Here is a interesting letter from
Col. William F. Hutchinson, then
It begins by
19 May 1960.
Commander of JTF-7 to Col. Thomas L. Mann oneT
C VY
stating, "Gen..Harrison has notified you of your selection for assignment
as the Commander of JIF-7.
I'm sure that you find this somewhat puzzling;
. however, be assured that this is a highly desirable assignment upon which
you are to be congratulated."
Hutchinson goes on to explain the low
activity level of the Task Force at this time and the changes in the JTF
that are foreseen and that will take place certainly if there is an operation.
The reply came from Col. Mann shortly, who was located in Iran at the time,
he did state that, "I am quite puzzled and am looking forward to the
assignment with anticipation mixed with quite a bit of reservation."
Col. Mann actually took command of JTF-7 on 3 Aug. 1960.
In a 19 May reply, Harold Brown of LRL makes the following points concerning
the impact“of Thé seismic program on the present state of readiness at NTS
“The seismic improvement program should be carried out at NTS with the feast
possible interference with our present state of weapons testing readiness.
The proposed program, including the 50 kt in E07 and the {.2 kt in E03,
wipes out three of the four sites of the readiness program. In addition the
HE shot will very probably make the B tunnel unavaileble for a period of six
months to a year. The result of the seismic program, if carried out, would
then be that we would be unable to meet the readiness schedule previously
given in a 9 February 1960 TWX from Starbird to Teller.
In case the international situation were to lead at some future time to a decision to resume
underground testing, there would then be a delay of three to six months
beyond the 40 to 60-day readiness which we hed previously planned.
‘We con-
sider this very undesirable.
tf the high explosive shot is so important
that it must be fired at the first available site to reduce its fead time
from 8 months to 6 months, B tunnel can be used.
In any case the two possible
Sites In the E tunne! for the 50 kt and the 1.2 kt shots should be obtained
by additional tunneling funded from the seismic improvement program, as
would be the case for experiments at locations other than NTS.
We would Jike
to point out that delaying the 5 kt high explosive shot by 2 months tn order
to build a new tunnel access for it will not delay carrying out the five kt
nuclear shot in the B tunnel.
We will in fhe near future make a proposal
for additional work to put NTS into the same state of readiness capabiiity
which we have previously proposed; the details of such proposal
will cdviously
have to await firm and final arrangements for the scismic program."
L/