Britain, lost by which can afford crly one.
-(London Express Service).
Just Fancy Phật
DWARF climbed into, Ken Makin's taxi. He asked Makin to go round the corner and pick up his friends, The youths pot in. The trouble started when they climbed out. A policeman counted ELEVEN of them.
Said Alderman Dentis Lowson, the magistrate at Manston House: "It was rather like Noah's Ark."
Said cab-driver Makin: "I was shocked.
I thought there
were six or seven of then and the dwarf," Markin was fined
Li for carrying seven excess·passengers.
by
STEPHEN LAING
the less-celebrated but remark-
Robert Lee system goes bɛywire. Last year
of
And sometimes the whole
Jackson, who was in death row the United
being acquitted.
able for more than 10 years before. Court announced it would not
Not foolproof
David Almeida, a policeman murderer,
States Supreme
consider the appeal of Ralph Dawkins against a 1857 murder conviction-three months after he had been executed.
And sometimes-as in the case--the reprieve was given lite im- Cheaman' prisonment after being in the game is played just too closely shadow of the electric chair One morning in March, 1957, at for styen years, and Frank telephone call was received at Wojculewicz 41-year-old St Quentin jail, San Francisco, cripple, went to the chair after prieving Burton Abbott, who eight years of reprieves. had been found guilty of mur-
dering a schoolgirl,
£
But, despite this extra ordinary caution, American Justice is not foolproof. A newspaperman who has seen "158 men die in the electric
chair
believes that at least six of them were innocent,
The call was just too late- three minutes earlier Abbott had died in the gas chamber.
that Indecisiveness should be There is no death penalty in eliminated from American law. Austria, Belgium, Dreamgick
Copy British
Holland, Iceland, Italy, Latman- bourg. Norway Swedeep, Switzerland and Western Ger 'many.
One Supreme Court judge In Central and South Africa, said: "We should borrow a the Argentine, Brazil, Colombia, leaf from the book of British Costa Rica, Dominica, Ecuador, Justice. In England acri Honduras, Mexico, Panama, minal case from apprehen- Per, Uruguay, and Venezuela sion to the final appeal 48 have either scrapped the death disposed of in two to three penalty or let it fall into disuse.
months,"
years
In the United States there" i. For more than 50 English executions have been no death sentence in Michigan. Maine, and Min- decisive and secret and skilful. Wisconsin,
Island and A serious blunder has not been nesota, In Rhode
Dakota only double- made since 1885 when three - North templs were made to execute a murderers can be executed. man named Lee.
Each time the trap failed to fall when the executioner pulled. the lever. The hanging WES then abandoned and Lee was reprieved,
But while many Americans British Judicial admired methods. many
more admire Many horror-stricken citizens those states which have abolish- in the United States belleve ed capital punishment altogether.
The frightening first four days of
London.
THE fire bells jangled up The street and Stanley Wilson, with his £100,000 pools cheque still in his pocket, grabbed my arm with (huge excitement and said:—
"Watch-this is marvellous. They whip round this corner al a hell of a lick."
We waited and three engines came belling down and they whipped round the corner at a hell of a lick and Stanley said, worshipping, "Wonderful." pride in the Hull fire brigade was something to see.
Shock
His
the man
who won
£100,000
face and his hunched walk and But there was something else his wanting to be liked, try- for me to see. This was the first ing to understand what it feels lime had seen him happy like to cry for the moon then to since he won, £100,000 for id. be given it suddenly. recently. This was the only time On the first day he said: "It I saw him free, and normal. feels like being shot," and We walked on up the dark yesterday he said: "It feels as Hull street and he said: "I feel though I've stepped from better now." He said: "I love world of friends into a world of to stand in Doncaster station enemies." and watch the Flying Scotsman go through." Then he was quiet again, brooding.
I spent three days with this lean man of 40, with his dark
NEW CRISIS AHEAD
OVER KANO BASE
D our defence negotiators ever learn? For at the very moment when
we are bogged down with the Cyprus talks over the size and main tenance of the military base there, we do everything we can to see there is a repetition of that stalemate în Nigeria.
