Interview with Fred Ray Huckabee, January 21, 2005

Nevada Test Site Oral History Project University of Nevada, Las Vegas Interview with Fred Huckabee January 21, 2005 Las Vegas, Nevada Interview Conducted By Joan Leavitt © 2007 by UNLV Libraries Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews conducted by an interviewer/ researcher with an interviewee/ narrator who possesses firsthand knowledge of historically significant events. The goal is to create an archive which adds relevant material to the existing historical record. Oral history recordings and transcripts are primary source material and do not represent the final, verified, or complete narrative of the events under discussion. Rather, oral history is a spoken remembrance or dialogue, reflecting the interviewee’s memories, points of view and personal opinions about events in response to the interviewer’s specific questions. Oral history interviews document each interviewee’s personal engagement with the history in question. They are unique records, reflecting the particular meaning the interviewee draws from her/ his individual life experience. Produced by: The Nevada Test Site Oral History Project Departments of History and Sociology University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 89154- 5020 Director and Editor Mary Palevsky Principal Investigators Robert Futrell, Dept. of Sociology Andrew Kirk, Dept. of History The material in the Nevada Test Site Oral History Project archive is based upon work supported by the U. S. Dept. of Energy under award number DEFG52- 03NV99203 and the U. S. Dept. of Education under award number P116Z040093. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in these recordings and transcripts are those of project participants— oral history interviewees and/ or oral history interviewers— and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U. S. Department of Energy or the U. S. Department of Education. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 1 Interview with Fred Huckabee January 21, 2005 Conducted by Joan Leavitt Table of Contents Introduction: story about hurting his foot during equipment loading at Semipalatinsk test site, USSR 1 Details offloading and loading of drilling equipment at Semipalatinsk 2 Talks about reaction of USAF C- 5A pilots and crews flying drilling equipment into USSR 3 Discusses initial visit of 20- man U. S. delegation to Semipalatinsk ( January 1988) 6 Visit of 20- man U. S. delegation to Moscow, USSR 10 Discussions with Soviet technicians in Geneva, Switzerland re: setting up test protocols, including drilling the satellite hole at Semipalatinsk 11 Talks about career with REECo and ERDA, and the evolution of drilling at the NTS 16 Talks about U. S. and USSR re: drilling techniques, “ Americanization” of USSR after the JVE, visit to McDonald’s in Moscow 17 Visit to Moscow: buying a Russian fur hat, shopping in Soviet stores, riding on the subway 22 Descriptions of Semipalatinsk ( city) and Moscow: river travel, architecture 26 Importance of drilling and other expertise to the test effort 29 Growth of organization and advancement of drilling techniques at the NTS 30 Conclusion: talks about the U. S. crew, work schedule, and drilling techniques at Semipalatinsk during JVE 32 UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 1 Interview with Fred Huckabee January 21, 2005 in Las Vegas, NV Conducted by Joan Leavitt [ 00: 00: 00] Begin Track 2, Disc 1. Fred Huckabee: Like I say, I going to be repetition, as far as I know, because I can’t— maybe something will jump up. Joan Leavitt: OK. Well, maybe we could start with the story of how you hurt your foot. I really didn’t hurt it. I just don’t understand what she was talking about, hurting my foot. What Frances [ Guinn] is talking about. Yeah. I can’t think of anything, when the Russians was over here at our [ Nevada] test site, of me hurting my foot in any way. But over at Semipalatinsk, when the C- 5A aircraft was coming in— while we was loading the equipment on their trucks, to take to their test site— they loaded this semi- trailer of drill pipe, drill stems, that weighed fifty, sixty thousand pounds, probably; when it was on the truck, on this one truck, I seen a rope hanging down on the back tandems of the semi. Then everything was stationary, there wasn’t anything moving, so I was going to reach under the bed of that semi and get that rope and throw it back up where it wouldn’t get fouled up. And I stuck my right foot— I was up under, you know, about even with the tire, the back tires on that dual, and the guy pulled— they waved it on, you know, and he started up. And I grabbed that rope and about the time I grabbed the rope and threw it, well, he drove off. And those big tires and everything just run over my foot. And I had my steel- toed shoes on. And the tire wasn’t far enough up to my ankle or where my leg started up, you know, and it went mostly— it took all the pressure on my steel- toed shoe. And two or three of the interpreters