ORGANIZATIONAL CHART U. S. ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80R01731R000800100002-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 195
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 28, 2003
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: January 15, 1948
• Content Type: MF

EA-7 53 e
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THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF
JOINT INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE
WASHINGTON 25, D. C.
15 January 1948
MEMOPJ NDU4'1 FOR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CIA
SUBJECT: Or?anizational Chart
U. S. Atomic Energy Commission
1. I thought you might be interested in the att .ched
organizational chart of the Atomic Energy Commission. Please
note the lack of classification.
STAT
Colonel, GSC
Attachment:
1 chart
u
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U.5 ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION
SENEGAL ADVISORY COIMITTEE ----
MILITANT LIAM COMMITTEE --
AIISOM COMMITTEES ---
M.TENIALS
John G.sta
DIVISION OF
lESEARTJ
Jades B. Fisk,
Director
Wilbur E. Kelley,
Manager
FROBNMI COUNCIL
it. Col. A. E. Fields.
L Acting Secretary
ATOMIC EBEIIDY COMMISSION
David E. Lilienthal, Chairien
Robert F. Bacher
S. her T. Pike
Lewis L. Strauss
W. W. Wayetack
SENEGAL MANAGER
Carroll L. Wilsoe.General Manager
John A. Derry. Anat. LO Gen. Fgr.
Richard 0. NIMOff. SDK ia1 Asst.
to Gen. Mar.
OFFICE OF SECURITY AND
IRTELLIUENCE
Rear be,. John F.
Gingrich, USN. Di-rector
DIVISION OFMI LITANY
APKICATI00
Brig. Gen. James
McCormack, Jr..
Director
DIVISION OF
BIOLOGY AND
MEDICI BE
John C. Franklin,
Manager
JOINT COMMITTEE
A
ATOMIC ENEMY
ABSIOTANT
GENIAL IUNAREI
Fletcher C. Waller
SECRETARY TO THE
c~Inim
ROy B. SnaFD. Acting
OFFICE OF
ORGANIZATION
AND PERSONNEL
Donald F. BOStOCk,
Act rig Director
CRI CABO
DIRECTED OPERATIONS
A. Tan oaro,
Acting Manager
Carleton Shugg,
Manager
OFFICE OF GENERAL
COUNSEL
Herbert S. Marks
General Counsel
CII
I PATENT ARAN
Cart. R, A, Lavender,
OFFICE OF PUBLIC
AND TECIBI ICAL
IUFONNATIOR SERVICE
OFFICE OF
AUMIE I STRATIYE
OPERATIONS
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Carroll L. Tyler,
Manager
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CONGRESS
Semi-Annual Report
C
o`o
Qw'U
<
JOiNT COMMITTEE ON ATOMIC ENERGY
9 Senators
9 Representatives
APPOINTMENT
Reference of
Disputed Actions
of Commission
Secretaries of
War & Navy
a~
.0
c
O~
00
C}
00
E?
'E a
0
oa
ac
_ 0
a~
e ~
LL
Transcript of Records Dealing with Petitions
Requests Orders Forcing
Compliance with Regulations
Attorney General
Directs Prosecution
for Security Violations
Petitions Against
Commission's Actions
COURTS
Advice on
Prosecution
MILITARY LIAISON
COMMITTEE
Representatives of War and Navy Depts.
Information an War and
Navy Dept. Activities
Recommendations on
Military Applications
Patent Compensation Board
Research Assistance to
Institutions and Persons
2 or more employees of Commission
ATOMIC ENERGY
COMMISSION
1 Chairman ($17,500)
4 Other Members ($15,000)
GENERAL ADVISORY
COMMITTEE
Scientific and
Technical Advice
Report on Security
Investigations.
Federal Bureau of
Investigation
Establish Advisory Boards
Information and Advice on
Military Applications
Ownership of all Fissionable
Material and Production
Facilities.
General Manager
($15,000)
Contrcl
DivisIon of Research
Director ($14,000)
Division of Production
Director ($14,000)
Production in Commission's
Research in Commission's
Facilities at. Facilities uA ~.
Director
APPOINTMENT
Distribute Materials
Receive Reports on
Source Materials.
Issue Licenses
Division of Engineering
($14,000)
Division of Military
Application
Director from Armed Forces ($14,000)
Duties as Directed Research, Development
by Commission and Production of
? ~p
Military WeaponseK
9 Civilian Technical Members
($50 per diem)
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~..r
80TH CONGRESSl
1st Session I
DOCUMENT
No. 8
ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION
LETTER
MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES
ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION
TRANSMITTING
THEINITIAL REPQRT OF THE
COMMISSION
JANUARY 31, 1947.-Referred to the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy
and ordered to be printed
UNITED STATES
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 1947
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s %
UNITED STATES ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION,
Washington 25, D. C., January 30, 1917.
Hon. ARTHUR B. VANDENBURG,
President of the Senate.
DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: We have the honor to submit herewith the
initial report of the Atomic Energy Commission.
Sincerely yours,
DAVID E. LILIENTHAL, Chairman.
ROBERT F. BACHER.
SUMNER T. PIKE.
LEWI,S L. STRAUSS.
WILLIAM W. WAYMACK.
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REPORT TO THE CONGRESS BY THE UNITED STATES
ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION
To the PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.
O tale SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED
STATES.
The following report is respectfully submitted pursuant to the direc-
tion of section 17 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, which provides
that-
The Commission shall submit to the Congress, in January and July of each
year, a report concerning the activities of the Commission * * *.
The Atomic Energy Act was approved on August 1, 1946. On
October 28, 1946, while the Senate was in recess, the President named
as members of the Commission the undersigned. The members of
the Commission required some time to sever their existing business
and employment connections in order to comply with the requirement
of section 2 (a) (2) of the act that-
No member of the Commission shall engage in any other business, vocation, or
employment than that of serving as a member ofrthe Commission.
On November 13 the Commission helj~~ts first meeting, and since
that time its members have devoted their entire time to the business
of the Commission. Because of the magtiitude and complexity of the
undertakings and responsibilities vested in the Commission by the
act, and because of the necessity of uninterrupted activity, the War
Department consented to continue operation of the enterprise--
known as the Manhattan Engineer District of the Corps of Engi-
neers-until a transfer to the Commission could be effected without
risk of interruption consequent upon the change from military direc-
tion by the War Department to operation by the newly constituted
statutory Commission. At midnight on December 31, 1946, this
transfer became effective, by virtue of Executive Order 9816 (a copy
of which is attached as appendix A). The Executive order was
issued pursuant to the directions of the Congress contained in section
9 (a) and other provisions of the act.
The relative brevity and lack of detail in this initial report of the
Commission is explained by the fact that the Commission has been in
responsible control of this very large undertaking for only about 4
weeks and but 2% months have elapsed sin-cc its first meeting. In its
next semiannual report to the Congress, due in. July of this year, it is
the intention of the Commission to submit a comprehensive statement
(within the limitations that the maintenance of secuity of information
makes feasible in a public report). Prior to that time the Commission
will report, orally and in writing, to the point Committee on Atomic
Energy, in accordance with section 15 of the act, which provides that-
The Commission shall keep the joint committee fully and currently informed with
respect to the Commission's activities.
1
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2 ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISS [Old,
As promptly as possible the Commission will report to the joint
committee the present status of the work of tlc Commission, the
status of properties, facilities, contracts, personnel, financial condi-
tion, and other similar facts, and plans for 1utztre development as
those plans proceed. The Commission also will 1ceep the joint com-
mittee fully and currently informed concerning he program of ad-
ministration consistent with the policies of the .a.ct (sec. 1 (b) (5))
and other policy determinations, among which some of the most
important relate to methods of inainte.ining sect re, the information
which must be kept secret in the interest of nati real safety.
The members of the Commission determined shat their first step
should be a survey.of the facilities of Manhut an [)istrict. Accord-
ingly, on November 12, accompanied by Col. Kr +ine.th D. Nichols,
the district engineer, the Commission left Wash int ton for Oak Ridge,
Tenn., administrative center and principal .instaih,iion of Manhattan
District. In the ensuing 2 weeks the Comntissio,r visited a number
of major installations, making brief inspectiot_'s Fiid holding confer-
ences with key executive and scientific personnel r>t Manhattan Dist-
rict and its contractors.
On October 26, the day President Truman .ram od the members of
the Commission, all five medtbers conferred witlt tb Secretary of War,
General Eisenhoner, and*eneral Groves. Sr r retary Patterson
offered the full cooperation o the War Dr partim rt in the Commis-
sion's work and agreed to col i.nue the Manhattan District operations
under War Department jurisdiction until the ne!nbers of the Com-
mission could organize formally and acquaint tl;.omselves with the
project. At the same time Secretary Patterson urged that the prop-
erties and functions then under the jurisdiction of lanhattan. District,
and required by the act to be transferred, shoul I be placed under
Commission jurisdiction at the earliest possible da e and that as soon
as possible military personnel should be released.
As already indicated, following the first formal meeting on. Novem-
ber 13, all the members of the Commission spent the next 2 weeks
visiting major installations of Manhattan Distrit ,, consulting with
key personnel of the district and its contractors, and studying the
work and the problems of the project. As soon as ? heseactivities had
proceeded far enough to afford a general fa.miliarilm with Manhattan
District, its personnel and installations, the Cornet ission took up the
problem of bringing about the transfer of the proje ?t as contemplated
by section 9 (a) of the act.
The numerous details involved in the transfer of the properties,
funds, personnel, an(] contracts were worked oil-, during the. month of
December. During that month a large part of th, time of the Com-
mission was devoted to these matters.
At that time Manhattan District had more than 5,000 direct
employees, military and civilian. The contra-to for the. district
who were operating its installations had more t'iait 50,000 employees
in that work. A major problem that had to be solved related to the
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fiscal and disbursing arrangements necessary to avoid any interruption
in work when the transfer occurred. In cooperation with the War
Department, the Department of the Treasury, the Bureau of the
Budget, and the General Accounting Office, arrangements were made
for the allocation of appropriations to the Commission under Public
Law 663, and 'fiscal and disbursing procedures were established to
assure continuity in operations. Through consultation with the War
Department, the Department of the Navy, and the Military Liaison
Committee, arrangements were perfected to make certain that those
operations and functions essentially military in character should
remain under military jurisdiction.
Arrangements also had to be made for the retention of military
personnel in actual Commission operations during the transition
period; procedures had to be worked out in consultation with the
Federal Bureau of Investigation with a view to obtaining the FBI
investigations required by section 10 of the act at the earliest feasible
date; and numerous other matters connected with the transfer, and
in which other Government agencies were concerned in'one way or
another, had to be dealt with.
It is a measure of the. cooperative spirit in which all these problems
were approached by the various Government agencies that the
Executive order and other formal documents covering the transfer
were executed and the actual transfer completed on January 1, on a
mutually satisfactory basis and without any interruption in continuity
of operations.
GOVERNMENT-OWNED FwACII.ITIES
The principal Government-owned atomic energy installations trans-
ferred from Manhattan District and tiff under the jurisdiction of
the Commission are:
1'. Clinton Engineer Works, Oak Ridge, Tenn., a 59,000-acre
reservation, the site of the Manhattan District administrative head-
quarters and of the following production and research units:
(a) Electro-magnetic plant for the separation of U-235, operated
by Tennessee Eastman Corp.
(b) Gaseous diffusion plant for the separation of U-235, operated
by Carbide & Carbon Chemicals Corp.
(c) Thermal diffusion plant. for the separation of U-235, not in
operation.
(d) Clinton Laboratories for general nuclear research, operated by
Monsanto Chemical Co.
2. Hanford Engineer Works, Pasco, Wash., a reservation of nearly
400,000 acres owned or controlled by the Government, site of plu-
tonium production plants and of research and development facilities,
now operated by General Electric Co.
3. Los Alamos Laboratory, at Los Alamos, N. Mex., a 45,000-acre
reservation, site of a research installation principally for the military
applications of atomic energy and operated under contract with the
University of California.
4, Argonne National Laboratory, at Chicago, Ill., successor to the
metallurgical laboratory, now housed in part on the campus of the
University of Chicago, which is contractor for administration. The
board of governors for this laboratory is composed of representatives
of 25 midwestern universities and research institutions.
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4 ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION
5. Radiation Laboratory of the University of Ct~fifornia at Berkeley
(not a Government-owned facility-except fol certain buildings
equipment). and
6. Brookhaven National Laboratory, Patchogue. Long Island, now
under construction on. the site of Camp Uptoh, a general atomic
research center to be operated by Associated Universities, Inc.,
representing nine major eastern universities with the collaboration of
other colleges and universities in the region.
7. Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, Sclien,etady, N. Y., a
research center for development of useful power f~-om atomic energy,
now under construction and to be operated by E uieral Electric Co.
Under arrangements made by the Commission, provision has been
made for participation of interested segments of th,c national economy.
The Commission plans immediately to consult y:ith representatives
of interested American industries in such fields ar; utilities, electrical
manufacturing, chemicals, and others, in orde, to assure broad par-
ticipation by private enterprise in its reseal-el and development
program, looking toward the industrial fa,pplicai ior:- of atomic energy.
8. Dayton Engineer Works near Miamisbtirg Ohio, a research
and development facility now under constructi )n tnd to be operated
by Monsanto Chemical Co.
In addition, activities contributing directly to t},- operations trans-
ferred to the Commission are carried on in a, ar c number of other
facilities. A partial list of the extensive resmmit and development
contracts includes those held by Battelle MIem(riel Institute, Colum-
bus, Ohio; Columbia. University, New York; It i-a State College,
Ames, Iowa; Massachusetts Institute of Terhii logy, Cambridge,
Mass.; National Bureau of Standards, Washing' ~n, D. C.; United
States Geological Survey, Washington, D. C.; Uai-~' rsity of Rochester,
Rochester, N. Y.; University of Washington, Seattle-, Wash.; Victoreen
Instrument Co., Chicago, Ill.; and Washin:;t4!r University. St.
Louis, Mo.
The following principal programs, which had peen initiated by
Manhattan District, were transferred to the Cornr!iission:
1. The production of fissionable materials.
2. The declassification of atomic energy dat i, o the extent con-
sistent with security, carried out on the basis o' r( commendations of
it committee headed by Dr. Richard C. Tolman.
3. The production and distribution of radioactivc isotopes, started
by Manhattan District during the summer of 1916. Upon recom-
mendations of an advisory committee appointed by General Groves,
radioactive isotopes have been distributed to qu.rlified institutions
capable of observing the necessary health and sifo _v precautions.
4. A broad program for the production of elt ,~tric power from
nuclear fuels, initiated by Manhattan District, with Monsanto Chemi-
cal Co. and General Electric Co. as prime contrartc,as. A large num-
ber of industrial and research organizations are participating in this
program, and a summary review of the status of the . ork was recently
published by Manhattan District.
5. Studies of the possibility of applying nuclear t?Rergy to aircraft
propulsion, being made under contract between thh Army Air Forces
and Fairchild Engine & Airplane Corp. as prime cony ractor. Through
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ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION 5
arrangements made with Manhattan District, space and technical
services have been made available at Oak Ridge for the staff assigned
to these studies by the Air Forces and the contractors.
6. A comprehensive accident prevention and health program, in
effect throughout all facilities. Care has been taken to safeguard
personnel against injury from radiation exposure and other hazards,
and reports indicate that the program has been effective.
7. Broad research programs in the fields of health and biology, under
way at Argonne National Laboratory, Los Alamos Laboratory, and at
Clinton Engineer Works, in cooperation with the United States
Institute of Public Health.
8. Training programs for the instruction of personnel in the handling
of radioactive materials, in effect at Argonne National. Laboratory, the
Radiation Laboratory, and Clinton Laboratories.
9. The compilation of scientific developments resulting from the
work of Manhattan District.
10. Research programs too numerous to list, many of which are
classified secret, under way in both Government and non-Government
facilities. These programs include the physics of reactors, develop-
ment of materials for construction of reactors, metallurgy, radioactive
isotopes, production processes, fundamental nuclear physics, ceramics,
radiobiology, various types of instruments, and health measures.
The Commission took steps to maintain as a going concern the
organization transferred from Manhattan District. Col. K. D.
Nichols, district engineer, was appointed Acting Deputy General
Manager of the Commission. , Colonel Nichols and all other personnel
transferred from Manhattan District were instructed by the Com-
mission to continue to perform,their functions in the manner in which
they had performed them under Manhattan District. The Com-
mission thus made certain at the outset that there should be no inter-
ruption or loss of continuity in operations. At the request of the
Commission, General Groves has consented to act as a consultant
to the Commission.
The act provides for the appointment by the President from civilian
life of nine members of a General Advisory Committee to advise the
Commission on scientific and technical matters relating to materials,
production, and research and development. The President had ap-
pointed the following members of the General Advisory Committee
on December 12, 1946:
Dr. James B. Conant, president of Harvard University.
Dr. Lee A. DuBridge, president of California Institute of Tech-
nology.
Prof. Enrico Fermi, University of Chicago.
Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, University of California.
Prof. I. I. Rabi, Columbia University.
Mr. Hartley Rowe, chief engineer of United Fruit Co.
Prof. Glenn T. Seaborg, University of California.
Prof. Cyril S. Smith, University of Chicago.
Mr. ' Hood Worthington, chief chemist of E. I. du Pont do
Nemours & Co.
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6 ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION
At the request of the Chairman of the Conimi lion, the General
Advisory Committee held its first meeting on .ant ry 3 and 4, 1947,
for the purpose of organizing its work and determining the methods
whereby it might assist and advise the Commis,,io . The committee
designated Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer as chaff?mi.atl. The Commis-
sion has arranged to furnish for review by the Gent ral Advisory Com-
mittee a statement of the Commission's research and development,
production, and materials programs. A report on research and
development programs will be available for thi' n xt meeting of the
committee, February 2 and 3, 1947. Subseqre;t- meetings of the
General Advisory Committee are now planned at 2-month intt rvals.
Before making a recommendation to the P-esident, pursuant to
section 2 (a) (4) (A) of the act, with respect to the appointment of a
General Manager, the Commission sought the, advice of the following
advisory group:
Karl T. Compton (president, Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology).
Herbert Emmerich (director of public administration, clearing
house).
Georges Dori.ot (professor, Harvard Schoo Business).
John Lord O'Brian, attorney (former general counsel, War
Production Board).
After a review of the qualifications of a large number of individuals,
this group submitted the names of several individuals, including
Carroll L. Wilson, whom the group considered to be exceptionally
qualified for this position. After careful consieer' at ion of these men,
the Commission unanimously recommended to the President the
appointment of Mr. Wilson. The President rair d Mr. Wilson as
General Manager on December 30. 1946.
A great deal of careful consideration has beer givers to the form of
organization best adapted to suit the purposes of th ' Commission and,
in particular, to the functions of the four divisions of research, military
application, production, and engineering provided for by section 2 (a)
(4) (B) of the act. The Commission has concluded that these four
divisions should be staff divisions responsible for planning, review,
and evaluation of the work of the Commission ,finder these broad
functional categories.
Under this concept of organization, the Division of Military Appli-
cation assumes a far more important position in relation to the entire
program of the Commission than would be the case if it were merely
a line operating division concerned with direc ;arpervision of such
portions of the Commission's operations as rr.igbt, be identified as
primarily relating to military applications. The ivision of Military
Application will be concerned with the broad and'`- complicated inter-
relationships between military planning and t'te research, develop-
ment, and production programs of the Commission.
In view of the great responsibilities placed upon the Commission
by the act, that its operation shall be conducted always with the para-
mount objective of assuring the common defe is and security, the
Commission has given most careful consideratio~u to the essential
qualifications for the officer who shall he the Direior of the Division
of Military Application. The Commission has discussed its views of
the qualifications for such officer with the Secretaries of War and the
Navy and have asked them to submit the names of the best-qualified
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ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION 7
officers in their respective services. The Commission has under con-
sideration a small group of exceptionally qualified officers who have
been so recommended and expects to make the appointment in the
near future.
As Director of the Division of Research, the Commission has
appointed Dr. James B. Fisk, formerly assistant director of physical
research at the Bell Telephone Laboratories and recently appointed
professor of applied physics at Harvard University. Dr. Fisk was
recommended to the Commission by a subcommittee of the General
Advisory Committee, appointed for the specific purpose of making
recommendations for this position.
As Director of the Division of Production, the Commission has
appointed Mr. Walter J. Williams, former Director of Operations at
Oak Ridge for Manhattan District and recently appointed Manager of
Field Operations of the Commission.
The appointment of the Director of the Division of Engineering
will be announced later by the Commission. A five-man advisory
panel, recommended by the General Advisory Committee, has been
requested to make recommendations for this position.
The Commission has made appointments to some other key staff
positions. These include the Director of Organization and Personnel,
Mr. G. Lyle Belsley, who was formerly Assistant Administrator of the
National Housing Agency and executive secretary of the War Produc-
tion Board; and the general counsel, Mr. Herbert S. Marks, who was
formerly special assistant to Under Secretary of State Dean Acheson.
TIIE MILITARY LIAISON COMMITTEE
Pursuant to section 2 (c) of the act, the Secretary of War and the
Secretary of the Navy have designated the following representatives
of their Departments as members of the Military Liaison Committee:
Lt. Gen. Lewis H. Brereton, United States Army, chairman.
Maj. Gen. Lunsford E. Oliver, United States Army.
Col. John H. Hinds, United States Army.
Rear Adin. Thorvald A. Solberg, United States Navy.
Rear Adm. Ralph A. Ofstie, United States Navy.
Rear Adm. William S. Parsons, United States Navy.
Informal contact between members of the Commission and the
Military Liaison Committee was established prior to the Commis-
sion's first meeting. Since the Commission's inspection tour of the
Manhattan District installations, the Commission has met with the
Military Liaison Committee, and there have been frequent contacts
between the staff of the Commission and the committee. Discussions
have centered around problems of organization, procedure, the devel-
opment of close liaison, and working relationships. The committee
was consulted in the preparation of the various papers and in the work-
ing out of the various arrangements covering the transfer of the
Manhattan District to the Commission. Matters now under joint
consideration by the Commission and the Military Liaison Com-
mittee include production of fissionable materials, security problems,
research programs, relations with the General Advisory Committee,
and relations with the Joint Research and Development Board,
which is under the chairmanship of Dr. Vannevar Bush.
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8 ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION'
The Commission has maintained in full force ?he security measures
of Manhattan District and has under consideratioYt the adequacy of
those measures in terms of the requirements of na . Tonal defense and
of the act.
The Commission has met with the Attorney Gneral and with the
Federal Bureau of Investigation for the purpose' a' establishing pro-
cedures for the investigation of personnel and Of *,'curity violations.
The Commission has been able to obtain the .,err ices of Mr. I+ rank
J. Wilson, Chief of Secret Service, until December 31, 1946, as con-
sultant on security policies and problems.
The Commission also has obtained the servicrs-f Mr. Thomas O.
Jones as special assistant for security to the Genei;,A Manager. Mr.
Jones was formerly an officer assigned to the 1V1;.nliattan District.
He served as security officer at the Los Alamos ia-tallation and was
designated by General Groves as the security of eel ,it the Bikini tests.
PRODUCTION OF FISSIONABLE MATERIALS A\D A'IOAZIC WEAPONS
The production operations which MnnhatIn i district had under
way at the time of the transfer are being contint;9=d. Much of the
information relating to the production of fi si?r>ble materials and
atomic weapons vitally concerns the common ,lefa iise and security.
This information received the highest security cInsaification by Man-
hattan Distric ;, and that classification bas been continued by the
Commission.
The prinimy application of atonic energy is tc(14'; in the production
of weapons. These weapons require fissionable un.tterial of consider-
able purity, and this requirement was the marl I+.?ason for the con-
struction of the installations at Oak Ridge and Ha";ford. Fissionable
material also is necessary for the development of 1,tany of the peace-
time applications of atomic energy. In atIditii i, the basic raw
material-uranium-is the same either for weapon production or for
the peacetime applications. There is accordingly a, very deep and
basic relation between weapons and the peaeAbt te. uses of atomic
energy. The long-range security of the Nation ma.'' very well depend
closely upon the wise and speedy development of fie applications of
atomic energy. Research and development W stoic on improved
atomic; weapons is in progress at installations u0'.' operated by the
Commission.
In December General Groves informed Cie Commission that
improvements in the processes for the' separation. of ura.niuni 235 at
Oak Ridge would permit considerable savings in operating costs and
result in substantial reduction in the number of t~ntployees required
at one of the Oak Ridge plants. After careful 41=y of a report from
Colonel Nichols, the district engineer, the Comm-~sion concurred in
the necessary operating changes. Every effort is 6eing made by the
Commission to assure the retention of key personlaf'I whose jobs have
been discontinued as a result of the operating c+ha tge.
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IRQ`.`RAMS
A comprehensive report on the status of researc t and development
programs was initiated by the Commission. Fo this purpose the
Commission called a meeting in January of lal,oratory directors,
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ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION
representing Argonne National Laboratory, Brookhaven National
Laboratory, the University of California, Clinton Laboratories,
General Electric Co., Iowa State University, and Los Alamos Labora-
tory. The reports prepared by these laboratory directors will furnish
a basis for recommendations by the Director of the Division of
Research and by the General Advisory Committe3 and will enable the
Commission to plan and evaluate research ttnd development projects.
Meanwhile, a number of specific administrative decisions have been
made by the Commission in order to assure continuance of programs
initiated by Manhattan District pending thorough review by the
Commission.
SOURCE MATERIALS
The Commission has under consideration a plan for the control of
source materials, as provided by the act. Meanwhile, the wartime
control over uranium exercised by the War Production Board is being
continued by the Office of Temporary Controls.
An important phase of the Commission's programs will be the
development of new sources of uranium and thorium. The Commis-
sion has met with Secretary Krug and other representatives of the
Department of the Interior for the purpose of considering how best
the services of the United States Geological Survey may continue
to be employed in this field and for the purpose of discussing other
ways in which the Department of the Interior and the Commission
might cooperate.
HEALTH AND MEDICAL PROGRAM
A medical committee, under the chairmanship of Dr. Stafford L.
Warren, was appointed by General Groves to advise Manhattan Dis-
trict on health and medical problems. The committee consisted of
representatives of laboratories and other installations holding contracts
with Manhattan District. The Commission called a meeting of this
medical committee in January with a view to the preparation of a
report on the status of health and medical programs. It is expected
that a report will be available to the Commission shortly.
During the interval between VJ-day and transfer of the activities
of Manhattan District to the Commission, elections were held by the
employees of the principal contractors at Oak Ridge. The employees
of Carbide & Carbon Chemical Corp. are now represented by a CIO
union and the employees of Monsanto Chemical Co. by an A. F. of L.
affiliate. Labor contracts, negotiated by these companies and their
respective unions, had been presented to Manhattan District for
approval. At the request of the Commission, the contracts were
ecamined by an advisory board consisting of David A. Morse, Assist-
ant Secretary of Labor; George H. Taylor, former chairman of the
War Labor Board and a member of t I. agulty of the, Iharton Sch ool,
University of Pennsylvania, and Lloyd K. Garrison, former general
counsel and later chairman of the War Labor Board. Pursuant to the
recommendations of this l.visory board, the Commissio n approved
execution of the contract .subject to further consideration of those
clauses affecting security and continuity of work.
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10 ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION
The Commission has appointed Casper W. Oonv;, Commissioner of
Patents; William H. Davis, chairman of th Department of
Commerce Patent Survey Committee; and Jrohn` . Diener, former
president of American Patent Law Assoc.iat.ion, as an advisory panel
to recommend to the Commission policies, procedures, and stall'
organization for the efedtuation of the patent pii,visions of the act
(sec. 11). Following a report and recommendatiaj-s by this advisory
panel, the Commission expects to appoint a Pat?nt Compensation
Board as required by the act and to institute apprd;3riate patent regu-
lations and procedures.
The Commission has submitted to the House Appropriations Coin-
mittee a full statement. of thw transfer to the Commission of War
Department funds for the Manhattan project and ~r budget justifica-
tion of appropriation requests for the fiscal. year h.i48. Pursuant to
Public Law 663, the President has withdrawn. u150,000,000 from the
War Department accounts for the l'l.anhatt," is separated
chemically from residual uranium and fission p -od Picts; and the
radiation hazard requires that many cubic yards of concrete shield
remotely controlled apparatus from the nearest human workers. The
plutonium, too, must undergo various additional processes.
Here the material is at the threshold of use, either as an atomic
explosive or as fuel for an atomic reactor. With the right auxiliary
equipment, itself a techno-scientific-industrial challenge of the highest
order, the energy residing in the nucleus of the atone may be released.
almost instantaneously-on the order of microseco;ids --with fantas-
tic explosive violence. The identical material, surrounded by different
auxiliary equipment, can be made to release its latent energy slowly,
in the form of heat and radiation-for research, eventually for indus-
trial power, and for the general economic, acadeiaie, and physical
well-being of mankind. At the same time, the two-faced nature of
this force again thrusts itself forward; for the same atomic reactors
which hold forth the promise of altering and enriching human life may
likewise serve, in time, to power a warship or a military aircraft.
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Even further, the fissionable material inserted in or manufactured by a
reactor is translatable to bomb use through modern technology.
Behind the long sequence of mining, processing, producing, fabri-
cating, and assembling lie intangible ideas. The secrets of the
weapon could not have been captured and the secrets of future im-
proved weapons and reactors will remain hidden without the investi-
gations of many men, some working in laboratories, others working
only with pad and pencil, and often concentrating upon matters
seemingly devoid of relation to any practical use. Science presup-
poses cross-fertilization of minds, "playing by ear," exploration of
details, and pursuing this path or that path as vaguely apprehended
deductions and experimental evidence may suggest. The tentative
and unpredictable quality of basic research is well known to all who
have traced the events that brought forth the first atomic bomb.
