Here in Oak Ridge, this nation has demonstrated the vast power which results from the combination of many talents and resources – abundant power, scientific personnel, industrial capabilities, transportation facilities, mineral and chemical resources, fuel supplies and the appropriate use of public funds and zealous governmental administration. All of these were blended together in one of the nation’s most masterful displays of concentrated effort as all of you so well know. The results have been a demonstration of our capacity to meet any challenge – and, for many years, an undisputed superiority in the field of international security.
Oak Ridge, I know, is proud of its record and America is proud of Oak Ridge. It is the earnest hope of us all that we can continue to combine those sources of strength and talent for even greater achievements and more peaceful uses.
But the point I want to make today is that this same list of capabilities is not exclusively an American list. I am certain that you here in Oak Ridge know perhaps better than anyone in the world that the United States has no monopoly on those resources or talents – that we no longer can rely on either an assumed superiority or a false secrecy to prevent other nations from obtaining nuclear and thermo-nuclear weapons.
We already know, of course, that such weapons are possessed by the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom as well as our own nation; and this has heightened our interest in international controls or disarmament. As long as we possessed the only nuclear weapons, the possibilities for real controls were substantial. As long as only a few of the major powers possess such weapons, the problem may still be manageable. But I ask you to think today about the not too distant future when many nations in many parts of the world of many political shades and commitments will possess nuclear or even thermo-nuclear weapons.
Many nations possess, or have access to, the scientific personnel or know-how, the power and fuel supplies, the mineral and chemical resources, the industrial base and the transportation facilities which combined to make the name Oak Ridge live in world history. Canada, Communist China, France, Sweden and Switzerland have all given various indications this past year that they are on the way to the development of such weapons. Sweden has doubled its budget in this field during the current fiscal year. It has been predicted that France will be testing Nagasaki-type bombs by next year. Canada already possesses a variety of reactors, as well as adequate uranium supplies and trained personnel. On the other side of the Iron Curtain, both Czechoslovakia and East Germany have tapped their rich supply of ores, and stepped up the training of their best minds in nuclear physics.
Similar data could be cited for Belgium, for Japan, for India, for Italy and for West Germany. There is no evidence, moreover, that nuclear bombs developed by such nations as Sweden or Switzerland will not be sold on the world market, just as guided missiles and reactors for peaceful uses are sold commercially today. There is no evidence that a smaller or less developed nation could not secretly convert a reactor it receives for peaceful uses today to make plutonium for use in a bomb.
In short, many nations are potential members of the atomic club. Their intention, to be sure, may not be to impair Western security – they may be seeking only increased prestige, or a reduction in expensive conventional forces, or a stronger voice in international councils, or more independence from big power decisions.
This has been called by some the “nth country problem.” But whatever it may be called, it is clear that it foreshadows developments that will alter every basic military and diplomatic promise of our time. The distinction between great powers and small powers will become less meaningful – to rest our hopes on a so-called balance of power will become impossible – and the security of this nation and the entire world will depend upon the daily events, the political stability, the motives and the politics of unknown or little known leaders all over the globe. If one thermo-nuclear bomb in the low megaton range were to be dropped on this nation – it would not matter whether the sender was responsible or fanatical – whether he was acting rationally or irrationally – deliberately or accidentally – it would still release more destructive energy upon this land than all the bombs dropped on Germany and Japan during World War II.
These developments should be of concern to everyone in Oak Ridge, to everyone in Washington and indeed to the entire country. They should be discussed, not for purposes of alarm, but for the purposes of alert. It is in this perspective that we should reexamine our own proposals for arms control as well as our attitude at the various disarmament conferences. We should reexamine our plans for continental warning and defense and our own arms budget.
Indeed this is a time for the whole world to stop and look at the position toward which it is moving. I realize that weapons are becoming increasingly hard to inspect – and that any disarmament agreement is becoming increasingly difficult to implement. But let us mobilize our energies and talents and intellectual resources with the same skill that Oak Ridge mobilized our scientific and material resources. Let us obtain the kind of leadership needed to begin now in planning for the year of the “nth country.” And let us, in our national and international deliberations, follow the advice of President Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, when he said: “seek nothing but what is right – submit to nothing wrong.” Let us persuade friend and foe alike that continued neglect of this problem will make all the world a loser – while its solution will make all the world a winner – and a better place with a better future for the children of every land.
Source: Papers of John F. Kennedy. Pre-Presidential Papers. Senate Files, Box 902, "Rotary Club, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 24 February 1959." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.