Letter from Miss Elizabeth Haswell to President Harry S. Truman

1910 Kalorama Rd. N.W. Washington 9, D.C. Jan. 29, 1950. 692-8 The President The White House mind Washington, D.C. Can Dear Sir: H Those who advocate the construction of the hydrogen bomb no doubt believe that possessing it will give us an advantage in bargaining with Russia for armaments control. However, it seems to me that efforts to control the behavior of others through fear have not in the past led to security for any- one. Peace must be built upon confidence and cooperation and, difficult as it mays seem at present to achieve any usable degree of confidence, we must continue to work patiently through the U.N. to improve international relations. I have jusst been reading the article "U.N. V. Mass Destruction" by Trygve Lie in this month's Scientific American and the argument in it seems to me to be directly opposed to the policy underlying the construction of hydrogen bombs. Mr. Lie says, = In the final analysis we must not forget that although science discovered and harnessed atomic energy, only the art OC politics can prevent the use of atomic energy for the destruction of man in- stead of for his advancement So those of us who believe that agreement must be reached no matter how manymonths or years it takes must dedicate our- selves to extending the area of political understanding between East and West at HARRY LESSARY every opportunity and in every possible way = NATIONAL RECORDS NNO SERVICE GOVERNMENT In spite of the "walk-out" of the Russians from some of the U.N. Committees this article by Mr. Lie and some other articles such as the one by Mr. Thomas Hamilton in today's New York Times), give me encouragement in believing that progress has been made at the U.N. toward better understanding between "ast and West on atomic matters. I deeply hope that we may not put our faith in