was there. The interpreters we had were all women out of Washington, D. C. And they said, Oh, my gosh! And so I just— when the truck rolled over, when the tire went on over, like I say, it was probably fifty thousand UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 2 pounds or something from the pressure of those tires when it rolled over my foot. They said, Are you hurt? Are you hurt? And I said, I don’t think so. Can’t feel anything. And so about fifteen minutes I said, Well, I still can’t feel anything like it’s hurting or anything. So I went over and sat down and took off my hard- toed shoes to see if it had mashed it down or if it had cut over or whatever it had done. Wasn’t anything wrong. So it didn’t hurt. Wow! That shows how much of a protection those steel- toed boots are. Oh, those safety shoes, they take a lot of force. Saves your toes and everything. Yeah. Well, it sounds like the interpreters either hadn’t seen anything like that before or— Well, they just thought I’d really mashed my foot when they seen that tire on that back tandem just roll over my foot. And I just had to stand there until it went over it because it was on top of it, you know. They said, Are you hurt? And I said, No, I don’t think so. I don’t feel anything. Might’ve made it all numb. It might’ve just squashed it. So I walked around there a little bit and I said, I believe I’ll just take my shoe off and see if it didn’t mash it and it’s bleeding in there or whatever. So it doesn’t sound like you ever had to check out the Soviet medical system, then. Oh no. No. Well, when those aircraft were coming in, we had some— I forgot what they were called, but they come with the aircraft. We could not go in the C- 5 aircraft until they got it unloaded and then we started loading the equipment on the trucks. And they had their own machinery and everything with the aircraft. And there was about nine guys, and I forgot what they called them, but they go around with the— they’re transferred— I think at that time there was ten C- 5A aircraft with the Air Force. It was all we had. Wow! That’s how many who came over? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 3 No, no, there’s five that come over to us, but overall the Air Force just had ten. And when there was big loads of equipment or whatever they were hauling, they would just go all over the United States as called. And each one of those aircraft working for us, for the DOE [ Department of Energy] to get that equipment over there, it was a million dollars that we had to [ 00: 05: 00] pay the Air Force for each one of the aircraft that brought the equipment over, and there was five aircraft, so it cost five million dollars to get the equipment over there, for the aircraft, that we had to pay the Air Force. Well, no wonder they didn’t want to use C- 5s to ship it back that same way. Oh yeah, yeah, we shipped it back by ship. But I forgot what that crew was called. They didn’t stay right with the pilots in that one C- 5A aircraft. They were moved around to different sections for where they were hauling. And these were military people who did this unloading. Oh yes, they was military. So anyway, there was what we call “ drill collars” come in on a load with some other equipment, and these drill collars were thirty foot long and all steel except the little hole in the center for the fluid and stuff to go through when you’re drilling. But it was all steel and they were eight inches in diameter and each one of them weighed about eight thousand or nine thousand pounds of those drill collars. So the Air Force crew, well, they got them off the aircraft— we had some seals, what we call them, boards for them to set it on where another forklift could get under it and pick them up. You’ve seen how a forklift picks things up, so there has to be a little vacancy for the forks to get under there to pick things. So these four- by- four pieces of wood— their little forklift they had that come with the aircraft, they’d pick up one or two of those drill collars and then roll it onto these four- by- four seals so we and the Russians UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 4 could pick it up and put it on the trucks and everything. And those guys didn’t understand heavy equipment and oil field- type drilling equipment— The Russians? You’re talking about the Russians? No. No, the Air Force guys. The Air Force guys didn’t. So they had three drill collars on this Air Force forklift from the C- 5A and they went over to where we had the seals set up for them to roll them off of their forks on the forklift, roll them onto that timber. And so they rolled it off, and those timbers was about fifteen foot long or sixteen foot long so they— Now are timbers pipes, again? No, no, the timber is the four- by- four seals, four- by- four pieces of wood. And so they rolled those three drill collars off and they started rolling, so one of the Air Force guys run down to the other end— Oh, to try to stop it? — so it wouldn’t go off of