NovaVib

Senate Majority Leader Bill Knowland fumed, but he could not stop the atomic-energy-bill filibuster, apparently was ready to sit back and let it run down under the friction of exhaustion. Across the aisle, Minority Leader Lyndon Johnson slumped quietly in his chair and let the hot air blow over his well-brushed head. Finally, under pressure from his Texas constituents and conservative Democrats, Johnson acted.

He huddled with Tennessee’s Albert Gore, co-captain of the liberal filibustering bloc, and told him the debate must end. Gore was angry, but he agreed to compromise. Last week Johnson went to Knowland, who said that he would fight on this front all summer and until Thanksgiving, if necessary. Johnson went back to the filibusterers and asked for their terms. They did not want much, really: a vote on three basic amendments. But they also demanded that Knowland stop tabling their amendments and trying to gag them with motions to limit debates. They would not be browbeaten. Johnson hiked back to Knowland, who reluctantly agreed.

As the Senate met after a Sunday recess, the compromise machinery went into gear. Knowland offered a closure motion, and it was beaten, as he knew it would be. When the filibusterers began offering their amendments, Knowland asked for unanimous consent to limit debate. The filibustering bloc warned him that they would not stand for a knife at their throats, and Knowland backed down. An amendment to kill all domestic portions of the bill was beaten. Then an amendment to modify the patent features of the bill and extend the licensing period on atomic inventions from five to ten years was passed.

The real test came on Gore’s amendment to prohibit the Government from paying income taxes for private firms under contract to AEC. Again, Knowland, keeping on the pressure, disregarded the script and asked that debate be limited. Gore said he would not operate under such restrictions, and if Knowland insisted on being “bullheaded, then—well . . .” Knowland backtracked, Gore talked only 20 minutes and the amendment carried by a voice vote. Johnson’s diplomacy was working.

It was nearly midnight when Oregon’s Wayne Morse, the wind-blown work horse of the filibuster, introduced an amendment to regulate the price of nuclear materials. Knowland made a motion to table, which carried. Morse arose, a red carnation in his buttonhole, to retaliate. He said: “My colleagues in the Senate can now go to bed, because I am going to talk to the country for a few hours.” He talked until 12:22 p.m. the next day. But Lyndon Johnson still had control of the Democrats. When Morse ran down, there was only desultory debate. That night the Senate passed the amended atomic energy bill, 57-28.

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