Atoms Abroad

A new project for harnessing the atom to peaceful uses was laid before the 3,000 members of the National Association of Manufacturers, who gathered in Manhattan last week for their annual convention. The plan, as laid down by General Dynamics Corp. Chairman John Jay Hopkins, called for the "financing . . . of atomic reactors in the power-short . . . areas of the world by American private enterprise and the American Government working together with friendly national governments." Hopkins, whose firm built the atomic submarine Nautilus and is now working on a second, the Sea Wolf, warned that industrialists have played too small a part in atomic programs. Said he: "In respect to the worldwide industrial atom, the voice of American industry has been silenced."

Hopkins' plan was right in line with President Eisenhower's atoms-for-peace proposal (TIME, Dec. 6), but went much further. It would "seed" have-not nations with reactors. By thus enabling them to create new industries, the U.S. would convert what is now "a giveaway plan [of foreign aid] to what would be a repayment plan." Said he: "Atomic reactors . . . would . . . grow the real wealth out of which their costs could be paid back." If India and Pakistan, for example, put up counterpart funds to match the $170 million of U.S. aid allocated to them in the past three years, "there might be built six . . . atomic-power plants of 600,000 kw. capacity," enough to add a big chunk to India's electric power production.

As commercial reactors were built over the years, all Asia would "leapfrog the conventional fuel systems" and hurry on to higher living standards with atomic reactors that would also "propel . . . Africa, Free Europe and Latin America into the 21st century . . . Dollars per se are no longer power . . . If we do not use industrial atomic energy to ... create vast new world markets for our products . . . we shall have doomed ourselves to an inferior competitive position, second to the Soviet Union."

For its 1955 president, the N.A.M. picked Henry G. Riter III, 62, president of Thomas A. Edison Inc., of West Orange, N.J; A graduate of Philadelphia's Germantown Academy, Riter joined Wall Street's Dillon, Read & Co. in 1919, became a member of the firm in 1927, and left during the Depression to start Riter & Co. While doing some financial work for Edison, he became interested in expanding the company, which was formed to produce the famed inventor's products. In 1946 he persuaded former New Jersey Governor Charles Edison, son of the inventor, to offer the firm's stock publicly as the first step. He became president in 1950, when sales were $30 million, boosted them to $41.5 million last year by encouraging new products, e.g., a line of juvenile furniture inspired by his ten grandchildren. At his first press conference Riter was optimistic for 1955. He predicted an increase of about 5% in the nation's business.

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