457
of “P” approvals. This was continued until 21
November 1955 when the AEC requested the
Contractor to discontinue processing Jobsite
applicants for “P” approval, and on 12 December, to discontinue processing these approvals for the Honolulu and Home Office employees.
A date limit of 15 February 1956, later changed
to 15 March 1956, was set after which the “P”
approval would not afford access to classified
information. Personnel then in process for ‘“P”
approval were resubmitted for processing of an
“L” or “Q” clearance as appropriate for each
case.
Cutoff dates after which personnel at the
Proving Ground would be required to be either
“Q” or “L” cleared were initially established as
1 January 1956. This date was first advanced
to 15 March 1956, and on 20 February 1956
was again advanced to 7 April 1956, with the
provision that GSR certified personnel could
be retained at Fred until 20 April 1956.
At a meeting held in Albuquerque on 19 and
20 December 1955, attended by security representatives of the Contractor and AEC, a decision was reached that personnel with GSR
certification could be transported to the Proving
Ground provided they could be cleared by the
cutoff date. (It was established that a reason-
able period for processing the “L” clearance
was 60 days and for the ‘“Q” clearance, 120
days.) It was also agreed at this meeting that
a request for both the “L” and “Q” clearances
could be made for certain individuals in order
to permit the required build-up of cleared personnel.
CHAPTER Ill, SECTION 7
Until the Spring of 1955 it had been the
practice to cancel an applicant’s “Q” clearance
if he had not been hired within 90 days after
granting the clearance. The “Q’”’ clearance was
also canceled on terminated employees who
were not rehired within 90 days. In March 1955,
an agreement was reached with the AEC Security representatives that in order to maintain
a pool of cleared personnel, H&N would discontinue canceling clearances until 1 January
1956 which, at that time, was contemplated as
the cutoff date. As the cutoff date had been
extended until 15 March and as personnel procurement was extremely critical, on 29 December, the Contractor obtained permission to maintain all “Q” and “L” clearances on an active
status until the new cutoff date. On 16 February 1956, the AEC directed the Contractor
to cancel all clearances granted (prior to 1 October 1955) to those individuals who had not
been hired and further, to terminate all clearances that had been granted and were not utilized within a 120-day period.
Initially, all security papers required to
obtain clearances were submitted to the AEC
Security Branch in Los Angeles for screening
and granting of clearance. On 15 June 1955,
AEC screening activities for clearances were
transferred to the Albuquerque Operations Office. One AEC representative remained in Los
Angeles to act in a liaison capacity and to
grant the GSR certification.
Pertinent statistics of the personnel clearance program are shown in the following table:
NON-CLEARED PERSONNEL
EMPLOYEES
AT PPG.
DATE
NUMBER
OF
GSR’S
NUMBER
OF PETER
APPROVED
1927
10 August
1955
90
21
1412
16 September 1955
41
13
1577
10 October
1955
32
30
1789
10 November
1955
53
29
1974
10 December
1955
67
42
2025
10 January
1956
57
45
2401
10 February
1956
144
44
2643
10 March
1956
87
16
2695
10 April
1956
26
2262
10 May
1956
0
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