He is right. When
we went
to the bank together to put in
the money the bank official told
10
In California, where Chess-- man was held, the Governor, Edmund Brown, ", "toints abolish the death penalty. Now, with public support, there is hope that he wit be able to pusti through a Bill abolishing executions in the State and so prevent à r petition of the uncivilised Chessman saga. ⠀
THE LONELY BRITON IN
*
CASTRO'S JAIL
From PETER HOPKIRK
Isla de Pinos, ONDON-BORN Peter Lambton, serving a 25- for counter-revolutionary
Lo
year sentence
him: If you start spending activities in the Isla de Pinos-Cuba's Devil's now before you've surted your-Island-talked to me, his first visitor in seven self out you might as well chuck the lot in the canal,”
Soon Stanley and Margaret
months in jail.
In a prison that is said to be told me the khaki shirt Rol and their two sons, one aged mined with dynamite I listened trousers he stood in were all the four weeks, and their parents to his grim tale. If the guards clothes he had. "But it is m in-law will leave their £1-a-had realised I was a reporter use sending me clothes c week council house and go off they would have thrown me out money. Into their wilderness of wealth. Alone.
They will buy things they have never wanted, meet people
a
A
or arrested me
Beneath the muzzle of
gun and sur- heavy machine rounded by armed soldiers, 24- year-old Lambton, the only
They will only le stolen by the warders of ny fellow prisoners.
"Meals mainly consist of rte
and beans. Sometimes we have
who may not really want Briton in the fall, said: "This only one meal a day. them. It is all right to envy is, said to be a model prison "I am not allowed books be them a little but only a fool but it is not at for the lowest anything to occupy my mind. kind of pigs. What food we get We are given no work to do are and are just left to rot. I wik round and found in circlew all day and sleep as many of he hours away as possible,"
He tried to explain, stumbling would deny they may have and got as far as "It's like tough time. being born again... Then gave it up.
1
But this was it. He has died a sort of death. He has been cut off suddenly from the only world he knew, and there seems no other world, and he is still trying to get back to the old cnt, unable to face yet that return is hopeless.
But how will they fare final- ly? When I left Stanley, he ask- ed me: "Couldn't you stay a few more days?”
He felt alone, and was cer- tainly a little frightened
This is probably good. If he has the sense to be a little frightened, he may be one of the few who can fulfil a dream,
Not many people will under- stand the
So plight of Stanley
he gave Margaret her and not have it turned into a Wilson and his 38-year-old wife - weekly £8 10s. for the nightmare. Margaret, and his parents-in- housekeeping, and they both law, Mr and Mrs George laughed and were happy. Stevenson, who are sharing the because this proved nothing money. Their family doctor had changed. understands. He called the other
And I watched him again day and said, with pity with his boss, still enger to "You have had a great shock," please him, sfl wanted to be
and gave them something to the labourer earning about £13 help them. He understood the for a 60-hour week, servant exhaustion, the occasional rather than master. irritability.
But most of the neighbours
who crowded. round and the begging letter writers didn't understand at all. They said:
Emptiness
The effort of adjustment is
"Aren't you lucky!" and "I enormous, perhaps impossible
couldn't have happened to a nicer family:"
of insecurity. They have got the
for many months, Stanley asked None of these people really me: "How am I going to spend, all this money?" There is no believed Stanley Wilson when This is the sad story.
easy answer. Consequently, it is by, no Federation will hold together. he said, as all big pools winners A new car, Д new house Owing to our inability to fy means certain the agreements He heads a coalition with the say, "I want to stay just as I then what? This family has a over many unfriendly countries will be signed.
parly of Dr Azikiwe, who has am I want to go on in my fortune but no world of their in the Middle East it is neces- If this is the case we have his great strength in the old job," and all the rest.. sary to have a staging supply no one to blame except our tropical East.
own to spend it-in. They have It never sounds true, but it security for life and new sort base in Kano.
selves.
The doctor is the most vivid often is and it is desperately So for two years negotiations It is a pity there is this fly politician in Nigeria. You true of Stanley Wilson. have been going on.
in the ointment as otherwise might call him its Aneurin I went with him to see his It has been abundantly shown everything is
SD hopeful in Bevan.
old boss and his workmates and in both Egypt and Cyprus that Nigeria.
He was the country's first afterwards, after the back- the only thing that matters In no other country that I nationalistic leader and around slapping and the beer-drinking, about a base is that it should have been to in Africa has there his future storms are gathering. he said to me happily: "I was £100,000
a friendly been such a good atmosphere. FEARS
so afraid they wouldn't like me, ness. country and no assurances and There is no colour-bar or
but they do. They are still my guarantees matter a jot unless colour - consciousness
For, when his party with B9 friends you saw it." that is the case,
seats, consented to join the Nor is there any sense of Government, it did so on
be established in
they
kind.
jealous of their rights and ABLE MAN
sovereignty and these they may
of any
the
I asked him if he would.
