"Bunk! Baloney!"

The two men are of strong--and bitterly opposing--views. Missouri's Senator Stuart Symington is a millionaire businessman (Emerson Electric) turned liberal Democratic politician. Ohio's George Magoffin Humphrey is a millionaire businessman who served from 1953 to 1957 as Dwight Eisenhower's rock-solid conservative Treasury Secretary. Last week Symington and Humphrey faced each other at a Senate Armed Services Subcommittee hearing--and the result was an explosion of wrath and recrimination.

Under Symington's chairmanship, the subcommittee for months had been investigating the Government's stockpiling program under the Eisenhower Administration. Symington has enthusiastically built up charges that Cleveland's giant M. A. Hanna Co. made unconscionable profits out of a stockpiling deal. George Humphrey was Hanna's board chairman before entering the Eisenhower Cabinet; he held onto his thick portfolio of Hanna stock while in public office, and he returned to the company as honorary chairman upon leaving Washington.

Good Deal. The complex details of the disputed Hanna contracts seemed hardly the stuff for sensation. In 1952, with the Korean war dragging on, the U.S. Government needed great quantities of nickel for war production, especially for jet aircraft.

At that time, the U.S. produced no nickel at all; the entire supply was imported, largely from Canada. But Hanna owned an idle nickel mine in Oregon, and the Truman Administration began negotiating with the company to open the mine for production. On Jan. 16, 1953, just four days before the Eisenhower Administration took over, the Government and the Hanna Co. signed their contracts.

Those contracts undeniably added up to a good thing for Hanna. The Government agreed to buy Hanna's nickel ore at $6 per ton; it also agreed to advance the entire cost, some $22 million, of building a smelter to refine the ore. Although profit figures are in dispute, by George Humphrey's own reckoning they came to at least $7,500,000--roughly double Hanna's investment in the nickel operation. Moreover, under the terms of the contracts, Hanna last year took over ownership of the smelter for a mere $1,700,000. But the deal worked out pretty well for the Government too. As Humphrey pointed out last week, when the contracts expire in 1965, the U.S. will have accumulated an inventory of 94.7 million Ibs. of Hanna nickel at a total net cost of $67.2 million.

That works out to 71-c- per lb., against a current market price of about 75-c-

"Small Potatoes." It was to defend himself and his company against the charges of profiteering that George Humphrey last week appeared before Symington's subcommittee. Bland and imperturbable, he was just the sort of witness to enrage emotional Stuart Symington. With a confident smile, Humphrey dismissed the charges of exorbitant profits as "bunk" and "baloney." Right to their faces, Humphrey told South Carolina's Senator Strom Thurmond that he was "confused" and California's Clair Engle that he was "mixed up." To a big company like Hanna (total assets: $450 million), he said, the smelter deal was "small potatoes"; for that matter, the nickel contracts were the "tag end of our business." He had, he said, been too busy with more important Hanna interests to pay much attention to the nickel contracts while they were being negotiated. Actually, he argued, the nickel deal was very simple, and he could not understand why it was unclear to the Senators. "You can put the whole thing down on the back of an envelope," said Humphrey--Throughout the first day of Humphrey's appearance, Symington held on to his temper. But offstage, Humphrey told a Christian Science Monitor reporter that "they don't dare attack Ike direct so they are attacking me. This is a stab in the back." Now if there is any way to infuriate a politician, it is to accuse him of playing politics--and when he heard of Humphrey's remark, Symington blew up. "You Don't Dare!" When the subcommittee met next morning, Chairman Symington was still flushed with anger.

He read off a prepared statement denouncing the nickel contracts and Humphrey's testimony about them. He quoted Humphrey's crack to the Monitor reporter.

"Our reply to that," said Symington, "is we do not intend to let Mr. Humphrey hide behind former President Eisenhower.

The American people will decide who stabbed whom in the back. In any case the chairman of this subcommittee does not intend to have any witness, regardless of his previous position, impugn the motives of the Senate by such a remark.

This hearing is adjourned subject to the call of the chair." At that, the roof went off. Two Republican subcommittee members, Connecticut's Prescott Bush and Maryland's J.

Glenn Beall, protested Symington's statement and got into a heated row with him.

Bush demanded a subcommittee vote on adjournment; Symington insisted firmly that he had a right to adjourn the subcommittee on his own. George Humphrey tried to get in a word: "Mr. Chairman . . ." Symington's reply dripped with sarcasm : " 'Senator' Humphrey would like to say something." Humphrey: Before you adjourn this, and I am very complimented at being called Senator Humphrey, but that is not the fact . . .

Symington (breaking in): Didn't you say--as long as you want to testify--did you say what the paper says you said? Humphrey (bluntly): Yes, I did.

Symington: You made a bitter and in my opinion a direct impugning of the motives of the U.S. Senate and this subcommittee, and therefore I do not intend to hear any testimony from you this morning.

Humphrey (aghast): You cannot stop me from making a statement and adjourn this! You don't dare! Symington (banging his gavel): This hearing is adjourned! Don't ever tell me as a United States Senator and chairman of the committee what I dare or dare not do!

Where upon the flustered Symington stood up and rushed from the hearing room. That evening, he entered a Washington hospital for a previously scheduled hernia operation. He will be out of action for at least three weeks, and so will the subcommittee. But it is safe to predict that the U.S. has not heard the last of the conflict between George Humphrey and Stuart Symington.

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