Meeting #1390, 17 July 58:

rt ee

This was John McCones! first meeting as AEC chairman,

having been

swornin by the President on 14 July.
A lengthy discussion followed on the advisability of cancelling the
Pinon shot including international observers.

McCone had been at a

meeting of the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB, including Representatives
of the Department of State, CIA, and USIA, all of whom had been opposed
to the AEC proposal to cancel the shot following the Presidents' announced
invitation to foreign countries to send representatives,

This was all tied

to a shot that was to demonstrate the US's ability to develop a clean weapon.
The responses

from foreign nations to date were: accepting the invitation

were Sweden, Brazil, Canada, Belgium, Australia, and France;

declining the invitation were the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia; no replies
‘as yet from

Japan, Mexico and Argentina.

McCone had informed the OCB

that he would bring up the question again with the AEC, and he noted that

the OCB was disturbed to a certain degree because they felt that they hadn't
gotten all of the real reasons for the desire to cancel from the AEC in the
proposal,

Discussion revealed that Ludeke, Commander of JTF7, had said

that the task to prepare for such an observed shot would require an additional
2 to 3 weeks to carry out.

Following discussion, the Commission changed

their position and agreed that the shot should be held as originally planned
and requested that the test be accelerated.

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