Mr. Adam by Pat Frank Page B

government decides that N.R.P. be placed in charge of Homer Adam, rather than the N.R.C., we want you to handle him.”
    â€œOh my God!” I said. “Nominated to be nursemaid to the potential father of his country!”
    The controversy between the National Re-fertilization Project and the National Research Council was essentially between the physicians and the physicists—between the scientific workers in the animate and the inanimate fields. The atom-poppers believed they needed Mr. Adam for research which they hoped would undo thedamage caused by the obscure rays which enwrapped the world after the Mississippi explosion. They needed Mr. Adam, they explained, much as they needed cyclotrons and centrifuges.
    How could an antidote to the ray be developed until they knew exactly which ray had done the trick? And how could they isolate the ray which strangely wrecked male cells, and left females undisturbed, unless they had specimens for experimentation? And who was there, except Mr. Adam, to furnish these specimens?
    The N.R.P. physicians pointed out, even as Maria had, that A.I. was the only sure way of keeping the globe populated. They hoped that the physicists of N.R.C. would find a method of restoring the potency of all men, but scientific research takes times. Meanwhile, they had on hand one single, priceless human who was insurance against entire extinction.
    What finally decided the Joint Congressional Investigating Committee, and the Inter-Department Executive Committee, I am sure, was the unspoken fear that the scientists would make another mistake, mess up Mr. Adam, and then everybody would be finished. It was something that nobody spoke of, directly, for fear of injuring the sensibilities of men like Professor Pell, and damaging their professional reputation, but the fear was always there.
    So I was not surprised, a few days later, when I picked up a copy of the New York Post while walking to the subway after my noon breakfast in Smith Field, to read the black headlines that covered the whole front page:
    PRESIDENT OKAYS A.I.!
    N.R.P. WINS OVER N.R.C. BUT SCIENTISTS TO GET FUND TO CONTINUE RESEARCH
    WOULD-BE MOTHERS VOLUNTEER THROUGHOUT NATION
    ENGLAND ASKS AID
    When I reached the office, J.C. set me to putting together the foreign reactions in a single story. As usual there was no official comment from Moscow, but Pravda printed an oblique little box on its front page pointing out that is was possible for the United States to make amends for the world catastrophe caused by Mississippi, but that thus far the United States had not approached the Soviet Union directly.
    The word “directly” was the important word. It was seized upon, that very day, in the Senate. Had anybody in the Administration, certain Senators wished to know, been dealing secretly on sharing Homer Adam with the Communists? If so, what arrangements had been discussed? It was hoped that Homer Adam would not be shipped outside the territorial limits of the United States.
    Senator Salt plausibly replied that A.I. being what is was, it was not necessary to ship Homer Adam anywhere, just the male germ.
    Any peace-loving nation, Salt said, could be helped out without Homer ever leaving Washington. Russia had as much right to hope for perpetuating herself as any other nation—more than some he could mention.
    F ROGHAM (D. Louisiana): Will the Senator yield?
    S ALT : I yield.
    F ROGHAM : Is it not a fact that we could forever dispose of this damnable Communism, which is infecting the whole world and causing strikes and disturbances and menacing the very foundations of the Republic, say within two generations, by simply confining A.I. to those nations which are willing to give us definite statements as to their future foreign policies, and their territorial and ideological intentions?
    V IDMER (R. Massachusetts): If we only give A.I. to those nations which know their future foreign policy, then we will have to exclude the United