the— Oh no! — so it wouldn’t go off of the four- by- fours, you know. And he just stuck his foot on the end of the four- by- four to stop it with his foot. He just put it crossways on that seal. And those drill collars was rolling on. Like I say, they weighed eight or nine thousand pounds apiece. And so when they rolled into his foot, well, they broke his ankle. They just kept going and hell, his foot wasn’t going to stop that, you know. So we had to get the Russians to get their medical people down and everything, and they took him to their hospital and fixed his foot up, put a cast on it and everything. Then they stayed overnight at the Irtysh Hotel. And when the next C- 5A aircraft UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 5 comes in, they had to stay overnight and there was another crew that has to fly the plane out because it’s too long for them to fly at one time. So they had to stay overnight. The next C- 5A that come in the next morning, well, they boarded them all up, plus the pilots, and took that C- 5A out, and the crew that come in with the plane that brought the equipment, well, they stayed overnight till the next one come in, you know. [ Recording paused to answer door] [ 00: 09: 20] End Track 2, Disc 1. [ 00: 00: 00] Begin Track 3, Disc 1. So I guess we finished the story on that. We finished the story on the C- 5 pilots. Now I’m curious because Nick [ Aquilina] had said when he told these pilots where they were going, it was a real shock to them. Did you get to talk to any of these crewmembers about how they felt about doing this C- 5 job, flying in? Oh yeah. At night, all the pilots and the crew on the plane that unloaded the equipment off the C- 5A, well, we’d all just talk and get in our rooms and everything and talk to them at night when we were just hanging around until the next morning. And it was exciting to them. They just couldn’t understand all of it. And they never had hauled anything on the C- 5A of a drill rig and the equipment, you know. And they said, We just can’t figure this out with all this equipment. They said, When you get that all together, can you send us a picture of what it looks like when it’s all assembled? And so one of our H& N [ Holmes and Narver] guys took a picture and sent it to them. He got their address and sent it to them. But they were really thrilled with it. Yeah, we had to— they had to send a Russian navigator to Helsinki [ Finland], and the C- 5A left Indian Springs [ Nevada] and made its route and finally landed at Helsinki and stayed overnight. And the Russian navigator would come to Helsinki and board the UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 6 plane with the American navigator, so when they got into Russian territory, they wouldn’t be shot down. That navigator would be on board, telling them what route to take and everything. So it was pretty amazing the way all that was put together. They probably knew that this was unheard of. They probably never would’ve dreamed that they would’ve flown into Soviet airspace like that. Oh no. Because if you did that, you got shot down. That’s right. You want us to do what, and take this where? And what is this stuff you taking? Did they get all that much in the way of explanations? Oh yeah, the drill crew, every time a plane would leave Indian Springs, there would be one of the drill crew that worked on the drill rigs that would board the plane and go over with the equipment, so they was in discussion on the way and probably different things was told to them. But they were explained some things in Helsinki, also. Well, tell me what you remember about the Soviets’ reaction to your drill equipment and some of the— Well, when we went over with the twenty- man delegation to look at their test site and talk about the verification program and how things would be done— what things they had, [ what] we might have to bring and everything, [ what] we couldn��t use over there— they set up a little compound out in the forward area of their down hole equipment to go down with the device and different trucks and different types of little cranes, which was all smaller stuff than we were used to because all of our stuff was more gigantic, weighed a lot more. Their biggest hole was a thirty- six- inch hole that they set their device off in, and ours was up to 120 inches, you know. