21, 1917October 11, 1986), and they had a daughter, Patricia. Rosemary was the half-sister of the British politician and best-selling novelist (Lord) Jeffrey Archer (1940 ). Congressional career McMahon mounted a successful campaign for a Connecticut United States Senate seat in 1944, defeating incumbent John A. Danaher, with internationalism (McMahon) vs. isolationism (Danaher) a major point of debate. On July 16, 1945, an atomic bomb was successfully detonated at Alamogordo, New Mexico, after which Senator Brien McMahon of Connecticut called it "the most important thing in history since the birth of Jesus Christ." In late 1945, McMahon was appointed Chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Atomic Energy, which explored legislative alternatives to the War Department sponsored May-Johnson bill. McMahon lacked knowledge about atomic energy, but saw the chairmanship as a means to assert himself as a new Senator, especially as the May-Johnson bill underwent increased attack from scientists and later lost support of the Truman White House. On December 20, 1945, Brien McMahon introduced into the Senate legislation for an alternative atomic energy bill, which was quickly known as the McMahon Bill. The liberal bill placed control of atomic research in the hands of scientists and was broadly supported by scientists. McMahon himself framed the controversy as a question of military versus civilian control of atomic energy, even though the War Department bill was primarily a civilian bill as well. McMahon's Special Committee on Atomic Energy held many hearings during late 1945 and early 1946, thereby airing arguments about domestic postwar legislation for controlling atomic energy. In the spring of 1946, the McMahon Bill underwent major revisions in order to appease conservative elements in the Senate. The resulting bill passed the Senate and the House. On August 1, 1946, President Harry Truman signed the McMahon Bill into law as the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 created a special Congressional committee, the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. Brien McMahon served as its first chairman in 1946, and again in 1949-1952. McMahon hired as the committee's executive staff director William L. Borden, who would play an influential role on the committee (and after McMahon's death, in the Oppenheimer security hearing). The first atomic bomb test by the Soviet Union in August 1949 came earlier than expected by Americans, and McMahon immediately urged that U.S. production of atomic weapons be substantially increased. Moreover, during the next