New 'Death Beam' Protects Cities in Case of War

Can Be Used Only as Defensive Measure, Says Tesla, Noted Inventor.

International News Service Staff Correspondent.

NEW YORK, July 12 (INS). — Nikola Tesla, famous 79-year-old scientist, declared in an interview here that his new invention — the "death beam" — would be a sure-fire protection for cities like New York, San Francisco. Los Angeles, London, Paris, Rome, Berlin and Istanbul in the event of an attack by an invading foe.

He saw in it a means of saving millions of lives in the event of another war — rather than an agency of death.

"A defensive weapon" was the way he characterized the "death beam." Its purpose is to prevent wholesale killings; to make war a foolhardy venture.

The "death beam," as explained by Dr. Tesla, would revolutionize defensive warfare. It is the perfection of a method and apparatus which would shoot through the air concentrated beams of particles of such devastating energy that they could cause invading armies to drop in their tracks or bring down a fleet of 10,000 enemy airplanes at a distance of 250 miles.

Dr. Tesla, who is the father of modern methods of generation and distribution of electrical energy, told International News Service he intends to present his invention to the League of Nations at Geneva.

"Every nation in the world can be so protected that it would be the greatest folly for any country to set forth to conquer," said Dr. Tesla. "This new form of energy could be inalculabe influence in the preservation of world peace."

He asserted that the "death beam" would operate silently — but effectively — at distances "as far as the telescope could see an object on the ground and as far as the curvature of the earth would permit." It would be invisible.

New York City, or San Francisco, would be immune from airplane attack no matter how powerful. The "death beam" could make any nation safe from attack, either by airplane or from armies.

"Couldn't the 'death beam' be similarly employed as a method of offense?" Dr. Tesla was asked.

"No," he replied, explaining that the beam could be generated only from large, stationary power plants.

He said, however, that "it would be possible to rig up a power plant on a battleship which would "enable the ship to nullify any airplane attack."

Battleships, as a result, would hold supremacy over airplanes on the seas.

Dr. Tesla stressed that the main idea of the "death beam" invention was to protect "density of populations" throughout the civilized world from attack through the air.