THE ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION UNDER NIXON Also by Glenn T
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THE ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION UNDER NIXON Also by Glenn T. Seaborg with Benjamin S. Loeb Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Test Ban Stemming the Tide: Arms Control in the Johnson Years THE ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION UNDER NIXON Adjusting to Troubled Times Glenn T. Seaborg with Benjamin S. Loeb Palgrave Macmillan © Glenn T. Seaborg 1993 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1993 978-0-312-07899-7 All rights reserved. For information, write: Scholarly & Reference Division, St. Manin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010 First published in the United States of America in 1993 ISBN 978-1-349-60618-4 ISBN 978-1-137-04834-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-04834-9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Seaborg, Glenn Theodore, 1912- The Atomic Energy Commission under Nixon: adjusting to troubled times / Glenn T. Seaborg with Benjamin S. Loeb. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. U.S. Atomic Energy Commission-History. 2. Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913- .3. Nuclear energy-Government policy -United States-History. l. Loeb, Benjamin S., 1914- . II. Title. HD9698. U52S43 1993 353.0085'6--<ic20 92-30137 CIP To the spirit of international cooperation in science, wherein may lie mankind's best hopes for the future. TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword .IX Acknowledgments . xvii Glossary of Acronyms and Abbreviations . xix Prologue: Brief Encounters . 1 PART I: EXPLOSIONS 1. The Demise of Plowshare . 11 2. Testing the ABM Warhead 29 PART II: ARMS CONTROL 3. The Nonproliferation Treaty 51 4. SALT ......... 73 5. The Advice of Scientists . 87 PART III: FUROR OVER RADIATION STANDARDS 6. Monticello ......... .101 7. The Environmental Onslaught .113 8. Challenge from Within .. 123 9. Lowering the Limits .. 139 PART IV: RISE AND FALL OF THE BREEDER 10. Getting Off the Ground. 151 11. Issues Along the Way .169 12. Crash Landing. 181 PART V: ADMINISTRATIVE MATTERS 13. A Matter of}ustice ......................... 193 14. Toward a Department of Energy . .. ... 211 Epilogue .. 243 Appendix: AEC Commissioners During Chairmanship of Glenn T. Seaborg . · .. 253 Selected Bibliography · .. 255 Index ....... · .. 259 FOREWORD y resignation as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) M became effective on August 16, 1971. I had served in that capacity for ten and a half years, longer than any other chairman and extending over the administrations of three presidents. I have written elsewhere about my service under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, confining those accounts, however, to imponant arms control initiatives in which the Atomic Energy Commission played a significant and constructive role.! This volume, relating to the first two and a half years of the administration of Richard M. Nixon, will cover a wider front. For one thing, I cannot give as complete an account of arms control developments as in the earlier volumes because the Nixon administration, for reasons I will seek to explain later, chose to exclude the Atomic Energy Commission from much of its former panicipation in this arena. But then I also want to tell a broader story. It is the story of what it is like to preside over a once proud and privileged government agency that is declining in reputation and influence; how one establishes goals when choices are limited by an impoverishment of means; of the maneuvers that are employed to sustain what seem to be wonhwhile endeavors; and of how one sons out policy and politics, chooses between adherence to principle and compromise, and in the end must sometimes fight rearguard actions for survival. Let it be clear that this book does not purpon to be a complete history of the Atomic Energy Commission during this troubled period. The multifaceted nature of the agency's activities, extending across a wide spectrum of military and civilian endeavors, would make that too daunting a task. I have chosen instead to use a case study approach and to concentrate on just a few stories. These include the effon to maintain standards limiting the release of radioac tivity from nuclear power plants to levels that would both protect public health and permit the industry to survive; the effons, probably unrealistic and largely frustrated, to move forward with a new generation of reactors (breeders) that would produce more fissionable material than they consumed; the attempt, against technical and political obstacles, to keep alive a program to use nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes; the difficulties encountered in carrying out x THE ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION UNDER NIXON the AEC's obligation to test a warhead for an antiballistic missile program already approved by Congress; a brief look at how the Nixon