But upon this delicate foundation rests our ability to excel foreign
rivals and thus to earn continuing military supremacy.
Atomic achievement, nevertheless, requires people. They are the
ones who conceive ideas, staff laboratories, dig ore, and operate plants.
A Ph. D. degree in nuclear physics or microchemistry does not render
a man or woman indifferent to home, family, and community. The
human beings who comprise the backbone of our project, in fact,
display all the ordinary tastes and desires. If their houses are sub-
marginal, the schools for their children overcrowded, and their towns
lacking in recreational centers, they are apt to seek employment else-
where-a privilege which, be it noted, is not available to scientific and
technical workers in a totalitarian country. For this reason, the size
and quality of our weapons stock pile bears a definite relationship to
the size and quality of living facilities in Oak Ridge, Richland, and
Los Alamos.. The development of these towns is a task of first-rate
importance, however prosaic in a field otherwise novel and startling.
WEAPONS
Uncontradicted testimony shows that in 1947, when responsibility
was formally transferred from the Manhattan District to the Com-
mission, our weapons position verged upon the tragic. The United
States then possessed so few bombs, according to Mr. Lilienthal
that we might have tempted fate if public statements even men-
tioned the importance of numbers in building an atomic deterrent to
aggression. Dr. Robert F. Bacher, an original member of the Com-
mission and now chairman of the California Institute of Technology
Physics Department, told the joint committee that he personally
made an inventory of our stock pile early in 1947 and that he was
both surprised and "very deeply shocked" by the meager findings.
Los Alamos Laboratory
The Commission also found itself faced at the outset with flagging
morale and unsettled conditions in the crucial Los Alamos Laboratory.
Brig. Gen. James R. McCormack, Director of the Commission's
Division of Military Application, remarked that Los Alamos was
"on its back"; and Dr. Bacher depicted the job of building the labora-
tory anew as "difficult" and "heartbreaking." All witnesses took pains
to stress that this condition implied no reflection upon the Manhattan
District. It arose from many causes inevitably connected with the
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end of a great war and a great wartime enterprise, such as the exit of
scientists to civilian employment, uncertainty as to the future of the
project pending a congressional policy determination, the temporary
nature of housing construction, and the like. Certain activities
ranging from pure research to development and engi leering to outright
production, moreover, were lumped together at Los Alamos-inter-
fering with the efficient prosecution of all three. Dr. J. Robert
Oppenheimer, chairman of the Commission's General Advisory Com-
mittee and former director of the laboratory, asserted that as matters
stood in early 1947, Los Alamos "could have gone to pieces."
Mr. Lilienthal and his four colleagues took the situation to mean
that "production must be drastically stepped up; that. from being a
nation virtually unarmed atomically * * * we Iaust become a
nation which had a leadership unmistakable and unquestioned."
A half-dozen witnesses told of the efforts exerted in. the past 232
years to bring about rapid improvement of our weapons status.
When Congress passed the McMahon Act, providing for civilian
control and giving assurance of future project stability, morale at
Los Alamos gradually took a turn for the better. It rose higher
with the formulation of a definite research program, both short and
long range, and with an accelerated rate of perm znent community
construction. In addition, steps were taken to easo the development
and production burdens which Los Alamos had sustained and to
make it, for the most part, a center of weapons research. The
Commission built a facility for fabricating plutc,nium into bomb
parts at Hanford and undertook projects of a re att!d nature else-
where. Equally important, engineering and applied research have
been progressively shifted from Los Alamos to other locations-
including the Sandia Base at Albuquerque, N. Me The Com-
mission also brought elements of industry and certain technical
bureaus of the Army and Navy" into the weapons operation and
geared their work to the revised and stepped-up activities focusing
through the installations at Los Alamos, Sandia, Hanford, Oak Ridge,
and elsewhere.
We have applied throughout the process of revitalizing and expa ,ling the weapons
program-
said General McCormack-
the highest attainable sense of urgency. Both Dr. [Norris E.] Bradbury [present
Director of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory] and Mr. Ty3:'r [the Commis-
sion's area manager] have worked under the whip since 1947. It has been the
Commission's policy that there shall be no slacking of impetus and incentive if
we can possibly avoid it.
New plants and facilities directly connected with weapons, accord-
ing to the testimony, have cost in excess of $100,0(UO,000; thousands
of people are employed to operate them; and hundreds of contractors
and subcontractors are involved. Dr. Mervin J. Kelly, executive
vice president of Bell Laboratories, appeared before the committee
after making a special survey of Los Alamos and Sa idi.a at the Com-
mission's request. He found a "very good organization doing a fine
job," adding that, as a citizen, he feels comforted to have gained this
first-hand impression.
I do not wish to imply that all was perfect, for it was not-
he said; but-
considering the low point reached after the war * * * tremendous progress
has been made in less than 3 years.
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INVESTIGATION INTO THE AT
In particular, Dr. Kelly noted that "the environment for the tech-
nical people [is] excellent"; that a proper. delegation of broad technical
authority and freedom to' the laboratory director has been accom-
plished; that a "splendid Commission staff" supports the enterprise;
and that those involved in technical management "rate high in their
competence for the job."
The University of California operates Los Alamos as a Commission
contractor; it also operates Sandia, although its role there will soon
be taken over by Western Electric and Bell Laboratories. Dr.
Kelly and others who testified found this contractual relationship to
have functioned well in practice; that the quasi-academic atmosphere
created by the university's participation has quickened progress; and
that keymen have become available who might not enter Government
service. Besides these points, Dr. Kelly found sound liaison and
"good close connections of knowledge" between the activities at Los
Alamos and other Commission installations scattered throughout the
country.
Eniwetok tests
Several witnesses highlighted the significance of the Eniwetok tests
held in the spring of 1948. They made clear that knowledge gained
from the three atomic weapons experimentally shot at Eniwetok has
impacted heavily upon weapon design and weapon stock piling. Dr.
Bather, Dr. Oppenheimer, General McCormack, and Dr. Bradbury
all indicated that our planning had originally proceeded on the assump-
tion of partial success in attaining the hoped-for test results; that these
results exceeded expectations by a considerable margin! and that
revision of plans to the extent necessary has been quickly consum-
mated. The test data are already reflected in improved bomb models
entering our stock pile-models which, Dr. Bacher twice repeated,
"will make considerably better use of fissionable t ri l than any
weapons we knew about before." Each bomb "proved Eniwe-
tok, said the witnesses, reflects credit upon the high caliber of work
that had gone before. A question arose as to whether or not the
Eniwetok weapons had been conceived under the Manhattan District
or whether they had evolved under Commission auspices. The
weight of the evidence stems to show that, while several of the essential
ideas were . generated during or shortly after the war, the major
research and development was accomplished during the first 12 months
of the Commission's life-and the results were not only new but even
contrary to some ideas entertained during the war. Dr. Bacher
observed-
One of the principles incorporated in the Eniwetok btests had ut one obeen mtho ajor develop-
planned for prior to the end of the war
ments-I would say the major development that was tested at Eniwetok-we
woald not have dared to do at that time.
Previously Dr. Oppenheimer had said-
Some features of the weapons tested were features which I asked General
Groves to let me incorporate in the bomb that did not go to Japan because the
war was over. Other features were features which we did not then know how to
realize, though we knew very well that we ought to try.
The testimony is clear, in any event, that Eniwetok represents a
milestone in our advancement and, that, as Dr. Bacher said-atomic we learned more about how than had e omb work. and what we might do in further
design work leard before.
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Relations with military
In this same connection, extensive testimony dweloped that the
Commission worked intimately and in close harr ony with the Na-
tional Military Establishment throughout the Eniwetok operation.
Both agencies, as well as the President of the Un tezl. States, expressed
satisfaction with the way matters had been conducted and the posi-
tive results achieved.
Commission cooperation with the Military Establishment also
extends to "requirements." Under the McMahon Act, sections 4 (c)
(2) and 6 (a), the number of weapons and the amroint of fissionable
material which must be manufactured are not dea.termined by the
Commission but by the President at least once: each year. Mr.
Lilienthal briefly explained that the Commission w id the Secretary
of Defense submit joint reports to the Presiders, re,rommending the
"requirements" which they believe should be fixad. By custom the
full Commission, the General Manager, and the Seei?;itary of Defense
personally present such joint reports at the White House. When the
President approves a program, its detailed fulfi'lm: it involves fre-
quent and lengthy consultation between the Commission and the
Department of Defense. No allegation pertainin; to "requirements"
was placed before the committee during the investir.tion.
The only difference of opinion between the Commission and the
Defense Establishment mentioned in the testimony affects section
6 (a) of the McMahon Act. This provision expr 3ss1 v authorizes the
President to decide whether atom c weapons siali be held in the
custody of the Commission or the armed forces.
There have been discussions raised by the military-
said Mr. Lilienthal-
as to the custody of the weapons, which are in the hands of the Atomic Energy
Commission. * * * The suggestions from the _lMIilitaiy establishment were
that the President should change that custody. He cone u rd for a number of
reasons within his purview as Commander in Chief and Chief iagistrate not to do
so, and since that time I have assumed, and I believe I ar r er,rrect in assuming,
that the decision has been accepted by the Military Est ibliAiment and all of
its individuals, both in their official and their private capacity.
Mr. Lilienthal went on to say that "working relation " between the
Commission and the military "are as good and as wh9iesome and as
wholehearted as I have ever seen in any phase of public service
anywhere."
Hanford overrun
The only point in Senator Hickenlooper's specifio, indictment bear-
ing directly on the manufacture of weapons had to d+, with the cost
of a plutonium fabrication facility erected at Haa.nl'orc. He used an
intraorganization report prepared b members of the Commission
staff to bring out two main points: That the fabrliafi=.,n facility was
originally expected to cost $6,255,000, whereas present=,stimat:es place
its final cost at more than $25,000,000; and further, that the Com-
missioners themselves were not aware of the overrun until January
1949, when Dr. Bacher discovered the matter during a routine inspec-
tion tour of Hanford: Briefly, the chronology of the cost estimates
is as follows: $6,255,000 on December 3, 1947; $10,a 32.900 on Febru-
ary 9, 1948; $11,933,900 on March 12, 1948; $13,000,000 1o $15,000,000
on June 28, 1948; $8,230,959 on July 6, 1948 (due to Aimination of
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one portion of the work initially planned and substitution of another
portion); $8,760,324 on November 23, 1948; and, finally, $25,219,000
by January 1949. In other words, when the Commission first ex-
amined this project early in 1947, anticipated expense was about
$6,000,000; and the figure climbed during 1947 and the first half of
1948 to about $9,000,000. It was during the latter half of 1948 that
the estimate increased almost 300 percent without the knowledge of
the five Commissioners.
Senator. Hickenlooper also brought out that, according to the
Commission report, "a ventilating system when ready for installation
was found not to fit" inasmuch as "the design had been changed after
the steel had been ordered." Moreover, "the steel in the roof was
spliced to raise the roof, and it was found that still the ventilating
system would not fit even with spliced alterations to the building,
and so a new building was constructed to house this ventilating
system that had originally been planned for the one building, adding
to the cost." The report suggests that if the Commission had
known about the overrun in time, it might have decided to com-
promise its plans and build a decidedly less ambitious facility. Over
and above these items, the report cites gaps and changes in admin.
istrative control. "There seems to have been no clear understanding
either in the General Electric Co. [the Commission contractor which
operates all Hanford] or at the AEC as to whose responsibility it was
to follow the cost." Likewise, the Commission overseer was first one
individual, then another, and then the first individual again.
Mr. Lilienthal based his answer mainly on the ground that the
project in question is directly related to the Eniwetok tests. These
the plutonium
did not occur until
facility started more spring a 1948 ' and year previously. Mr. of stated,
however, that-
* * * a very considerable time before the tests were held, there was a very
good reason to believe that the tests would be successful, although they were
rather daring in their design. In order to take advantage of the test results and
do so promptly-that is to say, to redesign and refabricate weapons based upon
the results of the tests of these new models-the Commission had to be ready
as far in advance as possible with facilities for the refabrication of the nuclear
components.
As further justification he mentioned the strategic advantage in
duplication and dispersion of important facilities. Mr. Lilienthal
added that self-criticism in an internal staff report is wholesome and
illustrative of good management practice; but the relationship between
the Federal Government and a leading institution of business, such
as the General Electric Co., is not improved if "we have a press con-
ference or a big microphone out in front of the Commission building
every time we criticize each other."
Mr. Harry A. Winne, vice president of General Electric, advised
the joint committee that, in less than 2 years' time, approximately 65
major construction projects have been undertaken at Hanford and
that the estimates for all these projects combined (involving a final
cost of some $235,000,000) reflect an overrun of only 3 percent (or
about $7,000,000). A document later submitted for the record by
General Electric refers to 57 major construction projects, rather than
65, and asserts that the total overrun will be less than 1 percent. Mr.
Winne dwelt upon the exceedingly dangerous nature of plutonium
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and the consequent necessity of building extraordinary health pre-
cautions into the design of the fabrication facility. As first conceived,
plans would have permitted a concentration of plutonium dust in the
air amounting to about 1 part per 50,000,000,00+),000 parts of atmos-
phere. Such a margin was later determined to b? inadequate, and
the completed structure will reduce the concentration to "as low as
1 part in 100,000,000,000,000." Ventilating equipment, air filters,
remote manipulating apparatus, special decontaraina.tion devices--all
were multiplied and refined beyond original calc,rlat ions because new
knowled e, said to have been obtained after construction began, reveals
that health and safety so require. Mr. Winne c escribed the earliest
cost figure of $6,255,000 as a mere "horseback guess." "Even as late
as July 1.948," he said, "there were no completed d 3signs for this entire-
ly novel facility adequate to support a reliable er;tirrate." Like Mr.
Lilienthal, Mr. Winne underscored the sense of urg,,ncy that pushed
along construction. According to his testimony, tht; facility is a good
one; it is worth what it cost; and, in particular, it leas =farted operating
about 6 months earlier than originally had been deemed possible.
Although the Atomic Energy Commissioners only learned about the
cost overrun in January 1949, Mr. Winne admitted that the top execu-
tives of his own company also lacked knowledge o F tlu true facts until
late 1948 and that the matter was never called to the Commission's
special attention. No extenuating testimony can gloss over the fact,
however, that the Commission did not grasp the, situation until far
more than a reasonable time had elapsed.
Yet this failure appears in perspective only if ccnsidered along with
three basic and interwoven phases of atomic mar.agi ment: Commis-
sion relations with operating contractors; Comrruusion fiscal adminis-
tration; and the Commission policy of decentralization, whereby
broad authority is delegated from Washington to on-the-site area
managers.
Contractor relationships
The Manhattan District did not itself undertal:e to build and run
atomic plants; instead it let out contracts with pri Fate companies,
notably du Pont, Monsanto, Carbide & Carbon, Kellex, and Tennessee
Eastman. The civilian Commissioners inherited such a system,
weighed its merits, and decided to continue it. Mr. James W. Parker,
president of the Detroit Edison Co. and Chairman cf the Commission's
Industrial Advisory Committee, testified that a contractor system
is sound and that it draws upon native manufacturing genius more
effectively than any other method of operation. G +rieral Manager
Carroll Wilson notes "that if atomic energy is to b(=.Nome a generic
part of the American scene it should have its roots deep in the institu-
tions which are so productive a part of American pronrress in science
and technology." Mr. Lilienthal referred to the conjoining of Govern-
ment and industry as a new development in our ntional life-"a
hybrid of public and private enterprise" and a. relationship so "dynamic
and growing" that the word "contractor" inadegi ate,ly conveys the
continuing, mutually stimulating partnership irivol veep. At the same
time, as the Hanford plutonium facility shows, the system is still at
an awkward stage.
Mr. Winne explained, for instance, that Genera! Electric receives
only a token profit of $1; but it is also guaranteed against loss-
wherefore its contract with the Commission establiihea an "adminis-
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trative overhead fund" of $200,000 monthly. All costs not otherwise
directly reimbursable are charged to the fund, such as parts of certain
salaries and the expense of atomic energy work performed by branches
of the GE organization mainly engaged in commercial business.
When the contract expires, an independent firm of certified public
accountants acceptable to the Commission will audit all the monthly
charges; and any excess payments will then revert to the Govern-
ment. This "administrative overhead fund" or its equivalent seems
a necessity under the circumstances, but it complicates the problem
of fiscal accounting.
The investigation brought another curious aspect of Commission-
contractor relations into focus when it touched upon the status of
atomic energy personnel under the Veterans' Preference Act (which
benefits Federal employees who have served in the armed forces).
If the Commission itself hires an ex-serviceman, he is, of course,
a Federal employee and comes under the Preference Act; but if he
works for a contractor, his employment is not considered to be Federal
and the act has no application. Yet Senator Hickenlooper pointed
out, while disavowing any intention of raising an issue, that contractor
employees are paid from public funds; that the Commission must
give its consent before they may be hired; and also that the Commis-
sion determines the general policies governing their jobs.
* * * I think there is much to be said on the side of the argument that
* * * contractor employees are in fact, to all practical intents and purposes,
except for the convenience handling the checks and dealing with labor rela-
tions, perhaps, * * * actually Government
Dr. Oppenheimer lent substance to such an argument when he
recalled that the University of California, wartime contractor at
Los Alamos, "was really distinguished primarily by [its] absence."
More recently, he added-
the university has been allowed to take a somewhat more active part. But the
Commission is dealing with technical people who are paid and protected by the
University of California, but who are not normal employees of the University of
California * * *. And the policies under which the laboratory is run, the
of wo kl are not determined by theyc ythe contractor, They are determined by the
Commission.
The situation at Los Alamos is not typical, both because secrecy
curbs reach peak, intensity there and because the contractor is an
academic institution. But at'Hairiford the Commission clearly pur-
chases managerial talent, as well as know-how and the services of a
technical and operating staff. Yet the Commission must keep watch
upon activities, and for that purpose it has its own staff of 340 people
located on the site. How avoid overlapping effort and duplicate
personnel? How, on the one hand, may GE's managerial talent be put
to full use with the Commission people sharing in every important
decision; and how, on the other hand, may the Commission feel certain
that the national defense and security are being properly promoted
unless it insists upon consultation before its contractor acts? The
testimony shows that, in an effort to overcome such dilemmas, the
GE Hanford manager and the Commission area manager keep offices
in the same building on the same floor; that they and their subordinates
confer daily; and that the Commission attempts to exercise reasonable
restraint in its demands upon GE personnel, whereas GE endeavors to
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keep the Commission .fully advised and to follow instructions. Mr.
Carleton Shugg, area manager at Hanford in 1947 and 1948 when
construction was rapidly proceeding, described hs e.~perience with the
General Electric people thus:
* * * the life in those days was just one continuous ,lisc:.ssion of a whole lot
of things that were in disagreement. We had plenty of disagreements and plenty
of times we were wrong, and sometimes the contractor was wrong, and it was a
very busy time of arguing over this job from all angles.
Mr. Winne explained how the situation looks from (",E's viewpoint:
* * * our contract * * * provides that our whole program, in fact our
whole operations, are subject to the Commission's direction. * * * Our
program and our operations must be reviewed by them, and that sort of thing,
so that the whole policy of operation and the objectives a?e laid down by the
Commission. We do the job of carrying out these vario is policies and projects.
He also said-
* * * we usually feel that we get plenty of cheeking fr.>m the Commission
and that more certainly would not be justified. * * *.
Here, indeed, is an unusual modus vivendi illustrating the "hybrid
of public and private enterprise" to which lV r. Lilienthal made
reference. It suggests, in addition, the danger of c ilu c,cd responsibility
and a liaison break-down such as occurred in the cost aspects of the
plutonium fabrication facility.
The General Electric Co. has displayed both patenee and patriotism.
in doing its utmost to carry out the mountainous assignments given it
at Hanford. The picture also has another side, ii that the Commis-
sion is entitled to place some reliance upon calculations like the
$6,255,000 figure which GE originally estimated for plutonium fabri-
cation. Equally relevant is the fact that GE deri cis no monetary
advantage (not even patent rights) regardless of how well it practices
economy. Only a lump-sum, unit-price, or similar-type contract,
offering maximum opportunities for profit, creates highest incentive to
keep down costs. This system has been applied sup,.cessfully in the
case of certain feed material processes; but wheth,~r.it might work in
the operations at Oak Ridge, Hanford, and Los A? la ios is a difficult
question which the Commission must face at sometime in the future.
Decentralization
The Hanford plutonium facility not only throws the many-sided
problem of contractor relationships into relief Lut also raises the
question why Commission officials at the Washin,touu, D. C., head-
quarters did not keep so intimately in touch with construction as to
suspect that costs had risen sharply. One answer is that our atomic
project embraces hundreds of separate installatio:is. The Commis-
sioners, in one of their first and most vital decisions, concluded that
an on-the-spot manager could view localized issues at better vantage
than a headquarters group peering remotely from Washington; and
also that the atomic high command should not pu?suo a penny-wise,
pound-foolish policy of losing itself in minutiae and therefore slight-
ing the broader policy matters. In keeping with this philosophy,
operations were decentralized; Washington division directors filled a
"staff" rather than a "line" capacity, exercising :relatively little
authority over the field; and five principal area iaaruagers-at Oak
Ridge, Hanford, Los Alamos, New York, and Chicago- wielded broad,
though well-defined, powers.
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This decentralization at no time went so far as to undermine Dr.
Bather's statement that all installations are "technically very closely
tied together" and "the participation by the Commission here in
Washington is not just a participation on paper but it is actual
participation." Nevertheless, decentralization did originally go far
enough to evoke the only real criticism which, according to Dr.
Oppenheimer, individual members of the General Advisory Com-
mittee have ever leveled at the Commission. For a year and a half,
all division heads and all managers of field operations reported directly
to the General Manager, deluging him with detail and tending to delay
execution of pressing programs. The situation, if continued, might
even have tempted area managers to take matters more and more
into their own hands. Mr. Parker testified that he and his colleagues
on the Industrial Advisory Committee saw a clear need for tighter
and more functional headquarters control. In the summer of 1948,
then, the Commission, apparently influenced by its own studies and
experience as well as by its advisers, modified the flow of administra-
tive authority. No longer do the division directors play a "staff"
role; they are now interposed, in a "line" capacity, between the
General Manager and the area managers; and they supervise field
operations. Today only these division heads, together with the
Deputy General Manager, report directly to the General Manager
himself. After a year of testing, the new system strikes a sufficiently
practical balance between the need for over-all direction and the need
for on-the-site management that both Dr. Oppenheimer and Mr.
Parker indicated approval. A defect lies in the Hanford manager's
failure to learn about the plutonium cost overrun and his consequent
failure to notify Washington. He possessed ample authority, how-
ever, to establish liaison machinery with General Electric that would
have procured him this knowledge; and Mr. Winne assured the joint
committee that steps have been taken to prevent a recurrence.
The chain of command emerging from the testimony shows the
Commission at the top determining policy, need, urgency, and money.
It states that such-and-such a plant is to be built; it approves a given
set of plans and cost estimates; and it stipulates the degree of urgency.
Thereupon the General Manager and the appropriate division manager
in Washington implement the Commission directive, using the area
manager at the site as their instrument but permitting him consider-
able latitude in accordance with prescribed rules. He has authority,
at Hanford and Oak Ridge, to approve a contract involving as much
as $5,000,000 provided that its purpose and provisions lie within the
framework of Commission-defined policy. During the course of a
construction project the area manager and his staff are obliged to main-
tain daily contact with the contractor. They submit progress reports
periodically to Washington and consult with the division director and
even the General Manager as need arises. The General Manager, in
turn, advises the Commission of developments through systematic
weekly oral reports and monthly written reports, plus special infor-
mation papers numbering more than 500 in 1948.
Fiscal accounting
But apart from the Commission's contract and management policies,
an industrial-type cost-accounting system might have flagged the
Hanford plutonium overrun. Such a system has already been
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INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATOMIC ENERGY COI.tMISSION
adopted by two major contractors, Carbide & Carbon Chemicals
Corp. and the University of California; and it is in prbress of installa-
tion elsewhere. But the change-over has proven to be slow and
laborious because it requires a departure from time-honored Govern-
ment procedures and also because the historical data- can costs are all
based on Army-type records. To quote the Commission Controller,
Mr. Paul M. Green-
financial controls as a too] of management were largely lack.ng ir, the Manhattan
District. There was, for example, no coordination between property records,
fiscal accounting, and budgeting. In the main, the Manhattan District financial
management was aimed merely at justifying the reimbursemei+t of expenditures
made by cost-type contractors, in conformity with law anc Government regula-
tions.
The investigation touched briefly on accounting when Senator
Hickenlooper read an extract from the House Ap-.)ropriations Com-
mittee report on the 1950 independent offices appropriation bill.
This extract states that the Commission's budget presentation "was
substantially improved" but that "there still exists a. serious deficiency
in that the budget was not established on a cost basis * * * "
Mr. Fred C. Schlemmer, present Hanford area manager, later testified
that in 1947 "the urgent thing was to get the work gCoing" and that
"close, detailed controls beyond a point of reasonab...eness at that time
would have been a mistake * * *." Fifty people' in his office now
devote themselves to fiscal and accounting matters; controls are being
progressively placed in effect; and it was these, as a' matter of fact,
which finally gave notice that the cost of buildhig the plutonium
facility had far outstripped estimates.
The contractual, managerial, and fiscal background circumstances
surrounding this facility are applicable, in greater or lesser degree,
not only to weapon operations but also to production of fissionables,
reactor development, research, and community affairs.
Regarding weapons generally, all witnesses who spoke to the point-
and they went unchallenged-represented that our nurrent position is
strong as compared with early 1947. Dr. Bacher. for instance, de-
clared that "bomb production is in the best shape ever" and that "I am
not at all ashamed of where we stand today * * * on the produc-
tion and development of weapons." While warning a~,?ainst compla-
cency, he permitted himself to acknowledge that we a7?(, "'way out in
front" of any other nation. Dr. Oppenheimer remarked that it is not
his business, as Chairman of the General Advisory Committee, to be
satisfied with anything the Commission accomplishes, but that he is in
fact satisfied with our weapons progress. General 14 cCarmack, for his
part, stressed that bomb production has been placed on a ]irm and stable
footing, both for the short and long term, and that proper strategic
dispersion of installations has been effected. Mr. Lliennthal emphati-
cally assented to the proposition that, although the Commission has
custody of atomic weapons, "they are available nst.antly without
undue delay of any type to the military in case ther,- is need for them
to take the bomb and deliver it." Senator Hickenlooper said, "I
think we have gone ahead and produced weapons in this program,
and I have never disputed that. I am raising no issue on that score."
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.Raw materials
The investigation record contains only occasional, though signifi-
cant, references to the problem of procuring and processing raw mate-
rials. Dr. Bacher recalled that in January 1947 the Commission found
supplies of uranium ore to be less than "we wanted and needed."
A two-fold objective was therefore given priority: To secure addi-
tional ores and to produce more end product from a given quantity
of input.
According to Mr. Walter J. Williams, the Commission's Director of
Production, "constant attention" has been, paid "to arrangements
which would increase the amount of uranium obtained from foreign
roducers." Cooperation among the governments concerned, mainly
Britain, Canada, Belgium, and ourselves, has resulted in markedly
larger shipments entering the United States. In early 1.947, moreover,
American output of uranium ores was at a standstill. The Manhattan
District had built plants on the Colorado plateau to extract uranium
contained in tailings dumps accumulated over the years by the vana.
dium industry; but these facilities were dismantled when the war
ended. A Commission-sponsored domestic program gained headway
more than a year ago and,. to date, has brought about uranium pro-
duction from three of the five vanadium plants located on the Colorado
plateau. A fourth plant is to start operation shortly, and a fifth will
be ready in 1950. Ore taken from Colorado "has nearly tripled
during the past year," Mr. Williams declares, "and is increasing."
The Commission also fixed a 10-year guaranteed minimum price, with
a discovery bonus of $10,000 for high-grade uranium "strikes"; and
Mr. Williams depicts the result as "a great surge of prospecting activ-
ity on the North American Continent." With the help of the United
States Geological Survey the Commission "is carrying out a compre-
hensive examination of virtually every rock formation in the country,
mine and smelter products, gas and oil wells, and other places where
uranium might occur." Associated with such efforts is a new Com-
mission laboratory located at Now Brunswick, N. J., "to give precise
assays of raw and feed materials * * * [and] to assure improved
analytical control of chemical specifications * * * [plus] accurate
figures upon which payments for raw materials are based. * * *"
While Dr. Bacher mentioned "major successes in the technical work
which should lead to the utilization of low-grade ores," both he and
Mr. Winne of General Electric especially emphasized steps taken at
Hanford to "reduce very greatly the amount of raw material required."
Dr. Fermi testified that the Commission has tackled the ore problem
with "extreme energy" and that "nice progress is being made."
Feed materials
An aspect of production which received relatively slight attention is
the feed materials program. Mr. Williams asserts that the average
price of all intermediate and finished uranium feed products has de-
clined to the point where we now pay 69 cents for what formerly
required $1. At the same time, average over-all yields have increased
5 percent since January 1947; health hazards have diminished;
stock piles have been accumulated as an insurance measure; and newly
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24 INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATOMIC ENERGY COl IMISSION
developed processes for producing "green salt" ?nd uranium hexa-
fluoride, he states, will lower the costs 60 percent or more when
placed in operation.
