Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-10-18
Our Atomic Position

what STANDS out ike q sore
thumb in your October IL
editorial, Our Atomic Posi-
tion," rhapsodic over the re-
cent address Of Lewis Strauss,
chairman Of the Atomic En-
ergy Commission, is the purely
hypothetical character of your
praise. You say: IF the facts
and figures he has submitted
are correct. it is hard to escape
the conclusion" that his critics
are wrong. But If the facts
and figures" are not correct,
then it follows that Mr..
Strauss is wrong and his critics
right. You fail to give an ade-
quate reason for accepting the
former hypothesis, unless it
is Mr.. Strauss official position.
which others, however, might
conclude means that his mere
statements require independ-
ent check. This would seem
to be all the more necessary
since Mr.. Strauss has not won
the confidence Of the Joint
Committee on Atomic Energy
whom by Jaw he is required to
keep fully informed. It is true
that political factors must be
considered. but why must you
ignore them in speech during
an election campaign?
According to Senator Gore,
a member of the Joint Com
mittee on Atomic Energy. Mr..
Strauss is playing a numbers
game" in telling the public
this country has built" 80
reactors. Actually, says Sem
ator Gore, SO Of these reactors
are not suitable for civilian
power-the theme Of Mr..
Strauss speech-and only 6 Of
the IA others, all experimental
and research models, were be-
gun after this administration
took Office. Although a member
of the committee which is sup
posed to be fully informed.
Senator Gore does not know
the location of 80 civilian
power reactors "in operation
under construction or
planned" If any of these rep
resent CLEANS in some plan
ner's eye. they still do not
meet the eye Of those who need
more than dreams as evidence
of accomplishment.
You do not help to keep the
question out Of partisan poll
tics by considering only how
Mr.. Strauss does or does not
meet the criticism of political
opponents and neglecting his
adequacy in face Of criticism
from scientific and technical
people. DR.. Henry DeWoh
Smythe, charm a n of the
board of scientific engineer
ing at Princeton University
and a former member Of the
Atomic Energy Commission,
believes that the Governments
"atoms for peace" program is
too much talk and too little
action. He charges. in an ar
ticle in Foreign Affairs, that
the Eisenhower administration
is slow to exploit nuclear
energy as a source Of industrial
power. observing that I'VE do
not have a single plant in
operation producing significant
amounts of commercial power
from nuclear energy" and ask
ing: How can we offer to
build reactors abroad without
building enough reactors here
to know what we are doing?"
DR.. Walter H. linn. a lead
ing reactor authority and for
mer head Of the Argonne Lab
oratory. pointed out to the
Joint Committee on Atomic
Energy that there we're at least
five promising reactor types
not being fully explored under
the present programs. He said:
"Nuclear reactors Of certain
types which ultimately might
produce machines Of superior
performance in a power net
work might never come into
existence simply because they
were not tried out on a sub
stantial scale sufficiently early
in the nuclear power develop
ment program. Time is Of the
essence. because by 1860 Rus
sian experts have promised to
produce more than Us million
kilowatts Of nuclear generated
power. utilizing several reac-
tor types. while our present
plans. assuming no delays. look
to approximately IL million
kilowatts by that year. It may
be dangerous TO underestimate
the Russians ability to carry
out some Of their promises.
as We have learned from
experience.
What's holding It up? Mr..
Strauss has insisted that he
would be prepared for the
Atomic Energy Commission 70
build prototype reactors only
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