Dangerous Deadlock

Since it was established in 1946, Congress' Joint Committee on Atomic Energy has been an effective board of directors for the U.S. atomic-energy program. But in the ten weeks of the 83rd Congress, the committee (nine Senators, nine Representatives) has been losing its grip. The reason: a Senate v. House deadlock over the chairmanship.

A Senator has always headed the committee. The first chairman, in the Republican 80th Congress, was Iowa's steady, hard-working Bourke B. Hickenlooper. In the Democratic 81st, Connecticut's yeasty Brien McMahon took over, to serve until he died last July. House members insist that there was an "understanding" that the chairmanship would alternate between the Senate and the House. (They let McMahon serve out of turn because he had sponsored the act establishing the committee.) Senate members don't seem to recall any such understanding.

When Congress convened in January, the Senate committeemen insisted that their senior Republican member, Hickenlooper, step back to the chair. House members demanded top place for their senior Republican, New York's W. Sterling Cole. Hickenlooper and "Stub" Cole remained good friends, but other members split: eight Senators for Hickenlooper, eight Representatives for Cole.

Under North Carolina's ailing Democratic Representative Carl Durham, who was McMahon's vice chairman, the committee has tried to function on a tentative basis; but Government agencies, which have worked closely with the chairman in the past, now have no key man to contact. Members, fearful that they might tip the chairmanship stalemate the wrong way, have been clam-quiet on some important issues, e.g., the Navy's failure to promote Captain Hyman G. Rickover, the atomic-submarine expert.

Last week committee members were shifting nervously, realizing that unless the deadlock is broken soon, the atomic program and the U.S. will suffer.

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