ATOMIC ENERGY AS A HUMAN ASSET—COMPTON 165 
demanded such a life. Similarly now, until positive assurance can 
be obtained of security through an international military force, we 
have no alternative but to prepare such shelters and scatter our popu- 
lation. Death is worse than inconvenience. 
We must keep in mind that, when all are armed with atomic 
weapons, no superiority of one nation can free it from danger of 
great damage by another. One man may own a .22-target pistol 
and another a high-power hunting rifle. But neither is insurance 
against murder by the other. The insurance is to take away both 
guns, or the fear of punishment by the police, or most surely of all 
the development of a social conscience for which murder becomes 
unthinkable. 
Is there then any procedure which can free us from the threat of 
annihilation? I believe there is. It makes, however, the hard 
demands of sacrifice of national sovereignty and of faith in other 
peoples that will give them a share in the responsibility for our own 
security. 
In the statement issued yesterday by the heads of the governments 
of Great Britain, Canada, and the United States plans are laid 
looking toward “entirely eliminating the use of atomic energy for 
destructive purposes and promoting its widest use for industrial 
and humanitarian purposes.” They “emphasize that the responsibil- 
ity for devising means to insure that the new discoveries shall be 
used for the benefit of mankind, instead of as a means of destruction, 
rests, not on our nations alone, but upon the whole civilized world.” 
Let us suppose that the United States, Russia, and Britain agree to 
transfer their own total power to wage international war to a joint 
Military Commission. It will be better to include France and China 
as the other permanent members of the Security Council so that 
the Military Commission can function within the framework of the 
United Nations Organization. This Commission will have placed 
under its orders the united armies, navies, and war weapons of the 
member nations. Its charter will give the Military Commission the 
responsibility for stopping any armed conflict between nations that 
may arise, including wars in which the member nations are them- 
selves participants. This responsibility can be carried out since the 
major nations will have contributed to the Commission all of their 
own fighting strength except that needed for their internal policing. 
To be effective it seems obvious that the actions of the Military Com- 
mission cannot be subject to the veto power of any single nation but 
must be controlled by the joint action of some such group as the 
Security Council. For concreteness we may suggest further that 
this Commission have its seat in Canada, with its headquarters at 
