Says Soviet Right In Seeking Bomb

Havana, Feb. 18 (AP), —Joseph E. Davies, former United States Ambassador to Russia, said today “Russia in self-defense has every moral right to seek atomic bomb secrets through military espionage if excluded from such information by her former fighting allies.”

“Such exclusion is by inference hostile,” he added in an interview.

“For years all major powers have maintained intelligence services whose function it is to acquire military information available in other nations.

“If Russia had developed the atomic bomb and the United States were in her shoes, we certainly would try to obtain such information—especially if we faced a potentially hostile world.”

Mr. Davies said the United States and Britain were “treating the Russians as infants” in trying to keep atomic secrets from them.

“Highly skilled Russian scientists will acquire means to atomic warfare within two years in their own laboratories,” he declared.