The Accuser

The investigation into Chairman David Lilienthal's two-year stewardship of the Atomic Energy Commission had all the familiar trappings of a congressional hazing. But the act was getting out of hand. Baking in the floodlights that shone for the spider-legged newsreel and television cameras, Iowa's schoolmasterish Senator Bourke Hickenlooper suddenly began to look more like the defendant than the prosecutor.

While his congressional colleagues stayed discreetly in the background, Hickenlooper was left alone to explain just what he meant by Lilienthal's "incredible mismanagement" of AEC (TIME, June 6). If his first week's evidence was any sample, he didn't have much to go on. Riffling through a pack of file-index cards, Hickenlooper could produce only two examples: that excessive turnover among AEC employees showed "a startling lack of continuity"; that Lilienthal had shown "brazen effrontery" by granting emergency security clearances to 3,280 AEC employees, pending a full FBI check.

Irresistible Barbs. These were charges that barely supported the dutiful, day-to-day headlines. Most of Hickenlooper's facts & figures had been gathering dust in committee files for months. And just three weeks ago Hickenlooper himself had publicly praised the "record of loyalty and character in this whole project." With a patient confidence, Lilienthal began to take Hickenlooper's charges apart. For one thing, Hickenlooper had put all the blame on Lilienthal, though AEC and its laboratories (Argonne), atom plants (Hanford) and proving grounds (Eniwetok) are governed by a full five-man commission, and not by Chairman Lilienthal alone. And of more than 500 formal decisions taken by the commission only five had not been unanimous, Lilienthal said.

AEC had indeed lost many of its top officials, Lilienthal admitted. But it had lost them for the same reasons that made many citizens reluctant to trade the security and rewards of private life for the hazards, the glare and the low pay of Government office. As for the rank & file, he pointed out that AEC's record compared almost exactly with figures on turnover for all Government agencies.

Almost half of AEC's ex-employees had left for "other reasons than their own volition." Some had been fired, or died or retired; some had left on maternity leave. Cracked Lilienthal: "Babies may be evidence of incredible mismanagement, but not on the part of this commission."

Lilienthal could not resist one more barb. He noted with satisfaction that Hickenlooper did not suspect all those who had received emergency clearances. "Since this list included General Eisenhower," Lilienthal remarked acidly, "he will be glad it is not a blanket list.'-

The Meaning of Security. The whole process of emergency clearances, Lilienthal went on, had been specifically authorized by law to speed AEC's work. A breakdown of plutonium production was threatened in the overworked Hanford, Wash. plant, for example, and it had been necessary to rush in a corps of workers to expand the plant. "To lose 60 or 90 days [through loyalty checks] at that juncture," said Lilienthal, "was a very serious responsibility for the commission."

Real security, Lilienthal insisted, must always be considered in broader terms than "padlocks, safes and loyalty investigations." He added: "Security in the real sense is whether the country's strength is increased."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.