"Space Was Annihilated..."

As former city editor of the New Orleans States and a Democratic Congressman since 1941, Louisiana's F. (for Felix) Edward Hebert (pronounced Abear) knows what makes a news story. This spring he got his hands on a natural: along with three other Congressmen and a Senator he went to Eniwetok for the latest atomic bomb tests (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), from which all working newsmen were banned. Before he left, Hebert agreed to do an exclusive series on the tests for his old paper.

Last week, when Hebert's pieces came out, the States offered the series free to others. The Associated Press and International News Service picked up the Congressman's irradiated prose. Sample quote: "I had a feeling that I was standing at the gates of hell looking into eternity . . . Space was annihilated . . . You feel so pitifully helpless." The United Press passed up Hebert for its own eyewitnesser by Illinois Representative Melvin Price, onetime East St. Louis (Ill.) Journal sportwriter, whose prose was pallid by comparison: "It seemed my eyes would be strained."

Washington newsmen demanded to know why the Atomic Energy Commission had played such favorites. Said AEChairman Gordon Dean apologetically, there were still plenty of tests to come, and "a number" of newsmen will probably be cleared to cover them.

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