Was
י
Jealousy?
moon and found nobody lives on it.
Stanley, who is intelligent and thoughtful, said: "At the moment I feel we've got and a lot of empti-
"We've had arguments about sharing it out in the family but now it's all worked out.""
They are an honest lot too SO FRIENDLY frustration as everyone is condition he would become the
I didn't see it. They are not and humorous, and as Stanley Nigeria at the moment could working for the same thing-the first coloured Governor-General his friends in the way they used put it: "I wouldn't say Our not be a more friendly country, establishment of an independent
to be; they will never be his £100,000 has so far made us The leaders of every main Federation.
accept the
the position If it However, after independence offered to him and he told me knows it. And Margaret, his
friends again. Secretly he mobler." party are in agreement should join the Commonwealth there will be many strains acid he would, despite the fact that wife, who used to earn a bit on: as this possibly need not fear People who can be as honest when they get freedom on stresses for the country is his acceptance would not be
pools repre- October 1.
divided into three different re- popular with certain left-wing the side as a part-time waitress the verdict of a ་ ་་
sections of his party,
and wanted only two things, sentative—not the £100,000 one Yet as a new nation they are gions with different loyalties.
But the idea of his becoming a fridge and curly hair, who told me: "I've fol- Governor-General is not by any knows it too, although she still lowed up many big winners. "I'll never change. I'd and never found one really The North, which holds 147 means universally popular, for BAYS: For instead of merely asking out of the 312 seats in
happier for the money. Some it the many people decline to believe hate to change."
temperamentally She would hate to change, has ruined.”. : for an area of ground which we Federal Assembly is a com- that he is could lease and use, we ask for pletely different country to the capable of becoming a constitu- and fear it. But they both will
lonal figure above politics.
change, they will be forced to. an agreement with every sort of South.
The fear was expressed to me They are Moslem and feudel, it only
changing already. condition attached which could affront national dignity.
with the that once he was in Govern-Nefther was suspicious before. For instance, no customs dues modern world 80 years ago, ment House he might try to Now both are. All too rightly. that if they won the pools they and We had a posh meal in a would not only do this and this, are to be levied on gifts to the Looking down from the top of change the constitution
the posh restaurant, and Stanley they would also do good. wives of the men stationed the mosque at Kano I saw a enforce arbitrary rule in
mud-walled city that apart from manner of Dr Nkrumah.
Bald: "Of course I'm glad shout i Not knowing that you can't these.
However, all this Iles remit of this, and the a few tin roofs cannot have
ia the the money, but It's frightening really do good with money, and suspicions aroused by our sup changed much for the last 2,000 utg and white the present miving the whole world featous that anyway 100,000 makes
enthusiasm of the Nigerians of you. I feel almost guity as you not generous but mean. port of the French nuclear years. explosion in the Sahara, there The Prime Minister. Str may be severely tested by the though I'd stolen it
Stanley Wilson, who is in is now a préjudice against sign Abubakar Tatowa Belewa who realities of self-government Later he said:""Ever!" since fact, a generous' man, has ing the agreements, and accusa comes from the North, is one of taken all-in-all this is the most the day I von I felt as though I already become cautious. If tions are being made that are the ablest Africans I have ever hopeful country that I have seen had something on my back. It has happened because he
In "Africa: are inmiting Nigerian indepen met.
went when the fire engines want fears that to be generous now dance.
He told me he is confident the Lord Lambton MP.-, by, but now it's here again. would be to yield to a threat.
see us attempting to fout..
came in contact
Naturally, people say, cheap- ly, that if money doesn't bring happiness it is nice to br wretched in comfort. They say
we
is nauseating and desperate for water."
Pointing to several days growth of beard on his chain, he went on: "There is not even enough water to shave in."
'Left to rot. The British Consul in Havana has repeatedly tried 10 see Lambton. Once he was turned back at the prison gates.
He said that there was no physical brutality. When I asked him how he lost one of his front teeth he said with a quick smile and a look at he guard: "Oh, I slipped.
"I will probably be put
for ths solitary confinement he said. "But 1. will gidly I was allowed to see Lambton face that if the outside world
Merrick Winn for 20 minutes. A Negro trusty has been told what is happering
-(London, Express Seroton).
wrote down every word we said. here."
Lambton, tall and well-built,
COMMONWEALTH CONFERENCE
-London Express Barvící).