Delay or Die?

IN 1946, U.S. delegate to the U.N. Bernard Baruch had an idea. All nations would be prohibited not just from seeking to develop nuclear weapons, but from building nuclear power plants that might create fissionable material appropriate for a bomb. Instead, an international authority would maintain a monopoly over nuclear activity, and the U.S. would eventually relinquish its weapons. U.N. Security Council permanent members would lose their veto over any action to enforce these restrictions, because, when it comes to nukes, “to delay may be to die.”

Today, with worries about Osama bin Laden or other terrorists gaining access to the tens of thousands of nuclear weapons and the thousands of tons of fissionable material rattling around the world, Baruch’s urgency may again seem appropriate. But his prescriptions don’t, even as the spirit of them lives on in U.S. policy. The Baruch plan went nowhere in the U.N., but it still can be seen as a sort of high-water mark for post-war arms control. Then, the fantasy of non-proliferation at least still seemed shiny and new. It has been steadily discredited ever since.

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Rich Lowry

Rich Lowry is the editor in chief of National Review.

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IN 1946, U.S. delegate to the U.N. Bernard Baruch had an idea. All nations would be prohibited not just from seeking to develop nuclear weapons, but from building nuclear power plants that might create fissionable material appropriate for a bomb. Instead, an international authority would maintain a monopoly over nuclear activity, and the U.S. would eventually relinquish its weapons. U.N. Security Council permanent members would lose their veto over any action to enforce these restrictions, because, when it comes to nukes, “to delay may be to die.”

Today, with worries about Osama bin Laden or other terrorists gaining access to the tens of thousands of nuclear weapons and the thousands of tons of fissionable material rattling around the world, Baruch’s urgency may again seem appropriate. But his prescriptions don’t, even as the spirit of them lives on in U.S. policy. The Baruch plan went nowhere in the U.N., but it still can be seen as a sort of high-water mark for post-war arms control. Then, the fantasy of non-proliferation at least still seemed shiny and new. It has been steadily discredited ever since.