Pile deterioration
The Commission's experience in manufacturing fis> ionable materi-
als-plutonium and U-235-dominated considerable testimony.
Dr. Bacher is authority for the statement that in -.94 s pile deteriora-
tion at Hanford had caused production to be ct. t back; and since
complete stoppage seemed a distinct and imminent possibility, the
situation was regarded as grave. The Commission directed special
efforts toward extending the life span of the piles. aTA eventually it
achieved encouraging results without interrupting prc duction.
During 1947 and more particularly during 1948-
said Dr. Bacher-
there were some major technical accomplishments at Ih.nfb= d which gave us
more information on the nature and origin of this [pile] cete.ioration and how
it might be circumvented.
Later he stated that-
The plutonium production is today increasing and greater than it has been,
and we can expect more in this direction in the near future, b,::sed on steps that
have already been taken.
Such "steps already taken" refer partly to new p-le construction
started on a, rush basis at the time when. deteriorat ion in the old war-
built piles was causing most anxiety. The Comm_ssiaa,n decided that
it needed two strings to its bow: an attack on the deti rioration prob-
lem and, if that failed, replacement facilities ready for use at the
earliest possible date. The resultant Hanford building program
(which also included the plutonium fabrication p;ani, among other
items) was perhaps the largest in the Nation's pea';etinie history and
had widespread repercussions. It meant that the net piles could not
incorporate as many improvements and design features as might
have been possible under conditions of lesser urgency. It meant that
Hanford, which is located nearer to foreign air bases than most areas
in the United States, became a still more attractive potential target.
It meant that the population of Richland, the cmiJnunit serving
Hanford, swelled rapidly, creating many town-manrgelnent difficulties
not generated at Oak Ridge. It meant also that General Electric, the
contractor, needed a top-flight construction ex.)er, to supervise
operations. Mr. Winne testified that GE found such= a man in Mr.
Frank Creedon and entered into a special 2-year contract with hint,
paying the highest salary directly reimbursable by tl e Government
in the atomic energy project, $39,000. Senator Lick;>nlooper noted
this figure and contrasted it with the $14,000 received by Dr. Brad-
bury, director of the Los Alamos Laboratory. The building of "a
replacement pile * * * has been completed," 1 r. Bacher ob-
served; and "the construction of further units was also undertaken."
Both Mr.Winn.e and Carleton Shugg, Deputy Gc ne. al Manager of
the Commission, testified that if deterioration in the , ar-built piles
had not been checked, further replacement units, cos tin=; $150,000,000,
would have become mandatory. In the words c,f itiii r. williamE-
* * * it has been possible to defer indefinitely over $ 50, 100,000 worth of
construction that was considered essential in 1947 to keep tl.e program going and
to meet the new goals
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Chemical processes
Scattered references were made to "chemical processing" at Han-
ford.
There were considerable improvements-
said Dr. Bacher
* * * both in the efficiency of the present process which is used and in the
development of new processes which we hope can be installed in the future and
which will contribute still further to the conservation of raw material.
Asked if he felt satisfied with progress in waste recovery, Dr. Bacher
replied:
The atomic energy project in general is not one to be satisfied with, regardless
of what the accomplishments are * * * I think in any phase of the project,
waste recovery included * * * we could always do better.
Mr. Winne commented that-
We have reduced by 20 percent, and expect to increase this to 50 percent, the
amount of liquid waste which must be stored. That will result in a saving on
the order of a million dollars a year at least. We have reduced very materially
the loss of plutonium going into these waste solutions * * *.
Dr. Fermi, for his part, remarked:
I would not be entirely truthful if I did not mention that there are very serious
problems with which your committee doubtlessly is familiar, with which the
Commission is struggling at present. They are problems of recovery, problems
which will have to be solved. I believe that the steps are being taken and have
been taken that will lead to such a solution,
The record quotes General Manager Carroll Wilson as saying:
The du Pont Co. * * * has recently undertaken to make a complete
survey [costing $400,000, according to Mr. Shugg] of chemical-process problems
involved in plutonium manufacture-a field in which there will already be found
working several major industrial concerns, such as Blaw-Knox, Dow Chemical,
General Electric, Kellex, Monsanto, and Standard Oil Development Corp.
Finally, the testimony brings out that Oak Ridge National Labora-
tory is conducting "numerous pilot-plant experiments" in the same
area of endeavor.
Wende letter
Senator Hickenlooper read into the record a letter of resignation
written by Dr. C. W. J. Wende, formerly a Hanford engineer in charge
of the General Electric pile technology group. This letter appears to
spring partly from the fact that GE has accepted wider responsibilities
than any other Commission contractor. The writer charges that
GE is overextended in its Hanford work; that it lacks an adequate
staff; that its qualified people are unreasonably burdened; that it has
no coherent program of its own; and that important functions have
been neglected in the press of other duties. Mr. Winne, commenting
on the letter, acknowledged that Dr. Wende "is a very distinguished
scientist and has contributed much to the operation of the Hanford
works." It was suggested, on the other hand, that Dr. Wende has
"a scientific type of temperament-a very impatient type of tempera-
ment" and that the positive accomplishments of General Electric
at Hanford constitute a sufficient rebuttal to his charges.
Lumber stock pile
Another Hanford matter, a lumber stock pile acquired in 1947,
entered into Senator Hickenlooper's presentation. He showed that
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the Commission, operating through the Corps of Engineers and using
a Government priority, purchased some 100,957,000 board feet for
$89.631 per thousand, an inflated price reflecting the Nation-wide
housing shortage. He showed further that about 22 percent of the
total still remains at Hanford, with no prospect of it:= being used for
the purpose intended. Moreover, the lumber had cost about $2 per
thousand board feet over and above the price then being paid by
Army-Navy procurement agencies. Deputy General Manager Shugg
explained that, at the time of purchase, the problem of Hanford pile
deterioration reached its peak; and those responsible feared that all
the war-built piles might require separate replacements. In antici-
pation of such a project, the General Electric Co.--acting for the
Commission and with the Commission's consent-bought up lumber
as rapidly as it could. Extra cost amounting to $1.80 per thousand
board feet was accepted for the sake of securing the lumber rapidly
despite the tight market. Solution of the pile deterioration problem,
according to Mr. Shugg, removed the need for a new construction
program on the scale contemplated when the lumber was procured;
and this factor, together with unexpected success in moving certain
barracks from the Pasco Naval Station near Richla ci to the Hart-
ford construction camp, accounts for the present surplus in stock
pile. Mr. Shugg added, however, that the lumber is "strip-stacked,
so we are not losing on the worth of the lumber." It may eventually
be transported to Arco, Idaho, for use in connection with the Commis-
sion's reactor development program at that site. Although the price
of lumber has not yet dropped, Mr. Shugg testified, some financial loss
may be suffered through a future price decline and also through
rehandling and reshipping costs. In response to asuggestion that
the lumber might not be of sufficiently high grade and quality to be
usable on the Hanford project, Mr. Fred C. Schlem.?mer, the Com-
mission's Hanford area manager, stated that on the contrary, it is
usable and that actually it "has an enhanced value at the present
time."
Oak Ridge production
The Oak Ridge gaseous diffusion plant-i. e., tie so-called K-25
facility which extends over a half mile, covers 130 acres, and cost a
half-billion dollars-continued functioning and incri(asEd. output while
decreasing staff. In the first 2% years of its life the Commission did
not attempt to build new equipment for the isotopic separation of
U-235; but within the last month construction started upon K-29,
a large addition which will be "hooked on" to and integrated with
K-25. The diffusion principle exemplified in the mammoth K-25
plant, according to Dr. Bacher, "outstripped the developments in the
electromagnetic process represented by the so-called Y-12 facility."
The Commission therefore put Y-12 in stand-by and later "in even
more remote stand-by condition."
The Carbide & Carbon Chemicals Corp. has opera ed K-25 from
the beginning, and more recently it also took over the limited activi-
ties at Y-12. Mr. Clark Center, the firm's Oak Ridge superintend-
ent, cited-
notable * * * improvements in the final method of haniliing the product
from K-25.
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Both Mr. Center and Dr. Fermi called attention to a special plastic
known as fluorothene, the fruit of developmental work connected with
K-25 and useful in processes requiring highly corrosion resistant ma-
terial. Another topic mentioned was Oak Ridge manufacture of im-
proved barriers, the material containing billions of holes per square
inch that make possible the diffusion separation of U-235 from U-238.
Mr. Center indicated that the Commission's "outlook toward our
operation has been very helpful, and has been a great aid to us in
accomplishing our work."
Senator Hickenlooper directed a series of questions at Mr. Isaac
Harter; head of the Babcock & Wilcox Tube Co., and a memb'or of the
Commissions Industrial Advisory Committee. This interchange
showed that the Manhattan District, rather than the Commission, had
built Los Alamos, had built Oak Ridge, had started Sandia, and had
built Hanford (apart from the now piles and other additions elsewhere).
Mr. Harter commented that while a "going concern" existed at the
time the Commission took charge, it had not been made successful
"in the sense of a long-term industrial affair." He, along with other
witnesses, stressed that the Commission not only "shored up" and
expanded what it found originally but also placed the entire project on
a long-run, stable foundation, simultaneously effecting economies and
efficiencies. As an illustration of improved operation from a dollars-
and-cents viewpoint, Mr. Williams brought out that "the Commission
is producing about 40 percent more plutonium per dollar spent on
operating costs than was produced in the beginning of 1947." At Oak
Ridge, "furthermore, "the total number of employees engaged in
production * * * has been reduced from about 11,400 to 4,700,
an over-all reduction of 6,700." Since added activities brought 500
new employees into Oak Ridge, "the actual reduction in personnel
performing the same operations in 1947 has been approximately 7,200
or 63 percent."
Personnel turn-over
These figures bearing upon "involuntary separations"-i. e., people
dismissed by the Commission for economy or other reasons and against
their own wishes-tie in with the first charge which Senator Hicken-
looper developed during the investigation. He pointed to personnel
turn-over statistics within the project: 54 percent for 1947; 33 percent
for 1948; and 87 percent for the 2 years combined. These statistics,
however, include persons whom the Commission released as well as
those who left of their own choice. Eliminating "involuntary separa-
tions," the 2-year turn-over rate is 50.7 percent, a figure that compares
favorably with Government as a whole and private industry. Less
susceptible to statistical analysis was the associated charge that high
turn-over rates have characterized several key positions within the
Commission's own organization; three general counsels, for example, in
2) years; three directors of organization and personnel; and a vacancy
in the security directorship until August 1947, and again a vacancy
from May 1949 to the present. Commission witnesses replied that it
takes time to secure properly qualified people; that high salaries paid
by private industry narrow the field of choice; that persons replacing
those who resigned nevertheless display equal or superior ability; and
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that administrative employment in the project often involves pecu-
liarly discouraging factors as evidenced by the case of ii, recent resignee,
Mr. John C. Franklin. He became Oak Ridge a.rc a rlianager, expect-
ing to spend most. of his time on technical and p od4~ction problems
connected with the plants; but he actually found 1 imelf so burdened
with issues arising from the Commission-ownec Oak Ridge com-
munity as to leave little opportunity for other work.
Natural-gas pipe line
But the main challenge of the Commission's record expressly in the
field of production concerns construction of a natural -gas pipe line to
fuel the Oak Ridge power plant serving K-25. This power plant
now operates on coal but will convert to gas after cc~inpletion of the
pipe line in question, which is to extend some 115 miles and connect
with a major line already transmitting fuel from "exits to the North
Central States.
About 4 weeks before the investigation commenced, at subcommittee
of the joint committee (under the chairmanship of Cofigressman Dur-
ham) had inquired into the pipe-line matter and hac suhrnitted a unan-
imous report. The subcommittee did not recommend that the Com-
mission abandon plans for the pipe line. But it did conclude that
sufficient facilities for coal stock piling are available at Oak Ridge to in-
sure continuous operation of the power plant; that a trfa rusfer to natural
gas as the main fuel source is not dictated by consid(rat ions of national
defense; and, further, that the Commission had neither consulted with
the National Security Resources Board nor taken into account recent
improvement in the national fuel picture. The joint +eommittee as a
whole unanimously adopted the subcommittee's report 1 day after
the investigation began and 3 weeks after the Feleial Power Com-
mission finally issued a certificate of public convenience and necessity
authorizing the Tennessee Natural Gas Co. (the Col=emission's con-
tractor) to proceed with actual building of the pipe 1. te.
Senator Hickenlooper, making use of the comm tare's report, sug-
gested that the pipe line is not justified either from the viewpoint of
economics or national defense. One entire morning and the balance
of a second morning were devoted to discussing bhir project. Mr.
Sumner T. Pike, a member of the Commission, and Mr- Williams were
principal occupants of the witness chair. They prefaced their remarks
by saying that continuous operation of K-25, and consequently of
the power plant which serves K-25, is absolutely essential-a point
which evoked no hint of disagreement from any member of the joint
committee.
The increased safety factor obtainable through two main sources of
fuel, natural gas in the first instance and coal as a reserve; general
uncertainty in the coal industry and especially an expcrrience encoun-
tered during 1946, when the Oak Ridge coal stock pile was drawn
down to a point where only about 6 weeks' supply remained avail-
able; the prospect of saving $1,250,000 annually by using natural gas
for the power plant rather than coal, plus additional--savings attain-
able through a like use in the Oak Ridge community- -these factors
were emphasized by the witnesses as vindicating t1e pipe line. The
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Commission pointed out, moreover, that it had approved the project
on January 27, 1948, about a year and a half previously, and that a
construction contract had been signed on June 23, 1948, about a
year previously. Letters addressed to the chairman of the joint
committee described these developments on February 9, 1948; March
18, 1948; June 23, 1948; and October 5, 1948. The committee,
nevertheless, did not take formal action until nearly 17 months had
elapsed after receipt of the initial letter. By the time the Federal
Power Commission finally issued a certificate and the joint committee
had thereafter adopted the subcommittee's report, a decision to
? abandon the pipe line would have rendered the Federal Government
liable in damages to the Tennessee Natural Gas Co. Furthermore,
this firm had previously committed itself to the extent of making
fiscal arrangements and construction plans and also procuring the
necessary allocation of steel. All such reasons were offered as justi-
fication for going ahead despite the joint committee's critical report.
Even further, if any agency had responsibility for consulting with the
National Security Resources Board-it was said-that agency is the
Commerce Department, which allocated the steel for construction,
and not the Atomic Energy Commission. The testimony included
statements that the committee's viewpoint is mistaken and that
considerations of security, as well as economy, render the pipe line
what Mr. Pike called "a pretty good deal."
A canvassing of the economic issues brought out that Oak Ridge
lies in the heart of a coal-producing region; that unemployment might
afflict miners in the area if the K-25 power plant ceased using coal;
that neither the coal operators nor the coal unions had been approached
respecting a possible guaranty of uninterrupted deliveries during
strikes; that production stoppages and pipe-line break-downs are
not unknown in the natural-gas industry; and that the neighboring
Johnsonville steam plant, scheduled for construction at a site only
12 miles from a natural-gas outlet, is expected to operate on coal.
There were still other points: that changes in the fuel price structure
might wipe out anticipated savings through the use of gas; that oil
purchased locally might furnish a partial alternate source; that the
availability of coal had been a factor in the original selection of Oak
Ridge as a suitable location for the production facilities there estab-
lished; that the Nation's total proven reserve of natural gas may last
only 20 or 30 years, according to present estimates, whereas coal
deposits are adequate for centuries; and that steel needed to construct
the pipe line had been allocated at a time when this metal was in
critically short supply.
On the opposite side, it was argued that, while the Oak Ridge
reservation contains almost unlimited space for coal storage, increases
in the 90-day stock pile now maintained would severely raise costs.
It was further shown that natural gas for Oak Ridge would emanate,
not from supplies already being piped over the trunk line from Texas,
but from supplementary supplies to be transported after additional
construction along the main route is completed. Thus natural-gas
users in the' North Central States will not be deprived of fuel pre-
viously furnished them. Likewise, the possibility of technological
S. Rept. 1169, 81-1-3
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30 INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION
unemployment among coal miners in the Oak Ri=lge area was de-
scribed as a consideration which should not ccen . voi the managers
of an industrial enterprise such as our atomic pr,Ject, they being
responsible for an efficient and businesslike. operation. In line with
this viewpoint, the Commission witnesses placed prj -ipal stress upon
their contention that natural gas would save the (lovc'rnment and the
taxpayer substantial sums of money over a period of years.
The economic argument, however, was not the one cost emphasized
before the Federal Power Commission. There stror;, representations
were made that national security requires the pile Iiie; and a certifi-
cate issued largely on the strength of those representations. If
national security is indeed involved, economics ruat, be disregarded.
If not, the question of economics should alone hive decided whether
or not a certificate would be granted. Testimony given the joint
committee does illuminate the fact that, logically, two sources of
fuel are bound to_ furnish a better guaranty of continuity in power-plant
operation than one source alone. But considering, the unlimited coal
stock-piling opportunities at Oak Ridge; considering truck-barge
transportation as alternates to rail cars in the deli =+ry of coal; con-
sidering the far greater menace to continuity in production that
accompanies the existence of only three boilers n' he power plant,
two of which must always operate to service R-25 and considering
that the Commission has not deemed it necessary either to build a
fourth boiler or to increase the coal stock pile as a.11 in.t?f rim precaution
pending completion of the pipe line-considerin; all these factors,
whatever added protection may be gained through two basic fuel
sources, instead of one, is to the last degree marginal.
The specific charges directly relating to prod icion-the lumber
stock pile, Mr. Frank Creedon's salary, the pip,, bne---cover items
costing less than 1 percent of all sums expended in this field. The
favorable evidence on production as a whole incl ks three similar
statements by Dr. Oppenheimer, Dr. Fermi, and fcrmi,r Commissioner
Waymack. Each comments that the situation today is substantially
brighter than he had anticipated in 1947. Senator I-ickenlooper said:
From the standpoint of actual production the atomic en-'rg program has gone
forward due to the zeal and the loyalty of the scientific and terluucal personnel in
charge of the various projects.
Later he added:
I may say in passing that the operations of the technical. fa~-ilities and produc-
tion of materials have not been a question that I have raised.
REACTOR DEVELOPMENT
The people of the United States now own the production reactors
at Hanford, plus five far smaller research reactors, plus a sixth
improved research reactor in the final stages :)f. construction at
Brookhaven National Laboratory. The difference b' tween the mas-
sive piles which produce plutonium for weapons ind the half-dozen
experimental units is somewhat like the one between a model ship
used in a testing basin and a full-sized vessel that sails the high seas.
One research reactor was built at Oak Ridge ae a pilot plant for
Hanford; and it now serves, among other purposes, to manufacture
radioactive isotopes. Two more are located at Argonne National
Laboratory in Chicago; and one of them uses "heavy water" both as
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a coolant and as a moderator to "slow down" neutrons. The other.
is the celebrated. pile originally built under the Chicago University
athletic stadium at Stagg Field and the first unit ever to demonstrate
the feasibility of a self-sustaining chain reaction. Of the two remain
ing reactors, both at Los Alamos, one is exceptional because of its.
use of plutonium as a fuel and its fast-neutron principle. Designed at.
the end of the war and constructed under the Commission, it differs
from the principle of an atomic bomb largely in that special neutron-
absorbing materials prevent a violent release of energy.
Today's urgent challenge consists in spanning the gap between low-
power research reactors. and future high-power reactors capable of pro-
pelling a ship or turning industrial dynamos and turbines or perhaps
driving an airplane. This gap is broader than the one which once
separated the simple uranium-and-graphite lattice-work at Stagg
Field, Chicago, from the production. piles at Hanford. The Commis-
sion, however, is preparing to freeze design work and commence actual
construction and the results may conceivably range anywhere from
startling progress to expensive radiation accidents or even both. The
element of hazard is one reason why the Du Page site near Chicago-
originally purchased as a reactor testing station but now the scene of
laboratory development only-has given way to the 100-times-larger
site located away from centers of population near Arco, Idaho. There
three atomic machines are expected to begin taking shape, the first
late in the present year or early next year.
Arco reactors
This lead-off project is the fast reactor, which-in keeping with its
name-will exploit fast neutrons and will explore possibilities of
"breeding," that is, creating new fissionable material in the same proc-
ess as generating energy. The second project, already in the stage of
detailed design, is a materials testing reactor; and it will enable scien-
tists to experiment, at high neutron densities, with the various novel
and little-understood substances needed to withstand extreme temper-
atures and radiation. Such studies may open the way toward develop-
ments now altogether beyond reach. The stakes are enormous; for
1 pound of U-235 or plutonium has a potential fuel value, if it can
be tapped, equal to many hundred thousands of tons of coal. The
stakes are equally enormous in a military sense, as evidenced by the
third project planned for Arco-a Navy thermal reactor intended to
be a land-based prototype of a submarine power plant. If successful,
it may affect naval operations as profoundly as the atomic bomb has
affected strategy in general.
Knolls reactor
Still a fourth venture is known as the intermediate reactor, so
named because of its intermediate-speed neutrons. The hope is
that it will throw light upon the "breeder" principle and also point to
usable industrial power. For some. time uncertainty has existed as
to whether this reactor would be situated at Arco, along with the
other three, or at the Knolls Laboratory near Schenectady, N. Y.-
which General Electric operates in addition to its Hanford com-
mitments. Senator Ilickenlooper referred to that uncertainty and
to $570,000 already spent for development of the Knolls reactor
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32 INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATOMIC ENERGY CO:IIMISSION
site by asking Mr. Winne if General Electric had yet been advised
of a firm Commission decision. Mr. Winne replied that, so far as he
knew, the choice between Arco and Knolls was still under discussion.
The joint committee has since learned that present plans envisage
the intermediate reactor at Knolls. It will function at lower power
levels than the three units scheduled for Arco and hence safety factors
do not require that it be erected in such a remote locality.
The joint committee believes that reactor development should.
proceed with all possible speed, and disappointment therefore follows
from reflection that, in 2% years, the Commission has not broken
ground on a single new-type high-power reactor. Both Dr. Fermi and
Dr. Bacher seemed to share this feeling; but the one pointed out that
"reactor problems indeed were more difficult than had been esti-
mated," and the other declared that "the serious way in which mate-
rials would deteriorate in a reactor and the problems that this would
cause in designing and building reactors to operate at high power and
under conditions of high specific power were greatly underestimated."
Dr. Lee A. DuBridge, president of the California In~Aitute of Tech-
nology and member of the General Advisory Cana iittee, told the
committee that the Commission's top priority job in 19,17 was "restora-
tion of the bomb-development program at Los Alainos" and that
No. 2 priority went to strengthening production of fissionable mate-
rials. Reactor development enjoyed only a third priority, in Dr.
DuBridge's opinion, and "the Commission could not give adequate
attention to this task until the first two were placed on an adequate
footing. * * *"
Reactor Division
During 1947 the laboratories at Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, Knolls,
and Argonne all performed reactor work, but as imperfectly coordi-
nated entities. In 1948, after some manifestation; of rivalry among
these four, the Commission concentrated responsibility in Argonne so
as to focus all problems through a single research heat?quarters. The
Argonne director is Dr. Walter H. Zinn, the Nation's leading expert
in this field; and he personally has been the principal proponent of the
fast reactor-often called the Zinn reactor on that account. Oak
Ridge prepared the initial designs of the materials seating reactor and
is still cooperating in the formulation of final blueprints. Westing-
house Electric Co. has contracted to carry forward thy; Navy thermal
reactor, in close collaboration with Argonne; and the Knolls Laboratory
is devoting itself to the intermediate reactor, again in close collabora-
tion with Argonne. Meanwhile, the Commission 3rented a Division
of Reactor Development under Dr. Lawrence H. Hafstad, former
Secretary of the Research and Development Boarcd; and he exercises
administrative authority over Argonne, Knolls, and Arco.
The testimony furnishes illustration of the practical difficulties that
beset even so esoteric a Commission program as reactors. The Knolls
Laboratory, for instance, is another war-built center suffering from the
common malady of temporary structures and facilities. Three years
ago an important Oak Ridge group moved into a collection of huts and
sheds that it found vacant behind a power plant and has continued
there ever since. Argonne is not one site but a hLlf-dozen scattered
from metropolitan Chicago through suchsuburban areas as Du Page;
and thousands of miles stretch between the Idaho testing station and
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the nodal research points in New Mexico, Tennessee, New York, and
Illinois. It was Knolls which generated the most dramatic Commis-
sion labor-relations problem; for many employees of that laboratory
belong to a local of the United Electrical Workers Union, whose na-
tional officers refused to sign non-Communist affidavits as required by
the Taft-Hartley law. The Commission decided that since the na-
tional officers exercise some supervisory, negotiating, and disciplinary
authority over members of the local, collective bargaining with such a
union would not best serve the national defense and security; and the
contractor, General Electric, was therefore ordered to withdraw recog-
nition of the union. To take an entirely different example, also affect-
. Knolls, Dr. Backer mentioned recent "critical assembly tests" of
intermediate reactor that failed to bear out certain advance pre-
dictions and forced an alteration in plans. "This is the course of a
normal development in a new field and should be expected," he said-
adding that "a great deal was learned" from the "critical experiments."
Argonne and Brookhaven
Senator Hickenlooper read a letter into the record written him by
a man who describes himself as a mechanical engineer and as a former
Argonne construction worker. The letter charges that certain
temporary facilities, costing "probably $6,000,000 or more," merely
duplicate permanent facilities "being designed and built nearby";
that "armed and uniformed guards were on duty at the office and the
site day and night," although they had nothing valuable to protect;
and that "this project was by far the most incompetent, unorthodox,
and wasteful I have ever been connected with." Such charges were
not pursued beyond the point of reciting the letter in which they
appear; and the Commission made no reply. Senator Hickenlooper
read another letter saying that the Brookhaven research reactor was
to have been built in 1 year and cost an estimated $16,000,000, whereas
construction has actually continued for 2 years and the estimated
final cost is now about $23,000,000. Here the Commission com-
mented that the $16,000,000 figure had been "unofficial"; that it
overlooked sharp price rises in the labor and materials market; and
that it sprang from "minimum estimates" based upon, the Oak Ridge
reactor, which differs from the Brookhaven project in power level,
design features, and safety precautions. Plans were changed during
construction with thorough awareness of the added cost, said the
Commission, in order to incorporate improvements and to allow for
"additional pile material [which] was found to be required."
This Brookhaven experience suggests, in miniature, the kind of
problem encountered and to be encountered as the Commission presses
the materials-testing, Navy thermal, intermediate, and fast re-
actors. Dr. Bacher and Dr. Fermi went out of their way to state,
respectively, that "all of the answers are by no means clear" and that
"complete solutions are not available"~--thereby implying that the
future will see more obstacles and disappointments. On the other
hand, Dr. Bacher cited the structural materials and the fuel elements
for reactors, together with the use of liquid metal coolants, as prob-
lems that "are beginning to be licked"--though they involve metal-
lurgical advances "which 4 or 5 years ago were thought to be impossi-
ble and which 2 or 3 years ago looked extremely difficult." Dr.
Fermi noted "very substantial progress * * * in ironing out
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34 INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATOMIC ENERGY C,)MMISSION
that great mass of detail which, in a technical problz'in of this magni-
tude, constitutes the core of development." Thus the failure actually
to break ground, pour concrete, and start building a large new-type
reactor is not necessarily a measure of the result~a attained during the
past 234 years. Dr. Bacher said that "I believe today we stand on
the threshold of a very great development in this field"; and he
called for boldness on pain of a "major set-ba( `c of the atomic
energy program." Senator Hickenlooper had stated previously that
c* * * the reactor program and its development has always been
one of prime urgency in the requirement for the progressive develop-
ment of atomic energy."
RESEARCII
"We were strong in the last war because we w ere strong in science.
It will be even more important, if there should b,-- another war, to
have this strength to count upon." These words of Dr. DuBridge's
typify many similar sentiments expressed by qualified witnesses
during the investigation. Dr. Kenneth S. Pitze, Director of the
Commission's Division of Research, submitted a statement for the
record observing that in 1939 two Americans and a Chinese jointly
published a one-page scientific paper on delayed zn+_eutrons-the first
such article to appear. By 1943 the production pies were rising at
Hanford, their operation and control dependent upon the same
delayed-neutron concept described in the one-pt?.ge paper. Basic
research, pure seeking after knowledge for its own s?ke, had uncovered
a fact which happened to mesh unpredictably into a persuasive
hypothesis, which in turn excited the men of applied. >cience to seek out
unpredictable uses, which in turn helped build the unpredicted Hanford
reactors: all in less than 4 years' time. The "del?Lyed-neutrons" of
the future lie waiting to be discovered and exploitcd; if we, and not
our totalitarian rivals, are to mobilize them firfzt, the method is
tireless research.
Shortage of scientific personnel
But in this competition, and in the closely related struggle to make
atomic energy perform peacetime tasks, we stact it a disadvantage;
for ours was the only major nation participating in World War II
that failed to exempt scientific and technical stud tits from military
service. There is no substitute for educated brain- Men trained in
the laboratory may save the lives of thousands of ,ldiers in the field.
The injurious effect of the World War II draft upon American science
is little short of grave. Elsewhere the flow of tre fined men through
universities continued largely as before; in the Unit A States it slowed
almost to a trickle.
