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The image of Lewis Strauss that emerged from the swirls of struggle and debate only roughly resembles the real Lewis Strauss. He is accused of being "vindictive" in the Oppenheimer case, but the proceedings against Oppenheimer were begun on orders from President Eisenhower, issued at the urging of the Defense Department, the Justice Department and the FBI. He was blamed for the Dixon-Yates contract, but in fact it had been arranged by the Budget Bureau and the White House. He has a widespread reputation as a man of war and big bombs, but devoutly religious Lewis Strauss, a longtime president of New York's Congregation Emanu-El, is a man who opposed the decision to drop A-bombs on Japan in 1945, worked devotedly to promote the U.S.'s Atoms for Peace program, and says: "I look forward to the day when there won't be any military use [for atomic energy]. It may not come in my lifetime, but it will come."
The St. Joan Manner. But if Lewis Strauss's reputation is unfair to him, it is in some degree his own fault. He has a remarkable talent for giving offense. Said the New Republic last week in an editorial on Strauss: "One is reminded of Shaw's comment that St. Joan infuriated people not by being right but by the manner of her being right." In his long public-service career, Strauss has fought his way to triumph after triumph. He has been proved right time after time. But in each instance he has, by his very skill and aggression in urging his views and in defending himself, left behind him enemies dedicated to his downfall. And of all these enemies, none is more unforgiving than New Mexico's Clinton Anderson.
The Final Break. As senior Democratic Senator and sometime chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy, Clint Anderson was thrown into close contact with AEC Chairman Strauss, and that contact ripened into a beautiful hatred. Today, neither Strauss nor Anderson can give any specific cause for their feud; indeed, each swears that he went out of his way to be friendly to the other, only to be rebuffed.
Yet almost from Strauss's first days as head of the Atomic Energy Commission, Anderson complained that Strauss deliberately withheld information from the Joint Congressional Committee, thereby evading his responsibility under the Atomic Energy Act to keep the committee "fully and currently informed" about AEC matters. Anderson was openly annoyed on several occasions when Strauss released headline-making nuclear news, beating the congressional committee to the punch. But every time Anderson moved onto the offensive, Lewis Strauss, incapable of quietly accepting criticism or the hint of criticism, fought back with all his natural aggressiveness.