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January 29, 1953

Collison seems to be a competent man but suffers from the lack of
experience. He is one of the military three-year graduates of the
nuclear physics course but apparently has had limited experience in
radiological safety during weapons tests. I believe the meeting was
somewhat of an eye-opener for him in respect to the many varied
preblems associated with operating the RadSafe unit at NPG.

Radiological safety for Desert Rock troups will be handled as an

independent activity under the leadership of a Major Cook who will be
stationed permanently at Desert Rock. They will even process their
own film badges separately in a trailer truck (Hartgering indicated
to me informally that he understood the DOD had approved a 10-roentgen

dose for military participants during UPSHOT-KNOTHOLE).

One of their big problems is manpower. They will just be able to
meet their requirements for UPSHOT-KNOTHOLE, In this connection
there was some discussion about the Military's continuing to operate
RadSafe on a permanent basis. Again, the problem hinges on their
ability to meet future personnel demands.
Collison is planning to have about twelve two-men teams for off-site
monitoring. Hartgering and Lulejian strongly recommended that this
number be increased to provide adequate coverage of such a large area.
Since this off-site monitoring directly affects AEC and its public
relations, I seconded this recommendation.
All of the necessary instruments are not on hand; specifically, there

is a shortage of GM meters and 0-5 r personnel dosimeters.

The latter

coulda be borrowed from Los Alamos but Collison indicated a reluctance
to do so. At this point Collison expressed some fears as to the role
that Los Alamos might play in their relations with the operations of
the RadSafe unit. Specifically, he did not wish tec be placed in the
position of having his organization "inspected" by members of H-Division.
The group as a whole, however, did not feel that Collison needed to worry
about this relationship.
AFSWP is still quite unhappy about the organization of the off-site
monitoring which will be under William Johnson of Los Alamos, They feel
that AEC has asked them to do a job (operate the RadSafe unit) and that
they should have a completely free hand in meeting their responsibilities
so long as the information required by AEC was obtained to the latter's
satisfaction. I think I am expressing adequately their opinion by
stating that they would prefer to do the whole RadSafe job, including
the off-site monitoring. This is in contradiction somewhat to their admitted problem of finding a sufficient number of personnel to carry on
the RadSafe operations other than off-site monitoring. They are not in

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