nna
Completed Physical Plant

7,

1947

1950

— 1953

$41, 000, 000

$174, 154, 760

$471, 415, 104

DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORGANIZATIONAL PLAN FOR
WEAPONS OPERATIONS

Relieving LASL of Inert Development, Production,and Other Functions

In 1947, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory was the developer, tester, and producer of
atomic weapons with a very small total of inert component assembly being performed atits
Sandia Branch, Los Alamos was then performing a considerable total of management functions, all technical functions, nearly all production functions, field testing, and was providing both quality assurance and stockpile surveillance.
An immediate objective was to stabilize and strengthen the Los Alamosactivity, in
part by relieving Los Alamosof all possible functions not associated directly with its essential mission of explosive system research and development. By mid-1953, this objective had
been almost entirely accomplished, with transfers of responsibility as follows;
For nuclear component fabrication and assembly, to a complex of other

AEC and SFO installations centering in Rocky Flats plant.

bow

For high explosives fabrication and assembly, to other SFO plants,

For detonator fabrication, being transferred to a military arsenal,
For inert component research, development, testing, fabrication and
assembly, to SFO and an industrial complex centering in Sandia Laboratory,
For stockpile surveillance, to Sandia Laboratory under LASL standards.
For some phases of test responsibilities, to Sandia, SFOO and others.
By mid-1952, plans had been completed for a sound nuclear component organization
centering in Los Alamos as the developmental laboratory and in Rocky Flats as the pro-

duction agency. These plans were activated as Rocky Flats became operational, Developed
to meet implosion-type requirements, the organization could serve equally for gun-type
and thermonuclear-type components.

SeparatingInert Component Development from Production

ALvO

It was obvious in late 1951 that other, non-nuclear implosion-type operations were not
as well-planned. Sandia Laboratory was’in much the same position as LASL had been a few
years earlier, being so heavily loaded with production and production-related responsi- bilities that it could not concentrate on research and development, Los Alamos wasstill
spending too much time on supervision and inspection of high explosives production. The
most simplified chart of the production organization was a very complex mazeoflines.

DOLFARD

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