Word: plutonium
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...time the chemist slips out of the bear hug, the U.S. Army, Navy and FBI are hunting him down like a lost gram of plutonium. Faced with Government control on either side of the political divide, the chemist surrenders to Big Business, and safe in a gilded cage, with a gorgeous chickadee to keep him company, he settles back to watch his pill take effect...
...press conference the Atomic Energy Commission confirmed tacitly the disparaging remarks about the H-bomb by former AECommissioner Robert Bacher (TIME, May 15). Bacher had pointed out that hydrogen bombs could not be made without consuming neutrons (from U-235) which might be used more profitably for making plutonium. When questioned about Bacher, Commissioner Henry DeWolf Smyth remarked significantly: "He is a fairly competent man in this field." This is as close as AEC ever comes to giving a straight opinion on a matter of military import...
This information was said to have come from unidentified "officials." Whether official or not, the news was very likely true, to some extent at least. The heart of an atomic bomb is its fissionable material-something like 25 lbs. of plutonium or U-235. The rest might be largely eliminated by improved design...
Richland, a complete new town of 24,000, had sprung up on the desert at Washington's Hanford plutonium works, and two others-Kennewick and Pasco-had been virtually reborn as a result. Years of steady construction had ringed and dotted Seattle (pop. 525,000), Spokane (pop. 180,000), Portland (pop. 436,000) and dozens of other smaller towns with new stores, factories, and miles of freshly painted houses. The poorest of the houses boasted green lawns and flowers...
...nucleus. Tritium must be made in a chain-reacting pile by a reaction that costs one free neutron for every atom of tritium produced. There are plenty of free neutrons in a pile, but they originate in fissioning atoms of uranium-235 and are normally used to form plutonium (for atom bombs) out of nonfissionable U-238. Each neutron that is used to form an atom of tritium means less plutonium in the AEC's stockpile. "The diversion of neutrons from the manufacture of plutonium to make tritium," says Dr. Bacher, "would mean a real sacrifice of potential atomic...