411698
November 16, 1972
Major General Frank A. Canm, USA
Dre
Assistant General Manager for
Military Application
FURTHER BACKGROUND ON "THE QUARANTINE OF RUNIT AFFAIR"
On May 22 (local time) Roger Ray sent his recommendation for the
quarantine of Runit via teletype to the CG, SAMIEC, information
to the SAMIEC operating contractor on Eniwetok, MATSCO (a
department of GE), and the Manager, NV. This message was followed
up by a telephone call from Mr. Ray to General Low to provide
additional details. A copy of this message and a notation of the
phone call is on file at NV. The PACE Test Group Director on
Eniwetok, Mr. Bob Henny, was shown this recommendation by the
MATSCO man, at which point he sent a verbatim transcript of it
to Headquarters, DNA; FC, DNA; AWFL; and AFSC (Tab 1). Headquarters,
DNA, apparently not having any background on the recommendation, sent
a message (Tab 2) to Manager, NV, requesting further information on
_ Mr. Ray's recommendation. Tab 3 is the reply to this request and
relates in detail the events leading up to the recommendation to
quarantine Runit. These events extended over a period of at least
five days (May 17-22) from the discovery of suspicious particles
on Runit to the confirmation that the particles were plutonium.
During this period, the DNA representative (LTC Circeo--now
transferred from DNA) was in company with Mr. Ray and the problem
was discussed between them in detail. When the confirmation was
received that the suspicious particles contained plutonium, the
recommendation was prepared by Mr. Ray and coordinated with
LTC Circec. After receiving the recommendation, conducting his
own. investigation, and reading Tab 3, the CG, SAMTEC, quarantined
Runit (Tab 4). Tab 5 is our original paper on this and other
topics conceming Mr. Ray.
Comment:
It appears that during the five-day period, Wednesday,
May 17 to Monday, May 22, no contact was made by the DNA project
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