The News ran an AP report that the US Senate was split on postponing the Bikini A-bomb tests scheduled for July. The Truman administration asserted that the tests were of "vital importance" to national defense. Senator Lucas (D-Ill) led the opposition on the grounds that the test would provide too much information on American military power to potential foes. Chairman McMahon (D-Conn) of the Atomic Energy Committee was in favor of the the tests going forward as planned as was Senator Connally (D-Tex), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The indications were that some key Republicans such as Senator Vandenberg (R-Mich), a member of both committees, supported postponement. Senator Fulbright (D-Ark) struck a compromising note, suggesting that the tests be conducted with fewer ships, setting the stage for Vice Admiral W. H. P. Blandy, commander of the Navy's task force for the Bikini test, who was scheduled to testify before the Senate Naval Committee on revised plans that would reduce the number of ships involved from 100 to 77, with the remainder being held in reserve for a later “experiment.”
The News also reported that Blandy had spoken a few days earlier to 1800 students at the Herald-Tribune Forum in New York City assuring them that the various doomsday scenarios over the effect of the test were not a cause of concern. The detonations at Bikini, he said, would not poison or kill the ocean's fish, cause earthquakes or tidal waves or blow a hole in the ocean's floor. Meanwhile according to another AP dispatch, Major Gen.Leslie R. Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, had announced the expansion of the experimental laboratories at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to explore the harnessing of atomic energy to generate power for peacetime use. In another item, Dr J.C. Stearns of Washington University in St. Louis predicted that atomic power would make cities at the North and South Poles possible.