ATOMIC ENGINE FOR PLANE

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28440, 21 November 1957, Page 15

ATOMIC ENGINE FOR PLANE

U.S. May Speed Development (Rec. 11.15 p.m.) NEW YORK, Nov. 19. The United States Government was considering the possibility of placing an atomic engine in a conventional aircraft instead of developing a specially-designed airframe for its first atomic plane, the “New York Times” reported tonight. The newspaper said that by combining the atomic engine, long under development, with an existing aircraft such as the newlydeveloped jet tanker, the KC-135, it would be possible to have an atomic aeroplane in the air much earlier than the present target date of the mid-1960’5. Whether the Government took the short-cut to a flying prototype of an atomic-powered plane would seem to hinge largely on an appraisal of Soviet capability in this field, and the psychological triumph the Sovic 4 Union would score by being first to fly such an aircraft, the “New York Times” said. It also reported that in another step to speed the development programme, the Government had reorganised the project to provide centralised authority to cut through the red tape which had snarled the programme in the past

In future, the authority to develop the atomic-powered plane would be concentrated in one man. Major-General Donald Keirn. of the Air Force. Previous responsibility had been divided between several Government agencies.

The American Associated Press quoted informed officials as saying that this meant simply that today’s agreement was merely the first step in trying to resolve the controversy and that there was no formula as yet for accomplishing that. The United States, and perhaps France as well, would consult the Tunisian Government in trying to work out a settlement.

Earlier, Mr Dulles told a press conference that the President of Tunisia, Mr Habib Bourguiba, had a right to weapons to provide for internal security and national defence. Britain and the United States shipped weapons last week against French protests.

Mr Pineau said he “had to underline in the conversation with the Secretary the great emotional reactioh in the French public and the Parliament.” He added that the French Government “certainly did nothing” to increase this reaction. Mr Pineau also said that French public opinion “takes very seriously this question of arms and the reason is clear—that those arms may be used by the Algerian rebels against French soldiers.” It was for that reason that Mr Dulles and he had studied ways of preventing the passage of arms from Tunisia into Algeria and had decided to concentrate their search for a solution on that issue. The French Government had accepted the delivery of arms by the West to Tunisia in the hope that by doing so it would prevent any delivery of arms by the Eastern countries. “Even at the very time the French Government was taking this decision, it was appraised of the delivery of Egyptian arms to Tunisia,” he said. “A certain decision which would have been accepted by French public opinion in the hope that it would prevent arms from the Egyptians reaching Tunisia had no longer any value in the eyes of French public opinion since such arms had been delivered.”