ATOMIC ENERGY CENTRE

Chronicle (Levin), 4 February 1948, Page 7

ATOMIC ENERGY CENTRE

Round a ,big% building in Washington,. where some of the keenest brain's in the country are at work, the strictly security guard m the United- States is maintained day and night. Electrie eyes guard the windows. An electrie alarm would sound the moment anyone touched ja'pane of glass. Armed guards stand on duty at the doors, wntes W. S. Noble from- New York. • At night the building is floodlit, so that. no one can get near lt without ;being seen. " When the outside doors are locked, even the guard with the key can't unloek :them until another guard . elsewhere in ihe building presses an p.lectric button.

The building i£ the-headquarters qf the Atomic Energy Commission. Within its walls work the men who hold the key to what has been called the greatest secret in the world— the secret of what makes an* atomic bomb. . From this building radiate -the control's which govern the activities of enormous plants, supersecret research laboratories and a whole army of workers. And her e decisions are made that may vitally affect the lives of millions of people in every civilised country of the world. ... The Atomic Energy Commission itself is a group of five men, drawn from various walks of life, of unchallengeable integrity and with, in each case, a record of success behind him. The chairman is David E. Lilienthal, with an international reputation at 48 as former chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Members of Commission Only one is a scientist — Dr. Robert Bacher, a brilliant nuclear science professor from Cornell Uiniversity who, at 42, is the youngest mah on the Commission. The others are Rear-Admiral Lewis Strauss, former partner in one of America's greatest banking houses; Sumner Pike, who has held many important Government administrative jobs; and William Maymach, former editor of the' Des Moines Register and Tribune. Between them, these men are responsible for the working of an organisation which already has material assets valued at about 2000 million dollars. Their success will probably be renected in the speed with which they can make a lot of that plant obsolescent. As in no other undertaking in America today, there.'is-a tremendous drive to push ahead the production of atomic energy. For the present the United States holds Ihe lead, but she dreads that otlier nations, notably Russia, may overtake her. ; Millions of Dollars Spent \ Jvhbibns^pf , do^ars ., are being spent on' research. The most brilliant s'cientists have been assembled on the job. About all activities of the Cpmmis&ofr'Vther.e is lan atmosphere of secrepy and urgency. What; new developments, if ahy, have been made are never ;revealed. The safety of the. Ameficdn people is too closely bound up with those developments for any loose talk. What is generally known about the extent of "atomic energy production is -this; — The Commission has under its control 45,000 workers in various parts of tbe country. The main centres of activity are at Oak Ridge (Tennessee), where uranmm 235, which provides the power for the atomic bomb, is produced: Hanford (Washington) , where plutonium is made; and Los Alamos (New Mexico) where the. atomic bomb is flnished and assembled. •Oak Ridge is such a huge place that the population of workers and their families is 30,000. There is also the great atomic chain reaetion pile, which plays such a vital part in atomic research. In addition to- these places, there are a number of other centres

where , atomic research is beirig j pressed. Sixty. universities ana i college.s and 400 private industrial | firms have also been brought into a 1 great co-ordinated programme of g research and production. g The Commission has more than | 100 contracts with private indus- | try, "which does most of its ordin- | ary work, apart from the highly 1 secret military programme. | In a broad way, the scope of the 1 Commission's work eovers mining | and refining the ores from which f atomic energy is produced, study of i how atomic energy can be used in j industry, and research in its uses. I in medicine and other branehes of I science. ' * j

Engineering Ingenuity ] It is reported that no member .of j che Commission believes atomic, energy will replace conventional method^ of producirig power with- | in any predictable period. Some \ at least are said to hold the view that work on atomic energy has now Teached the stage where its application to industry depends ' morq upon engineering ingenuity than on further scientific research. Spcial . problems include how to j deal with the • tremendous heat i generated, how to protect workers | f rom radiation — which at present j seems to involve u'se of great i masses of resistant material — and how to combine this protection with power units- light enough to be practicable enough for planes, railway engines and small plants. More important for the happiness of humanity is the work the Commission is doing*- to increase the use to which by-products of atomic research can be put in the v treatment of disease. Radio-active isotypes are giving science new weapons in the war on cancer. New fields are opening up in the study of plant life because of the use of these same isotypes. Probably no one ' today can set the bounds for developments from knowledge that atomic research is slowly unfolding. Claims have been made that more powerful bombs have been produced than those which blasted Hiroshima.and Nagasaki, but no official statement has been r'eleased — or is likely to be released. That and other secrets of the atom are securely hidden away behind the walls of Washington.