1957-11-02 — Page 7

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, NOVEMBERU2, : 1987.,

THE VISION THAT HAUNTS

ME

NOW

HE West is now losing out to Communism.

THE

recsona for it. They are not obscure.

15 ST, while the Soviets bays

greatly increased their ex- penditure on' research and education, the Americans have been indulging in drastic trenchment on both.

ND.

OUT scientists,

rc-

of

whom between us wo pogiesa

They are beating us in every field space kome of the best in the worldy satellites, rockets, hydrogen weapons, diplomacy, and industrial development.

The major cause of this is the total lack of effective Anglo-American co-operation everywhere.

It recounts for the absence. We are at present conducting of any common foreign policy, a global struggle against the the paralysis of the North At- centrally directed forces of Inatic Treaty Organisation and Communism without any central the decline of Western influenco organs of DECISION to direct and prestige throughout the military strategy, political policy Middle East

It accounts also for the loss of Western supremacy in the feld of nuclear physics.

enormous.

consequence

are not allowed to exchange In-

formation; and in certain coses, for example that of Robert Oppenheimer, have been hound ed out of public service.

baye, AR usual. 3RD, we

grossly underestimated the technical capacity and schfove- ments of the Soviets,

the

"We are being

beaten in every field...and this is the reason.”

by SIR ROBERT BOOTHBY

policica

If they think that the West pressge the decline and fall of

in their

economic

17

But there is one conference

rostrictive monetary For all this the Americans orc or economic policy on a global more to blame than we are, At which could intensify the down- is no longer able or willing to our Western dylilation.

late word frend in commodity prices, invest and our Ineffectiveness, n critical moment scale;

There has been a lot of talk due partly to the reckless dissi- Senator McCarthy succeeded in investment, production, and trade development and is determined

about International pation of our available

throughout the free world, and to stick, ot all costa, to a rigid lately re- turning "scientist" into a dirty

to a major gold standard, they will turn negotiations with a view to sources, is

word; and it is their laws which lead "ulumately In

slump. prevent full co-operation be

their eyes away from the Ster- political and economie "Integra ling Area towards an economy Lon" of various sorts and iween us in the nuclear field.

It No use our complaining. which can at least offer themt kinds We have to forget the sorrowful table prices for their all,

on the copper, tin, rubber, ten, coffee, which, in my submission, should past and concentrate future.

now take precedence over all han others: an Anglo-American con- I hope the and ference, in which And Canadians would participate, to see whether we cannot make #k better

the fist of steering political, defence, and economic

the West than policles of have done during the past two years.

Nato is where the adfitary power of the West resides, and the only place where it resides. Ten years ago we were right It is an organisation of such out in front on what is by far

that it is the greatest scientific develop potential strength capable of discharging what was ment of our time, and It looked the function of British sea-

might stay there. power in the nineteenth century. Vast expenditure on research, Committed to free institu- and the team-work of scientists tions and pursuing a coherent from mang nailons, had glven and common policy might us a lead which seemed decisive well preserve paz for the and permanent.

11

በሲ

whole world; but it does not, Today, we have lost that leal; us yet, poss the machinery and this amounts to so serious necessary to frame and Imple- a defeat for the West that it is ment such a polley.

worth having 11 look ut the

true,

Al Washington, in January of last year, they led us to believe that they would co-operate with us in the Middle East; and an afflelal communique was issued to that effect. It wasn't and Buex was the result,

their Now, when

cre litor is causing ecute position (mbarrassment and their trade surplus is a growing threat to other nations, they are pursuing

Britain's backroom boy

I

is the man for the job

SIR WILLIAM FORGE PENNEY is on public

WILLIAM GEORGE PENNEY is on public record

A-bomb. (He flew as an obser- ver with the aircraft which dropped the second A-bomb on Japan). As a man of humble publicly origins he could visualise

-bomb's- enormous potential-

terms of its effect on ordinary men, women and children, little

And that in about the extent to which Britain's Number One atomic weapons scientist is opinionated.

It's not that Sir William is a taciturn man, nor that he is without opinions. As a very human man, he must hold opinions. As an exceptionally intelligent one, his opinions are doubtless valuable. But Penney never permits himself the luxury of airing them.

Che

people in little homes ahead with the work..

Penney chose to so

It has been said that be made his decision on the grounds that

by Simon Kavanaugh

There are two reasons for his silence. In his native modesty, be believes that mastery of one subject does not make him In- evllably an oracle on all others. And he knows, 100, that his life work 1። controversiot enough Amurica, to the University of an alointe bomb would not only without his gratuitous opinions Wisconsin on Cemmonwealth end the war, but would end all of Fund Scholarship.

There is no record making it any worse.

Penney himself having saldi

woe.

The manu: clare of nuclear This development was signi- this. weapeits is at the root of the

It was largely What is every bit as likely Is major moral controversy in the Beant because world today. Chiave doubts have through the Amerleans that

Penney, the mathematician, been cast on the orals of the e Penney the atomic wes sufentists who lend their skills

puts scientist. to this deadly trede.

Clearly,

years

tha Penney heard in the roar cries

of a new atomic age as inevit- being able as the dawn, and, were to the positive patriot he is, knew

of the A-blast the birth

of the

Penney bas sutishd his own Bul seytral concclence and there must by pass before the transformation that his duty lay in keeping his times when the temptation was made. In the meantime, nation in the forefront great for him to round on his Penney collected more scholar new era,

ships, an assistant prafessor- ILL Lon- ship in mathematies

Crities in roll-justification.

that picture of the man. Blind

For from his soldier father Penney takes his sturdy patriot- ism. Nor does bis patriotism stop short at his bank account.

BIC After the war

Americans

But we are entitled to point outl

we see the dangers as Them. And there is one that stands out a mile.

and cocoa.

