Clint's Doctor Fell

I do not like thee, Doctor Fell--The reason why I cannot tell; . . But this I know, and know full well I do not like thee, Doctor Fell.

--Tom Brown

The reason why he cannot tell, but New Mexico's Democratic Senator Clinton Anderson, powerful vice chairman of Congress' Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, knows this full well: he does not like Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Lewis L. Strauss. Although the origins of the feud are obscure, the fact of Anderson's violent dislike for Strauss has been known for years--and by last week it had Clint Anderson, ordinarily a reasonable man, roaring ahead with a continuing attack on Lewis Strauss.

The latest dispute between Anderson and Strauss began when Senator Anderson, appearing on the Meet the Press television program, accused the U.S. military of "inserting something" in atomic bombs to increase, rather than reduce, atomic fallout (TIME, May 12). Last week Lewis Strauss replied to Anderson's charge in a calm, factual letter to Joint Committee on Atomic Energy Chairman Carl Durham of North Carolina. "Atomic bombs," said Strauss, "are only taken from stockpiles for purposes of routine inspection or for modification or improvement. No material is 'inserted' in bombs for the purpose of increasing the amount of fission products or to add to the total fallout." At that, Anderson arose wrathfully on the Senate floor, declared that Strauss "in effect four times calls me a liar."

Lewis Strauss had not even come close to accusing Anderson of deliberate falsehood, but on television's Face the Nation he did point out that although most of the current agitation for stopping nuclear tests was "completely innocent of any political motive," there was also evidence of "a kernel of very intelligent, deliberate propaganda." Clint Anderson blew up. Cried he of Strauss: "He seeks to become the modern apostle of McCarthyism."

The Anderson vendetta against Strauss could have far-reaching national consequences: if the Democrats control the Congress next year. Anderson will probably be chairman of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy and thus the man on Capitol Hill with whom Strauss must work most closely. Last week, summing up the possible results. New York Times Columnist Arthur Krock, an old friend to both Anderson and Strauss, described Strauss as Clint Anderson's Doctor Fell, concluded: "If Strauss retires voluntarily at the end of his current term, June 30, one of the principal reasons might well be his patriotic recognition that, in the Senate battle against his confirmation foreshadowed by Anderson's attitude, the AEC's work and policies might be seriously impeded."

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