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 7 Wow! Thirty- six is what you guys started with, though, wasn’t it? So they had never grown like you had. Oh no, no, they hadn’t grown into different sizes of holes. Thirty- six inches was their big hole, and that’s what they set their devices in. And so they set everything up, and then we looked at their equipment and they toured us around, showing us the different things, and took us to a drill rig. It was, like I say, when we was over there, it was thirty below [ zero] and they didn’t drill in the wintertime. Their drill rig was shut down, but it was set up over a hole where they had been drilling, and they just shut it down because it was too cold. And so they took us by one of the drill rigs and showed us one of their drill rigs and their equipment like it was set [ 00: 05: 00] up. And during that process, it was about thirty- five miles, kind of about the same the way it is at the test site out to our forward area from Mercury, same way in Semipalatinsk at their test site. They had a main complex and then on out about thirty- five miles, well, they had their testing area. So we had one or two meetings in the main complex of Semipalatinsk where they housed us; and we ate and had different meetings there. Then they took us out to the site to show us all this different equipment they had and where we would be staying when our personnel went over there, in this two- story- type military barracks- looking thing. And then we just went out in the middle of nowhere in their testing area where they had done drilling around and shot devices off and they had a big old military tent. It was probably thirty by forty or something, and it had double doors in the tent where you come in, and it was cold; and then there was another set of borders or tent structures where you come into the little anteroom. Then you had to go through on into the tent. And they had chairs in there and everything where they was going to give us a presentation on how they tested, the process they went through and what all they done and everything. And this is in January. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 8 Right, it was in January. Was it cold? Yeah, it was thirty below, and there we was in that tent, and it had a canvas floor on it. We wasn’t standing on the snow. It was a canvas floor on this big old tent. Heavy canvas tent. It was a military- type tent. And so they had seats in there and everything. And so our twenty- man delegation, we sat down, and up at the front, well, they had a little deal where they was going to give a presentation. Instead of using viewgraph machines, they didn’t have those, they had a clothesline- type of deal across the front of us, looking at them where they was giving their presentation, and they would clip their— Papers and graphs? — their paper on there, like a clothesline and everything— Oh! How interesting! — and slide it across. It wasn’t viewgraphs to show us on viewgraphs. And then they would talk off of those to us and the interpreter would interpret it to us. But they didn’t have viewgraphs and everything. So it became lunchtime. And so they shut down, and over on one side of the tent they had a bunch of tables set up and it had satin- type— not satin but what am I trying to say? Tablecloths. Real nice. Red tablecloths. Not velvet. What am I trying to say? Linen? No, it wasn’t linen. It was— Fancier. It was more fancy. And elegant. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 9 Yeah. And they had them all covered. And there was about five Jeeps come up and they’d brought lunch from thirty- five miles away in these Jeeps. There was about five girls. They brought all of that food into that tent, set it up for us to sit down at the table and eat. And it was silverware, it was sterling silverware and— China? Did they have china? It was china, had it all set out. They treated us pretty well. They thought they was doing a good thing. There we was, right in the middle of that testing area. And so that was exciting. Do you remember what you thought of their food, their cooking? I mean did you like it? Well, it was different, let me tell you that. If it was meat— most of their things was more of like a summer sausage, you know, the round summer sausage that you buy, that long? [ Indicating length] A lot more fattier and greasier. You said they served a lot of tongue. Oh yeah, a lot of tongue in our complex when they’d cook, they had a lot of tongue. And then [ 00: 10: 00] their milk, we wasn’t sure whether it was mare’s milk from a horse, a mare. Milk from a horse or milk from a goat, because we never did see any cows around there. But I liked all of it. It was different. It was different. And they thought they was— it was all real elegant and everything every time they fed us, and with the twenty- man delegation when we was there, we had two or three dinners at night, and like I told you before, they had a little bar set up in this room where we ate and everything. Now how long were you there for that initial—? Fourteen days. Two weeks! Oh, that was longer than they were— UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 10 Yeah, they was here about eight days or ten days or something like that. But we stayed in Moscow a couple of days where they took us on tours and took us into the Kremlin and went through their armory and where Ivan the Terrible, when he was a kid, lived in there. And then took us through the— I can’t think of what it is, outside in Red Square, that big church? The St. Basil? Yeah, St. Basil, we went through all of that and to Lenin’s tomb; then went inside the complex, and that’s where I was telling