SFO activity encompasses both programs, and through assignments to the SFOO Information Division extends further to sub-programs such as internal information and special
projects. Responsibility for staff supervision and for the essential SFOO-level operations
are divided between the Director, Information Division, SFOO, and the Assistant Director, -

.

LASL, serving essentially as Technical Information Officer for SFOO, Both programs are
supported by added duty personnel in field offices and contractor organizations, and by

technical or other information personnel in the two weapons laboratories.

The Technical Information Program
This is almost exclusively a contractor activity and one which is presently conducted
almost entirely by Los Alamos and Sandia laboratories. Primarily because of its close relationship with declassification procedures, the staff supervision function is performed by
LASL's Assistant Director. SFOO Information Division is responsible only for maintaining
a degree of awareness of the activity.
Classified Information -- There is a large volume of classified scientific and technical
papers and of reports which are distributed throughout the AEC and to some extent to DOD,
FCDA, U. S. Weather Bureau, U. S. Public Health Service, etc.

The service provided

includes: Preparation, coordination and review, and dissemination; and provision of li-

brary, document control, and bibliographical services.

-

Within the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory there has been an increased effort to
put more of its reports into a form so that they will not contain critical weapon data and
mayBe distributed more widely through the AEC classified projects. Title lists of the reports are included with the Laboratory Monthly Report and receive substantial distribution
directly to several Armed Forces headquarters. There has been established in LASL a
Weapons Test Report Office as a service group for continental and overseas test organizations to provide centralized, expeditious, and uniform handling of weapon test reports. Before this was done, each Joint Task Force had set up a group for handling the reports of its
individual operation. Arrangements have been made with the Oak Ridge Extension of Divi-

[

sion of Information Services for routine editorial and reproduction services, thus removing
the load of reproduction from various field groups and reducing the cost of reproduction of

reports through the Government Printing Office.

This was accomplished when the workload

of the National Nuclear Energy Series was removed from the Oak Ridge extension.

understood that this avoided the disbanding of an effective organization.

It is

About 275 weapons

test reports were issued prior to mid-1953.,
Sandia Laboratory distributes its reports to a substantial extent within the Department

of Defense, such dissemination being facilitated by the close liaison between Sandia and

wt

Field Command, AFSWP. The technical reports published by Sandia Corporation cover
two broad areas of activity which are conveniently separated into reports covering the development of new weapons, and reports, more properly called manuals, covering storage
and use of stockpile weapons.
A} Ga

tales od
Development reports are prepared by the design groups. There is a series of reports
for each development program, The series begins normally with a feasibility study report,
which is followed in a normal program by a proposed ordnance characteristic report. The

~
x

series includes a number of design status reports, culminating in a report entitled "Design

Status at Design Release."'

The final development report is a weapon evaluation report,

normally published some months after design release and late enough in the development
program to permit a complete evaluation of the weapon's performance and capabilities.

116
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