High Wind

For three weeks Tennessee's Senator Kenneth McKellar, an ancient knight on a spavined horse, had roared accusations at David Lilienthal in Washington. His arena was the Senate's Atomic Energy Committee, which was holding hearings on Lilienthal's fitness to head the Atomic Energy Commission. McKellar was not a committee member, but the Republican majority politely let him have his way.

He called up old enemies of Lilienthal as witnesses. He bludgeoned him with gossip, crackpot letters, unsupported charges. He insisted on knowing the birthplace of Lilienthal's parents, aged 72 and 78. "It was in the vicinity of Pressburg, which is now a part of Czechoslovakia," said Lilienthal.

"Czechoslovakia is under the domination of Russia," the 78-year-old McKellar whooped in triumph.

Republicans, who control the Senate, did not seem to be listening. The whole thing, it seemed, might subside; McKellar would clump off on his moth-eaten charger and Lilienthal would be confirmed. Then, last week, something happened.

Suddenly a high political wind blew into the committee. It shook both parties. It agitated U.S. economics. It whistled from the dark caverns of partisanship and prejudice.

The Hatchetmen. Over the wind sounded the hoofbeats of Republican hatchetmen: New Hampshire's Styles Bridges; Nebraska's Kenneth Wherry, the Republican whip, the ex-undertaker who wants to bury the New Deal; Illinois' C. Wayland ("Curly") Brooks, the old isolationist; Maine's Owen Brewster, who is itching to investigate wartime defense contracts. They smote Lilienthal as a New Dealer, as dictatorial, as unfit for such a high position. They were not the responsible Republican leadership. But Bob Taft, who is the real and responsible G.O.P. leader, didn't say no to the hatchetmen.

Southern Democrats also rode the wind: McKellar's colleague from Tennessee, Tom Stewart, a stooge of Memphis' Boss Crump; Louisiana's John Overton, who had defended Theodore Bilbo six weeks ago; Texas' rambunctious Pappy O'Daniel.

What had happened to cause such a storm? Had it been inspired? Harry Tru-- man's nomination of Lilienthal last fall had caused no tremor. Why now?

Lilienthal had many enemies. They were opposed to him not so much for what he was--a brilliant, impatient, zealous administrator--as for what he represented. He represented the New Deal, which was their shorthand way of saying: hostility to the successful businessman, government ownership of utilities, too much government in general.

As boss of TVA he had opposed every attempt of Congressmen to interfere in that undertaking. TVA had forced the private power companies out of Tennessee. Power companies were applying pressure now to keep Lilienthal out of the chairmanship of AEC.

AEC would control more power than the world had ever known. Atomic energy might eventually replace every present source of power--coal, water or oil. An economic revolution was at hand. To lead that revolution some Republicans and some Democrats did not want David Lilienthal. Some military men did not want him either because they thought he was naive and did not know a Red from a patriot.

There was another factor in the bitter equation which no one would admit but which unquestionably was there: Lilienthal was a Jew.

Public Servant. He was born in Morton, Ill. He graduated from DePauw University in 1920 and got a law degree from Harvard in 1923. He was associated for a while with Donald Richberg, then general counsel for the railroad brotherhoods. In 1931 Lilienthal was appointed to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission, where he made that state's public utility statutes a model which half a dozen other states adopted. He also incurred the wrath of private power companies. At 34, he was named by Roosevelt to a directorship of TVA.

At 47, he was nominated to the chairmanship of AEC. The President had been pondering the appointment. According to the story of an associate, he mused one day: "The kind of person we need is someone everyone can have confidence in, who can do a job like TVA."

Public Record. TVA had harnessed the Tennessee River. TVA carried electric power to nearly 700,000 people, increased the use of home electricity in the valley to 50% above the national average, lowered rates to 20% below the national average. It transformed an eroded, sick valley into a fertile land. It bought out Wendell Willkie's Tennessee Electric Power Co. (paying a handsome price), but on its cheap power it nourished hundreds of other private enterprises. It was never a monopoly; its great system was decentralized. It had contracts with 138 municipal and cooperative systems. When the war came it paid off. The valley created by TVA became an arsenal, turning out guns, shells, boilers, fabrics, etc. It supplied the power for the Oak Ridge atom plants.

Lilienthal was a director of TVA from its beginning in 1933, chairman for the last five years.

Harry Truman could otherwise justify his choice. It was Congress itself which had decided that a TVA was needed in the atomic field and created AEC. Was Lilienthal a man not "above suspicion?" No man in the U.S. would be above suspicion in a job which was swept by so many crosscurrents of American life. If not Lilienthal--then who?

Lilienthal had collaborated with Under Secretary of State Dean Acheson in writing the proposal which is now the basis for U.S. policy in international control.

Lilienthal was security-minded. Secretary of War Patterson went out of his way to support him. As for the farcical charge of Communism--"absolutely unfounded," snapped Mr. Truman.

The President was determined to stick with Lilienthal.

"This Awful Power." He had a popular cause. If the Republicans beat his man they could be accused of retarding the whole atomic program, accused of partisanship and prejudice. It was a moral cause and Harry Truman stuck to it. His was also a shrewd political position.

Republicans began to see the harvest they had sown. In hurt tones they suggested that Lilienthal's name be withdrawn to save the country from the stress & strain of the conflict which they had built up. Their Southern colleagues joined them. Said Georgia's Congressman Eugene Cox: "Whoever is invested with this awful power should enjoy public confidence and this Mr. Lilienthal does not have."

But Lilienthal seemed to enjoy more public confidence than some Congressmen. Wrathfully, the Republican New York

Herald Tribune pointed out: "It is time for Republicans to stop and ask themselves seriously just what the party proposes to do with its new power. ... It has no mandate to return to a now irrecoverable past of blind isolationism, narrow prejudice, obedience to this or that hidden pressure or influence, the whole McKellar brand of demagoguery. ... It is the party leadership which is now meeting the first tests of public opinion."

The Herald Tribune was pointing at Senator Taft. Colorado's Eugene Millikin, Taft's right-hand man, had indicated that he would support Lilienthal. Co-Leader Arthur Vandenberg gave Lilienthal lukewarm support; he did not want to jeopardize Republican unity. Upon Taft rested the outcome. Taft's word would solidify G.O.P. opposition or break it. He could cast his one vote and let it go at that; or he could demand a party vote. In that case, said one Republican Senator who privately admitted that he would vote to confirm, "a lot of us who would be independent might be obliged to vote with the leadership. If it doesn't become an out-and-out party test I think Lilienthal will get through."

At week's end Taft had not made known his decision.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.