Dr. DuBridge described another severe handic:?p affecting others
as well as ourselves: the ultimate source of the at mic bomb, radar,
the proximity fuze and other extraordinary weapon:, was not the great
war laboratories but the reservoir of fundament it nowledge accumu-
lated through pure research before hostilities began. In the war years
that reservoir was drawn upon to the utmost. Tbnoretical scientists
and basic research workers, instead of keep ng the reservoir re-
plenished, dropped their efforts to understand 'zat're and joined the
laboratory teams endeavoring to translate those aspects of nature
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already understood into warlike applications. Their remarkable
success does not alter the fact that science, far from advancing, stood
still or actually retrogressed.
Therefore, as Dr. Bacher recalled-
it has!been one of the central ideas in the development of the regional laboratories
for ,atomic energy, to provide facilities for the carrying out of more research and
for the training of many new people in this field, since I am quite sure that in the
days to come the limitation of trained people will be a very serious one.
Basic research laboratories
? The testimony reflects that two Commission laboratories, one at
Berkeley, Calif., and the other at Brookhaven, N. Y., are primarily
devoted to replenishing the well-nigh exhausted reservoir of funda-
mental knowledge. Both had been initiated by the Manhattan
District, although the conversion of Brookhaven from a former Army
camp to a first-rate research establishment is only now becoming
complete. In large measure the activities at Brookhaven and Berkeley
are confined to nonsecret and publishable work because, in the words
of Dr. DuBridge:
the support of pure science, with which also goes the education of new scientists,
is a totally different task from that of developing weapons of war and must,
therefore, be treated on a totally different basis.
He;.n erged this point with another which Dr. Oppenheimer, Dr. Fermi,
Dr. Bradbury, and Dr. Bacher all underscored in various ways:
* * * secrecy imposed upon basic science is actually inimical to national
security. Thus, we have the paradoxical situation that for greatest national
security in the field of pure science there must be a minimum of the so-called
security regulations.
The Brookhaven reactor is intended not only to foster studies
in nuclear physics and pile technology but also to attract, as Dr.
Bacher put it, "many people who would otherwise be working on
subjects which are quite unrelated to atomic energy." The
$23,000,000 cost of this Commission-made reactor gives an indi-
cation why private universities, with their slender budgets, cannot
alone bear the burden of basic research. No less indicative is the work
at Berkeley, a radiation laboratory whose investigations into the
more. than 1,000 different kinds of atomic nuclei require what Dr.
Bacher called "a very great concentration of energy." Such a con-
centration is achieved through the various multi-million-dollar particle
accelerators. One of these now under construction at Berkeley will
use a magnet containing 10,000 tons of steel, and another now under
construction at Brookhaven will so accelerate particles as to send them
a distance equal to six times around the earth in less than one second's
time. The 184-inch Berkeley cyclotron, most powerful in the world
today, achieved the first laboratory production of mesons-particles
whose existence, according to Dr. Spitzer, was first suggested by a
Japanese physicist and which "are intimately connected with the forces
holding the atomic nucleus together." While discussing Brookhaven
and Berkeley, Dr. DuBridge said:
I would * * * like to pay tribute to the Commission for the wisdom it
has shown in providing, as far as possible within security requirements, for the
atmosphere of freedom in both of these laboratories, which is most essential to
their success.
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Other research centers
Other Commission research centers are by no means idle in the field
of pure science. Los Alamos and Argonne, for E:xa;;nple, succeeded in
liquefying helium 3, which has the lowest boiling point of any mate-
rial-within three degrees of absolute zero-and which, in nature,
occurs as only one part to a million parts of normal belium. Mr. Rich-
ard W. Cook, the Commission's Manager at 0a 'c Ridge, also pointed
out that the great laboratory there is measuring the neutron cross
sections for all elements and studying the genet. c effects of radiation
as observed through experiments with thousand. of mice. Addi-
tionally, the Commission-supported center at Ames, Iowa, has a
theoretical physics division, plus a group concentrating upon the
chemistry of rare earths. But, except for Brooltk ha,, en and Berkeley,
Commission-supported science tends toward the applied and develop-
mental side: Weapons at Los Alamos; reactors at Argonne and
Knolls; the metallurgy of uranium, beryllium, and: thorium at Ames;
highly classified research at the Mound Laboratory, Miamisburg,
Ohio; raw materials at the recently completed center in New Bruns-
wick, N. J.; production problems at laboratories connected directly
with the Hanford piles and the K-25 gaseous-dffu,yion plant; indus-
trial research at the Battell Memorial Institute, Columbus, Ohio; and,
to quote Mr. Cook, "numerous pilot-plant experiments on plutonium-
and uranium-separation processes, reclaiming of Lraliium from various
solutions and decontamination and disposal of radioactive wastes" at
Oak Ridge. The closer these programs and many others veer toward
practical uses, the more likely they are to be wrapped in the secrecy
which all scientists find distasteful and which some scientists so dis-
like that, according to Dr. Oppenheimer, they a:?e hesitant to accept
Commission employment under any circumnstances
Scientist morale
The adverse effect of secrecy upon scientific morale is being reduced
through periodic seminars and conferences attends=d. exclusively by
people who possess security clearance. Dr. Bradbury depicted these
sessions as a vehicle whereby Commission experts hot only exchange
ideas and stimulate one another's thinking but also gain recognition,
within the limits of the cleared group, for accomplishments which
once might have attracted the applause of scieni ist. generally. Cir-
culation of technical papers among cleared pemonne.l produces the
same result. An ambitious young physicist is, therefore, less likely
to reject atomic energy employment for fear tha`, secrecy would pre-
vent him from building a reputation. Asa. matte- of fact, the number
of cleared professionals available to grant recognition has become
fairly extensive; for project employees include 10 percent of all the
Nation's active Ph. D. physicists, 3 percent of the 'h. D. chemists,
and about 1 percent of the Ph. D.'s engaged. in such life sciences as
biology, medicine, and agriculture.
Salary scales, another factor conditioning scientific morale, are
described by General Manager Carroll Wilson as comparing favorably
"with leading industrial research laboratories" ea cept on the highest
level. The directors of Los Alamos, Argonne, Oak Ridge, Brook-
haven, and the like are all paid $14,000 annuiily, less than their
services might command in industry but "comparable with good top
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salaries in the leading academic organizations and institutions of the
country."
It is important,
Mr. Wilson said-
and we have endeavored to bring about a reasonable degree of comparability for
comparable levels of scientific ability within these several laboratories. This is
essential, lest we initiate a spiral of increases of salaries among these people or
set up such differentials that there come about important shifts of people from
one laboratory to another.
The record discloses that, apart from the five Commissioners, the Gen-
eral Manager, the Deputy General Manager, the Hanford area man-
ager, the former Oak Ridge area manager, and 19 contractor officials
.supervising construction work, no one whose salary is directly paid
,or reimbursed by the Commission receives more than the $14,000
given laboratory directors. On the other hand, it is a fact that a
number of uniquely qualified scientists are not employed full-time in
the project-although the extent to which salary levels account for
their absence is problematical.
Research, contracts
Besides supporting four major laboratories and seven other impor-
tant centers, the Commission has sought to encourage the training of
new men and the revival of war-enfeebled activity in pure science by
undertaking a joint program with the Office of Naval Research. From
Dr. DuBridge's testimony, it appears that the Navy, appreciating the
vital defense role of fundamental knowledge, had made funds available
to private institutions before the Commission came into existence.
The two agencies therefore consolidated their efforts and together
sponsored contracts for basic research in the physical sciences.
Dr. DuBridge deplored the fact that a military organization, even
though it "has shown exceptional wisdom," originally furnished the
sole Federal aid in this field. "Universities and scientists," he said,
"feel more comfortable in having also a civilian agency with which to
work and which can lend support, such as the Atomic Energy Com-
mission." The joint program makes possible some 60 projects in
more than 50 institutions; and it includes by far the largest share of
all basic work which American universities perform in nuclear physics.
By March 1949, however, the Commission began letting research
contracts independently of the Navy, and negotiations for about 40
university projects are either under way or completed. Dr. DuBridge
felt that this step might wisely have been taken sooner; but he noted
that "more urgent tasks" made it impractical at an earlier date.
Biology and medicine
One broad phase of research, both basic and applied, had necessarily
received only minimum attention under the Manhattan District; that
is, biology and medicine. The Commission found itself (quoting Dr.
Bacher) "unable to understand in any great detail the fundamental
question of hazards associated with radioactive materials and particu-
larly with the production and handling of fissionable materials."
There is also the problem of civil defenses against atomic attack.
How thick must the walls of concrete bomb shelters be made in order
to protect people from a given quantum of radiation? What is the
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correct first-aid technique for treating casu:Elti,urtesy, Senator
Hickenlooper should enjoy unrestricted scope to build an indictment
in his own way. If presentation were public, ran the argument, he
would labor under the same handicaps as the Commission; that is, he
could not refer directly to FBI files. It was therefor- suggested that
restraints on both sides would be identical and parallel tiikd hence fair.
The committee, endeavoring to explore all facets of =' lie problem,
finally staged an experiment during executive session. It requested
Senator Hickenlooper to develop his" case B" and the Commission to
reply, just as they both would proceed if the sane topic were later con-
sidered publicly. The purpose of this experiment was to provide com-
mittee members with added perspective, through a 'urn her concrete
example, so that they could better decide upon a caw se of action.
As had been true of "case A," however, the Commission challenged
Senator Hickenlooper's statement of facts and also cited what it
deemed to be serious omissions. That the experiment- took place
with no newspapermen present was fortunate, for the ensuing dis-
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cussion brought out details which would have violated the FBI files
and would also have thrown definite light upon "Mr. B's" identity.
The viewpoint which ultimately prevailed within the committee is
set forth in a letter which Senator McMahon wrote to Senator Hicken-
looper. It reads:
JUNE 9, 1949.
Senator B. B. HICKENLOOPER,
Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C.
DEAR SENATOR HICKENLOOPER: The Joint Committee on Atomic Energy faces
a difficult procedural problem in deciding how to conduct the personnel security
phase of the current investigation of the Atomic Energy Commission.
Here, in outline, are my thoughts on the subject.
In handling the 15 or 20 personnel cases which you wish to use, I think at least
7 objectives should be kept in mind: (1) Providing you, as a United States Senator
and as a member and former chairman of the committee, with full and fair op-
portunity to present your indictment against the Commission; (2) furnishing,
the Commission with full and fair opportunity to answer your charges; (3) pro-
tecting confidential FBI files; (4) fairness to the individuals involved in personnel
security cases; (5) avoidance of steps which would lower the morale of employees
in the Nation's atomic project; (6) conduct of the investigation in a way that will
reflect credit upon the committee, which is ultimately responsible for whatever
procedure may be adopted; and (7) enabling the American people to arrive at a,
balanced and correct judgment of the Commission's record.
I believe that discussion of your remaining personnel security cases in open
hearing would negate each of these seven objectives. You, yourself, could not
particularize, for fear of divulging the details of FBI files and identifying individ-
uals. Therefore, you could not make out the strongest possible case against
the Commission. While you personally may be willing to accept this handicap,
I feel that the committee cannot fairly pass judgment upon the merit of your
grave charges unless it has the benefit of the most powerful and most documented
indictment which you can present. Such an indictment, as regards personnel
security, is feasible only in the privacy of executive session.
Furthermore, if security cases were discussed at open hearings, the Commission
would either bring out details in its reply, in which event it would expose FBI
files and "bracket" the identity of individuals, or else it would be judged on the
basis of selected evidence. In the current trial of Miss Judith Coplon on espionage
charges, the court ruled that the defendant cannot be tried solely on evidence
selected by the prosecution, that she must be allowed to introduce her own evi-
dence even at the risk of disclosing the contents of secret documents. You may
conceivably take the position that the more existence of derogatory information
on a particular individual is sufficient to disqualify him for atomic energy employ-
ment. But the law, as it now stands, permits the Commission to exercise dis-
cretion, to weigh favorable against unfavorable data. That being the case, the
Commission is clearly entitled to discuss any detail which would help vindicate it
in its exercise of judgment.
To my mind, the individual involved in case A, has already been sufficiently
identified to cause him genuine embarrassment. If discussion of other cases had
the same result, the investigation might not redound to the committee's credit;
and the effect on the morale of Atomic Energy employees might become serious,
since no one of them could ever feel sure that a malicious anonymous informant
would not cause a spotlight of adverse publicity to be focused upon himself and
family.
Finally, I fear that an examination of security cases in public would produce the
very confusion against which you warned in your original statement calling for the
resignation of Mr. Lilienthal. So many collateral issues would be raised, so many
doubts and suspicions would be cast upon various individuals, so much time would
be consumed in hearing character witnesses and the like, and so many libel and
perjury suits of the Hiss-Chambers variety might eventuate that the American
people could hardly be expected to formulate an ordered opinion as to the Com-
mission's general record.
However, it seems to me that the traditional procedure of handling this phase of
the investigation in closed session would achieve all the desirable objectives which
I have mentioned. You could document your criticism and the Commission
could document its defense without reserve; nevertheless, the committee's obliga-
tion to protect FBI files would be fulfilled:? Likewise, the rights of individuals
S. Rept. 1169, 81-1-6
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62 INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATOMIC ENERGY CCMl1IISSION
and the morale of Atomic Energy employees would remain unimpaired. The
public, moreover, could integrate personnel security issues int ) it:- over-all verdict
through a special section in the committee report to be issued aftr?r the investiga-
tion has ended. That special section might indicate the gerterai nature of your
comments on personnel security and the general nature of the Commission's reply,
together with the committee's own conclusions. It might eve , he possible to
include many specific details in the report, without prejudicing i'BI files, if the
committee had time to weigh and review its choice of wor , free from the
impromptu give and take which characterizes a hearing.
Accordingly, I suggest that the open sessions continue on ;uob portions of the
investigation as can properly be discussed publicly. Then I suggest that we
undertake a series of closed sessions to consider personnel security and other
matters which should be reviewed privately. Meanwhile, the. relevant FBI
filesand other documents, plus summaries prepared by the staff, van be circulated
among committee members so that they will be acquainted with the cases you
wish to explore by the time meetings on personnel security -ortmence.
In this connection, I feel that the committee should base is conclusions prin-
cipalsy upon the written record-i. e., FBI files and the transer ipts and reports
of AEC loyalty boards and loyalty reviewers-since the Comml.-ion itself relied
exclusively upon a written record whenever it considered prrtik Filar cases. We
are ppassing judgment upon Mr. Lilienthal and his colleagues, and therefore we
need-have no more evidence before us than was before them. If that evidence
impresses the committee as inadequate, the inference can only be that the
Commission was derelict in failing to insist upon additional (evidence.
It is true that AEC loyalty boards heard testimony from live Witnesses and that
these boards were the trusted appointees of the Commission. But in my opinion
this fact is not sufficient reason for us to calla host of live witne . s. Their words
are all recorded on AEC transcripts; the Commissioners did not hear these wit-
nesses; and we, like the Commissioners, are pressed for time.
The point may be made that committee members are not comp utent to evaluate
personnel security cases, since they lack specialized training in I his field. How-
ever, we are interested in ascertaining whether or not the Comm ~.sion is guilty of
incredible mismanagement. Consequently, as to personnel security, we need only
decide whether or not the Commission's judgment was clearly erneneous or unrea-
sonable. Whether or not we would have acted differently, if we were the Com-
mission, is irrelevant, assuming we should agree that reasonable men might have
actedas did the Commission. Considering the nature of he inquiry, then, I
feel that we are in fact competent to act. Just as a court tune need not be a
technical expert in order to review the decision of an administrate body, so need
we not possess special competence in the field of personnel security in order to
review the Commission's actions.
Sincerely yours,
BRINN MCMAhON, Chairman.
The committee membership was unanimous throtynt Commission
business, clearance of the firm president and his lewycr accomplishes
nothing. Such men, Mr. Lilienthal suggested, are helpless without
secretaries, file clerks, deputies, auditors, program managers, and
subordinates of all kinds. General McCormack la ;er added:
The matter of emergency clearances is, in a sense, like a chi in reaction. You
have to clear first a person who can discuss a problem to set: w1i,ther he thinks in
general his organization can do it or to see in general how lie s could map out his
organization to do it.
Next, when he has made up his mind-and he might say, "X?), I cannot do it,"
and then you have to go to another place and start over ag-in
When he makes up his mind, then there must be one, twj, tsrree, four, five, or
six key people who have to build their part of the pyramid. It builds downward.
The question is not, "Does it take 2 weeks versus 3 months es between emergency
clearance and the full procedure for an organization?" The question is, "How
many successive steps are there to which this gap applies?" 'If there happened
to be four steps, if the difference happens to be a month, then 't is not l month,
it is 4 months. The armed. forces, too, would have been, I think terribly handi-
capped in creating the [Eniwetok] task force, which was so very ably created,
had it not been for emergency clearances. * * *."
In this connection Senator Hickenlooper stresr.ed that the law
reads-
Except * * * in case of emergency, no indivi,lua shall be em-
ployed * * the word "case" being singular rather than plural. Be did not spell
out the significance of that usage; but supposedly he meant that
Congress, by choosing "case" and not "cases," may have intended to
exclude total situations where many individuals aie -ceded quickly
and to include only a narrower class of emergencies where one ortwo
individuals will answer. Yet the linguistical reasons underlying such
a deduction-and the reasons why an opposite deduction would not
be still more appropriate-are far from obvious. Art emergency,
moreover, remains an emergency even though it is large scale and
requires a number of people in its solution.
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Senator Hickenlooper developed the additional fact that the Com-
missioners had not themselves formally declared 3,317 separate emer-
gencies to exist before each of the 3,317 emergency clearances were
granted. The act states,
Except as authorized by the Commission in case of emergency, no individual shall
*
Nevertheless, the act also states (through subsets. 2 (a) (4) (A) and
ilk (B)) that the General Manager-
shall discharge such of the administrative and executive functions of the Com-
mission as the Commission may direct-
and that-
the Commission shall require each * * * [division director] to exercise such
of the Commission's powers under this Act as the Commission may deter-
mine * * *?
Considering these subsections it would be difficult to show that the
five Commissioners, by permitting the General Manager and division
directors to issue emergency clearances in accord with a definite
directive, have improperly delegated authority.
Mr. Joseph Volpe, Jr., the Commission general counsel, testified
that he and Mr. Lilienthal had conferred with the Attorney General in
1947 regarding the interpretation to be placed upon the emergency
clearance section. In Mr. Volpe's words-
The Attorney General agreed immediately that from his reading of the law, the
Congress did not intend that everyone be investigated by the FBI and cleared by,
the Commission before work' could be undertaken. He recognized immediately
that the problem which faced us was one whether we should jeopardize by delay
the common defense and security of the United States by providing for a full FBI
investigation and clearance of all individuals.
As a matter of fact, one assistant remarked that the Congress could not possibly
have thought that the Commission should direct its attention at FBI investigations
and clearance of all individuals and forget about the need for getting jobs done.
The general counsel then testified that he had discussed this matter
with Senator Hickenlooper, who seemed to take the same view as the
Attorney General. Senator Hickenlooper explained, however, that
he meant to convoy no such impression. He said:
I remember the discussion in 1947, but my recollection of the discussion was
that it went entirely to cases of emergency, where some emergent situation came
up, and the Commission would find it necessary to get in some noted scientist or
+ some noted specialist to discuss that particular situation, see if a solution would
come' up for it, and I was-in agreement that under the provision of section 10,
which starts out "except as authorized by the Commission in the case of emer-
gency"-Iwss of the opinion, and I think I so agreed at that time, that there were
situations where that would arise, where the law had recognized that emergent
situations would arise, whore the Commission would be authorized to do that,
and where 90 days could not possibly be allowed to elapse before the benefit of
this specialized judgment could be brought to a certain problem.
There was no discussion or contemplation at that time, as I recall it, about the
wholesale policy of just hiring anybody and everything under the so-called
emergency clearances.
It appears that, from every viewpoint, the issuance of some emer-
gency clearances is legally permissible. But to concede that even
one such clearance is proper under the act is also to concede the legal
propriety of all 3,317 clearances actually granted, unless it be alleged
that part of them were given whimsically or fraudulently or with a
deliberate intent to injure the national security. In the absence of
such an allegation-and none was made-the legal dispute centers
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74 INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION
solely upon the definition of one word, "emergency." The Commis-
sion is obliged to interpret is own statute. Unless and until a court
overrules it, and while it acts in sincerity and good faith, its definition
of "emergency" must be regarded as legally acceptable.
The soundness of the Commission's judgment is another matter.
The record shows that between 2 and 3 percent of all employees cleared
first had access to restricted data on an emergency- bitsis. In no case
did the full FBI investigation-when later completed-disclose an
espionage suspect. In 4 cases of the 3,317 total, the FBI reports
include some indication of questionable associations: One involved
a boilermaker-welder who, in the course of a construction job, was
allowed to enter a fenced area but who had no contact, with technical
or statistical information. In the second case "fringe" connections
with Communists are ascribed to the employee's son during student
days; the employee himself is not implicated. The subject of the
third case allegedly signed a Communist Party nominating petition
in 1941; but he denies this act and analysis by handwriting experts
reveals substantial discrepancies between the signature on the petition
and his true signature. In the fourth case the individual is an account-
ant who may well have associated closely with Communists, although
his file also reflects considerable evidence of loyalty. All four persons
have been dismissed due to the derogatory data appex:ring in the full
FBI reports.
The Commission, through its Chairman, declared that emergency
clearances are granted or withheld depending upon whether the risk
of delaying a given job outweighs the risk of giving employees tem-
porary access on the strength of an FBI file and fingerprint check.
No evidence was presented tending to show that the Commission
exercised faulty judgment in allowing any particular eriergeney clear-
ance or set of clearances. Mr Lilienthal also stated that a different
policy on these clearances would have meant production of fewer
atomic weapons than actually exist today. Again, no evidence was
presented tending to rebut his statement.
OTHER SAFEGUARDS
The tendency to regard security and secrecy as almo'.t. synonymous
is a recent development traceable to the myth that w-. alone owned
the atomic-bomb "formula" and that others could not possess them-
selves of our "formula" independently. But security in its classic
connotation refers particularly to physical protection of plants, lab-
oratories, and storage centers. Here, in this classic seise, the Com-
mission came upon real and troublesome problems. The record con-
tains a striking example, described by General Manager Wilson thus:
Perhaps the most serious situation which required prompt a?;ention in 1947
was the concentration and lack of adequate protection for tt e stock pile of plu-
tonium and uranium 235, bomb components and nuclear material. The major
share of the Nation's stock pile of these weapons and strai,egj;, materials was
concentrated in a single geographic location, in vulnerable st.rage structures
which were poorly protected and lacked reliable communicatio is or effective plans
for safeguarding in case of emergency.
The Commission took immediate action to disperse such mrterials in more
secure storage while the design and construction of bomb-prot:f, underground
vaults were being completed. As we have reported to the joint c ,rnmittee, these
storage facilities incorporate protective devices to meet any contingency.
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INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION 75
Closely associated with storage is the problem of transporting raw
ores, processed uranium, fissionables, bomb components, and various
unique equipment from one point to another. According to Mr.
Wilson, shipments are made, "by rail, air, water, and highway"; they
represent about 2 000,000 ton-miles per month; and "since January 1,
1947, there has seen`
een no known instance of loss or compromise in
transit of this heavy volume of secret and strategic material."
Plant security
The Manhattan District turned over to the Commission a list of
729 locations throughout the United States considered as requiring
safeguards and where security programs were actually in effect.
During 1947 the Commission added 632 more locations to the list.
"Of these," Mr. Wilson states, "227 were involved in production,
fabrication research or development for Los Alamos * * * "
Some had not been guarded previously and many personnel perform-
ing highly sensitive work had not been cleared because the very
existence of our atomic project was once an official secret. The
Manhattan. District evidently reasoned that to insert a record of
certain "undercover operations" in its central files would create
greater security risk than to omit the usual precautions altogether.
Similarly, when the war ended, "troop demobilization made the
emergency defense plans for atomic energy installations obsolete."
The Commission Security Division therefore established direct liaison
with the military in order to arrange new emergency plans; and an
Army ground division, as well as Air Force units, now figure in the
defense of Hanford. Special squads of FBI agents have been given
a series of Commission-sponsored technical lectures and stationed
at Richland, Los Alamos, and Oak Ridge. "Thus," Mr. Wilson
reports, "FBI agents are alert to warn us of sabotage or espionage
attempts and are better able to evaluate information that might
indicate possible danger to atomic energy facilities." Studies of
sabotage vulnerability have been made at each of the 1,300 and odd
locations in the United States. About 9 percent of all contractor
employees (some 6,000 people) and about 20 percent of all Com-
mission employees (some 950 people) devote full time to guard details
and other aspects of "security by concealment."
An inquiry was made as to fire hazards in the Los Alamos technical
area. The record indicates that, while some hazard remains, it has
been reduced since 1947 through the introduction of sprinkler systems,
increased water supply, and strengthened fire-fighting services. Dan-
ger will decline to the irreducible minimum as construction of a new
technical area, now under way, is completed.
Green stickers and guest list
Apart from this matter, physical protection of facilities gave rise
to three questions which came to be known as "the green stickers,"
"the guest list," and the "Hanford slugs." The first two of these
involved instructions controlling guards at the Argonne National
Laboratory. Did the authorities there issue green stickers for display
on automobile windshields, enabling the drivers to pass in and out
of various establishments without security inspection? Also, did a
memorandum directed to "all guards" state that a list of 87 people
"and their guests will be allowed unlimited access to all areas of the
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76 INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION
property at all times, upon identification of themselves"? Detailed
testimony reveals that an automobile parking lot servos one of the
Argonne sites and that this parking lot occupies part of a construction
area which contains no secret information or equipment. The con-
struction area is watched, however, for such administrative purposes
as keeping out vagrants and preventing theft of Government property.
The driver of an automobile displaying a green windshield sticker is
entitled to enter or leave the parking lot; but the sticker gives access
to no other location. The guest list fills a similar function: it signifies
that all guards supervising a particular construction area must
identify and then admit 87 named officials and their guests. This
area, too, contains nothing of a classified nature and is watched for
administrative purposes only. Guests are the responsibility of the
official escorting them, the assumption being that they are unlikely
to steal or damage Government property while in his company. The
testimony also makes clear that secret documents are L opt in three-
combination safes located in an exclusion zone surrounded by fences
and patrolled 24 hours a day. No one, regardless of rat k, may enter
such a zone without submitting to the regular inspection procedure
that includes presentation of formal credentials.
Hanford slugs
The matter of the Hanford slugs developed from a test, one of
many, designed to check the adequacy of protective measures. A
Commission security officer, with the approval cf his superiors,
entered a Hanford exclusion zone. He possessed crecentials authoriz-
ing such entry and used them to make his way past three guard sta-
tions. Once inside he picked up two slugs of normal uranium, con-
cealed them on his person, and departed--again using the valid
credentials to pass through three sets of guards. The slugs were then
locked in a safe under the control of security officers, who waited to
see whether or not the loss would be noticed. Some months later one
slug was finally reported as missing; the taking of the other went
undetected. The results of this test leaked to a radio commentator,
and his broadcasts stimulated the president of the Hanford Guards
Union to write a letter which Senator Hickenloop,~r read into the
record. It alleges security laxness on the part of policy-making
authorities and through no fault of the guards themselves; it declares
that searches of people entering and leaving the plants are infrequent: `
and it complains that the guards have had little opportunity to know
what a uranium slug actually looks like. Mr. Schlemmer, Hanford
area manager, denied any lax attitude toward sec,.irit.y. He com-
mented that the author of the letter is a patrolman aad: has no assign-
ment in the area from which the two slugs were removed. Also the
guard union is in process of organization, and General Electric did
not agree to a consent election proposed under the Taft-Hartley law.
The testimony implies that unionization difficulties, plus a recent
reduction in the guard force, may have influenced tie writing of the
letter.
Materials accountability
The Hanford slugs relate more to materials accountability than to
the efficiency of guards, however. Mr. George H. L'rout, General
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Electric manager at Hanford, stated that accountability practices
have been tightened as a result of the slugs incident. He explained:
Accountability up until this time had been carried on primarily by lot ship
meets, and accountability by weight of material, because there were so many'
pieces involved, and, of course, this is the raw material, and accountability has
been consistently accounting for all of the material received to within less than a
half of 1 percent so that the portion of the material that is difficult to account
for is lost in machining operations; some of it goes into dust, which goes into the
ventilating system and goes through the filters; some of that material is dissolved
in the processing and is lost in the solutions. Some of it goes into chips which
are subsequently washed, and, therefore, the dust is washed from them and goes
down the drain. The balance, of course, is weighed and recast into ingots for
further use.
It was felt up until that time that accountability for the raw material to within
that very small percentage was adequate. It was not considered really feasible,
or would not be considered desirable for anyone to remove a piece of the raw
material because that would disclose nothing to anyone. As I said previously,
a slug after processing would reveal perhaps some secret information, but the
guys who do it can reveal a heck of a lot more by what they have in their heads
than they can by taking a piece of material out.
Now, we are hard at work trying to develop-we think we have the answer
so that no one, no matter who he might be, will be able to carry a piece of this
stuff out in his pocket or a dinner pail.
Another materials accountability incident is listed as a "fiasco" in
Senator Hickenlooper's original indictment: the lost container of
uranium oxide at Argonne. Dr. Walter H. Zinn, director of that
laboratory, and others explored the affair throughout two public.
hearings. Their testimony, together with reports and papers in the
committee's possession, would fill a thick volume; but the trend of
the evidence may be summarily outlined.
A quantity of uranium salt, partly enriched in U-235, was reduced
to metal, cast into an ingot, and then machined. Certain debris
resulted from the machining: chips, floor sweepings, the coolant used
to cool the machine, ashed filter paper on which some material had
been recovered, and other items in addition to the finished article.
