Staff proved to be exceedingly helpful in the administration of the Operation. Important policy matters were processed through that oRice with the utmost speed. At the outset it was considered advisable to keep the Task Force small in personnel and material and to function without fanfare. The time permitted the Task Force Commander and Staff to plan and carry out the tests in the spring of 1948 precluded accomplishment of the mission with fewer personnel and ships than were used. Had a full year been allowed for the preparation for and carrying out of the mission, it could have been accomplished with a material saving in the personnel, materiel and shipping required for Sandstone with the resultant saving in money cost. During the fall and winter of 1947-48, important international negotiations, both in the Security Council of the United Nations and in the Four-Power Foreign Ministers’ Conference in London, were in progress. Public release of information that the United States was conducting firing tests of new atomic weapons could have had deleterious effects if misinterpreted. Operation Sandstone therefore had to be developed under a cloak of security, which imposed additional difficulties that would not normally have been encountered. As to the selection of the test site in Trust Territory, it was confirmed by the State Department that the terms of the Trusteeship Agreement would permit the tests to be conducted at Eniwetok without violation of the agreement, but that proper notification must be made to the Security Council of the LTnited Nations as to the decision to declare Eniwetok Atoll and the territorial waters thereof a “closed area.” Since delivery of this notification would nullify, to all practical purpoies, the “Top Secret” classification on the existence of the Task Force, a press release was made on 1 December 1947 which resulted in greatly simplified operations due to the lowered classification assigned the project thereafter. The decision to make the press release was hastened by clandestine information as to the project which was already in the hands of the press. Two other press releases were made later in December. Thereafter, it was considered that no further release was necessary or desirable, except for the possibility of some unforeseen emergency. This policy on the release of public information proved sound and was condoned by the press. Declaration of a danger area (150 x 200 nautical miles) around the atoll was a unilateral action on the part of the United States, and due notification to foreign powers was made accordingly. This action gave the Task Force Commander a legitimate reason to warn foreign vessels away from the atoll in case of a close approach to the closed area, and was therefore an aid to enforcement of the necessary security restrictions. Since considerations of national security warranted the exercise of extraordinary precautions to deny information of the tests to agents of a foreign power, The Commander, Joint Task Force Seven, sought authority from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to take steps to warn submerged submarines found in the danger area by dropping depth charges, not aimed to hit, but accepting the risk of a possible hit. This authority was granted and augmented to the extent that if submerged submarines failed to respond to warnings, during actual test periods, depth charges might be dropped closer aboard to intensify the warning. Fortunately, occasion to take such steps did not materialize. Although it is considered certain that submarines were in the “danger area” during the preparatory period, contact v