National Affairs: The Dissenter

President Eisenhower decided last week that he will not reappoint Thomas E. Murray to the Atomic Energy Commission when Murray's term expires June 30. To Washingtonians the President's decision will come as no surprise since Manhattan Millionaire Murray, the remaining Democratic member of the five-man AEC (down to four since the death of Scientist John von Neumann), has long been at loggerheads with AEC Chairman Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss.

Strauss and Murray, both brilliant, articulate, strong-willed men, have repeatedly clashed head-on over such issues as 1) the Dixon-Yates contract, which Murray opposed (with Strauss ultimately backing down), 2) Murray's proposal to ban superbomb tests, 3) Murray's contention that the AEC's atomic-power program will languish unless the Government builds commercial-scale power plants to show private industry the way. Yet, for all the differences, tough-minded, liberal Thomas Murray staunchly supported Strauss during the AEC's darkest hour: the commission's vote of no confidence in AEC Consultant Robert Oppenheimer. Murray not only ruled with the majority that Oppenheimer was a security risk (TIME, July 12, 1954) but declared that he was disloyal.

Murray's difficulties with Strauss, ironically, have been similar to those that Republican Strauss had while a member of the AEC during the Truman Administration. Through continual run-ins with David Lilienthal, then AEC Chairman, Strauss won a reputation as the "great dissenter" before he resigned in protest against what he then called Lilienthal's one-man rule.