Each type of debris was collected, placed in a separate container, and
stored within the vault at the Argonne metallurgical building. One
such container, a small glass mason jar, housed about three-quarters
of a pound of uranium oxide evolving from the chips or machine
turnings. Somebody having access to the vault apparently took the
mason jar, poured its contents into a galvanized steel can used for
waste recovery, and threw the jar itself into another can used for
waste disposal.
At that time the metallurgical building handled only normal ura-
nium, hundreds of pounds and even tons of it. The enriched ingot
had been machined at this building because no other facilities were
available to prepare it for an important experiment. The usual prac-
tice was to place machine debris, when no longer needed, in the steel
cans used for waste recovery and at intervals ship the accumulated
scrap to a processing plant for purification and use as production feed
material. The enriched oxide looked like ordinary oxide; the label
on. the, jar displayed code symbols easily misunderstood; and during
the course of a clean-up operation which took place in the building
because it had become contaminated with beryllium, someone care-
lessly discarded what seemed to be the usual and relatively valueless
product of machine turnings. Placement of the jar itself in a steel
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waste-disposal can was also a habitual step; for uranit m traces ad-
herirg inside the jar, even after cleansing, might up4et experimental
calculations if it were reused to store other materia . The contents
of waste-disposal cans are dumped periodically into lard-;e steel crates
at the Argonne burial ground, as a safeguard against radiation.
After the enriched oxide and jar had been relegated to cans but
before their loss became known, debris from the machining work was
ordered transferred to anew location. Because the individual directly
in charge lacked adequate training and technical background, all
items of debris were listed as moving to the new location, even though
the jar of oxidized chips did not in fact enter the shipment. A recheck
disclosed the error and searches began. The waste-recovery can was
sent to Oak Ridge for detailed isotopic analysis, w hich. showed all
of the missing U-235 to be present except about 4 grams, or one-
seventh of an ounce. Later tests reduced this margin of discrepancy
and even eliminated it altogether if experimental error is calculated
favorably. Since the Argonne metallurgy building dealt with some
depleted uranium (i. e., metal containing less U-235 thx{n that found
in nature) and since portions may have reached the same waste can
as the enriched material, the one may have partly offset. the effect of
the other-thus explaining the discrepancy which still e ists if experi-
mental error is resolved unfavorably. Workers cloth+d in rubber
suits and wearing gas masks probed for the jar at the Argonne burial
ground, while an FBI agent watched them, and they located a con-
tainer which further analyses demonstrated to be the on,' in question.
The joint committee engaged the services of Dr. Ernest W. Thiele,
assistant director of research of the Standard Oil Co. of Indiana, and
asked him to make an independent investigation and report. His
conclusions are as follows:
After a careful survey of the data (including analyses rscei tly completed)
relating to the disappearance of a jar of uranium enriched in the fissionable
isotope, uranium 235, at the Argonne National Laboratory, I have reached the
following conclusions.
There can be no reasonable doubt that the enriched mater a! detected by
Argonne in the can of ordinary uranium scrap is the materiel which was in the
missing jar.
A perfectly accurate determination, either of the amount of uranium in the
containers or the fraction of that uranium which was uranium 235 is not possible;
there is always a margin of uncertainty in analytical work. Tie w.ight of analyti-
cal evidence indicates that the amount of uranium 235 in the hissing jar was
between 30.3 and 31.7 grams (slightly more than an ounce). Similarly, the
evidence indicates that the amount of uranium 235 in the enriehe+' material found
in the scrap uranium can was between 29 and 31.1 grams. Since these figures
overlap, it follows that the best available data do not indicate the loss of any
uranium, by theft or otherwise, but neither do they exclude the possibility that
some small amount may have been stolen. The attendant circumstances make it
extremely unlikely that any was stolen. The remaining uncertainty cannot be
substantially reduced by any further measurement.
The original report of a discrepancy of 3% grams arose fro:a an erroneous
analysis of the amount of uranium 235 in the scrap uranium car. This analysis
showed a content of uranium 235 lower than the correct value by about one-
twentieth to one-tenth of 1 percent.
The Commission employs the full-time services Df i10 scientific,
technical, and other workers, representing in salaries alone an annual
cost of almost $2,500,000, for the purpose of materials accountability.
These employees inventory, weigh, analyze, assay, measure, and
trace natural and enriched uranium, plutonium, thorii m, and other
metals while they are being combined chemically with different
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sub,,tances and being processed as gases, solutions, or solids through
many stages of refinement. In the opinion of Mr. Williams, director
of production-
Possibly the best illustration of the effectiveness of our present system is the
fact that relatively minor discrepancies in the uranium inventories have been
discovered and investigated. If the accounting system had not been effective,
these amounts would have gone unnoticed. With an industrial operation so
large and so complex as the atomic energy program, we would have cause for being
suspicious of any accounting system that did not show minor discrepancies from
time to time.
Documents control
Two other security programs assume great importance, although
they attracted only passing attention during the investigation and
generated no issues. One is the control of, and accountability for,
classified documents. Hundreds of thousands were in existence
when the Commission took over, according to Mr. Wilson, but no
complete tabulation had ever been made. "The first job was to
set up regular inventories of such documents throughout atomic
energy plants and laboratories and a check system of accounting for
them." Each month 10,000 new classified documents are originated
and hundreds move each day from one installation to another, con-
stantly increasing the scope of the security problem. "Substantial
progress has been made in establishing controls, setting up an account-
ability system, and developing inventories," reports Mr. Wilson.
But "this job is not finished, and we are still working hard on it in
every office throughout the country where classified documents are
used."
Control of information
The remaining security program is control of information: The
method whereby the Commission decides whether or not a given piece
of knowledge may be published. A hierarchy of scientifically qualified
reviewers pass upon such matters, guided by detailed technical
directives; and they determine the classification given each of the
10,000 documents created monthly, as well as the hundreds of thou-
sands of documents inherited from the Manhattan District. Mr.
Lilienthal summarized the problem and its solution in these words:
"How do we inform ourselves reasonably, without injury to the
national defense? And the balance always is: Is it better for us to
know this information, would we derive more strength from it than
a potential enemy would derive strength?" He presented a detailed
example :
Let me give one situation in which there was-one other-when there was dis-
agreement, within my clear recollection, as contrasted to radioisotopes-that was
not in the radioisotopes-this was in the declassification of a particular item. I
am not mentioning the item, but it was a matter of the declassification of a single
piece of information.
Here there were literally months of discussions between the staffs [of the Com-
mission and the Military Liaison Committee] and, as 1 ,recall, some three discus-
sions between the two bodies on the wisdom or lack of wisdom from the security
point of view, military point of view, of the declassification of this item, and in the
end the strong views against its declassification held initially by our colleagues of
the Military Liaison Committee changed in the direction-changed, and they
concurred in the idea that this, on the whole, was a proper decision.
Here, in the field of classification and declassification, the Soviet
could most easily gain valuable data if our policy were unwise. Dr.
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80 INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATOMIC ENERGY C0i'I 1ISSION
Oppenheimer left no doubt that he approves of the judgment exercised
in this field. The Commission has recognized that information, once
published, can never again be retracted and made secret. Therefore,
according to Dr. Oppenheimer, it uses caution even where there is
strong temptation to release data in the hope of gaining military ad-
vantage through stimulation of scientific progress.
The foregoing review of the evidence exposes several paradoxes
which merit inspection as a preliminary to the drawing of major con-
clusions. The Commission has been specifically accused of breaching
the law; and yet the original indictment concentrates criticism upon
only one member of the Commission, namely, Mr. Lilienthal-an
approach which itself implies a misunderstanding as to what the law
provides. Section 2 (a) (1) of the McMahon Act is as follows:
There is hereby established an Atomic Energy Commission (Eerein called the
Commission), which shall be composed of five members. T ireee members shall
constitute a quorum of the Commission. The President Ella]] designate one
member as Chairman of the Commission.
From this subsection and from the remainder of the Act it becomes
evident that the direction of our atomic enterprise is vested in five
men and not in one man. It is equally plain that, in line with the
law, the credit for successes and the blame for failur.,s attach to five
men collectively and not to one man individually. At the first
Commission meeting ever held, furthermore, Messrs. Lilienthal,
Pike, Waymack, Bacher, and Strauss decided that they would not
divide up administrative responsibilities but would act invariably as
a unit.
Another paradox flows from section 2 (c) of the act. It ; confers upon
the Military Liaison Committee, representing our armed forces, a right
of appeal to the Secretary of National Defense and, if he concurs, to the
President. This right may be invoked whenever "Euny action, pro-
posed action, or failure to act of the Commission is a Iverse to the re-
sponsibilities" of the Defense Department. Thus th-1 McMahon Act
creates a special review of the Commission's national defense activities,
since each issue in this area may become one which the Military Liaison
Committee decides to contest through its appeal procedure. Members
of that committee are told how many bombs and how much fissionable
material have been manufactured. They consequently take into
account information unknown to the Joint Camm.ttee on Atomic
Energy, which has preferred not to inform itself of weapons stock-pile
data. They have the perspective furnished by lifelong specialization
in defense matters. Yet the Military Liaison Commih,ter with knowl-
edge of how many bombs we possess, with professional background
and training, and with a duty to protest decisions harmful from a
security viewpoint, has never taken an appeal againm.t a, Commission
action or failure to act-whether in the field of weapon;., production,
research, or protection of secrets. Only one difference of opinion be-
tween the Military Liaison Committee and the Commission is known
to have reached the President's desk: the question of who should have
custody over atomic bombs. This issue was resolv3d. more than a
year ago, not under the section 2 (c) appeal procedure, but under sec-
tion 6 (a), which specifically states that the President shall determine
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INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION 81
weapons custody. He reaffirmed his January 1947 decision that the
Commission hold atomic bombs in its hands.
The President's attitude toward Commission conduct generally is
inconsistent with the mismanagement charges. He took note that
Mr. Lilienthal had been selected from among the five Commissioners
for special censure and., on May 26, 1949, issued the following public
statement:
I personally know the country's position in atomic energy.
We are making good progress.
Our situation has been vastly improved in the last 2 years under the Atomic
Energy Commission.
I deplore the fact that relatively trivial items have been blown up to proportions
that threaten the integrity of the program.
It is time that people stopped getting hysterical when the word "atom" is
mentioned. The plain fact is that the atomic energy program is in good shape-
and in good hands. I hope the Commission will soon be able to get back to work
and that the atomic energy program will cease to be used for preelection campaigns.
I have entire confidence in Mr. Lilienthal. He has done a good job.
As the President observes at the outset of his statement, he--like the
Military Liaison Committee-knows how many atomic weapons we
possess and speaks with that information in mind.
The serious character of the indictment might raise a supposition that
able men having access to all the facts are divided on basic policy and
that the five Atomic Energy Commissioners themselves frequently
disagree. The evidence shows, however, that in more than 500 formal
Commission decisions, a dissenting vote was cast 12 times. In each
of these dozen ballots the minority consisted of one Commissioner who
was throughout the same individual, Mr. Strauss. The framers of the
McMahon Act deliberately established a five-man directorate, rather
than a single administrator, to control our atomic enterprise for the
very purpose of assuring that diverse viewpoints would be brought to
bear upon issues so far-reaching as those here involved. The possi-
bility of split votes was not only anticipated but regarded as whole-
some. The fact that one Commissioner has demonstrated the courage
and independence to dissent upon occasion lends added validity to
decisions in which he concurred. The further fact that a lawyer (Mr.
4 Lilienthal), a newspaper editor (Mr. Waymack, recently resigned),
a scientist (Dr. Bacher, recently resigned), a financier (Mr. Strauss),
and a former member of the Securities and Exchange Commission
(Mr. Pike) have achieved unanimity in the great majority of cases
suggests the existence of an atomic energy program which most patri-
otic and intelligent men regard as sensible.
The conflict between this inference and the charges of mismanage.
ment may be seen in sharper focus by introducing the views of the
Commission's General Advisory Committee: The 12 scientists,
engineers, and industrial leaders comprising that Committee are ap-
pointed by the President; and they convene once every 2 or 3 months
to formulate advice on important Commission business. Section 2 (b)
of the McMahon Act provides for the Committee as a means of mobi-
lizing, on a part-time basis, the ablest brains to be found in private life.
This Committee prepared and unanimously endorsed a statement
which its Chairman, Dr. Oppenheimer, read into the record:
The General Advisory Committee, in accordance with its statutory obligations,
has followed the scientific and technical activities of the Atomic Energy Commis-
sion with considerable care since January 1947. We have seen at first hand the
grave difficulties which the Commission faced in assuming responsibility for an
extremely complex enterprise which had been disrupted by the ending of the war
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82 INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATOMIC ENERGY COYtMISSION
and by a year of uncertainty pending the establishment of ihe Atomic Energy
Commission.
When the Commission took over, the future of the whole enterprise was uncer-
tain, the continuity of production of fissionable materials was fix from assured, the
design and development of improved weapons was nearly stagnant. In each of
these respects, the picture has radically changed. Better vreal.;ons have been
developed and tested, the production of materials has been substau..tially increased
and assured, and a sound and forward-looking program has bean established.
There have been occasions on which the Advisory Committee has criticized the
Commission and offered suggestions for the improvement of Its program, which
suggestions have largely been followed. In all of our examin rtions of the Com-
mission's activities we have seen a frank recognition of the probl;::;ms of manage-
ment inherent in any new undertaking and a steady progress in their solution.
The improvement which has been achieved during the Comm ssiea's administra-
tion appears to us to offer clear proof of competence and devo ;ion to duty by the
Commission.
Dr. Oppenheimer himself added that in matters of s iientific secrecy,
such as the declassification of documents and the shipment of isotopes,
the Commission "has been a little more conservative, than we would
have been, but otherwise it has followed our advice.''
To round out the contrast between allegations of gross mismanage-
ment and the different viewpoint prevailing in other respected quar-
ters, Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson sent Sena or McMahon a
letter dated June 6, 1949, advising that "the Military Establishment
has not attempted, and will not attempt, to take atomic energy away
from civilian control * * *," and further that "ire have had no
desire to handle the matter." This same letter observe that former
Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal, in his annual report to the
President and the Congress, said :
I want to record my personal satisfaction with the existing str:,tute governing
matters in the field of atomic energy, and to express my pleasure, also, at the way
in which relationships between the National Military Estailishment and the
Atomic Energy Commission are being conducted.
The role of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy is a "watchdog"
for Congress brings to light another paradox diffe?en'. from those
already encountered. The facts surrounding Commission policy on
emergency clearances, foreign isotope shipments, and personnel
security procedures-topics stressed during the indict,mEnt portion of
the investigation-were furnished the joint committee in 1947 or
early 1948 and became familiar to the membership tlrough executive
discussions held at that time. The committee took no formal action
respecting such matters. It passed no resolution. of censure; it
approved no recommendation that policies be changed. Nevertheless,
in the late spring of 1949, these same matters were portrayed as signifi-
cant examples of dereliction.
The committee would have welcomed an opportu iity to hear the
charges of "incredible mismanagement" in executive session before
they were made public. Had the committee been consulted before-
hand, it would have immediately requested a bill of particulars and
would have acted vigorously to eliminate defects found in the project.
The committee would also have given careful thought to the possible
international effect of any published implication that AAmerica's atomic
project is in grave trouble.
At this point a final paradox-having a double aspect-presents
itself. The original indictment not only refers to "incredible mis-
management" but also to "misplaced emphasis," "maladministration,"
"fiascos," "waste," and "equivocation." These words, given their
ordinary meaning, leave the impression that we lack a substantial
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bomb stock pile, that little progress has been made in weapon design,
that production of fissionable material is slow, and that our research
efforts are faltering. But when the indictment was made specific at
the investigation, such matters were left outside the area of criticism.
In fact, the results achieved during the past 2'/ years were conceded to
be good. Here is one phase of the paradox.,
The other phase becomes clear by considering that the committee
has before it an indictment which, on the one hand, says the results are
good but which, on the other hand, insists the management is bad.
How may good results and bad management coexist? An effort was
made to answer this question by suggesting that Commission con-
tractors and their scientific and technical personnel have done well,
whereas the top administrators have done poorly. But such a sug-
gestion is somewhat like saying that the hand of a painter alone pro-
duces a beautiful picture, whereas the brain directing the hand only
serves as an obstruction. The presence of contractors and scientific
and technical personnel in the project, the definition of their authority,
the nature of their work, the equipment they use, their objectives,
duties, and morale all stem back to five Commissioners-who bear the
final responsibility for whatever is done or not done. Every axiom of
experience leads toward the conclusion that both management and
results have been good or that both have been poor.
Accordingly, since the indictment itself concedes that results are
commendable, this same indictment tends to rebut its own allegations
of mismanagement. If there is "misplaced emphasis," no program
was cited which the Commission should have undertaken but did not
or which it did undertake but should have left alone, and no program
which is receiving either excessive or inadequate attention in relation
to other programs. The only partial exception is foreign isotope
shipments which, apart from one instance, were at first described as
outside the scope of the issues and then later described as illegal. If
there is "equivocation," examples are not to be found in the frank
admission of mistakes connected with the Carmichael School, the jar of
uranium oxide at Argonne, and the cost overrun on the plutonium fab-
rication facility. The one possible example of "equivocation" con-
sisted in representations before the Federal Power Commission which
heavily stressed national defense as requiring the Oak Ridge natural-
gas pipe line and the differently stressed representations before the
joint committee which cited economics as the main justification. The
only dramatic "fiasco" illuminated during the investigation had to do
with caved-in roofs among houses built by the Manhattan District.
One marked example of "waste" was developed (the Carmichael
School), one lesser example (the Hanford sanitary water system), and
one minute example (the remodelling of the Kellogg-Manley house at
Los Alamos). On the other side of the "waste" picture are unchal-
lenged assertions that improved plant operations at Hanford will save
the Government as much as $40,000,000 annually; that operating
expenses at Oak Ridge for fiscal 1950 will show a decrease of $30,-
000,000 over fiscal 1947; that the unit cost of producing U-235 has
been cut 50 percent; that personnel involved in town management at
Los Alamos and. Oak Ridge have likewise been cut 50 percent and at
Hanford by 19 percent; and that $150,000,000 in new construction
has been deferred through successful attack upon the Hanford pile
deterioration problem. One instance of what might be called "mal-
-administration" came to light: the overrun on the plutonium facility.
Here the error-which would have been far greater if the facility had
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84 INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION
not started operating 6 months sooner than was originally believed
possible--lay in the Commission's long unawareness of the true cost
situation. If there has been over-all "maladministrat,io." or"incredi-
ble mismanagement" it apparently involves taking a vast enterprise
which was falling apart at the seams and reshaping it _nto a formidable
deterrent against aggression.
A large body of uncontested evidence shows that the Commission
is bringing to the people of the United States and to a!1 freedom-loving
peoples the most precious of defense commodities: "security by
achievement." In 1947 the democratic world found itgself with only
such atomic protection as was conferred by its temporcry bomb mo-
nopoly, not the protection conferred by numbers of bombs. Today,
according to the allegations of all witnesses before th, committee, the
situation is being altered; our country is now atomically armed; and
each month and year sees us raise our atomic strength to a higher level.
The Commission's success in driving our project uphill was only one
possible outcome. The exodus of scientists and technicians to private
life might have continued unchecked after 1947; tl.o Hanford piles
could have deteriorated beyond repair; construction of additional piles
might have faltered; and improvements in the K-25 ,ase=ous diffusion
process might have been relegated to the future. A timid approach
would have counseled delay in building metal-fabr'.cai ion facilities,
postponement of the Eniwetok tests, hesitation in converting the
Commission-owned communities into places where highly educated
people are willing to make their homes, and a-ske tica. attitude toward
fundamental research. Disregard of biology and medicine might have
left us largely without the scientific foundation for civil defenses
against atomic attack. Lack of raw materials might have limited
production; bomb assembly might have remained t. "bread board"
operation; and strikes and shortages might have clo:,ed down plants.
If weapons output were today the merest trickle, the Commission
could advance a number of plausible excuses.
The extensive testimony on "security by concealment" includes no
evidence hinting that Russia obtained secrets from the Commission
which advanced by 1 day the date when she completed her first
atomic bomb. Likewise, no evidence hints that Russia, has acquired
information from the Commission which would enable her to improve,
by so much as mucilage and tissue paper, the current Soviet bomb
designs.
According to one of the charges, "We have learned from the records
that there are numerous persons employed on our atomic projects
who have strong Communist leanings." If this charge had foundation
in the evidence-if even one case of "strong Comrnu ;ist leanings"
were successfully cited-the committee would be first to speak out.
But the charge has no foundation in the evidence. The only qualifi-
cation relates to the handful of "calculated risk"' cases where a
combination of irreplaceable ability, access to key secrets during the
war, and derogatory data limited mainly to associa `;ions may mean
that a scientist gains clearance where normally it would be denied.
The joint committee has known about these cases -or more than 2
years; the validity of the "calculated risk" concept under the right
circumstances was not challenged during the invest ga` ion; and the
role which such authorities as the Roberts Board and Admiral Chester
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W. Nimitz have played in reviewing the hazard involved gives assur-
ance of correct assessments.
It is noteworthy that the main "security by concealment" charges
had to do with protective machinery which existed only in rudi-
mentary form before the Commission took over. The matter of the
Hanford slugs and the misplaced container at Chicago, for example,
pertain to materials accountability. In this field, where process losses,
experimental error, and the presence of impurities introduce uncer-
tainty into every calculation, the Commission took upon itself a com-
plex task. No specific language in the act compels it to establish a
scientific routine of accounting for materials. Physical plant protec-
tion and FBI investigations of personnel, considered alone, furnish
antispy insurance to a degree previously unknown in America. If the
accountability program had not been undertaken as an added safe-
guard beyond the letter of the law, the incidents at Hanford and Chi-
cago would have passed unnoticed and hence could hardly have been
used as a basis for criticism. Here is a situation where the Commis-
sion's special concern for "security by concealment" exposed it to
hostile fire. Under these circumstances the Commission might well
have testified that there exists an irreducible margin of human error;
that the uranium incidents illustrate such error; and that tight
material controls brought the error to light as had been foreseen and
intended.
Similarly, the matter of emergency clearances and the 34 personnel
cases are tied to a still infant experiment in gauging human loyalty.
The Commission, guided by unprecedented legislative principles laid
down in the McMahon Act, started from scratch. It passed through
a "shake-down" period, testing one administrative review procedure
and then another-as may not be inappropriate in a radical venture
so new to American life and so instinct with peril both to our Government
if the disloyal evade exposure, and to personal liberty if the loyal are
victimized. The outline of a policy has now emerged, one designed
to ferret out all subversives and also to assure the individual fair
play-thereby averting the morale split and sense of insecurity which
would develop if employees at a particular installation believed that
one of their associates had been capriciously or arbitrarily "purged."
Behind broad assertions that the Commission has been l.ax in secu-
rity matters lies a species of naivete. It formerly expressed itself
through the hope that, by pyramiding fence upon fence, vault upon
vault, FBI check upon FBI check, we could somehow prevent Russia
from making her own atomic bombs. Equally involved was an
underestimation of Soviet capacity. Between January 1, 1947, and
April 28, 1949, the Commission considered security matters at 151 of
its 262 formal meetings. According to one estimate, it devoted one-
third of its meeting time in 1947 and 1948 to personnel security alone.
It employs nearly as many people who do nothing except guard secrets
as the entire population of Los Alamos. It has organized five fold
protection against security leaks: creating a materials accountability
system where none existed before; imposing new controls upon the
documents to which it fell heir; fashioning loyalty safeguards without
democratic parallel; regulating the flow of information; and improving
the physical barriers stretched around all atomic plants. Sixfold
and sevenfold protection could not be attained; they were mirages.
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86 INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION
Pursuing them would not merely have wasted funds but; would also
have played havoc with our "security by achievement.." Realistic
thinking, without illusion, was no less necessary before Russia broke
our monopoly than it is today. Soviet acquisition of the bomb was
always a predictable and certain outcome. No mobilih;atii,n of guards,
vaults, and fences could ever protect us so well-before or after the
Soviet bomb test-as the powerfully deterring American stock pile
which the Commission has striven to accumulate.
It is the committee's duty and pleasure to state that, from the
evidence submitted at the hearings, a satisfactory balance has in fact
been struck between the competing demands of "security- by achieve-
ment" and "security by concealment." Any different conclusion
would run counter to the testimony, which indicates that atomic
secrets have been kept at the same time our enterprise made forward
progress. If secrecy leaks appreciably assisted the soviet, and
probably they did not, the record implies that all occurred before the
Commission assumed responsibility.
Passing now to other matters, the committee is satisfied that the
investigation discloses no instance where the CommisF.:ion violated
the McMahon Act. The committee, while it approves the foreign
isotope program, believes that the law is ambiguous as regards cases
which may arise in the future and intends to consider a clarifying
amendment. The committee further believes that the Commission's
decision to retain control of the Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, a: rid Richland
communities was dictated by necessity; and that the r o1cy of operat-
ing through private contractors is also appropriate. At the same
time, the committee doubts whether adequate aggress=iveness has
been shown in moving toward a point where the Coinniission with-
draws, from the anomalous and distracting business of running three
American communities. A detailed plan for disengaging these towns
should be drawn up and a definite timetable established for executing
it. Relationships between the Commission and contractors still
contain many kinks, not the least of which is insufficient machinery
for making contract opportunities available to a maximum number of
interested firms. Results are what count; and by that standard the
rate of progress in reactor development for military purposes is over-
slow, notwithstanding the many good reasons which acq,,ount for it.
The committee urges every possible effort in this field.
But entries on the debit side of the Commission's leeger involve
account books covering an industry which extends through 41 States
in our own country alone and 1,270 locations ranging thro _igh half the
world. This industry occupies more land than all the al'=.ea of Rhode
Island; it utilizes more than 1,000 contractors and subs retractors, plus
other thousands of suppliers; it directly conditions the 1iv of 200,000
people, including employees and their dependents; and it spends a
billion dollars yearly. In proportion to the scope of the account
books, debit entries are well scattered through page,, of accom-
plishment.
The investigation conducted by the Committee, while' fruitless in
proving the charges of "incredible mismanagement"; h;:e,s served to
highlight the nature of our atomic project and its ma_iifold problems
and ramifications, and has further served to bring home to the people
of the United States that in operations of such a uniq=re character
mistakes and errors of judgment are bound to occur. The present
report has conscientiously sought to illustrate this fact.
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The Joint Committee's overriding concern has been and is the
security of the United States in the field of atomic energy. Its
regular investigative function under the McMahon Act continues.
In exercising that function the committee will review many matters upon
which it might have preferred to elaborate during the recent hearings.
This report and the record supporting it necessarily relate in greater
measure to the specific charges and only in lesser measure to topics
which the national defense imbues with greatest significance. The
committee may, from time to time, voice criticism of past, present,
and future Commission actions. If so, its comments will attempt to
throw perspective, as well as light, upon shortcomings in the interest
of a stronger atomic energy program. The project has moved a
long way from the bleak days of 1947 when our weapon stock-pile posi-
tion bordered upon complete inadequacy. Yet the Commission, as
trustee for the American people, faces a problem-studded future.
Many difficulties remain outstanding, and as they are overcome,
others will take their place. Russia's ownership of the bomb, years
ahead of the anticipated date, is a monumental challenge to American
boldness, initiative, and effort.
There were those who thought that Hiroshima marked the death
knell of freedom, that atomic energy is a poison which would gradually
spread throughout our institutions and undermine them with mili-
tarization and hysterical curbs. The investigation suggests, on the
contrary that free men can grapple with the atom, use it to invigorate
their defenses, and hope for the day when effective and enforceable
international safeguards abolish the fear of atomic war from this earth.
O
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For the press
No. 235
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
April 9, 1946
The Department of State, on March 28, 1946, made public a publica-
tion entitled "A Report on the International Control of Atomic Energy".
In the public discussion of the Report questions have arisen with
respect to the denaturing of materials utilized in atomic explosives.
After consultation with the Department of State, Maj. Gen. L. R.
Groves called together a group, representative of the outstanding
scientists connected with the Manhattan Project during the develop-
ment of the atomic bomb and all of whom are still connected with the
project either on a full-time or consulting basis. This group has met
and has just completed a conference in which the measure of safety
afforded by the use of denaturants was discussed. They prepared
emong other papers a report which can be released without jeopardiz-
ing security. Their report is as follows :
"The possibility of denaturing atomic explosives has been brought
to public attention in a recent Report released by the State Department
on the international control of atomic energy. Because, for security
reasons, the technical facts could not be made public, there has been
some public misunderstanding of what denaturing is, and of the degree
of safety that it could afford. We have thought it desirable to add a
few comments on these points.
"The Report released by the State Department proposes that all
dangerous activities in the field of atomic energy be carried out by an
international authority, and that operations which by the nature of
the plant, the materials, the ease of inspection and control, are safe,
be licensed for private or national exploitation. The Report points
out that the possibility of denaturing explosive materials so that they
'do not readily lend themselves to the making of atomic explosives'
may contribute to the range of licensable activities, and to the overall
flexibility of the proposed controls. The Report does not contend nor
is it in fact true, that a system of control based solely on denaturing
could provide adequate safety.
