FOREIGN RELATIONS: Congress & Beyond

In his 23 years in the House of Representatives, New York's Republican Representative W. Sterling ("Stub") Cole, 53, did his best work on committee assignment—postwar military policy, naval affairs, armed services. In 1947 he was appointed to the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy, served as chairman during the crucial years 1953-54, during which U.S. H-bombs were under test in the Marshall Islands, helped rewrite the basic U.S. atomic energy law to get the U.S. into the atoms-for-peace business. Last year he also put in a stint as a member of the U.S. delegation that helped set up the first world atoms-for-peace organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Last week Stub Cole found that the well-worn path through Congress could also be a path into the unknown. After some behind-scenes grumbling by Russia, directors of the fledgling IAEA, meeting in Vienna, elected Cole their first director-general with a probable salary of $20,000 a year and a $10,000 expense account.