All Over Again

For five months the Senate's Special Committee on Atomic Energy argued the question: what should the U.S. do about The Bomb? They were agreed on one point: the U.S. should keep the secret--even though scientists insisted there was no secret to guard. As far as the Senators were concerned, the question really boiled down to: who should do the guarding, civilians or the military? The debate raged long & loud.

Last week, they thought they had something just about nailed down. They were sadly mistaken.

They had tentatively agreed on a bill, drafted by Committee Chairman Brien McMahon, which set up a control commission of five civilians. Then they tacked on (by a 10-to-1 vote) an amendment by Michigan's Senator Arthur Vandenberg. It provided for a military board which would have access to all the commission's information and could appeal to the President if anything the civilians did seemed "inimical to the common defense." They also tacked on an amendment by Connecticut's Senator Thomas Hart, adding an advisory board of nine part-time experts to the commission.

The Vandenberg amendment was a compromise. "The military committee's only power," Vandenberg explained, "is to say 'Stop, look and listen" . . . the minimum consideration of national defense which this situation requires."

But it roused once more all the opponents of any kind of military influence. Said Chairman McMahon: "This [military] committee would have the power to interpret its own sphere of interest and activity . . . obstruct the work of the commission" unless the commission followed the military's policies.

Citizens' committees began to sprout and shout across the land. One, organized by Donald Nelson, attacked the Vandenberg amendment as "contrary to the historic constitutional principle of civilian control over all phases of American national policy."

The debate raged on. At week's end the State Department issued the Acheson report (see INTERNATIONAL) which would eventually vest primary control in UNO. Senators were in a tailspin. Hastily they withdrew into their chambers to think it all over again, while Mr. Vandenberg buckled down to write another amendment defining the functions of the military.

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