THE WEEK

• The Hon. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. has been indicted by the grand jury.

• Is Linus Pauling, on top of everything else, a bad scientist? Or is it his passion to neutralize the military strength of the West that is causing him to make sweeping scientific generalizations that, to judge from the evidence that is now in, would embarrass a second-year chemistry student? Dr. Pauling said on April 28 that the threat from a thing called Carbon 14 is even greater than the threat from Strontium 90, and all the more urgent it is, then, to suspend nuclear tests. Three scientists from Columbia University examined Dr. Pauling’s analysis in some detail in a letter to the New York Times, and pulverized it, concluding that the threat from Carbon 14, at the present rate of nuclear detonation, is “considerably less than that received from a luminous dialed wrist watch worn for about two hours a year.” In San Francisco, Dr. Robert R. Newell, Professor Emeritus of Radiology at Sanford University, admitted that “genetically speaking, it could be true that Carbon 14 is a much greater threat than Strontium 90—but only because the genetic threat of Strontium 90 is close to zero.” Dr. Newell concluded, courteously, that perhaps Dr. Pauling had lost his “sense of humor”— which is to use three words, where one would have done.

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• The Hon. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. has been indicted by the grand jury.

• Is Linus Pauling, on top of everything else, a bad scientist? Or is it his passion to neutralize the military strength of the West that is causing him to make sweeping scientific generalizations that, to judge from the evidence that is now in, would embarrass a second-year chemistry student? Dr. Pauling said on April 28 that the threat from a thing called Carbon 14 is even greater than the threat from Strontium 90, and all the more urgent it is, then, to suspend nuclear tests. Three scientists from Columbia University examined Dr. Pauling’s analysis in some detail in a letter to the New York Times, and pulverized it, concluding that the threat from Carbon 14, at the present rate of nuclear detonation, is “considerably less than that received from a luminous dialed wrist watch worn for about two hours a year.” In San Francisco, Dr. Robert R. Newell, Professor Emeritus of Radiology at Sanford University, admitted that “genetically speaking, it could be true that Carbon 14 is a much greater threat than Strontium 90—but only because the genetic threat of Strontium 90 is close to zero.” Dr. Newell concluded, courteously, that perhaps Dr. Pauling had lost his “sense of humor”— which is to use three words, where one would have done.