By Their Words

Was there a case against David Lilienthal? Thus far his principal opponents--rallying around Tennessee's Senator McKellar--had been rabid anti-New Dealers, anti-Semites, bitter foes of Government control, or men who insisted that the Atomic Energy Commission chairman should be above the suspicion they themselves had cast. Their case had been based on politics, prejudice and pork-barreling.* Last week Ohio's Senator Robert Taft thought he had other grounds for opposition.

Borrowing a phrase from Majority Leader Wallace White, he was ready to cast his vote against Lilienthal as "temperamentally unfitted to head any important Government agency." Said he: "Lilienthal is a typical power-hungry bureaucrat, one of the group of men who . . . have defied Congress . . . have attempted to stretch their powers far beyond the limit of statutes."

Taft accused Lilienthal of being "soft on the subject of Communism." He included him among those who "accepted the Communists' strength and assistance," who permitted Communists "to infiltrate into many of the bureaus in Washington which they dominated."

To Taft's mind the clincher was the "same general softness" in the "Lilienthal report." According to Taft, the plan (until modified by Bernard Baruch) would have permitted "an international authority to duplicate our atom manufacturing plants throughout the world--including Russia." Taft's conclusion: "I do not want to see a man as muddled in his thinking on questions of international power in charge of our atom-bomb policies. I would consider his confirmation a real threat to our national safety."

Whose Responsibility? But Bob Taft's case looked something like a dressed-up version of the other attacks. What he called the "Lilienthal report" was actually the combined product of such coauthors as Atomic Scientist Robert Oppenheimer, Bell Telephone's Chester Barnard, Monsanto Chemical's Dr. Charles A. Thomas. It had been approved by the State Department's special committee on atomic energy--which included such men as Harvard's James B. Conant, Major General Leslie R. Groves and onetime Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy. In the words of the report itself, it was intended only as "a place to begin." And Lilienthal would not be "in charge" of U.S. atomic policy; his job would be simply to administer domestic atomic development.

Bob Taft was also battling a rising tide in Lilienthal's favor. All last week a flood of witnesses appeared before the Senate's Atomic Energy Committee to testify to Lilienthal's experience, ability and ideology. Scientists,' religious groups, plain citizens rallied to the Lilienthal cause. A Washington Post poll found 68% of the nation's Republican press pro-Lilienthal, only 14% anti. Atomic Trail-Blazer Albert Einstein urged confirmation. M.I.T.'s Dr. Karl Compton warned that many atomic scientists might take Lilienthal's defeat as the cue to pull out of the vast atomic projects.

From the ranks of Taft's own Republican Party two strong voices spoke. One was that of Senate President "pro tem Arthur Vandenberg. "Being on the jury," he refused to state his own position, but he implied it clearly. It was Vandenberg who read into the record the Compton warning. When Senator McKellar insisted that Communism in the TVA was a responsibility of Lilienthal's, Vandenberg replied acidly: "Former Senator La Follette wrote an article in which he said there were Communists working for the Senate. I did not see any Senators assuming responsibility."

Whom to Follow? The other voice was that of Massachusetts' able young Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. Said he: "I have come to the conclusion that the accusations against Lilienthal's character and patriotism are without proof and without foundation. I also have discovered that he is the only man in the U.S. who has_ever administered a project anywhere near as large and complex as that which he will be required to administer as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission."

By this week the lines of conflict had congealed. Iowa's Senator Bourke Hickenlooper, chairman of the investigating committee, set a deadline on new witnesses for this midweek. The outcome of the Lilienthal nomination would be decided on the floor of the Senate by Republicans who would follow either Bob Taft or Arthur Vandenberg. President Truman was confident that they would vote to confirm. Lilienthal supporters thought that, if they had Vandenberg's open support, they would win by a dozen votes.

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