Sun Stroke

Several of the more unattractive aspects of journalistic and political activities were blended into one incident when the New York Sun published it recent scare story about the theft of certain A-bomb files. Statements issued late by Senators Hickenlooper and McMahon indicate that the Sun, foe one reason or another, had printed erroneous facts leading to an equally erroneous conclusion. Whereas the Sun reported that secret data was removed from files at Oak Ridge after they had been entrusted to the civilian Atomic Energy Commission, the truth seems to be that the papers were lifted from Los Alamos by Army personnel at a time when the Army was in full control of security measures.

It is to be expected that in the haste of making a deadline or getting out a scoop, newspapers will make more than occasional errors of fact; but if for no better reason that they know they will be found out and discredited, editors are not likely to feature a big story that they know to be incorrect. The most charitable interpretation is that the Sun is guilty only of carelessness, and that the real villain of the piece is the as yet unknown source of the "facts."

The moral to be drawn from the story as originally printed, and the one the Sun and other papers did draw, is that the Atomic Energy Commission is unfitted for the job with which it is entrusted. Facts brought out in the sequel rather completely vindicate the AEC at the expense of the Army and corroborate the judgement of Congressmen who placed atomic energy in the hands of civilians. Yet the same group that fought the Atomic Energy Commission and the confirmation of its chairman, David E. Lilienthal, is still trying to put the atom back in the protective custody of the military.

Senator McKellar, unable to forgive Lilienthal for not opening the payroll of TVA to McKellar patronage, is the god-father of one of five pending bills designed to do away with the Atomic Energy Commission. Another implacable foe of the Commission is J. Parnell Thomas who operates by the subtler procedure of periodically releasing stories relating how the Patent Office has given Russia all our atomic know-how, or that an Oak Ridge employee has a wife who works for the Soviet Embassy.

If it was the intent of the author of the Sun's "facts to discredit the Commission, he chose an admirable time, considering that Congress now has the above mentioned bills before it. That the plan backfired is a fortuitous accident, and fortune is not always so kind. In fact the impression resulting from the original story may not be entirely erased, because retractions or modifications are never so eye-filling as eight column banner headlines.