"As the Report states, all atomic explosives are based on the raw
materials uranium and thorium. In every case the usefulness of the
material as an atomic explosive depends to some extent on different
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properties than those which determine its u;;efirlness for peacetime
application. The existence of these differe ice, makes denaturing
possible. In every case denaturing is l properties. These
isotopes cannot be separated by ordinary chen ica! means. The sepa-
ration requires plants of the same general type as our plants at Oak
Ridge, though not of the same magnitude. Tie construction of such
plants and the use of such plants to process enmxagh material for a
significant number of atomic bombs would probably require not less
than one nor more than three years. Even if such plants are in
existence and ready to operate some months must elapse before bomb
production is significant. But unless there is reasonable assurance
that such plants do not exist it would be unwise t(, rely on denaturing
to insure an interval of as much as a year.
"For the various atomic explosives the denaturant has a different
effect on the explosive properties of the materi zls. In some cases de-
naturing will not completely preclude making atomic weapons, but
will reduce their effectiveness by a large factor. The effect of the
denaturant is also different in the peaceful application of the materials.
Further technical information will be required, prs will also a much
more complete experience of the peacetime uses of atomic energy and
its economics, before precise estimates of the v.duV of denaturing can
be formulated. But it seems to us most probable the to within the frame-
work of the proposals advanced in the Stat ~ I)epartment Report
denaturing will play a helpful part.
"In conclusion we desire to emphasize two points. both of which have
been challenged in public discussion. (1) Without uranium as a
raw material there is no foreseeable method of releasing atomic energy.
With uranium, thorium can also be used. (2 i Denaturing, though
valuable in adding to the flexibility of a system of controls, cannot of
itself eliminate the dangers of atomic warfare.
"L. W. ALVAREZ J.._?. OPPENHEIMER
R. F. BACIIER J. R. RuHOFr
M. BENEDICT G. T. SEABORG
H. A. BETIIE F. H. SPEDDING
A. H. COrtPTON C. A. THOMAS
FARRINGTON DANIELS W. H. ZINN"
The background of the individuals who have ;iynred this report
follows below :
Dr. L. W. Alvarez worked for the Manhattan Prof ct on the develop-
ment of the bomb, first at the Metallurgical Laborato=ry at Chicago and
then as group leader at the Los Alamos Laboratory. He is now a
professor of physics at the University of California. Radiation Labo-
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ratory, where under the direction of Professor Ernest O. Lawrence he
is engaged on full-time work for the Manhattan Project.
Dr. R. F. Bacher, during the development of the atomic bomb, was
chief of the physics division at the Los Alamos Laboratory of the
Manhattan District. He has returned to his professorship of physics
at Cornell University and still is a consultant to the Manhattan
Project.
Dr. M. Benedict is head of an important division of the Kellex
Corporation which designed the gaseous diffusion plant built at the
Clinton Engineer Works for the Manhattan Project. He was for-
merly research chemist with the M. W. Kellogg Company and is now
a consultant to the Manhattan Project.
Dr. H. A. Bethe, during the development of the atomic bomb, was
chief of the Theoretical Physics Division of the Los Alamos Labo-
ratory of the Manhattan District. He has returned to his professor-
ship of physics at Cornell University and still is a consultant to the
Manhattan Project.
Dr. A. H. Compton, now as chancellor, is the head of the Wash-
ington University of St. Louis ; formerly the director of the Metal-
lurgical Laboratory of the Manhattan District and still a consultant
to the project. It was the Metallurgical Laboratory at Chicago which
developed the scientific basis for the plutonium process.
Dr. Farrington Daniels is director of the Metallurgical Laboratory
of the Manhattan Project. This laboratory is operated by the Uni-
versity of Chicago and is continuing research and development work
on atomic energy. He is on leave of absence from the University of
Wisconsin where he is professor of chemistry.
Dr. J. R. Oppenheimer is former director of the Los Alamos Labora-
tory of the Manhattan District. It was at this laboratory that the
atomic bomb itself was developed. He remains a consultant to the
project, although he has returned to his professorship of physics at
the University of California at Berkeley and at the California Insti-
tute of Technology at Pasadena. Dr. Oppenheimer was a member
of the Board of Consultants which prepared A Report on the Interna-
tional Control of Atomic Energy for the Secretary of State's Com-
mittee on Atomic Energy.
Lt. Col. John R. Ruhoff, prior to the organization of the Manhattan
District, was director of inorganic research and development at Mal-
linckrodt Chemical Works, and an important officer in the Manhattan
Project from the start, first in the development of processes and the
procurement of raw materials, then as unit chief of the electromag-
netic plant; presently heads the group handling declassification.
Dr. G. T. Seaborg, co-discoverer of plutonium, supervised for the
Manhattan Project the general program on the basic chemistry of
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4
the heavy elements, especially plutonium. At pieseoit he is engaged
full-time on further work of this nature for the Manhattan Project.
He is on leave of absence from the University of C alifornia where
he is professor of chemistry.
Dr. F. H. Spedding is director of the Iowa State College Laboratory,
which, among other things, developed the succes.sfu`l method for the
production of uranium metal for the Manhattan P.?oject and which
is continuing work for the project. Dr. Spedding is also professor
of chemistry at Iowa State College.
Dr. C. A. Thomas is vice president of the Monsant,) Chemical Com-
pany, general over-all chemical adviser for the 1lT....battan Project
in the development of the atomic bomb. He also hat,?. complete charge
of all phases of Monsanto's work in connection v-itt; the project and
is still in complete charge of their continuing work for the Manhattan
Project in research and development of atomic e ier,,y for peacetime
applications. Dr. Thomas was a member of the Board of Consultants
which prepared A Report on the International Qr ntrol of Atomic
Energy for the Secretary of State's Committee or Ai omic Energy.
Dr. W. H. Zinn was a project leader at the Metal lug gical Laboratory
of the Manhattan Project during the early days of pile development.
He is now director of the Argonne Laboratory which; s operated by the
University of Chicago for the Manhattan Project, Experimental pile
work is conducted in this laboratory. He was former assistant pro-
fessor of physics at the City College of New Yorl.
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A ' REPORT ON THE
INTERNATIONAL CONTROL
OF ATOMIC ENERGY
Prepared for
THE SECRETARY O'F STATE'S COMMITTEE ON
ATOMIC ENERGY
by a Board of Consultants:
Chester I. Barnard
Dr. J. R. Oppenheimer
Dr. Charles A. Thomas
Harry A. Winne
David E. Lilienthal, Chairman
Washington, D. C. March 16, 1946
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DEPARTMENT OF STATE
PUBLICATION 2498
REPRINT
For sale by the Superintendent of Doctime its
U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington 25, D. C.
Price 20 cents
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FOREWORD
By The Secretary of State
This "Report on the International Control of Atomic Energy" is in
the main the work of a Board of Consultants to the Department of
State. The Board carried out its assignment under the general
direction of a Committee on Atomic Energy which I set up on January
7, 1946 with Dean Acheson, Under Secretary of State, as Chairman.
A letter of transmittal at the beginning of the Report embodies the
comments which Mr. Acheson's Committee made on the unanimous
findings and recommendations of the Board of Consultants.
In thus transmitting to me the detailed report of the Board, the
Committee emphasizes the Board's observation that the Report is not
intended as a final plan but "a place to begin, a foundation on which
to build". The Committee also states that it regards the consultants'
work as. "the most constructive analysis of the question of inter-
national control we have seen and a definitely hopeful approach to a
solution of the entire problem".
The intensive work which this document reflects and the high
qualifications of the men who were concerned with it make it a paper
of unusual importance and a suitable starting point for the informed
public discussion which is one of the essential factors in developing
sound policy. The document is being made public not as a statement
of policy but solely as a basis for such discussion.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE
Letter of Transmittal--------------------------------------
Page
VII
Introduction --------------------------------------------- xI
SECTION I. Background of the Problem-------------------
1
SECTION II. Principal Considerations in Developing a System
of Safeguards-----------------------------------------
9
CHAPTER 1.-The Problem Has Definable Boundaries-------
11
CHAPTER 2.-The Adequacy of Present Scientific Knowledge-
15
CHAPTER 3.-The Constructive Application of Atomic Energy - 17
CHAPTER 4.-The Elimination of International Rivalry ------
21
CHAPTER 5.-"Safe" and "Dangerous" Activities -----------
25
SECTION III. Security Through International Cooperative De-
velopment--------------------------------------------
31
CHAPTER 1.-Functions of Atomic Development Authority--
34
CHAPTER 2.-Organization and Policies of Atomic Develop-
ment Authority---------------------------------------
44
SECTION IV. The Transition to International Control-------
51
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OFFICE OF
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE
WASHINGTON
March t 7, 1946.
DEAR MR. SECRETARY:
Your committee was appointed on January 7, 1946, with the fol=
lowing terms of reference:
"Anticipating favorable action by the United Nations Organization
on the proposal for the establishment of a commission to consider
the problems arising as to the control of atomic energy and other
weapons of possible mass destruction, the Secretary of State has
appointed d-a Committee of five members to study the subject of con-
trols and safeguards necessary to protect this Government so that
the persons hereafter selected to represent the United States on the
Commission can. have the benefit of the study."
At our first meeting on January 14, the Committee concluded that
the consideration of controls and safeguards would be inseparable
from a plan of which they were a part and that the Commission would
look to the American representative to put forward a plan. At that
meeting we also agreed that it was first essential to have a report
,prepared analyzing and appraising all the relevant facts and formu-
lating proposals. In order that the work should be useful, it was
necessary to designate men of recognized attainments and varied
background, who would be prepared to devote the major part of
their time to the matter.
On January 23, 1946, we appointed as a Board of Consultants for
this purpose:
Mr. David E. Lilienthal, Chairman of the Tennessee Valley
Authority, who acted as Chairman of the consulting Board,
Mr. Chester I. Barnard, President of the New Jersey Bell Tele-
phone Company,
Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, of the California Institute of Tech-
nology and the University of California,
Dr. Charles Allen Thomas, Vice President and Technical Direc-
tor, Monsanto Chemical Company, and
Mr. Harry A. Winne, Vice-President in Charge of Engineering
Policy, General Electric Company.
[VII]
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The Board of Consultants has spent virtually its entire time, since
the date of appointment, in an intensive study of the problem, and
has now completed its report, which is transmitted herewith.
A preliminary draft of this report was first prc.sea.ted to your Com-
mittee ten days ago. Extensive discussion betwe? a the Committee
and the Board led to the development of furtLer considerations
embodied in a subsequent draft. Still further discussion resulted in
the report now transmitted.
We lay the report before you as the Board has f ubmitted it to us
"not as a final plan, but as a place to begin, a folm6ation on which to
build." In our opinion it furnishes the most eontructive analysis
of the question of international control we have seen and a definitely
hopeful approach to a solution of the entire problem. We recommend
it for your consideration as representing the frames: ork within which
the best prospects for both security and develoment of atomic
energy for peaceful purposes may be found.
In particular, we are impressed by the grc t advantages of an
international agency with affirmative powers and `unctions coupled
with powers of inspection and supervision in contrh 5t to any agency
with merely police-like powers attempting to copa with national
agencies otherwise restrained only by a commitnien: to "outlaw" the
use of atomic energy for war. In our judgment the latter type of
organization offers little hope of achieving the security and safeguards
we are seeking.
We are impressed also by the aspect of the plan which concentrates
in the hands of the international agency only the activities which it is
essential to control because they are dangerous to international
security, leaving as much freedom as possible to national and private
research and other activity.
We wish to stress two matters brought out in she Board's report-
matters of importance in considering the report's proposals as they
affect the security of the United States both during the period of any
international discussion of them and during thy; period required to
put the plan into full effect.
The first matter concerns the disclosure of information not now
generally known. The report points out that the plan necessitates
the disclosure of information but permits of the disclosure of such
information by progressive stages. In our opinio r vsrious stages may
upon further study bo suggested. It is enough to point out now that
there could beat least four general points in this Fro;t?ession. Certain
information, generally described as that required Ior' m understanding
of the workability of proposals, would have to to roadc available at
the time of the discussions of the proposals in the Ur itEd Nations Atomic
Energy Commission, of the report of the Commi>sipn in the Security
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Council and General Assembly of the United Nations, and in the
national legislatures which would be called upon to act upon any
recommendations of the United Nations. We have carefully con-
sidered the content of this information, and in our discussions with
the Board have defined it within satisfactory limits. We estimate the
degree of its importance and the effect of its disclosure to be as
follows: If made known to a nation otherwise equipped by industrial
development, scientific resources and possessing the necessary raw
materials to develop atomic armament within five years, such dis-
closure might shorten that period by as much as a year. Whether
any nation-we are excluding Great Britain and Canada-could
achieve such an intensive program is a matter of serious doubt. If
the program were spread over a considerably longer period, the
disclosure referred to would not shorten the effort appreciably.
The next stage of disclosure might occur when the proposed inter-
national organization was actually established by the action of the
various governments upon the report of the United Nations. At this
time the organization would require most of the remaining scientific
knowledge but would not require the so-called technical know-how or
the knowledge of the construction of the bomb.
By the time the organization was ready to assume its functions in
the field of industrial production it would, of course, require the tech-
nological information and know-how necessary to carry out its task.
The information regarding the construction of the bomb would not be
essential to the plan until the last stage when the organization was
prepared to assume responsibility for research in the field of explosives
as an adjunct to its regulatory and operational duties.
The second matter relates to the assumption or transfer of authority
over physical things. Here also the plan permits of progress by
stages beginning in the field of raw material production, progressing
to that of industrial production, and going on to the control of ex-
plosives.
The development of detailed proposals for such scheduling will
require further study and much technical competence and staff. It
will be guided, of course, by basic decisions of high policy. One of
these decisions will be for what period of time the United States will
continue the manufacture of bombs. The plan does not require that
the United States shall discontinue such manufacture either upon the
proposal of the plan or upon the inauguration of the international
agency. At some stage in the development of the plan this is required.
But neither the plan nor our transmittal of it should be construed as
meaning that this should or should not be done at the outset or at any
specific time. That decision, whenever made, will involve consider-
ations of the highest policy affecting our security, and must be made
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by our government under its constitutional processes and in the light
of all the facts of the world situation.
Your Committee, Mr. Secretary, awaits your further instructions as
to whether you believe it has performed the task you assigned to it and
may now be discharged or whether you wish it to go further in this
field under your guidance.
Respectfully submitted,
DE a cHESON
Chairman
VANIIAWAR BUSH
JAMES B. CONANT
LE'k,LI-1 R. GROVES,
.Afajc)r General, U.S.A.
JOIN'J. MCCLOY
The Honorable
JAMES F. BYRNES,
Secretary of State,
Washington, D. C.
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INTRODUCTION
The board of consultants met for the first time on January 23d,
conferring briefly with the Secretary of State's Committee on Atomic
Energy respecting the board's assignment to study the problem of
international control of atomic energy. For more than seven weeks
since that time we devoted virtually our entire time and energies to
the problem we were directed to study and report upon. We visited
the plants and installations at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Los Alamos,
New Mexico, and spent days consulting with numerous scientists,
industrial experts, and geologists, authorities' in the technical fields
concerned with atomic energy. Since February 25th this board has
met almost continuously, developing and writing the following report.
Our absorption in this task does not, of course, assure the soundness
of the recommendation which is the product of our deliberations.
But it is relevant as a measure of how important and urgent we feel
it to be that the Government and the people of the United States
develop a rational and workable plan, before the already launched
international atomic armament race attains such momentum that
it cannot be stopped.
We have concluded our deliberations on this most difficult problem,
not in a spirit of hopelessness and despair, but with a measure of
confidence. It is our conviction that a satisfactory plan can be
developed, and that what we here recommend can form the founda-
tion of such a plan. It is worth contrasting the sense of hope and
confidence which all of us share today with the feeling which we had
at the outset. The vast difficulties of the problem were oppressive,
and we early concluded that the most we could do would be to suggest
various alternative proposals, indicate their strengths and limitation,
but make no recommendations. But as we steeped ourselves in the
facts and caught a feeling of the nature of the problem, we became more
hopeful. That hopefulness grew not out of any preconceived "solution"
but out of a patient and time-consuming analysis and understanding
of the facts that throw light on the numerous alternatives that we
explored. Five men of widely differing backgrounds and experiences
who were far apart at the outset found themselves, at the end of a
month's absorption in this problem not only in complete agreement
that a plan could be devised but also in agreement on the essentials
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of a plan. We believe others may have a similar experience if _a similar
process is followed.
We have described the process whereby we arrived at our recom-
mendation, to make it clear that we did not begin with a preconceived
plan. There is this further reason for describing this process. Others
would have a similar experience if they were ahlLL to go through a
period of close study of the alternatives and an absorption in the
salient and determining facts. Only then, perhaps, may it be possible
to weigh the wisdom of the judgment we have reached, and the possi-
bilities of building upon it.
The plan of the report itself may be briefly described, as an aid in
reading it:
In Section I. we examined the reasons that ha's' led to a commit-
ment for the international control of atomic energy and the early
proposal for realizing this objective by a system of inspection.
In Section II. the essential characteristics o! a workable plan for
security are stated, and the considerations that favor the develop-
ment of a plan are set out. By the time this discussion is concluded,
the outlines of a workable plan as we see it ai a apparent.
In Section III. the essentials of an organization that puts such
principles into effect are described.
In Section IV. we consider the problems of the transition period
leading from the present to the full operation of than plan.
We have tried to develop a report that will be useful, not as a final
plan, but as a place to begin, a foundation on which to build. Many
questions that at later stages should and must b,, a'Sked we have not
touched upon at all. We recognize.that securing die agreement of
other nations to such a plan will raise questions the precise contours
of which can hardly be drawn in advance of int,era'._ational meetings
and negotiation. We have not, of course, undertaken to discuss,
much less to try to settle, problems of this character. The newly
created Atomic Energy Commission of the United `cations, when its
deliberations begin, will deal with many of these in joint discussion.
Indeed, this process of joint international discus.:>ion is itself an
integral part of any program for safeguards and ;ecZrity.
We desire here to express our great indebtedness to the Secretary
of the Secretary of State's Committee on Atomic Energy, Mr. Her-
bert S. Marks, Assistant to the Under Secretary 4 state, and to the
Secretary of this board, Mr. Carroll L. Wilson. They have con-
tributed in many ways to the work of the boars.. Whatever value
our work may prove to have owes a great deal to thir acumen, dili-
gence, and high quality of judgment. We wish especially to thank
General Groves and his associates in the Manhattan :District and the
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industrial contractors for facilitating our inspection of the installations
at Oak Ridge and Los Alamos, and Captain Joseph Volpe, Jr., for his
liaison services. We are also indebted to a number of other officers
and staff members of the Manhattan Project for their cooperation.
As a result of this cooperation we have had unlimited access to the
entire range of facts and activities involved in our assignment, and
this has been most helpful.
It has not been possible for security reasons to set forth in this
report all of the facts which we have taken into account, but we
believe that those which are set forth are a sufficient basis for a useful
appraisal of our conclusions and recommendations.
WASHINGTON, D. C.
March 16, 1946
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SECTION I
Background of the Problem
This report is a preliminary study of the international control of
atomic energy. It has been prepared to contribute to the clarification
of the position of the U. S. Representative on the United Nations
Commission on atomic energy set up by resolution of the United
Nations General Assembly to inquire into all phases of this question.
The Commitment for International Control.
We were given as our starting point a political commitment already
made by the United States to seek by all reasonable means to bring
about international arrangements to prevent the use of atomic energy
for destructive purposes and to promote the use of it for the benefit
of society. It has not been part of our assignment to make a detailed
analysis of the arguments which have led the Government of the
United States in- concert with other nations to initiate these steps for
international action. By way of background, however, it is useful, to
review some of the main reasons which have influenced the people of
the United States and. its Government in this course. These reasons
were first definitely formulated in the Agreed Declaration of Novem-
ber 15, 1945, issued by the President of the United States and the
Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom and Canada. An under-
standing of the declarations in that document will itself throw con-
siderable light on the criteria by which any specific proposals for
international control may be judged.
The Agreed Declaration cites three reasons for seeking international
control. This Declaration recognizes that the development of atomic
energy, and the application of it in weapons of war, have placed at
the disposal of mankind "means of destruction hitherto unknown."
The American people have been quick to recognize the really revolu-
tionary character of these weapons, particularly as weapons of strategic
bombardment aimed at the destruction of enemy cities and the
eradication of their populations. Enough has been said to make
unnecessary a repetition of the probable horrors of a war in which
atomic weapons were used by both combatants against the cities of
their enemy. But it is hardly possible to overestimate the deep im-
[1]
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pression of horror and concern which insight into these future possi-
bilities has made so widespread.
The second point recognized in the Agreed Declaration is that there
can be no adequate military defense against atonic weapons. A
great mass of expert testimony is involved in ait appreciation of the
firmness of this point, but it appears to be accepted without essential
reservation, and subject only to an approprif,to openmindedness,
about what the remote future of technical develo-.);snts in the arts of
war may bring.
The third point, and again we quote from the Agreed Declaration,
is that these are weapons "in the employment of which no single
nation can in fact have a monopoly." Of the t!ire, this is perhaps
the most controversial. Strong arguments have heex brought forward
that the mass of technical and scientific knowlod : and experience
needed for the successful development of atonic: w,?apons is so great
that the results attained in the United States cannot be paralleled by
independent work in other nations. Strong arguraepts have also been
put forward that the degree of technical and ind.istrial advancement
required for the actual realization of atomic wear on could hardly be
found in other parts of the world. These argument.3 have been met
with greatand widespread skepticism. It is recogn red that the basic
science on which the release of atomic energy rest; is essentially a
world-wide science, and that in fact the principal findings required
for the success of this project are well known to coxr:petent scientists
throughout the world. It is recognized that the industry required
and the technology developed for the realization of atomic weapons
are the same industry and the same technology which play so essential
a part in man's almost universal striving to improve his standard of
living and his control of nature. It is further recognized that atomic
energy plays so vital a part in contributing to he military power,
to the possible economic welfare, and no doubt to =the security of a
nation, that the incentive to other nations to pros, th,ir own develop-
ments is overwhelming.
Thus the Agreed Declaration bases its policy on the revolutionary
increase in the powers of destruction which atcn.c weapons have
injected into warfare, and on the fact that neither:, countermeasures
nor the maintenance of secrecy about our own dev aopments offers
any adequate prospect of defense.
There are perhaps other considerations which have contributed
to the popular understanding of the necessity for international con-
trol, although they do not appear explicitly in the iLgri-Td Declaration.
The United States is in a rather special position in ar,. y future atomic
warfare. Our political institutions, and the historially established
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reluctance of the United States to take the initiative in aggressive
warfare, both would seem to put us at a disadvantage with regard
to surprise use of atomic weapons. This suggests that although our
present position, in which we have a monopoly of these weapons,
may appear strong, this advantage will disappear and the situation
may be reversed in a world in which atomic armament is general.
The atomic bomb appeared at the very end of hostilities at a time
when men's thoughts were naturally turning to devising methods for
the prevention of war. The atomic bomb made it clear that the plans
which had been laid at San Francisco for the United Nations Organ-
ization would have to be supplemented by a specific control of an
instrument of war so terrible that its uncontrolled development
would not only intensify the ferocity of warfare, but might directly
contribute to the outbreak of war. It is clear, too, that in the solu-
tion of this relatively concrete and most urgent problem of protecting
mankind from the evils of atomic warfare, there has been created an
opportunity for a collaborative approach to a problem which could
not otherwise be, solved, and the successful international_ solution
of which would contribute immeasurably to the prevention of war
and to the strengthening of the United Nations Organization. On
the one hand, it seemed unlikely that the United Nations Organiza-
tion could fulfill its functions without attempting to solve this prob-
lem. On the other hand, there was hope and some reason to believe
that in attempting to solve it, new patterns of cooperative effort
could be' established which would be capable of extension to other
fields, and which might make a contribution toward the gradual
achievement of a greater degree of community among the peoples of
the world. Although these more general considerations may appear
secondary to the main purposes of this report, they are not irrelevant
to it. There is another phrase of the Agreed Declaration which
rightly asserts "that the only complete protection for the civilized
world from the destructive use of scientific knowledge lies in the
prevention of war."
The proposals which we shall make in this report with regard to
the international control of atomic energy must of course be evaluated
against the background of these considerations which have led to the
universal recognition of the need for international control. We
must ask ourselves to what extent they would afford security against
atomic warfare; to what extent they tend to remove the possibility
of atomic weapons as a cause of war; to what extent they establish
patterns of cooperation which may form a useful precedent for
wider application. We ourselves are satisfied that the proposals in
this report provide the basis of a satisfactory answer to these questions.
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Early Ideas on Safeguards.
So much for the main outline of the political f.cti n that led to the
setting up of the United Nations Commission pia atomic energy.
There is a further aspect of the general background that also requires
discussion at the outset. When the news of tl e atomic bomb first
came to the world there was an immediate reaction that a weapon of
such devastating force must somehow be eliminated from warfare;
or to use the common expression, that it must b "trutlawed". That
efforts to give specific content to a system of se,mir ty have generally
proceeded from this initial assumption is naturtl eenough. But the
reasoning runs immediately into this fact: The dncupation with the
destructive aspects of atomic energy may blind is to its useful aspects.
Upon searching investigation, some of the latter Stay prove illusory.
But if the lessons of past scientific and technological progress mean
anything, we also know-that many of these opporf~unities will mate-
rialize. We believe that only a system of safeguards which is built
around these hopeful prospects can succeed. W have tried through-
out this report to make explicit the connection b&ween a system of
safeguards and these opportunities.
Important, perhaps even decisive, in the prop )s8'a we put forth in
this repoit is the fact that many of the constructive, activities required
in the development of atomic energy involve no ricks of providing a
material basis for weapons of war. This aspect cf the matter is dealt
with in detail in Chapter V of this Section.
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CHAPTER IV
The Elimination of International Rivalry
It is clear that uranium and thorium are materials of great strategic
owe importance to nations seeking to establish fofact that slves a sources of ric position in the field of atomic energy. The the woh s
l s are of
places
such materials occur in a relatively few
pared, for example, with oil, creates a competitive situation which
might easily produce intolerable tensions in international relations.
compe-
We believe that so long as nations thor their e hazards oftatomic warfare are
tition in the fields of atomic energy
very great indeed. We assume the General Assembly of the United
Nations, in setting up an Atomic Energy Commission, had this dis-
turbing fact much in mind. competition
What is true in respect to the dangers from national comp
for uranium is similarly true the case other a pases of the controlled r a t ropa
ment of atomic energy. Take
power pile, producing plutonium. Assume an international agree-
ment barring use of the plutonium in a bomb, but permitting use of
the pile for heat or power. No system of inspection, we have con-
cluded, could afford any reasonable security against the diversion this
such materials to the purposes of war. If nations may engage tern dangerous field, and only national good faith and in
b tioat oral polic-
ing stand in the way, the very existence of the p
use of such piles to produce fissionable material suitable for bombs sions. s
would tend to stimulate
is attributable t to the fact that this potent al y
danger in the situation
hazardous activity is carried on by nations or their citizens.
It has become clear to us that if the element of rivalry between
nations were removed by assignment of the intrinsically dangerous ona
l phases of the development of atomic energy
prospecttwould be afforded
zation responsible to all peoples, a reliable
for a system of security. For it is the element of rivalry and the -the resulting
roug
nspection impossibility of policing unworkable as aition
oletm ans of control.
alone one that t make inspection
With that factor of international rivalry removed, the problem becomes
both hopeful and manageable.
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To restate the conclusion: It is essential that a Workable system of
safeguards remove from individual nations or their citizens the legal
right to engage in certain well-defined activities in respect to atomic
energy which we believe will be generally agreed to be intrinsically
dangerous because they are or could be made steps in the production
of atomic bombs. We schematically describe what we regard as
intrinsically dangerous steps later in Chapter V. Those activities
thus classified as dangerous we conclude are far less dangerous when
carried on not by competing nations but by an interrraational organiza-
tion whose obligation it is to act for all nations. They can, in our
opinion, be rendered sufficiently less dangerous to provide an adequate
measure of security.
We can illustrate the force of these conclusions in a few simple
cases. (a) Take the case of uranium ores. If an-r n ,lion may engage
in prospecting for and mining uranium ore, subject to inspection as
to the proper, i. e., peaceful use thereof, inspection is a most difficult
thing. But if the only legal oumership and development of uranium
ore is in the hands of an international agency manndAby and represent-
ing all nations, the problem of detection of evasions is, by a single
stroke, reduced tremendously. Indeed, we are Persuaded that it is
reduced to quite manageable proportions in the light of existing knowl-
edge about uranium ore deposits through the worlaa. For then it
would be true that not the purpose of those who mine:, or possess ura-
nium ore but the mere fact of their mining or possessi:zg't becomes illegal,
and national violation is an unambiguous danger si,Lnal of warlike
purposes. The very opening of a mine by anyone other than the
international agency is a "red light" without more; it is not necessary
to wait for evidence that the product of that mine is gainer to be misused.
(b) Take another illustration involving the build'in , and operation
of a plutonium pile. The product of that operation is a material that
can be used for atomic weapons. The product is also useful for power
piles. If all such piles are designed and operated ex(lusively by an
international agency, then the building or operation of such a pile or
any move in that direction by any one else is illegal without respect to
the use he says he plans to make of it, and constitutes a plain and sim-
ple danger signal calling for action of a preventative character by an
international agency.' Nor could there be a clearer sign of danger
calling for immediate international action or coun,en )easures than
interference with the operation of an international p~ r,a&.
We conclude that the international development and operation of
potentially and intrinsically dangerous activities in cOiilnection with
' In Section III we discuss what would happen should fail or an international plutonium plantlshouldtbe Eeiztd bygannation;
we shall not digress from the present point to discuss that here.