To some extent Ceylon India already done so. Malays could easily follow. after that the deluge,

By this I do not mean of they will all go Communist,

that

The primary producers in the "uncommitted" countries Africa, the Near East, and the For East are simply not going But they could be gradually Into the economie to stand for a return to the old absorbed system of boons and slumps orbit of the Soviet Union and of which brought them nothing but China; and this, combined with misery between the a continued rise in the political prestige of Communism. might

Tula and

wars.

and what's more I don't believe you Turks are genuine Arabs like us at all "

Aral unity

chuck Americans OUT

wanted him on their payroll. WANTED

offered was the

It has been suggested that Penney is an unemotional, des- don's Imperial College, and ย siented creature whore absorp- wite. tion lo science for science's sake blinds him to its moral prob- When war broke out Peancy lems.

was on sonte loose-knit reserve The money they

with compared of scientists and because of that princely Penney's lfe to date belles and his skin in mathematis he British government salary which was ropert In by the British kept him and his wife and two academic absorption presup Government to ploneer research children in suburban obscurity. poses a sheltered upbringing," an into the effects of explosive Penney turned down the offer. itolation from the everyday blast.

Penney's patelelism was in world.

Remember that he was still measure rewarded by the fath But William Penney was then an obscure back-room boy, placed in him by the British born to humdrum circum- But co brilliant was his work government. On his word that stances. Ils family were down that in the exclusive world of he could produce an 11-bomb to-earth extroverts. His father top scientists he was labelled as that would work they wrought wit it serving sergeant-mwfor onc of The most promising drastic changes in the nation's when Peongy was

structure born in the young men in the field.

defence garrison at libraltar.

Thus when the Americans marked hundreds For young Willum Penney wanted someone to gauge the of pounds for research work. If there was none of the cloistered destructive power of the atom Penney had failed there would

colusion of the unclent public bomb they were preparing to without doubt, have been schools and venerable monastle

was national crisis. He did not full. drop on Japan, Penney universities. Instead, he got his

the man chosen for the job. Penney's place in the life of education in state schools and Is simplicity and directness Britain is unique. And that is, technicals colleges and at what of approach vastly impressed in a way, a sad thing. For co is known scathingly in Britain the Americans working along long as the nations of the world ns a "redbrick university"; that side him.

distrust cach other, is, a strictly utilitarian, tradi- tionless institution for advanced

study.

Some critles have seized

and ear- of millions

II

we

Unless we do this, there can be little hope of retrieving the any situatlon, or of reaching firm agreements with the Com- munist world."

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Mechanical Brains

M.S. NUTT

Strasbourg.

Here is a minute by minute report of the Council of Europe's translation championship, decided in Strasbourg.

On my right-although he is on the left-Leslic Hale, Britain's heavyweight Socialist M.P, and fastest speaker In the Commons.

my

On Seleskovitch,

left, lightweight translator Serbian-bom Zoran

·

4.21 p.m.

Hale rises. Seleskovitch tests headphones Britain to listen to Hale's English with the idea of repeating it word It was when he found himself must keep her nuclear armoury by word in French through a microphone, faced with the answer he had up-to-date. And quiet, homely, been employed to provide that family-man Bill Penney,

who

un Penney had to make his big must hate the inevitable secur these, circumstances as the basis moral decision.

of

ity curtain that cuts him off for their criticism that Penney As a scientist he could mea-. from his fellows, is the man for

the the job. automation. He was deprived, sure the awful effect

unemotional scientific

they complain, at the "humant-

ties" which 3 more classical ethication would have infused into him.

But William Penney found humenity by sharing as his birthright the routine day-to- day life by the majority his fellow-Britons

of Не knew their problems and their pre- judices and their hopes. they were his, too.

For

Early in his endemic career he showed unmistakable signs. of a rare brilliance at mathema- tica, He was 直 prodigious worker, but no recluse. He played cricket and soccer with verve and a fair degree of skill. Penney's family were far from veil-off, und only his own efforts in winning scholarships kept him at school. At 16, ho Scholarship. took ·D Royal emerging as top of all Englan

and physics. In mathematics He went on to the Imperial College of Science and Techino- fogy In London, taking his Bachelor of Science degree in two instruct of the usual four yeōrd.

Then dume a significant event. in Penney's career. He went to

Shy man of destiny

Sir William Pennay:

4.22, Hale attacks at once with a quotation from poet Vachell Lindsay, "Abraham Lincoln walks at night'. S. faint but following.

4.23. S. baffled by "Nine seas the dreadnoughts scouring every main," now a full sentence behind.

4.24. Hale relaxes with a ten seconds' pause and with a brilliant burst of idiomatic French S. catches up.

4.26...Hale puts on speed and begin's slapping his desk (Note to referee: he should have been warned about that). A slashing quotation from English poet William Watson "City of festering streets by misery, trod"--and S. is on the ropes.

4.30. to 4.33. Hale racing ahead with gabbled re- ferences to locusts, parasitic infections, Suez and the hybridisation of rice. S. covers up, puts hands over eyes and sighs heavily.

4.35. 5. showing signs of recovery. Hale brings in William Watson again"Here where the tide of conquest rolls upon a distant golden shore",

4.38... Quick jabs by Hale with references to Julius Caesar, Lacantus, Napoleon and Gladstone. S. still follow- ing gamely,

4.40. Time! Halo sits down. Seleskovitch grabs a pint of water, or was it a litre, lights a cigarette, and dis- appears.

4:41: Verdict: a draw,

I should not like Mr Seleskovitch to know that the best shorthand writer in the House of Commons who heard. the "fight" informed me that Hale was not really trying..

Later comment by Seleskovitch: "One of the worst ex- 'périences în" my seven years as ʼn translator,"

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