A number of years ago, in a speech delivered before a Boston audience, David Lilienthal noted that if the Atomic Energy Commission's course “in putting the atom to work is to be sound and fruitful of the best results, we need council and criticism and discussion from the whole of American business and industry”. By that standard the future of atomic‐electric power development in the United States would now seem assured. An abundance of such council, criticism, and discussion has suddenly become available and it is freely predicted in Washington that legislative action will soon clear the way for private atomic power development by those industries willing to take the plunge