1, RESPONSIBILITY FOR U. S, NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAMS The Atomic Energy Commission is responsiblefor developing atomic weapons of requisite yield, variety, practical u‘ility, and deliverability, and for manufacturing and putting into storage or delivering to the Armed Forses atomic weapons of the types and numbers specified in schedules established by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. For the development of new and improved nuclear weapons, the Nation depends on the ingenuity of the scientists in its contract laboratories at Los Alamos and Albuquerque, New Mexico, and at Livermore, California, assisted by military scientists who contribute ideas and developmental concepts, The Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory and the University of California Radiation Laboratory at Livermore (both operated for the Commission by the University of California) are concerned primarily with devising systems whereby atomic explosives may be fitted into militarily useful systems, After such a system has been devised, it still must be fitted into an efficient and practical atomic weapon, The job of building the explosive system into a practical weapon is the primary concern of the Sandia Laboratory (operated for the Commission by Sandia Corporation, a unit of the Bell System.) The Armed Forces are cesponsible for establishing the criteria for atomic weapons, for developing and producing the vehicles for delivery and mating the vehicles with the weapons, for training men in their employment, and for military defense against nuclear attack, The major point of field coordination of the Armed Forces! programs with the AEC's weapons laboratories is in Field Command, Armed Forces Special Weapons Project, Sandia Base, Albuquerque. The Federal Civil Defense Administration is responsible primarily for determining the possible effects of nuclear attack on the civilian pepulation, and of marshalling civilian resources for defense against such an attack. Z bot i . ty Sols t ro The pesponsibilities of all these agencies are interconnected, and all depend upon knowledge of atomic explosive phenomena and of the effects of nuclear detonations, Field tests are fired to obtain this vital knowledge, 5