GERMAN ABOUT-FACE WILL DOOM EUROPE

PAUL REYNAUD, former French Premier and EDC backer, who opposes the London agreements, in La Revue des Deux Mondes:

GERMANY is not a peril in itself. But should she turn to the East, we are lost. For, although there is widespread resentment in Germany over the treatment Russians have inflicted upon deported populations, it is Russia which holds in its hands all that Germany wants : its reunification first, which neither President Eisenhower, nor Sir Winston Churchill, nor M. Mendes-France can give her. One word from the Kremlin, however, could. Germany needs to export towards Eastern Europe, towards Russia, towards China. What would she not do to secure these markets? And even this isn't all, for Russia can offer to Germany, as the supreme gift, the restitution of all or a part of the territories which she holds. If Germany is once again dominated by her great general staff, can one be sure that she won't accept to change camps for a price like this?

DAVIES FIRING A BLOW AT U.S. FOREIGN SERVICE

COLUMNIST ROSCOE DRUMMOND, Washington bureau chief of the Republican New York Herald Tribune : THE more the Administration's explainers explain the dismissal of John Paton Davies as a "security risk" on the ground that he showed bad "judgment," principally while serving in China ten years ago, the less it satisfies many in Washington who listen to it. Mr. Davies has devoted his whole adult life to the Foreign Service. The latest security board to hear the evidence -- eight previous security boards having cleared him -- found Mr. Davies completely loyal, completely devoted to the United States and never imprudent with government secrets. It did find that in its judgment Mr. Davies exercised "lack of judgment." What was the judgment which Mr. Davies exercised and which incited the charges against him? That since the Chinese Communists were on the way to winning control of China, it would be more in America's interests to try to keep the Chinese Communists friendly to us than to drive them more into Moscow's hands.

Davies' judgments were not accepted in Washington. They did not become policy. If they had, it is entirely probable that they would not have averted a pro-Soviet Chinese regime. But neither did any policy which the United States did pursue. America is not going to develop a mature, resourceful, intellectually honest Foreign Service by firing a veteran Foreign Service officer as a security risk principally because of differences of policy judgment.

DEMOCRATS ALREADY BATTLING IKE

PUNDIT ARTHUR KROCK.

THE page leaves in the calendar will be turned fifty-four times before the Democrats can take control of the machinery of Congress. But already they are supporting the President's campaign argument against the transfer of Congressional responsibility from the Republicans. He predicted that such a result would thrust partisan obstacles in his path. The Senate Democratic Policy Committee this week made the following policy decisions by way of proving it: 1) Not to permit the special Senate session to confirm the President's pending appointments, two to the Atomic Energy Commission and another to the Supreme Court; 2) To give a "quiet burial" to the Dixon-Yates private power contract, which the Democrats have made a partisan issue. The point is, as the President forecast, that if the Democrats were invested with responsibility for the 84th Congress, they would put their partisan considerations foremost. It is only because the Senate returned before Jan. 3, 1955 that the process has begun so early.

IKE SHOULD CANCEL DIXON-YATES CONTRACT

The pro-Republican, SCRIPPS-HOWARD papers, in an "open letter" to the President:

MR. PRESIDENT, that Dixon-Yates contract already has caused your administration a lot of trouble and embarrassment. But you ain't seen nothin' yet unless you step in and straighten out the mess. You've got coming up a rambunctious Democratic Congress, and those guys are preparing to paw over that contract from hell to breakfast, make every political advantage of it and torment your next two years in the White House. Although many of the things [the Democrats] said about Dixon-Yates were untrue, enough was true to give the deal an unpleasant odor the public does not like--and an odor that ought not to be associated with your administration. You were absolutely sound on your approach to a problem. The taxpayer-subsidized TVA was peddling electricity at rates which couldn't be approached where consumers are charged what electricity actually costs when interest and taxes enter into the costs.

You were right, in our opinion, Mr. President, in deciding that TVA ought not be permitted to expand farther beyond its natural boundaries at general taxpayer expense; that AEC should buy its additional electricity requirements from privately built steam plants which paid interest on investment and taxes on profits. But in our view, the AEC has been pitched into the role of "power broker" for TVA. The AEC has much more important things to do. It should be able to buy directly all the power it needs for its own vital work. The contract should go to the lowest competent bidder. The thing to do with this Dixon-Yates contract, Mr. President, is to toss it into the ashcan. Then offer to buy the electric power we need from whosoever makes the lowest bid. Even Democrats don't know how to make a better deal than that. It will deprive them of an issue, and it will settle your problem.

AEC POLITICAL LABELS A DANGEROUS TREND

DAVID E. LILIENTHAL, former AEC chairman, in a letter to the New York Times:

INCREASINGLY, during the past year or so, the Atomic Energy Commission has come to be thought of, for the first time in its history, in terms of the political affiliations or obligations of its members:

On important matters, such as the verdict in the Oppenheimer case or the current issue over the Dixon-Yates power contract, the conflicting views of the commissioners have been reported as if the AEC were a bipartisan body, organized on political lines, or even as an arm of the Administration in power. For example: Chairman Strauss is now commonly identified in the press as "a Republican member" in contrast with Dr. Smyth, Mr. Zuckert and Mr. Murray, who were described as "the Democratic members."

This has now come to be more than merely a matter of terminology. A fundamental transformation is in process in the very character of the body entrusted with the future of atomic science. That the change does not appear to have been a deliberate one does not make the result any less disturbing, nor the potential consequences less injurious to the national interest.

Congress in 1946 established the AEC as a nonpartisan, not as a bipartisan body. It was to be nonpolitical, not bipolitical. In fact, on this first commission there were three men who in private life had been active and influential Republicans. If the country and the Congress intend that the affairs entrusted to the AEC be administered on a political basis, i.e., be part of the Eisenhower and succeeding Administrations, the issue should be faced frankly and the law changed. We should not continue to drift into so momentous a change.

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