The New Influence

So smoothly and quietly as to be barely detectable, the U.S., over the past three or four months, has considerably modified its policy on willingness to try for a workable agreement with Russia on ending nuclear weapons tests. U.S. policymakers were solidly committed to one disarmament package: tests could not be stopped unless nuclear-weapons production was simultaneously stopped and conventional arms were cut down. But last week a U.S. scientific delegation sat down peaceably with a Russian scientific delegation in Geneva to discuss the feasibility of nuclear test inspection systems (see FOREIGN NEWS). Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had ringed the meeting with the warning that the results would not bind the U.S. on any next steps, but the mere fact of the session was important evidence of an important new influence at work in the U.S. Government.

The new influence: Dr. James Rhyne Killian Jr., 53. for nine years president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, since November the President's special assistant for science and technology. Almost daily, he pops in and out of the President's office or on and off the President's private telephone line. More and more, the President holds off proposals with a "Let's see what Jim thinks about this.'' Among the most meaningful scribbles on official memorandums is "Killian has no objections." At a recent press conference, the President, asked whether the U.S. ought to get a Cabinet-level department of science, said he thought not, but that "one of my appointments today is with the advisory committee under Dr. Killian, and if I thought there was any need for [such a department], I should refer it to him at once for a study, a complete study."

Balanced Panels. Much of Jim Killian's influence derives from the need that the President and the nation had for such a man when he went to Washington last fall. The Communists had put up Sputnik I, and the editorialists were crying for a "Science Czar." Dr. Killian got the headlines, if not the specific job. He added to his influence at once with a shot of his old M.I.T. organizational energy. He expanded membership of the President's Science Advisory Committee from twelve to 17, recruited scores of scientists coast to coast to set up 20 or so panels to study space programs, scientific education, missiles, translations of Russian documents, anything relevant to science. Before long he had generally set off a ferment of excited scientific mind-rubbing.

The scientific community did not miss the point that Killian bolstered the Washington standing of many of Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer's friends and followers, who had had some trouble finding a high-level ear since Oppenheimer's security clearance was suspended in 1953. Yet Killian carefully balanced the politics of his panelists, then strongly warned them never, never to let political viewpoints influence scientific judgments.

New Argument. But in his own key strategic role of scientific pipeline to the President, Jim Killian could obviously impose no such tight rule on himself. "He tries to provide scientific facts," a friend says, "but he also has to explain the implications of a technical fact." And when he stepped into the argument about nuclear tests, Killian moved into policy at the heart of U.S. security.

At the President's invitation, Killian mustered up a panel of scientists to study what was actually a defense question: Would it be militarily safe for the U.S., given international inspection, to try for an agreement to stop nuclear tests? After six to seven weeks, the Killian panel answered the question: yes. Killian agreed that small underground test blasts probably could not be detected and high-altitude test blasts possibly could not be detected, as the Atomic Energy Commission's Lewis Strauss and Physicist Edward Teller had warned. But Killian moved the whole debate to a new stage when his technical evidence led, despite these drawbacks, to the conclusion that it would still be relatively safe for the U.S. to have a try at an agreement to stop tests, with mutual inspection.

One immediate result: the President and Secretary of State Dulles decided to try the diplomatic gambit of technical talks with the U.S.S.R. at Geneva.

Wary Doubters. Thus far, Killian has generally stayed out of the headlines, and he has declined, as a member of the President's staff, to testify before Congress. He is one of the hardest officials in Washington for reporters to see. But his opponents are beginning to get his range. Some top-ranking Pentagon civilians--as well as the military--believe that ending nuclear tests would hinder the development of new strategic deterrent weapons--the Navy's Polaris, the Air Force's Minuteman, and others. Also they believe that test stoppage would, at a critical time, stop the research needed to develop such vital defensive weapons as the Air Force and Army's anti-missile missiles to protect U.S. cities, the Navy's antisubmarine nuclear depth charges.

Some AEC experts believe that the Russians' ability to conceal certain high-altitude and subterranean tests would give them a chance for a risky amount of covert progress in weapons development. Some State Department officials present cogent doubts about the principle of committing the U.S. to a hand-tying agreement not to test future nuclear weapons that might turn out to be necessary to survival.

But the doubters of the new Killian influence inside the Eisenhower Administration have learned to be sure of their arguments before they speak, because, as never before, their doubts are likely to be banished by harsh experience. Killian's independent agency has 1) intelligence facts and figures at its fingertips, and 2) the President's ear.

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