OFFICIAL U.S. DISCUSSIONS

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26030, 6 February 1950, Page 7

OFFICIAL U.S. DISCUSSIONS

The United States Atomic Energy Commission said that Fuchs had had access to “a wide area of the most vital weapons and information” dulling his stay in the United States from 1943 to 1946. He had worked on the gaseous diffusion process, which was one of the three processes used for the separation of uranium 235, which is used in the atomic bomb. The commission said that Fuchs in 1947 had attended a conference in the United States which advised on what atomic energy information should be released from the secret list.

The chairman of the United States Congressional Atomic Energy Committee (Senator Brien McMahon) announced to-day that his committee would meet the United States Atomic Energy Commission "to discuss the Fuchs case.” and that the two bodies “will proceed immediately to hear from officials of the Army’s war-time atom bomb project who were responsible for security in 1943 when Fuchs was let into the project.” In February, 1945. when Fuchs was alleged to have made his first contact with an espionage agent, the United States had just discovered the secret of .manufacturing the atomic bomb.

The first bomb was exploded at Los Alamos on July 16, 1945. The chairman of the Un-American Activities Committee of the House of Representatives (Mr John Wood) said that his committee would investigate the Fuchs case as soon as possible. Mr Wood said he was familiar with Fuchs’s scientific reputation as a result of the committee’s investigation of atomic espionage, but there had been no occasion before now to suspect him. After a hurried conference between the Congressional Atomic Energy Committee and the Atomic Energy Commission. Mr Eugene Milliken (Republican, Colorado), a member of the committee, said: “We will have to take an inventory to see if we have any secrets left.” Some congressmen said that the Fuchs case would stimulate new Opposition to earlier Administration plans to permit the sharing of American atomic weapon secrets with Britain and Canada. Dr. Earl Long, professor of chemistry at the University of Chicago, who worked with Fuchs on the atomic bomb project, said that Fuchs knew enough vital information to advance the Russian timetable by a whole year.