Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-10-11
Our Atomic Position

Somebody is obviously very wrong
about the scale and pace of our country's
atomS-for-peace program. In effect,
along with Estes Kefauver, Adlai Steven
son has attacked the whole thing as a
failure in which we find ourselves tagging
behind Britain and Russia. But Lewis
Strauss, chairman of our Atomic Energy
Commission, has Just told an entirely
different story.
Thus, speaking before the New York
Board OF Trade in fighting political
spirit, Mr.. Strauss has presented "factS
and figures" that certainly seem to de-
molish the Kefauver-Stevenson thesis.
To begin with, wholly apart from what
has been and is being accomplished in
the international field land real progress
undoubtedly has been made there) the
Acc chairman has pointed out that at
the beginning of the Eisenhower admin
iStration there was not single major
American project aimed at building a
reactor for peacetime industrial power.
And he has gone on from there to cite
some decidedly impressive statistics on
what has since been achieved in this field.
Let us look at some of these statistics.
One of them concerns the Shippingport
atomic project being built in the Pitts
burgh area. Designed to generate be-
tween $4,000 and 100000 kilowattS of
electricity, it will become operable in the
coming year as the worlds first big
nuclear' power plant designed exclusively
for civilian use. But this represents Just
a T,a oil
current program includes 80 nonmilitary
reactorS now in operation, under con-
Struction or planned. Including the
Shippingport plant, Is of this total will
provide-between now and 1962-about
IL million kilowattS for homes and indus
tries And more than half of the $3.50
million to be invested in them will be put
up by American private enterprise. AS
for the overall picture, Mr.. Strauss has
summed it up as follows:
The United States has built and OPP
Grated more atomic reactors of all types
and all sizes, for all purposes than all the
rest OF the world combined. We have built
total of 80 reactors in this country, and
1T more are either already under con-
struction or planned. OF this total of 209
reactorS, more than a third are power
producing types, either experimental or
prototype. A substantial number are. of
course, military power plants such as those
which propel our atomic submarines
These military reactors provide valuable
knowledge to aid in developing power
plants for civil use.
AS for being outStripped in exploiting
the atoms beneficent potentialities, Mr..
StrauSS-citing specifically the known
state of British and Russian progress
has fatty denied that the United States
has lost first place in the field AS he has
put 1t, "Such allegations have no basis
in fact. We do not lag behind any other
nation; on the contrary, we stand as the
acknowledged world leader in every
aspect of nuclear power development,
both for military and peaceful uses" He
has said this with great emphasis, and
even though he has said it more or less
politically within an intensely political
period in answer to the campaign aSser-
lions of MessrS. Stevenson and Kefauver,
he has said it from a uniquely we'll
informed position of high authority and
grave responsibility.
All things considered, therefore,
there is ample reason to assume that Mr..
StrauSS-in his latest Speech-haS given
our country and the world much better
and much more reliable assessment of
Americas atomic position than the one
presented by his Democratic critics. If
the "factS and figures" he has submitted
are correct, it is hard to escape the con-
clusion that those critics have been
talking through their hats.