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atomic energy would bring the t nati k of osecurity azar of ri alg,abee
proportions because of
tween nations. But there is a further
hazardous touworld
actvitiesaso to
in an international agency these
security. That advantage grows out of the nature of the development
of atomic energy itself. field. New advances in technology
This is a growing and changing therefore may be confidently e.-'pected? It seeking to sgthel security
tial that any international agency safeguard
should be in the
of the world against warlike uses neenin this field. If the inter-
very forefront of technical compete
national agency is simply a police activity for only negative and repres-
sive functions, inevitably and within a very short period of time the
ize new recogn enforcement o gency will not know of evasions ore the beginnings of
elements of danger, new possibilities
a course of development having dangerous and warlike ends in view.
le of this. The art of atomic weapons is
There is a striking ee are ignorant of the possibilities in this
in its infancy and we are quite i?
field. Such ignorance, such uncertainty of such catastrophic weapons,
is itself a source of danger, and its continuation, through the prohi-
bition of further study and development, would in our opinion not
only be hard to effect, but would itself be dangerous. Yet the develop-
ment of atomic weapons can hardly be separation national
plants for lU 235 at
A further example: The pesent and use enormous
Oak Ridge are huge and bulky in the extreme, aamounts of power. Quite probably this will always be true. But
it is not a law of nature. Those in whose hands lies the prevention
of atomic warfare must be the first to know and to exploit technical
advances in this field.
We have, therefore, concluded that here was an additional reason
and a very practical one why a responsibility for the development of
agency
atomic energy should be vested in the same international
safeguards
that has also responsibility for developing and enforcing against atomic warfare. For unless the international la the dewgs
engaged in development activities itself (as, for example,
and exploration of
and operation of power piles or in the surveying would not have the power
new sources of raw materials) its personnel of knowledge
sensitivity to new developments that would
nd make it a co nd useful protection to the people of the world.
it a competent e the e a
if
We have therefore reached these two conclusions: that onl
taken y that y if
the dangerous aspects of atomic energy
hands and placed in international hands is there any reasonable
prospect of devising safeguards against the use of atomic energy
for bombs, and (b) only if the international agency was engaged in
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development and operation could it possibly discharge adequately
its functions as a safeguarder of the world's -future,
Such a development function also seems css( rltial in terms of
attracting to the international agency the k,nd of scientists and
technicians that this problem requires, recognizing drat a mere policing,
inspecting, or suppressing function would neither attract nor hold
them.
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CHAPTER V
"Safe" and "Dangerous" Activities
It is true that the internationalization of activities intrinsically
reduces the hazards in the way of security and
it
c
y
ur
dangerous to se
does bring into more manageable form the problems of enforcement
If it were necessary, in
and the suppression' of atomic weapons.
such a scheme of safeguards, to vest in an international agency a total
monopoly as to all aspects of atomic energy, disadvantages would
arise so great as conceivably to make the prospect of effective inter-
nationalization itself beyond realization. Such an overall grant of
exclusive right to develop, operate, and utilize, conferred upon an
eco-
international agency, would change many
and would changedthem
nomic practices of this country, for
quite disadvantageously.
Such a complete international monopoly would be hard to live under.
Its restrictive limitations would chafe, and might in time cause serious
loss of support to the security purposes that lay behind the proposal
itself. Many of the considerations of complexity, irritation, the
engendering of suspicion, the encouragement of deceit that we found
militated against a system of safeguards based upon national opera-
tion and international inspection would to a lesser degree be repeated
by such an all-out proposal for centralization.
This problem need not arise. For there are important areas in the
field of atomic energy where there is no need for an international
monopoly, and where work may and should be open not exclusively
to the international organization, but to private and to national
institutions in a quite free manner. These fields are among those of
the greatest immediate promise for the beneficial exploitation of atomic
energy. They are technically complex and closely related to the cen-
tral scientific problems. That open and, in some respects, competi-
tive activity is possible in much of the field should go a long way
toward insuring contact between the experts of the international
organization and those outside it, in industry and in scientific and
educational organizations. The same fact should help correct any
tendencies that might otherwise develop toward bureaucratic inbreed-
ing and over-centralization, and aid in providing healthy, expanding
national and private developments in atomic energy.
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The technical facts which underlie the possibility of regarding many
developments in the field of atomic energy as safe for national and
private exploitation are in themselves rather complex; to the discussion
of these we must now turn. These are, of toursv, activities which
without reliance on the conscious determination of the operators,
and with a minimum of control and supervisic n, are physically in-
capable of contributing to the making of atomic weapons.
A word may be in order about our views on what constitute "dan-
gerous activities"-those that, in our opinion, ought to be subject to
an international monopoly. It will be appreciated :.t the outset that
this distinction between the "safe" and the "dangerous" can be useful
without being completely sharp or fixed for all time.
In our view, any activity is dangerous which oife 4 a solution either
in the actual fact of its physical installation, or i)ysubtle alterations
thereof, to one of the three major problems of making atomic weapons:
I. The provision of raw materials,
II. The production in suitable quality and qurntity of the fission-
able materials plutonium and U 235, and
III. The use of these materials for the making of atomic weapons.
Thus we regard the mining and processing of urtutiurn as a dangerous
activity even though it must be supplemented by plants and ordnance
establishments if atomic weapons are to result. We- regard the facil-
ities for making atomic weapons as dangerous eve i though some con-
trol be exercised over the provision of the fissionable' r,naterial; and we
regard the operation of reactors or separation plants which make the
material for bombs or which, by relatively minor opeannntional changes,
could make the material for bombs, as dangerous cve)i though they in
turn would have to be supplemented by supplies cf raw material and
by installations for assembling atomic weapons.
We need not regard as dangerous either amount;; of material which
are small in relation to those needed to make a wes.pon or installation
whose rate of production is small in these terms. further point
which will prove important in establishing the criteria, for the safety
or danger of an operation is this: U 235 and plutoniu,ni can be dena-
tured; such denatured materials do not readily l,-nd themselves to
the making of atomic explosives, but they can still be used with no
essential loss of effectiveness for the peaceful applica.ions of atomic
energy. They can be used in reactors for the gene-atien of power or
in reactors useful in research and in the production of radioactive
tracers. It is important to understand the sense in which denaturing
renders material safer. In the first place, it will make the material
unuseable by any methods we now know for effective atomic explo-
sives unless steps are taken to remove the densturani.s. In the second
place, the development of more ingenious methods in the field of
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atomic explosives which might make this material effectively useable
is not only dubious, but is certainly not possible without a very major
scientific and technical effort.
It is possible, both for U 235 and for plutonium, to remove the de-
naturant, but doing so calls for rather complex installations which,
though not of the scale of those at Oak Ridge or Hanford, nevertheless
will require a large effort and, above all, scientific and engineering
skill of an appreciable order for their development. It is not without
importance to bear in mind that, although as the art now stands de-
natured materials are unsuitable for bomb manufacture, developments
which do not appear to be in principle impossible might alter the
situation. This is a good example of the need for constant reconsider-
ation of the dividing line between what is safe and what is dangerous.
We would, however, propose as criterion that installations using
material both denatured and insufficient in quantity for the manu-
facture of bombs could be regarded as safe, provided the installations
did not themselves make large quantities of suitable material. With
some safeguards in the form of supervision, installations in which the
amounts of material are small, or in which the material is denatured,
rg am amounts ofematerial not denatured, or not necessarily denatur d,
large e
we would call dangerous.
Let us see now what we regard as safe activities in this field.
(1) Perhaps the clearest case is the application of radioactive
material as tracers in scientific, medical, and technological studies.
svery rapid,
This is a field in which progress may be expected to be
afety, the
and we can see no reason at all for limiting, on grounds
activities using such tracer materials.
(2) It is easy to design small nuclear reactors which use denatured
U 235 or plutonium. These reactors can be operated at a power
tities
level low enough to be incapable of producing dn neutronuanurces
of fissionable materials but high enough to provide
and gamma ray sources of unparalleled intensity. The material in
these reactors is neither in quantity nor in quality significant for
bomb production; even if one combined the material from many, no
practical method of making weapons would be available. On the
other hand, reactors of this kind can and almost inevitably will be
designed to operate at so low a power level that they cannot be used
y
havewhich
the rfollowing tim
si produce quantities
this fissionale eneral kind material
Reactors of
significance.
portant applications:
(a) They may be used to make radioactive materials, and as such
may be a supplement, and a valuable supplement, to the
more dangerous reactors. operating at higher power levels;
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in particular, they can make useful radioactive materials
that last too short a time to permit tb{gym to be provided
from remote plants.
(b) As a source of radiation, primarily of neutron radiation, such
reactors are research tools for physics, for chemistry, and
for biology. This may, in fact, be one of i.e most important
applications of the release of atomic e oer_yy.
(c) The high intensity of radiation from su,3h reactors will bring
about changes in chemical and biological systems which
may be of immense practical value, ones, they have been
understood.
(3) More marginal from the standpoint of sa'ety, but nevertheless
important, is another case of an operation which we would regard as
safe. This is the development of power from the fission of denatured
U 235 and plutonium in high power-level react, ors. Such power
reactors might operate in the range from 100,000 to 1,000,000 kw.
If these fissionable materials are used in installation's: where there is no
additional uranium or thorium, they will not produce further fission-
able material. The operation of the reactors will us up the material.
If the reactors are suitably designed, a minimum of supervision should
make it possible to prevent the substitution of uranium and thorium
for the inert structure of the materials of the react-rs. In order to
convert the material invested in such reactors tc atomic weapons, it
would be necessary to close down the reactor; to decontaminate the
fissionable material of its radioactive fission product-;; to separate it,
in what is a fairly major technical undertaking, frog its denaturant;
and to establish plants for making atomic weapons. In view of the
limited amount of material needed for such a power reactor, and of the
spectacular character and difficulty of the steps necessary to divert it,
we would regard such power reactors as safe provided there were a
minimum of reasonable supervision of their desigr., construction, and
operation. If the material from one such reactor (of a size of practical
interest for power production) were diverted, it migliu be a matter of
some two or three years before it could be used to make a small
number of atomic weapons.
We attach some importance to reactors of this type because they
make it possible in large measure to open up the field of atomic power
production to private or national enterprise. It is, in this connection,
important to note that the materials required to construct these
reactors cannot themselves be produced in installations which we
could regard as safe. It is, furthermore, important to note that for
every kilowatt
generated in safe reactors, about 1 kilowatt must be
generated in dangerous ones in which the material was manufactured.
Thus if atomic power is in fact developed,on a largo, scale, about half
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of it will inevitably be an international monopoly, and about a half
might be available for competitive exploitation. That is to say, the
primary production plants necessary to produce the materials required
to construct safe power plants will in that process of production pro-
duce large amounts of power as a by-product. It is, furthermore, clear
that the stockpiling of appreciable quantities of fissionable material
suitably denatured, must precede the development of these safe power
reactors. We think it fortunate that the actual operation of such
reactors will have to await the production of these essential materials,
so that there will be time for further study of means by which they
may be supervised and their safety insured.
All the above illustrations show that a great part of the field of
activ-
atomic energy can show h
ity. They also at the safe operations are possible only because
dangerous ones are being carried in which safeguards of
devise an atomic energy program guards inp
the motivation of the operators preclude the manufacture of material
for atomic weapons. But it is possible, once such operations are under-
taken on an international basis, to devise others of great value and of
living interest in which safety is no longer dependent on the motiva-
tion of the operators.
We have enumerated elements of the large field of non-dangerous
activities under (1), (2), and (3) above. Among the activities which
we would at the present time classify as those dangerous for national
exploitation are the following:
s
Of these activities, ( ), a
essential part in providing active materials, but involves installations
capable of generating power.
It should be added in conclusion that to exclude even safe activities
from international operation seems unwise, but these should not be
an international monopoly. It would equally be unwise to exclude
from knowledge and participation in the dangerous activities experts
who are not associated with the international authority. As the
next section will show, there are practical means for making this col-
laboration possible in such a way that security will be promoted rather
(4) Prospecting, mining, and refining of uranium, and, to a lesser
extent, thorium.
(5) The enrichment of the isotope 235 by any methods now known
to us.
(6) The operation of the various types of reactors for making
plutonium, and of separation plants for extracting the
plutonium.
(7) Research and development in atomic explosives.
e have indicated, not only plays an
6
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than impaired. Only a constant reexamination of what is sure to be
a rapidly changing technical situation will gi>>e :cs confidence that
the line between what is dangerous and what is :;att: has been correctly
drawn; it will not stay fixed. No international agency of control that
is not qualified to make this reexamination can den orve confidence.
SUMMARY
1. If nations or their citizens carry on intrbbaically dangerous
activities it seems to us that the chances for sa:'eguarding the future
are hopeless.
2. If an international agency is given responsibili?.y for the danger-
ous activities, leaving the non-dangerous open to- nations and their
citizens and if the international agency is given and carries forward
affirmative development responsibility, furthering among other things
the beneficial uses of atomic energy and enabling itself to comprehend
and therefore detect the misuse of atomic energi', there is good pros-
pect of security.
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SECTION III
Security Through International Cooperative Development
INTRODUCTION
In the preceding sections ,of this report we have outlined the course
of our thinking in an endeavor to find a solution to the problems thrust
upon the nations of the world by the development of the atomic
bomb-the problem of how to obtain security against atomic warfare,
and relief from the terrible fear which can do so much to engender the
very thing feared.
As a result of our thinking and discussions we have concluded that
it would be unrealistic to place reliance on a simple agreement among
nations to outlaw the use of atomic weapons in war. We have con-
cluded that an attempt to give body to such a system of agreements
through international inspection holds no promise of adequate security.
And so we have turned from more policing and inspection by an
international authority to a program of affirmative action, of aggres-
sive development by such a body. This plan we believe holds hope
for the solution of the problem of the atomic bomb. We are even
sustained by the hope that it may contain seeds which will in time
grow into that cooperation between nations which may bring an end
to 'all war.
The program we propose will undoubtedly arouse skepticism when
it is first considered. It did among us, but thought and discussion
have converted us.
It may seem too idealistic. It seems time we endeavor to bring
some of our expressed ideals into being.
It may seem too radical, too advanced, too much beyond human
experience. All these terms apply with peculiar fitness to the atomic
bomb.
- In considering the plan, as inevitable doubts arise as to its accep-
tability, one should ask oneself "What are the alternatives?" We have,
and we find no tolerable answer.
The following page's contain first a brief summary of the plan we
recommend, and then an expansion going into some detail.
Summary of Proposed Plan-The proposal contemplates an inter-
national agency conducting all intrinsically dangerous operations in
the nuclear field, with individual nations and their citizens free to
cQnduct, under license and a minimum of inspection, all non-danger-
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The international agency might take any one of set oral forms, such
as a UNO Commission, or an international corporateOn or authority.
We shall refer to it as Atomic Development Authority. . It must have
authority to own and lease property, and to carry oz, mining, manu-
facturing, research, licensing, inspecting, selling, or any other necessary
operations.
This chapter is not an attempt to write a corporate charter for such
an international agency. It is the aim, rather, to show that such a
charter can be written in workable terms, and tha the nature of the
organization and its functions will have decisive etrnsequences for
world security. We are satisfied that the differences between national
and international operations can be exploited to mike the problem of
atomic energy manageable. This idea, we think:, can become as
familiar as the fact that the differences between individual enterprise
and corporate enterprise have important consequen.,,es in the conduct
of business.
If we are to do anything constructive in relation to atomic energy
it must inevitably be novel and immensely difficult. We think that
the weeks that we have spent in analysis of the prof-leb: have made it
appear somewhat less difficult and somewhat less novel. A succession
of such processes will be necessary, each building on the preceding
analysis, before even the major ramifications of the. p'; oblem can be
understood and the major questions partially answered. What is
chiefly important now is to describe the right course of action in terms
sufficiently practical and valid to show that the further exploration is
worthwhile.
The proposal contemplates an international agency 'vith exclusive
jurisdiction to conduct all intrinsically dangerous operations in the
field. This means all activities relating to raw mater=als, the con-
struction and operation of production plants, and the= conduct of
research in explosives. The large field of non-dangerous3,nd relatively
non-dangerous activities would be left in national lands. These
would consist, of all activities in the field of research (vxcept on ex-
plosives) and the construction and operation of non-dangerous
power-producing piles. National activities in these fields would be
subject to moderate controls by the international age11i=y, exercised
through licensing, rules and regulations, collaboration ors design, and
the_ like. The international agency would also maiitte&n inspection
facilities to assure that illicit operations were not occurrh ig, primarily
in the exploitation of raw materials. It would be a further function
of the Atomic Development Authority continually to recxamine the
boundary between dangerous and non-dangerous activities. For it
must be recognized that although the field is subjec to reasonable
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division, the dividing line is not sharp and may shift from time to
time in either direction.
The development agency itself would be truly international in
character. Its staff would be recruited on an international basis.
Its functions would be such as to attract a calibre of personnel com-
parable to our own activities in raw materials during the war and our
own primary production and experimental work. It would be set up
as one of the subsidiary agencies of the United Nations, but it would
have to be created by a convention or charter establishing its pol-
icies, functions, and authority in comprehensive terms.
Whatever the formal organization, its integration with national
structure would of course be one of the major problems. Measures
to assure the proper degree of accountability to the United Nations
and to individual nations, measures to assure that individual nations
would have ample opportunity to be informed of the agency's activi-
ties, measures to make the agency responsive to the changing needs of
nations-all these would have to be worked out with extraordinary
care and ingenuity. But certainly our experience with business and
government institutions, national and international, would afford a
wealth of guidance in the development of such measures.
In the actual conduct of its operations the development organization
would at all times be governed by a dual purpose, the promotion of the
beneficial use of atomic energy and the maintenance of security. We
believe that much can be done in a convention or charter to make these
purposes concrete and explicit, to draw the line between the dangerous
and the non-dangerous, to establish the principles determining the
location of stockpiles and plants so that a strategic balance may be
maintained among nations, to establish fair and equitable financial
policies so that the contributions of nations to, and their receipt of
benefits from, the organization will be justly apportioned. The most
careful and ingenious definitions will be required in order to accom-
plish these purposes.
In what follows we shall attempt to develop and expand the fore-
going statement of essentials.
We can best visualize the Atomic Development Authority in terms
of the answer to these concrete questions:
(1) What will be the functions of the agency; what are the things
that it will do?
(2) What kind of organization is necessary to carry out these
functions?
(3) How will the organization be related to the United Nations
and the individual nations that it will represent?
(4) What policies will guide the agency in determining its
manifold actions?
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CHAPTER
Functions of Atomic Development Authority
In the field of f raw materials-The first purpose of the agency will
be to bring under its complete control world supplies of uranium and
thorium. Wherever these materials are found is useful quantities
the international agency must own then or control them under
effective leasing arrangements. One of its principal tasks will be to
conduct continuous surveys so that new deposits will be found and
so that the agency will have the most complete knowledge of the world
geology of these materials. It will be a further function of theagency
constantly to explore new methods for recovering these materials from
media in which they are found in small quantities.
In this way there will be no lawful rivalry among rations for these
vital raw materials. Through its surveys the ageney will be better
informed about their geology and extraction than any single nation
could possibly be. It will be in a better position to discover whether
and where illicit operations might occur than ary inspection force
could possibly be. This is not to say that there is ' zo risk of illicit
operations; any plan, any system of safeguards, involves some risk.
The question that must be answered in appraising the dangers is
whether the risk is so large that it is better to mike no attempt at
international control and abandon the world to i ational atomic
armament.
As we have pointed out earlier, if the Atomic Development Authority
is the only agency which may lawfully operate in tho raw materials
field, then any visible operation by others will constitute a danger
signal. This situation contrasts vividly with the conditions that would
exist if nations agreed to conduct mining operations solely for proper
purposes; for surreptitious abuse of such an agreeilient would be
very difficult to detect. It is far easier to discover as operation that
should not be going on at all than to determine whether a lawful
operation is being conducted in an unlawful. manner.,
For the purpose of its surveys, the international agency would
require access to various nations for its geologists and mining-engineers.
But the known geology of the critical materials is such that it may be
possible to limit the degree of access from the start. And, as explora-
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tions proceed and various areas are eliminated it may be hoped that
the need for access would narrow, rather than expand, but at all times
the right of access to any region for re-survey in the light of new
knowledge would be necessary.
All the actual mining operations for uranium and thorium would
be conducted by the Authority. It would own and operate the re-
fineries for the reduction of the ores to the metal or salt. It would
own the stockpiles of these materials and it would sell the by-prod-
ucts, such as vanadium and radium. It would also provide the neces-
sary supplies of uranium and thorium for the present limited com-
mercial uses. All these sales would presumably go through normal
commercial channels.
In the field of raw materials as in other activities of the Authority,
extremely difficult policy questions, with the most serious social,
economic, and political implications, will arise. How shall nations
and individuals be compensated for reserves taken over by the
Authority? As between several possible mines in different areas,
which shall be operated when it is clear that the output of all is not
presently required? How can a strategic balance be maintained
between nations so that stockpiles of fissionable materials will not
become unduly large in one nation and small in another? We do
not suggest that these questions are simple but we believe that prac-
tical answers can be found. An attempt to suggest an approach to
such answers' is made later where the general question of policies of
the Authority is discussed.
Production Plants-The second major function of the Authority
would be the construction and operation of useful types of atomic
reactors and separation plants. This means that operations, like
those at hianford and Oak Ridge and their extensions and improve-
ments, would be owned and conducted by the Authority. Reactors
for producing denatured plutonium will be large installations and by
the nature of the process they will yield large amounts of energy as a
byproduct. As the technology of power development by this method
expands, ways will be found for utilizing this power both as heat and
as electricity. The existing plants are not designed to operate at a
sufficiently high temperature for the energy to be used for the gener-
ation of electrical power. One of the first research and development
problems of the Authority would be to develop designs of reactors
such that the energy released would be in form usable for the gener-
ation of electric power.
These production plants are intrinsically dangerous operations.
Indeed they may be regarded as the most dangerous, for it is through
such operations .that materials can be produced which are- suitable
for atomic explosives.
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In addition to questions similar to these mentioni d in the case of
raw materials, many new ones suggest themselve,, in relation to such
production plants. What measures can be taken to assure the mini-
mum degree of danger in design of plants and output? What measures
can be taken to assure the minimum danger oi' dwersion? What
measures can be taken to assure location of plant3 that both will
permit the disposition of byproduct power and heat in areas where
they are most needed and at the same time will maintain a strategic
balance between nations so that none may be iu: pired with fear
lest the existence of plants in another would give that nation an
advantage if it suddenly developed aggressive intentions? How will
the vast amounts of byproduct power be dispo:?ed of by an inter-
national agency operating geographically within a national economy?
Like the questions previously stated, these are not easy to answer.
But here again we think that answers can be found and we venture
later to suggest a way of going about the prooes of formulating
answers.
Research Activities-We have already referred to the research that
the Authority will conduct to extend the field of know ledge in relation
to recoverable raw materials. We have referred to research in power
development. There will be many other forms of research in which
the Authority will have to engage, relating to t,im,jlifying reactors
and the like.
Here we desire to emphasize that the field of research in its broadest
sense is the field in which the greatest opportunitics present them-
selves for national and private activities. For research in relation
to the application of discoveries relating to atomic energy is a great
area of work which in the context of the general plan of safeguards
herein proposed is non-dangerous. For the reasons already.indicated
the Authority itself will have to engage in a wide variety of research
activities. For example, one of the important thins that the Au-
thority will have to do is research in atomic explos'?ns. We are by
no means sure that important new discoveries in this field do not lie
ahead. Possibly the study of atomic explosives in iy yield byproducts
useful in peaceful activities. But this will not ba the main purpose
of the Authority's research. Only by preserving it; position as the
best informed agency will the Authority be able to tell where the line
between the intrinsically dangerous and the non-cangerous should be
drawn. If it turns out at some time in the future, as a result of new
discoveries, that other materials lend themselves to dangerous atomic
developments, it is important that the Authority should be the first
to know. At that time measures would have to be taken to extend
the boundaries of safeguards.
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But, as we have said, it seems highly desirable that while conduct-
ing its own necessary research the Authority must not discourage but
rather must give vigorous encouragement to research in national or
private hands. The universities and public technical agencies, in-
dustrial enterprises, research institutes, all will have a direct interest
in participating in these activities. A good example of the oppor-
tunities in this direction is afforded by considering the situation with
respect to radioactive isotopes. It will be possible for the Authority
to produce these isotopes in primary production plants. The chem-
ical separation and purification of them, however, is an involved
industrial process, but involves no threat to security; states or private
organizations should be encouraged to go into these activities. But for
many purposes it will also be possible to produce these isotopes in
small non-dangerous reactors that can be safely operated by nations
or private institutions. In the interest of avoiding overexpansion of
the international Authority, we think a deliberate effort should be
made to encourage the production of isotopes in national hands.
It would be premature, of course, to seek now to draw any hard
and fast line between the functions that the Authority should have in
producing these isotopes and the functions which ought to be left to
nations and their citizens. But it is important to be aware at all
times of the necessity for taking advantage of the opportunity for
promoting decentralized and diversified national developments and of
avoiding unnecessary concentration of functions in the Authority.
The field of research is an area in which the keenest awareness of this
problem will be essential when the time comes to draft a charter and
when thereafter the time comes for establishing the detailed admin-
istrative policies of the Authority.
Up to now we have been dealing with the exclusive proprietary
functions of the Atomic Development Authority. Except as to the
discussion just concluded we have been describing the things it must
do wholly withdrawn from national hands. We turn now to a dis-
cussion of functions more regulatory than proprietary in character.
These are the functions through which the agency will maintain
moderate controls over the activities that will be conducted by nations
or private agencies. For convenience we shall refer to these activities
as "licensing" functions though we think that various devices besides
licensing may in fact be developed to do the job.
Licensing Activities-The uranium and thorium which the Author-
ity mines and the fissionable materials which it produces will remain
the property of the Authority. By such ownership the Authority
could determine the conditions under which these dangerous materials
might be used. Through the lease of such denatured materials to
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those desiring to build and operate reactors of various non-dangerous
kinds, the personnel of the Authority could have actress to the estab-
lishment in which such material is used. Moreover, through its
own research and development activities and through establishing
cooperative relationships with research and develDpluent laboratories
in this field throughout the world, the Authority would be in a posi-
tion to determine intelligently safe and unsafe designs of reactors
for which it might lease its fissionable materials.
In the following paragraphs we shall refer to ,hrike of the general
types of activities of great importance in the fie'.d of atomic energy
which, as already indicated, are or can be made s?riently safe to be
carried on by nations under suitable arrangements with the proposed
Authority. These types of activity, as we have pointed out earlier,
open up a broad field for national and private exploitation of the use-
ful applications of atomic energy. In particular, they will permit
broad scope for research and development in this Reld by nations and
private groups within such nations.
One of the first licensing activities of the Authority might be in the
field of research reactors for which it would furnish ou lease denatured
plutonium or U 235. In carrying on such operations, presumably
those desiring to build such research reactors would submit their
designs to the Authority both for approval and for; advice as to im-
provements, and would obtain a license to build such a reactor and
lease of the denatured fissionable material needed _'or it. There would
be a minimum of danger involved in allowing the construction and
operation of research reactors not exceeding a pre:,cribed power level.
As we have seen, the amounts of fissionable mater?ial which might be
produced through their use would be so small tha, for any individual
unit, or even for units in one country which might number a dozen or
more, there would be no real danger in terms of producing material
sufficient for use in atomic explosives. Presumably the Authority
from time to time would send its research personnel, in the dual role
of research workers and inspectors, to the laboratories in which these
reactors were used, but a minimal inspection wouk be needed. More-
over, such research reactors would fulfill to a larg3 extent the urgent
requirements for further intensive scientific research in this field.
Presumably licenses and leases of material would be arranged between
the Authority and individual nations so that the A utI lority would not
be dealing directly with private groups within nations.
The Authority would also license and lease in the same manner as
described for research reactors the construction and operation of
reactors for making radioactive materials. There may well be, as
suggested above, a field for the national or pri-rat . production of
such radioactive materials which will require a pile to produce mate-
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this for industrial and other peaceful uses. The fissionable materials
leased by the Authority would always be in the form of denatured
plutonium or U 235.
Within the next few years, the Authority should also be in a position
to license the construction and operation of power piles and to furnish
on lease denatured plutonium or U 235. The design of such piles
would have to be carefully reviewed, and the construction perhaps
should be inspected by the Authority, to insure that the pile was not
readily convertible to a dangerous form. For example, there should
be no provision within such piles for the introduction of uranium or
thorium. Iron or lead might be required as structural materials and
if these were made non-removable, there would be a large factor of
safety against abuse. Such power reactors would "burn" the active
materials and require replenishing from time to time. The fissionable
materials for such power reactors would be derived from the operation
of the production plants of the Authority. There is no prospect that
for several years such power reactors as described here could be
licensed, for the reason that there would not be enough fissionable
materials produced in the plants of the Authority. Thus there is a
reasonable period, during which research and development may proceed
both in the laboratories of the Authority and in national and private
groups throughout the world, as a result of which much more will be
known as to the safe and unsafe features of design prior to the time
when decisions will be required.
The questions of policy that arise in relation to the licensing activi-
ties of the Authority will likewise require the utmost in ingenuity and
resourcefulness for their solution. How shall control be exercised
lightly enough to assure the free play of national and private enter-
prise without risk to security? How shall facilities and materials
available for national and private exploitation be allocated and at
what cost? How may safe activities, assigned to national hands, be
withdrawn if new discoveries show them to be dangerous? Again,
we' do not minimize the difficulties. We say only that we believe
them to be of manageable proportions, and that techniques can be
devised to facilitate solutions.
