Nation: Atoms for Tito

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It was odd as odd could be: hardly had the Administration announced that it was taking a new, hard look at L.S. aid to Yugoslavia's Communist Dictator Tito than, last week, it confirmed that Tito would receive, as scheduled, a U.S.-made atomic energy reactor. Also planned: U.S. training for the Yugoslav scientists who would operate it.

In technical fact, the transfer of the reactor and 13,000 grams of enriched uranium will take place under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency, of which both the U.S. and Yugoslavia are members. The agency, an outgrowth of Dwight Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace proposals of 1953, is supposed to make sure that the reactor is used only for peaceful purposes. The transfer was first approved 13 months ago by John McCone, then chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, and was reaffirmed a few weeks ago when the AEC signed an agreement to supply the uranium fuel. The deal made last week's headlines only after Texas' Republican Senator John Tower heard of it and protested. It was, indeed, hard to see why the U.S. should be handing over a reactor and fissionable material to Communist Tito, who has done nothing for the U.S. recently except heap on his neutralist criticism.