start in October 1972; see Section 2.1.4) to conduct an engineering survey (reported in Section 2.1.3). They also recognized that at some point there would be a requirement for some agency external to the AEC and perhaps external to the United States Governmentto be satisfied as to the cleanup standards. (As reported in Section 2.1.5, the AEC Task Group was assembled to formulate recommendations and much later, the so-called Bair Committee was convened to review cleanup standards as reported in Section 2.2). The August 1972, meeting was not without controversy. At issue was the concept of conducting several tasks concurrently versus staging the same operations sequentially such that one task could be completed and evaluated prior to starting the next task. The first proposal envisioned cleanup of one island, survey of another and perhaps even rehabilitation of a third to be occurring simultaneously. The opposing view held that it would be necessary to complete the radiological evaluation and the biological/food chain evaluation before cleanup criteria could be established for any island. There was considerable discussion at this time of the possibility that the food chain problem could be serious enough to make it impractical to repopulate any part of the Enewetak Atoll. In the opinion of an AEC/HQ representative, it was therefore considered undesirable to undertake cleanup actions before the food chain question was resolved. The Enewetak Cleanup Project was conducted as a series of concurrent tasks between July 1977, and September 1979. The food chain question was not completely resolved before cleanup started, but work toward this resolution was initiated, as reported in Section 2.1.7, continued during cleanup, as discussed in Section 6.11, and may not be finally resolved until some time after trees planted in 1979 bear fruit (about 1986). (Continued evaluation of radionuclide uptake by coconut trees at Bikini could reduce the time required to resolve the food chain question.) As mentioned above, the 17 August 1972 meeting produced several agreements in principle. The topics of these agreements were discussed further at an interagency meeting held on 7 September 1972. Additional meetings were held during the fall of 1972 to clarify and resolve several remaining points of uncertainty. Details of these agreements and remaining questions will be omitted, but the most important points will be summarized to lead off the discussions of Section 2.2. In the letter of 8 June 1972 quoted previously, it is strongly suggested that a single manager be established at the Washington level to manage all future U.S. actions pertaining to Enewetak. This suggestion was endorsed at the August and September interagency meetings and in part implemented by a memorandum dated 14 November 1972 from the Secretary of Defense to the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The memorandum requested the JCS to designate the Director, DNA, as the DOD Project Manager for matters concerning the Enewetak Cleanup. Being a single agency memorandum, however, this directive fell far short of placing "all U.S. action, pertaining to Eniwetok" under a single manager. As will be seen later, funding and policy direction eame from three separate departmental sources in Washington. Nevertheless, during the actual cleanup phase under the leadership of the Director, DNA, a single integrated program did evolve. The 14 November memorandum provided the following guidance to the DOD Project Manager: "1, The Clean Up Phase is limited to the removal of vegetative overgrowth, debris, and structures or materials residual from the use of the atoll by the DOD, which could pose radiation or other hazards to inhabitants, interfere with their reasonable use of the atoll, or preclude safe, continuous habitation. "2. The AEC, in coordination with the other appropriate government agencies, has agreed to establish radiological criteria for the program to return Eniwetok to the TTPI, and will provide technical support to the DOD Project Manager during the clean up phase. "3. The handling and removal of contaminated material will be conducted such that radiological exposure to clean up personnel will be within acceptable standards as interpreted by the AEC. "4. The composition of the actual clean up work force may consist of contractor-provided personnel, DOD personnel, native labor (except for the handling, collecting or removal of contaminated material), or a combination of these. 35