Forward Step

On his way home from the Bermuda Conference in 1953, President Eisenhower delivered before the U.N. a speech that electrified the world. The President pledged the U.S. "to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma--to devote its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life." His specific proposal: the big powers should "begin now and continue to make joint contributions from their stockpiles of normal uranium and fissionable materials to an international atomic- energy agency . . . under the aegis of the U.N."

Last week in Washington, a twelve-nation conference at last got around to approving a charter for the agency that will run the atoms-for-peace program. The Russians dropped their 1 1/2-year-old insistence that it come under the U.N. Security Council, where they hold a veto. The Indians stopped haggling about the rights of have-not nations when the U.S. and Russia agreed that the agency should submit reports to the 76-nation U.N. General Assembly. The twelve countries agreed that the agency should receive, regulate and distribute fissionable materials, as the President had proposed back in 1953. The charter for the new agency will be submitted for ratification to an 84-nation conference at the U.N. this fall, when a 23-nation governing board will be chosen. Among the charter members: the U.S., Russia, India.

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