Inspection Activities-Throughout this report we have recorded
our conviction that international agreements to foreswear the mili-
tary use of atomic weapons cannot be enforced solely by a system of
inspection-that they cannot be enforced in a system which leaves
the development of essentially dangerous activities in the field of
atomic energy in national hands and subject to national rivalry, and,
to insure against diversion of these activities to aggressive ends,
relies upon supervision by an agency which has no other function.
But inspection in a wide variety of forms has its proper place in the
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operations of the Atomic Development Authority- -it has a proper
and essential place. Sometimes it may take a i'orni scarcely recog-
nizable as inspection, but that may be regarded as :.ne of the virtues
of the proposal.
It may at the outset be useful to recall some of the factors which
lead us to believe that as a function of the Ato iic Development
Authority inspection can be effective. We do not by this wish to
suggest that the necessary inspection functions are trivial or that
they can be carried out without inventiveness and effort. We do
believe that the proposals of this report create a framework within
which such inventiveness and such effort can be effective.
In the inspection of declared and legal activities- to be sure that
they are really legal-it is of the greatest advantage that the operations
can themselves be so conducted as to make this inspe -tion and control
easy. The Atomic Development Authority will hat the double re-
sponsibility of technically effective development, ad of safety. It
would be in a position to insure that in the plan of operations, in the
physical layout, in the system of audits, and in the choice of develop-
ments, full weight and full consideration can be given to the ease of
detecting and avoiding diversion and evasion. Thtj;-~, the Authority
may conceivably find it unwise to exploit certain. types of deposits
because of the difficulties they present to adequate auditing. The
Authority may have reason to decide on one or anothor method of the
separation of isotopes because it lends itself more readily to control.
In the location of its operations, it will be in a posiion to take into
account political and sociological factors which might make control
difficult, or to allow such considerations to infiuei ee its choice of
operating personnel and procedures. We attach great weight to the
importance of unifying at the planning stage the req^airements of de-
velopment and control. We also attach great wei:rht to the far-
reaching inseparability of the two functions in the Personnel of the
development authority.
As we have pointed out repeatedly, the Authority will be aided in
the detection of illegal operations by the fact that it is not the motive
but the operation which is illegal. Any national Dr: private effort to
mine uranium will be illegal; any such stockpiling of thorium will be
illegal; the building of any primary reactor or'separat on plant will be
illegal. This circumstance is of very great importane,'e for the follow-
ing reason: It is true that a thoroughgoing inspection of all phases of
the industry of a nation will in general be an unbearal,le burden; it is
true that a calculated attempt at evasion may, by camouflage or by
geographical location, make the specific detection of an illegal opera-
tion very much more difficult. But the total effort needed to carry
through from the mine to the bomb, a surreptiti us program of
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atomic armament on a scale sufficient to make it a threat or to make
it a temptation to evasion, is so vast, and the number of separate
difficult undertakings so great, and the special character of many of
these undertakings so hard to conceal, that the fact of this effort
should be impossible to hide. The fact that it is the existence of the
effort rather than a specific purpose or motive or plan which consti-
tutes an evasion and an unmistakable danger signal is to our minds
one of the great advantages of the proposals we have outlined.
We have frequently emphasized the related difficulties of providing
in an inspection agency personnel with the qualifications necessary
for that work, and with enlightened and constantly improving under-
standing of the technical realities. We believe that these problems
can be solved in an Atomic Development Authority to which is
entrusted the technical exploration of the field, and in which inspection
activities will be carried out in part by the very personnel responsible
for the new developments and in part by the men of the same organi-
zation, who have access to, and who have an interest in, the research
and development activities of the Authority. We do not wish to
overemphasize the advantages that may arise from the free association
of the Authority's scientists and experts with those engaged in private
or national undertakings, but we believe that if a serious effort is made
to cultivate this association it will greatly reduce the chance of evasive
national or private action, or of the existence, unknown to the Author-
ity, of technical developments which might constitute a potential
danger. As an example of an association which would on technical
grounds be most appropriate for the Authority, we may cite the prob-
lem of power. The Authority will be engaged in the production of
power. It will be engaged in licensing power plants of non-dangerous
type for private or national operation. It should take advantage of
these associations to be informed about the power requirements which
play so large a part in the operation of separation plants.
It will be seen that we do not contemplate any systematic or large-
scale inspection activities for the Authority except those directed to
the control of raw materials. It is our hope-and we believe it a
valid hope-that when the Authority is in full operation it will,
through the, application of ingenuity to the problem, have obtained
a sufficiently complete control over raw materials and the fissionable
products so that no elaborate and formal inspection procedures will
be needed to supplement it. It is clear that final decision on this
matter must take into account the events of the transition period
from our present condition to that of the full operation of the Author-.
ity. It is also clear that the more rapidly the initial steps leading to
the Authority's control of raw materials are taken, the greater the
chance of the elimination of the more burdensome forms of inspection.
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The geological survey, while in a sense inspection, will be focussed
on a world-wide search and survey for the discovery of the essential
raw materials. In the conduct of research and development, and
through the location of the Authority's laboratories in various parts
of the world, the Authority should become cognizant?- of a wide range
of research and development activities in various countries. There-
fore, the purpose of inspection would be served in that personnel of
the Authority should be currently and intelligently Informed regard-
ing national and private research and development activities in this
field.
In operating mines, refineries, and primary prodt;ction plants in
various countries, the personnel of the Authority Will likewise ac-
quire insight regarding the activities and trends in v.rious countries.
In its licensing activities the Authority will maintain contact with
the research and development laboratories authorii;ed to use reactors.
Exchange of personnel, visits, and even formal innspectioh, may all
be_ involved.
In licensing power reactors which are somewhat less safe than
research reactors, the Authority would send its representatives to
inspect or visit these plants at frequent intervals. , Such personnel
would presumably be trained in the development or engineering
branches of the Authority and their primary purposc might well be
to furnish engineering services and advice to the operators. The
inspection that would actually result would be far more effective than
any direct attempt to inspect.
Under the relations described between the Authority and national
or private groups using denatured fissionable material. the inspectors
would have a right of access deriving from the terms of the license
and lease. Furthermore, if the Authority conduc-sed the operations
described, it would have within its organization a unique knowledge
of the whold field of atomic energy and the change., in that field.,
which are almost certain to be rapid if it is developed in a healthy
manner. To the extent inspection was required it could be done by
competent engineers or scientists who would be far more knowl-
edgeable than those inspected and who could furnish useful aid and
advice at the same time.
In the course of its activities, the Authority might acquire informa-
tion which would cause it to suspect evasions or violations in places to
which it did not have the right of access for geological survey or for
inspection of installations using leased material. Some means would
have to be provided so that theAuthority by making out a prima facie
case would be granted access to the suspected plant or laboratory.
This might be arranged through the presentation of such a request to
some international body such as the International Court. If the Court
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were satisfied with the adequacy of the reasons presented by the
Authority, it might then request the nation in which the suspected
activities were located to grant access to representatives of the Au-
thority. This seems tows one of the possible means of approach to the
limited problem of detection of evasions that would be present even
under the Atomic Development proposal. The procedure seems suffi-
ciently limited in its effect upon national sovereignty to be practical.
We recognize that the idea raises a host of questions that would have
to be answered before the feasibility and effectiveness of the device
could be established but we think it worthy of this further exploration.
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CHAPTER II
Organization and Policies of Atomic Development Authority
In the light of the scientific and technological facts and of broad
human and political factors, we have undertaken, up to this point, to
describe the kind of functions that an Atomic Development Authority
would have to be given in order to be effective. In considering the
problems of organizational structure and detailed policies for such an
authority it is also clear that the facts concerning at,~mic energy are
decidedly pertinent. But as to these problems, th?res much relevant
experience in the general field of international oI ganization. Obvi-
ously the systematic approach necessary for a solution of these
problems must draw heavily on that experience.
But there is an important question of timing. It would be pro-
mature now to seek definitive answers to many of the questions as to
organization and policy. For in order to have validity the answers
will have to be the product of international discussion and deliberation
rather than any unilateral statement of a detailed plan.
In considering the type of organizational problem involved in set-
ting up an AtomicDevelopment Authority under the United Nations,
it should be readily possible to find helpful analogies in other inter-
national operations, public and private, and even in national activi-
ties. In the course of our discussions numerous questions concerning
these matters have naturally occurred to us as they would to anyone
studying the international issues created by atomic r~nergy. It has
been necessary to reflect intensively on the possible fnswers to such
questions as a means of testing the soundness of our main conclusions.
We present here some of the results of our own discussion and reflec-
tion, not in the form of a systematic statement but rather for the
purpose of illustrating the types of questions that ari=se and possible
answers which occurred to this group.
One of the key problems of course will be the question of personnel.
It will be of the essence to recruit that personnel oir{ a truly-inter-
national basis, giving much weight to geographical and national
distribution. It does not seem to us an unreasonable hope that the
organization would attract personnel of high quality. For the field
of knowledge is one in which the prospects for future development
have become an absorbing interest of the entire world. Certainly
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there is a far better chance that the Authority would attract personnel
of a high calibre than that any purely policing organization would
do so. At any rate, it is clear that the success of the organization
would depend upon the quality of the administrators, geologists,
mining experts, engineers, physicists, chemists, and other personnel,
and every possible effort must be made to establish the kind of organi-
zation that will attract them.
It is not alone necessary for the organization to be thoroughly in-
formed in the field of atomic energy. It will also be necessary for the
nations of the world to be thoroughly informed at all times about the
operations of the Authority. There are many ways of assuring this
necessary degree of accountability on the part of the Authority to
the nations and peoples whose instrument it will be. Some integral
organ of the United Nations, perhaps the Security Council itself, will
need to serve as the overseeing body for the Authority. But it
could do so in ways generally comparable to those employed by con-
gressional appropriations and investigating committees and the Bureau
of the Budget in relation to governmental institutions in the United
States. Detailed measures would have to be worked out to assure
the proper connection between such an overseeing or "accountability"
body and the Atomic Development Authority itself. Ways will also
have to be worked out to assure that individual nations may maintain
enough direct contact with the organization to give them a sense of
intimate relations with it. This need will be served in part by the
fact that the staff of the organization will be recruited from various
nationalities. The operations of the Authority in its licensing activi-
ties, where it will be dealing directly with individual states, will also
be one of the ways in which this objective is accomplished. For in
this field there will be constant collaboration between the Authority
and individual states in working out the detailed scientific, technologi-
cal, and political problems which will. cluster around the Authority's
licensing activities. None of these matters appears to present
insuperable difficulties.
The foregoing is intended merely as a statement of the possibilities
for actually creating an organization that will have sound relations
with the United Nations and with individual states. These possibili-
ties must be made the subject of further exploration as intensive as
that which we have directed to the scientific and technological facts
concerning atomic energy itself.
Until qualified men set themselves the task of actually writing a
-charter, chapter by chapter, anything said about policies must be
merely by way of preface. The actual statement of policy, like the
form of organization, will have to grow out of the international dis-
cussions and deliberations.
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The fundamentals governing the Atomic Develop;;meat Authority
must of course be those which have been so well tai ed in the resolu-
tion of January 18, 1946 setting up the United Natioi Atomic Energy
Commission, that is, the strengthening of security at d the promotion
of the beneficial use of atomic energy. In our report we have adopted
as the first principle in the accomplishment of these' "undamental ob-
jectives the proposition that intrinsically dangerous activities in the
field must not be left open to national rivalry but must be placed in
truly international hands. To establish the bou;id?ries between in-
ternational and national action, we have grasped the fortunate cir-
cumstance that a dividing line can be drawn betweei dangerous and
non-dangerous activities. We have emphasized that not the least in
the fortunate circumstances that we have observed is the fact that the
field of non-dangerous activities is so challenging th, t it provides an
opportunity to avoid such centralization of authorit% as might make
the price of security seem too high. In this connection it is important
that a purposeful effort should be made to keep a6 broad and diversi-
fied as possible the field of activities which is left in national and private
hands. Every effort must be made to avoid centralising exclusively
in the Authority any more activities than are esser.tia.i for purposes of
security.
These are the kind of basic considerations which we assume the
United Nations Atomic Energy Commission would seek to make
explicit in its recommendations for the charter of an Comic Develop-
ment Authority. Many others can be added to the 1i t. We mention
some now which are typical and illustrative anc which are drawn
from the kind of questions which have arisen in our ,wn discussions.
We would expect that the charter itself should, so fa as practicable,
define the areas that are clearly dangerous, in which there must be an
exclusive international operation, and the areas which now seem
clearly non-dangerous, in which there may be national and private
operations. One of the most difficult problems w ill ho the creation
of charter provisions and administrative machinery governing the
manner in which the line will be drawn between saf qty and danger
near the middle of the spectrum of activities vwhe_ e the division
becomes less sharp. Another difficult problem will bk to provide the
means to redefine as either "dangerous" or "safe" when new knowl-
edge shifts the line. In these matters close ques cioy ,s will arise, of
course, as to the issues which must be referred for ie.pproval to the
individual nations, the issues which need only bc: referred to some
organ of the United Nations, like the Security Council., and the issues
which can be determined by administrative action of the Atomic
Development Authority itself.
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In strengthening security, one of the primary considerations will
relate to the geographical location of the operations of the Authority
and its property. For it can never be forgotten that it is a primary
purpose of the Atomic Development Authority to guard against the
danger that our hopes for peace may fail, and that adventures of
aggression may again be attempted. It will probably be necessary to
write into the charter itself a systematic plan governing the location
of the operations and property of the Authority so that a strategic
balance may be maintained among nations. In this way, protection
will be afforded against such eventualities as the complete or partial
collapse of the United Nations or the Atomic Development Authority,
protection will be afforded against the eventuality of sudden seizure
by any one nation of the stockpiles, reduction, refining, and separa-
tion plants, and reactors of all types belonging to the Authority.
This will have to.be quite a different situation from the one that
now prevails. At present with Hanford, Oak Ridge, and Los Alamos
situated in the United States, other nations can find no security against
atomic warfare except the security that resides in our own peaceful
purposes or the attempt at security that is seen in developing secret
atomic enterprises of their own. Other nations which, according to
their own outlook, may fear us, can develop a greater sense of security
only as the Atomic Development Authority locates similar dangerous
operations within their borders. Once such operations and facilities
have been established by the Atomic Development Authority and
are being operated by that agency within other nations as well as
within our own, a balance will have been established. It is not
thought that the Atomic Development Authority could protect its
plants by military force from the overwhelming power of the nation
in which they are situated. Some United Nations military guard
may be desirable. But at most, it could be little more than a token.
The real protection will lie in the fact that if any nation seizes the
plants or the stockpiles that are situated in its territory, other nations
will have similar facilities and materials situated within their own
borders so that the act of seizure need not place them at a disadvantage.
Various auxiliary devices, in addition to a strategic geographic
division of plants and facilities and stockpiles, will also be necessary.
Some of those have already been referred to. The design of primary
production plants should make them as little dangerous as possible.
The stockpiles of materials suitable for the production of bombs should
be kept as small as possible consistent with sensible economics and
engineering. So far as practicable, stocks should be denatured or
kept in low concentrations unsuitable for the production of bombs.
In other words, the design and operating procedures should definitely
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prevent the accumulation of substantial amounts of material quickly
convertible into important quantities of explosives.
All these matters must be the subject of the most (ireful considera-
tion in the writing of the charter itself.
With appropriate world-wide distribution of stockpiles and facil-
ities; with design rendered as little dangerous as possible; with
stockpiles of dangerous materials kept at the lowa,-st level consistent
with good economics and engineering; there will be= no need for a
sense of insecurity on the part of any of the major powers. Seizures
will afford no immediate tactical advantage. Trey would in fact
be an instantaneous dramatic danger signal, and they would permit,
under the conditions stated, a substantial period of time for other
nations to take all possible measures of defense. For it should be
borne in mind that even if facilities are seized, a year or more would
be required after seizure before atomic weapons .,ould be produced
in quantities sufficient to have an important infiuiu ce on the outcome
of war. Considering the psychological factors in Sul lic opinion, the
fixing of danger signals that are clear, simple, and vivid seems to us
of utmost importance.
There are other basic problems of only slightly less difficulty which
will also need to be dealt with in the international deliberations.
These have to do with such matters as compensation to nations and
private agencies for the raw materials which the Authority would
take over, they have to do with the problem of initial financing, they
have to do with allocations and distribution of the mserials and the
facilities which the Authority will license or sell to individual nations
and, through them, to their citizens. One of the difficult problems
in this respect will be the question of priority in es :ablishing non-
dangerous power plants within various nations a ! the relation
between these licensed activities and the power-producing activities
of the Authority itself. A special word needs to be said on this
subject.
The needs of nations for new power resources vary not only with
industrial conditions, but also with their proximity to water power,
coal, and petroleum. As we have emphasized before, the power sup-
ply from fissionable materials is of two entirely distinci kinds. Power
will be produced in the very process of operatir.g be production
plants which make fissionable materials. These plasits are of the
dangerous kind which must be owned and operated by the Authority.
The decisive consideration in determining the location of such plants
will have to be strategic; otherwise the physical bafan.e between na-
tions will be impaired. In other words, the distribution of these
plants throughout the world will have to be base(. primarily on se-
curity considerations. But there will still be ample room for an in-
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dividual nation, once it is decided that such a plant can be located
within its borders, to determine where the plant shall be situated in
relation to its own economic and social needs. It also appears fair
to assume that the charter could provide specifically for the Authority
to turn the power over to the nation or its designee at the bus bar of
the power plant, thus leaving it to each individual state to determine
policy in relation to transmission, distribution, and use, or the Author-
ity might deliver steam to the individual state, leaving all electrical
operation in national or private hands as determined by the policies
of the particular nation. Problems of price will be difficult, but here
again it should be possible to state basic policies in the charter which
will give reasonable assurance of fairness in the fixing of cost.
The problem of power producing piles should be somewhat less
difficult in the case of the non-dangerous plants. In these, fissionable
materials will be denatured. The charter should be able to provide
for their allocation of this type of plant in accordance with more con-
ventional economic standards. It might be possible to provide that
they should be located on the basis of competitive bids among inter-
ested nations. On such.a basis, countries with ample power resources
in water, coal, or oil would limit their bids to those warranted by the
costs of alternative sources. Those countries having few or expensive
ordinary sources of power might bid higher, but below the cost of
other alternatives. In this way the maximum usefulness of fissionable
materials with the greatest conservation of other sources of power
would be secured.
Many other questions of the same order as those we have discussed
can readily be imagined. These are enough to illustrate the nature
of the problem.
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SECTION IV
The :Transition for International Control
When fully in operation, the plan described in the previous section
would, in our opinion, provide a great measure of security against
surprise attack by atomic weapons. But it will take a considerable
time before the plan can be adopted, and once the nations of the world
have adopted it, a still further time will be required to put the plan
into operation. It is essential to consider what will be the condition
of affairs during the necessary period of transition.
In particular we must take note of the nature of the commitment
already made for international action in order to determine whether
the proposal satisfies the conditions attached to that commitment.
In the pronouncements which the United States has made and spon-
sored in concert with other nations, the commitment for action has
always been coupled with the requirement that the process of moving
toward the goal of complete international collaboration must be
accompanied at each stage by appropriate safeguards. It is the pur-
pose of this section to describe the extent to which the suggested plan
will satisfy this requirement.
The period of transition may be broken down into two sub-periods.
In the first there will be no Atomic Development Authority. There
will be discussions in the Atomic Energy Commission of the United
Nations Organization, and as a result of these discussions, proposals
will be referred to the United Nations Council and Assembly and to
the several nations for further discussion and acceptance. From
this process, there will result a charter that has been ratified by the
various nations. It is at this stage that the Atomic Development
Authority will come into being. All of this will inevitably require
time. - In the second period, when an Atomic Development Authority
is created by the ratification by the several nations of the charter
which establishes it, it will have an immense task before it, involving
many different fields and many different activities. It would, of
course, be possible to leave the ordering and sequence of these activi-
ties, or rather of undertaking them, to the discretion of the. Authority.
It seems far more likely that provisions governing the sequence of
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steps by which the Authority will come into full operation will be
provided in the charter.
Two different kinds of consideration will be involved in setting up
the steps of discussion and operation. On the one hand there are,
as we shall see, certain indispensable requirements for the adoption
and the success of the plan itself, which require that certain steps be
taken before others can be effective. On the other hand, there is
a wide range of schedules all equally compatible `with the operability
of the plan and affecting primarily its acceptability to the several
nations. We shall be concerned in this section with outlining the
requirements of the plan as to schedule, and pointing out what other
elements are not fixed by the plan itself and in the fixing of which
quite new considerations are essential. In other words, we shall
attempt to describe those steps which must be undertaken in a par-
ticular order if the plan is to become effective at all. We shall also
indicate other steps which are a necessary part of bringing the plan
into operation, but as to which there is some freedon of choice in
determining their sequence. The sequence of tin fh,st set of steps
is fixed by the plan itself; the sequence of the second set is a matter
that will have to be fixed by the negotiation between the nations.
The Position of the U. S. During the Transition
In order to have meaning, the examination of the transition period
must take account of the present position of the United States
in the field of atomic energy, and that position rnu,t be compared
with the one that this country would occupy during the period when
the plan for international action is being adopted and executed.
Today's position must also be compared with the canditions that will
prevail when the plan has finally been brought into full operation.
We must also consider what our position would be sonic years hence
if we were forced to abandon our present commitment for interna-
tional action and pursue instead a purely national. treatment of the
problem.
Today the United States has a monopoly in atomic weapons. We
have strategic stockpiles; we have extensive facilit.es;'.for making the
ingredients of atomic bombs and for making the bombs themselves;
we have a large group of people skilled in the many arts which have
gone into this project; we have experience and know:-how obtainable
only in the actual practice of making atomic wea ions; we have
considerable resources of raw material; and we have a broad theoret-
ical knowledge of the field which may appear inadequate in future
years, but which enables us to evaluate not only the; performance of
the past but also what the future is likely to hold.
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It is true that some part of our monopoly we hold in common with
the United Kingdom and Canada. This applies principally not to
material facilities or to weapons, but to the availability of raw ma-
terials, to theoretical knowledge, and to some elements of the know-
how.
It has been recognized that this monopoly could not be permanent.
There have been valid differences of opinion on the time which it
would take other nations to come abreast of our present position, or
to surpass it; but it is generally admitted that during the next five
to twenty years the situation will have changed profoundly.
International control implies an acceptance from the outset of the
fact that our monopoly can not last. It implies substituting for a
competitive development of atomic armament a conscious, deliberate,
and planned attempt to establish a security system among the nations
of the world that would give protection against surprise attack with
atomic weapons. Above all, it involves the substituting of develop-
ments which are known to the world for developments by the several
nations which might well remain more or less secret, and where the
very fact of secrecy would be a constant source of fear, incitement
and friction.
Inherent in the adoption of any plan of international control is a
probable acceleration-but only acceleration-of the rate at which
our present monopoly will inevitably disappear,. since our knowledge
and our mastery of practical arts, and to some extent our physical
installations, must ultimately be made available to an international
agency in the process of establishing control.
Let us consider, for example, the plan we recommend in this report.
If adopted and executed in good faith, this will have reached a reason-
ably full degree of operation in a period of years. At that time nearly
all the factors making the present position of the United States in
relation to atomic energy a preferred one will have been eliminated.
For, when the plan is in full operation, no nation will be the legal
owner of atomic weapons, of stockpiles of fissionable material or raw
materials, or of the plants in which they can be produced. An at-
tempt will have been made to establish a strategic balance in the
geographical distribution of the internationally owned plants and stock-
piles.
The security which we see in the realization of this plan lies in the
fact that it averts the danger of the surprise use of atomic weapons.
The seizure by one nation of installations necessary for making atomic
weapons would be not only a clear signal of warlike intent, but it
would leave other nations in a position-either alone or in concert-
to take counter-actions. The plan, of course, has other security pur-
poses, less tangible but none the less important. For in the very fact
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of cooperative effort among the nations of the world rests the hope we
rightly hold for solving the problem of war itself.
It is clear that it would be unwise to undertake a plait based on the
proposals which we have put forward unless there were some valid
hope that they would be entered into and carried through in good faith;
nevertheless, we must provide against the hazard that there may not
be such good faith and must ask ourselves this qu-,st.on: What will
be the state of affairs should the plan be adopted with the intention
of evasion or should evasion be undertaken by any nation during the
years when it is being put into effect?
The basis of our present monopoly now lies in two rather different
things: knowledge, and physical facilities. The ultianas:.e geographical
balance toward which a plan for international control;; rust work will
witness the loss of both kinds of monopoly. Knowledge will become
general, and facilities will neither in their legal poss,ssion nor in their
geographical distribution markedly favor any one r.ati+on. Although
both elements of our present hegemony will thus dii aappear over a
period of years, quite different considerations arc it v olved in the
sharing of our knowledge and in the balancing of pbys+:al facilities.
The Material Aspects of the Transition
The transfer of such facilities to international canlrol; the estab-
lishment under international control of similar f'ad'dilities in other
nations; the creation of stockpiles; the gradual building up of groups
of men skilled in the various necessary arts-these are changes which
from their very nature will require time to bring abet=ut, and which
can, within not too wide limits, be scheduled and controlled. In the
discussions within the United Nations Commission leading up to the
adoption of the charter for the Authority, and even nitre in the early
planning phases of the Authority's work, there wil. ha~.ve to be some
disclosure by us of theoretical information. But th,se discussions
and these plans will not essentially alter the present superiority of the
United States. They will not move its stockpiles of uranium or of
fissionable material or its bombs or its operating ph,nt, and need not
alter the operation of these plants. These disclosures of information,
now secret, will not create in any other nation the cxc rience and the
know-how which are so great a part of our press' ia.t position of
superiority.
No matter what may be the schedule of operat.onc, adopted, this
situation cannot change overnight under any circurnslaances. Never-
theless, it is clear that very serious consideration must be given to the
scheduling of those physical and legal changes which ewer a period of
years will bring about a balanced international o )erattion. On the
one hand, the general principles underlying this scheduling will have
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to be the subject of negotiation, and the outcome will in one form or
another have to be written into the charter. The charter may, for
instance, provide that some things should not be done before a specified
number of years have elapsed, or before the activities of the Authority,
let us say, in the field of raw materials, have reached a certain stage of
effectiveness. On the other hand, the Authority itself may by charter
provision be given responsibility and discretion in the planning of its
activities. It may, for instance, be called upon to certify that it is in
satisfactory control of the raw materials situation before it undertakes
certain of its other functions.
We are aware of the great importance which attaches to a prudent
and reasonable scheduling of the step by step transition from our
present position. But this problem is of a fundamentally different
kind from those that have been discussed in this report. In this re-
port we have attempted to discover and describe the conditions which,
as we view the matter, a workable system of international control
would have to satisfy. -
The consideration of the steps of transition by which the special
position of the United States may be relinquished involves quite other
values. The sequence, the ordering, and the timing of these steps
may be decisive for the acceptability of the international controls, but
they will not affect its operability. Therefore, they present problems
of negotiation between the nations within the UNO in the course of
agreeing upon a charter for the Atomic Development Authority.
Such problems of. negotiation, in our opinion, are separable from the
nature of the objective of the negotiation. They are problems which
cannot be solved now, because they depend, among other things, on
the motivation of the participating nations, on the political back-
ground of the negotiations, and on what may be conceived to be the
separate, as opposed to the collective, interests of these nations.
The extent to which special precautions need to be taken to preserve
present American advantages must be importantly influenced by the
character of the negotiation and by the earnestness which is mani-
fested by the several nations in an attempt to solve the common prob-
lems of international control. These questions lie in the domain of
highest national policy in international relations.
We are convinced that the first major activities of the Authority
must be directed to obtaining cognizance and control over the raw
materials situation. This control may of course be subject to limita-
tions, defined in the charter, on the freedom of the Authority in its
early operations to alter the national distribution of raw materials.
The problems of making a geological survey reliable and not prohibi-
tively difficult are major technical problems. The raw materials con-
trol will bring the Authority face to face with the problem of access,
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which is both a technical and a political problem. It mill bring it face
to face with the need for establishing its own research aencies and for
their coordination with private and national ones. These undertak-
ings are fundamental for the operation of the Auth. rt y and to all of
its future prospect of success.
There are other things which no doubt the Authority would wish to
do at once. Without much delay it should set up laboratories for the
study of nuclear physics and the technological prokleurs that it must
expect to encounter in its future work. It should attempt to establish
suitable forms of liaison and interchange with privato and national
institutions working on atomic energy or on its applications or on the
fundamental sciences which may be involved. In short, the Authority
should get started on its research program and in etablishing the
patterns of its liaison with other agencies for which it will be responsible
in the future.
It would be desirable that even in the earliest days the Authority
act to permit the use of radioactive tracer materials and those labora-
tory reactors which use small amounts of denatured active material,
and which seem to provide such valuable tools for research in a variety
of fields.
The Authority may need to establish, even in its earliest days,
planning boards to make studies of the difficult questions of stock-
piling, power development, future plant construction;` it may need to
set up-a system for the interim recording and accour.tin r of operations
in the field of raw materials, and in the production plants of the
United States.
These seem to us reasonable plans for initial operations. All the
other operations of the Authority are certainly subject to scheduling.
They may accompany these initial operations, or they may come
later. But the control of raw materials is an essential-prerequisite for
all further progress and it is the first job that th