Engineer Memoirs
dangerous, the physics is such that the reaction slows down. Of course, this is not
always true, and loss of coolant can have serious consequences. At Browns Ferry they
didn't really have any serious problems. But they did vent some radioactivity, and, of
course, they were trying to sort this out.
Up at headquarters the people that handled the emergency reporting botched it
completely. The people on duty did a very poor job. Top management got me into the
act. I have forgotten exactly how this came about, but Starbird, I think, got me
involved. The first thing I observed was that they had a committee that was trying to
run emergency responses. I said that wasn't it. We had to have a single individual
reporting directly to the administrator who was responsible for action. If management
wanted the advice of other people, they could get all the advice they wanted. But they
had to have a chain of command that went through individuals, and those individuals
had to be responsible for decisions.
They had had this emergency action coordinating committee--the EACC. I changed
that to the emergency action director.
Q:
A difference.
A:
I wrote a memorandum and Bob Seamans signed it, putting me in charge of all
emergency action in the Energy Research and Development Administration.
The reason they chose me over other program directors was, I guess, primarily because
the emergencies that most concerned them were any involving nuclear weapons. I
recommended, and they agreed, that the Director of Military Application had to be the
man in charge if there was any emergency--fire or the like--that would affect nuclear
weapons. I had then to try to get all the emergency apparatus organized, and I spent a
lot of time on it.
An amusing incident occurred not long after all this had been promulgated. I got a call
from the White House. President [Gerald R.] Ford wanted to hold a meeting on
Saturday morning to discuss the administration's position on a bill affecting private
involvement in the production of nuclear material. The issue was whether Oak Ridge
and the other production plants would go on being run as government entities, or
whether they would try to devolve some of this to private enterprise. Another issue that
was bound in with this was whether they would have private or government
development of waste disposal. The basic issue was whether you would have private
investment for this type of thing, or government.
However, Bob Seamans was on a sailboat, taking it from a harbor near Annapolis
[Maryland] up to New England. He was out in the middle of Chesapeake Bay.
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