administration approached its arms control challenges; a confrontation with the Department of Justice in which the AEC sought to defend the rights of an individual who we believed was being falsely accused of disloyal behavior; and. finally. the struggle. ultimately partly successful. to maintain the integrity of the AEC's basic structure against the consequences ofdrastic reorganization proposals that would have splintered it. All in all. it is far from being a triumphant story. The Nixon years were difficult ones for the AEC. In part this may have been due to the special foibles of this president and his administration. More significantly. however. our difficulties can be attributed to the spirit ofthe times. particularly the opposition to the Vietnam War and a rising environmental consciousness. Such factors produced an atmosphere that was not friendly to large-scale science and technology initiatives. particularly those that involved some government par ticipation. In this uncongenial atmosphere the AEC sustained some frustrations and defeats. Not all of these were due to circumstance. The AEC made its share of mistakes. some of which I freely acknowledge herein. On the other hand. we did some things right. and for this the agency deserves some credit. As in my previous historical writings. a main source for this book has been the journal that I maintained on every day of my government service. The entire journal has been published in 28 volumes.2 A principal component of the journal was a daily diary. from which I quote frequently herein. Using such a source has the advantage that it records how things appeared at the time. not in retrospect over a time gap of many years. Excerpts from the diary are not always so labeled. but they can be recognized because they are set in this typeface. I should note that the diary entries included herein. while substan tively the same. may occasionally not be the same in every word or phrase as the original diary entries included in the published journal. The original entries. usually dictated in haste during or at the end of a busy day. may not have been couched in the clearest language. especially for a lay audience. and may also have lacked context needed. or may have contained detail not needed. for this narrative. In making these changes. I bear in mind what John Kenneth Galbraith noted to justify similar changes in his book. Ambassador's Journal: "No historical merit attaches to bad English."3 The journal also contains copies of important documents (correspondence. reports. press releases. minutes of meetings. newspaper articles. and so on) relating to each day's events. If no other documentation is offered in footnotes or endnotes for a document referenced in the text. the reader can infer that it is available in my daily journal. For~word xi DRAMATIS PERSONAE One of the things to remember about the Atomic Energy Commission is implicit in its name: it was headed by a commission consisting of five persons. In enacting the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 that established the AEC, Congress apparently believed that matters coming before the agency would be of such moment that the collective wisdom of a number of people of different backgrounds would be needed in order to make correct decisions. As the years passed, many who served on the Commission felt that an agency headed by a single executive would be more agile and responsive to the myriad of problems that confronted us, and on several occasions the Commission as a whole voted to recommend its own abolition in favor of a single executive form of organization. But that proposal never got very far. Nor did the Atomic Energy Act endow the chairman of the Commission with any special powers not accorded to the other commissioners. When the 1954 revision of the act was being debated, Chairman Lewis Strauss sought to have the chairman legally designated as the Commission's "principal officer." This was successfully resisted by Commissioner Thomas E. Murray, however, with the result that the 1954 legislation merely designated the chairman as "official spokesman" and stipulated that each member of the Commission "have equal responsibility and authority" in all actions. As has been pointed out, this resolution of the problem "underscored the ambiguities defining the role of the chairman and the commissioners, [and], in effect, allowed the chairman's position to be based on the personality and operating style of a particular incumbent."4 Some chairmen, notably Strauss and my successor, James Schlesinger, used the office to place a strong personal imprint on the work of the AEC. My own style was to seek consensus among the commissioners by talking things out, formally or informally. Some who have written about the AEC have concluded that the Strauss-Schlesinger style made them "strong" chairmen and that my style made me "not strong." I do not quarrel with these assessments other than to say that I did it the way I did it because that is what seemed best to me and, I imagine, because that is how I am.