Ernest Graves
A:
Yes. We launched a study of how to do the canal. Then Congress passed a law creating
the AtlanticPacific Interoceanic Canal Study Commission. This had its own
independent life. Robert O. Anderson was made the chairman of this five-man group.
The President's brother, Milton Eisenhower, was a member. [Brigadier General
Kenneth E.] Ken Fields was a member. The other two members were Bob Story and
[Colonel Raymond L.] Ray Hill. All five were distinguished Americans.
Their job was to look at the whole problem. The effort there in Livermore became an
element of this larger study. It was funded independently through the civil works
program. But the focus shifted to helping develop the report of this commission to the
President and the Congress.
We had set up a fairly elaborate study structure in order to address all the issues, all the
effects issues. There were fundamental questions about how big these craters were
going to be, depending upon the material in which they were made.
There was an even more serious question about the stability of these craters because
there had been a history in Panama of tremendous landslides. In a cohesive soil, the
stable slope depends on the height. In a noncohesive soil, like sand, it doesn't matter.
It's an infinite proposition. But in a cohesive soil where you're counting on the
structure of the soil to hold things together, the higher it gets, the flatter the stable slope
is. And that's what happened in Panama.
When they built the Panama Canal, they didn't even know this. They learned. Some of
the fundamental information on this came out of their experience. [John] Stevens and
[Major General George W.] Goethals made certain estimates about the slope that would
be stable and they dug the hole. What they didn't realize was that it wasn't stable. The
rock wasn't strong enough. Once they had dug the hole, they really had ruined it.
To try to illustrate, let's say they used a slope of one vertical on two horizontal.
Perhaps a stable slope would have been one vertical on six horizontal. Once it had
failed, the stable slope was one vertical on twenty horizontal. Once you dug it too steep
and it failed, the soil would have lost its structure. Then it would take a very, very flat
slope in order to get stability.
Take this over to the nuclear situation. When the explosion went off, you weren't going
to control the slope. It was going to make an initial hole based on the geometry of the
emplacement. The issue was, depending upon the material, would this slope be stable,
or would it collapse and the material in the lip all slide back into the hole? If it did, then
the whole theory of nuclear excavation would have been vitiated because the theory
was that you would use the force of the explosion to remove the dirt.
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