you about the liberty bell- type bell they had in there, all cracked, and it was ten feet or twelve feet tall, big bell, and had a crack in it. And then they had a lot of, I called them missions but it was their different church, their Orthodox- type churches— Kind of like monastery- type things? Yeah, they were inside the Kremlin, on the grounds inside. That used to be a fort, I guess, because you got to go over a little bridge with water that runs— what do they call that? Like a castle? The moat? Yeah, moat; it had a moat that you had to go across. And then it’s all red brick on the outside and I guess it’s forty foot high or something, all the way around that complex of the Kremlin. Then when you get on the inside, for the grounds and everything, is where they had these monasteries, and we’d go through all of them. And there’s one that had the gold domes on the top. Then we went inside the Kremlin, went into their armory. Now are the monasteries just public buildings now, or are they, you know, being used or—? No, I don’t think they’re being used. I can’t tell you that. I don’t know if they are or not. Because it seemed like at Semipalatinsk there was a monastery there, too, wasn’t there? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 11 Yeah, we went to three or four places during my three times I was over there, to different monasteries at different little cities. And they’re all over the country. Out by the University of Moscow, they’ve got seven or eight around the University of Moscow. And then we— Did your interpreters ever do any explaining about these monasteries or anything? Not really. Because that’s part of their history, I guess. I didn’t understand all of it but they would talk a little bit. They showed us where they had the Winter Olympics. It was pretty close to the University of Moscow. And they still had the ski slopes and everything that they’d ski off of, make their jumps and everything. Where they trained for the Winter Olympics back in the eighties sometime, ‘ 84 or ‘ 85 or ‘ 86. They had all of it still built up there right by the University of Moscow. And it was exciting. It was exciting. Now tell me about some of your experiences with some of the Soviet technicians, whether it’s at Semipalatinsk or whether it’s at Geneva; what your impressions of them were, maybe some of the experiences you had with them? Well, most of our experiences was just talking across the table as we was setting up these protocols and everything. And shaking hands every morning when we’d go into the meeting and then shake hands and then we’d go back to our mission. Every other day, well, we’d go to their mission once and then they would come to our mission. Now there were several working groups, I guess. Yes, there were about five or six groups putting these protocols together. And what was your group called? [ 00: 15: 00] I forgot what it was called. It was more on the scientific side of going down hole with the devices and the drilling activity. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 12 Now, there was a question I had. How large, because you were talking before that the Soviet holes were thirty- six inches. Right. How large was the satellite hole? How large did that need to be? Twelve- and- a- quarter. OK, so it didn’t need to be very large. No, it was twelve- and- a- quarter. The only thing the satellite hole was to be straight and plumb and thirty meters away from the ground zero hole so it could be straight and parallel with it. And all that went into that was diagnostic cabling for our type of verification when a device went off. When the device would go off, well, the fireball would blow these diagnostic cables in two and electronically they’d go up to a trailer park and it would say where the ball of fire went up and cut the cable, and it would give them an idea of how large the device was, whether it was a twenty- megaton or a ten- kiloton or whatever of difference. Now did they tell you what their concerns were about the Americans drilling the hole, if it would ruin their hole or what they were afraid would happen? No, no. Over in Geneva, when we were putting the protocol together, we said the Americans on our verification program had to have the satellite hole, and it had to be straight and plumb and thirty meters away from the ground zero hole. And during those discussions, they said— we had gyro- type equipment that we used to keep our holes straight. We could change configurations of the drilling equipment with different equipment to keep the hole straight with a gyro in it and everything, and it would take pictures to see where we was at every sixty feet or something and see that we wasn’t getting off the course of staying plumb and straight. And they said, We haven’t got that expertise. That’s where the discussion went in, Well, you probably UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 13 need to bring your U. S. equipment over to drill the hole. And then in the process, that being determined we