Word: aec
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...takes her to one of her two offices-"usually I, or at least my secretary, know the night before which one it will be." One office is at Commission headquarters in Germantown, where the 2000 members of the Washington staff carry out the daily business of the AEC; at the other, in the center of town, she and the other Commissioners confer with members of Congress and coordinate the AEC's activities with those of the rest of the government...
Since it is the mammoth task of the AEC to administer $3 billion worth of contracts with private businesses and universities, these conferences with Congressmen are quite frequent. Proposed contracts or old ones up for renewal invariably benefit or ignore various local interests, any one of which is likely to be near to the heart of some legislator. In addition to their individual duties, the five appointed Commissioners meet "as often as necessary and sometimes every day" to deal with questions of general policy...
Until recently, Mrs. Bunting explains, the primary concern of the AEC has been to control and consolidate the use of atomic energy, and this concern has been reflected in the occupations of the Commissioners. Her appointment indicates that the AEC is turning its attention to the biological effects of the use of atomic energy as well...
...neat theory was destroyed when the AEC announced a preliminary analysis. That report indicated that the Chinese test used "a fission device employing U-235." Unless the Russians in friendlier years got the Lop Nor bomb work started with a goodly amount of U-235, the Chinese must somehow have scraped up the electricity to make the stuff, or less likely, invented a new and better process...
Implosion. Another nugget of information in the AEC report was word that the Chinese depended on an implosion (inward-striking detonation) of chemicals to compress their U-235 and make it fission. Such a device is more effective than shooting two chunks of fissionable material toward each other in an apparatus like a gun barrel, as was done in the U.S. bomb exploded over Hiroshima. The U.S. also used the implosion method in its earliest nuclear weapons. Although a surprising number of commentators assumed that use of implosion showed advanced skill by the Chinese, the AEC did not agree...