OBITUARIES : W. Sterling Cole; Congressman, Nuclear Authority

W. Sterling Cole, a New York congressman for 22 years who then became the first chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is dead of cancer at age 82.

The Arlington, Va., resident died Sunday at George Washington University Hospital.

During his years in Congress, from 1935 to 1957, Cole, a Republican, became an authority on nuclear weapons and atomic power and was a proponent of both the peaceful use of nuclear power and the need for nuclear weapons. In Congress, he was chairman of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy.

After serving in the House, representing the 39th and 37th districts of New York, Cole resigned to serve a four-year term as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. The agency was established to help implement President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “atoms for peace” proposals.

The program envisioned nuclear powers such as the United States and Soviet Union supplying training, expertise and raw fuels, while an international body would supervise reactor construction and operation. For the most part, however, the superpowers continued to deal on a bilateral basis with other nations on nuclear matters rather than using the agency.