was going to do it, I had told you that they tried one on their own and General [ Arkadii D.] Il’enko had them to drill one, saying they could probably do it, but then in Geneva— Now did they just try once, or did they try more than once? No, one time. Just one time. One time. They had one hole and it wasn’t equivalent, so they cemented that one off while we were drilling the other hole to be used. And in Geneva, we would meet on Saturdays or Sundays. We usually didn’t work at the missions or work; we was on our own, you know. And we’d see them in a park when we was walking, or around Geneva, with them in a group and us in a group, and we’d stop and talk if we had an interpreter or something, shake hands, say hello and everything, but not too many discussions of various things. Were you surprised at how willing they were to work together? Wasn’t this quite a cultural shock? Oh yes, it was. They’re very smart people, I’ll tell you that. But you could always tell that they wasn’t sure that we were telling the truth as we were making the— Kind of suspicious? They was suspicious and everything. And we was probably as suspicious— Yeah, that was my next question. Do you think the Americans were as suspicious? Oh, yeah, we was suspicious of different things, when we’d try to change something in the protocol, No, we’ll do it this way or we’ll do it that way, or we need a little UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 14 more time frame, or whatever. Then there was arguing of coming up with the exact protocols— Were there ever times when you felt like, All right, this isn’t going to happen, when they were almost looked like they were being stonewalled? Close calls? No. No, not really. Never any close calls. No, not really. They were determined this was going to do it. When we’d have a meeting and come up with things we were going to put in the protocol, then after we’d have our meeting, we’d go back and put all that together, and then transfer the papers [ 00: 20: 00] to each other to read. Then the next day, we’d go back over that, that that was right, or we’d make a few changes or something, just for that last day’s conversation. And so it went on for a period of time, trying to get it straight and everything. And in Moscow, when we went over for the Batyr Guriya or whatever, I can’t remember how to pronounce [ it], then there was a lot of conversation putting that protocol together because of time frames of doing certain things going down hole with the equipment. Well, we need more days, or they needed more days, or we didn’t need as many days, to do this particular project. And it was a lot of arguing and a lot of negotiating. And they would stand firm with theirs and we’d stand firm with ours. Roger Ide was our spokesman on our side, and then there was a group of us on each side that would discuss through him, he was the spokesman, and we’d work through that with one interpreter on the other side. And it was a lot of negotiating because they’d stand firm on what they thought, we’d stand firm on what we thought, and that might go on for three or four hours. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 15 Do you remember how you felt the first time that you realized that you were selected to go over to Geneva? My wife liked to went nuts. Did she? I bet she was nervous. Oh, she was nervous. Was it nervous or was [ it], How did they pick you? I just couldn’t figure out how they picked me. But they wanted somebody with drilling experience because we were going to go over and drill those satellite holes, and then I understood the testing operation we had at the test site and everything under my responsibility— Now were you head of drilling? Is that what you were for—? No, no. When I was with REECo [ Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Company] before I went over with the government, I was the Project Manager of Drilling. And then when I went to the DOE or ERDA [ Energy Research and Development Agency], we started with ERDA, Atomic Energy Commission [ AEC], then ERDA, and then the DOE, then I was called Chief of Construction. And that was everything from Mercury to the forward area, and it was the tunneling and the drilling and the construction areas of going down hole and everything, you know, for LLL [ Lawrence Livermore [ National] Laboratory] and Los Alamos [ National Laboratory] operations. So I was involved working with REECo construction people on the setting- up for device emplacement with Los Alamos and LLL on different aspects of doing different things. With the DoD [ Department of Defense] for the tunneling operations. And then the feeding and the different construction projects we had, that was my responsibility. I had nine engineers working for me. The diagnostic cabling, one of my engineers was for diagnostic UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 16 cabling, for ordering that equipment and being sure it was set in the proper place and that REECo was doing the appropriate jobs. Now how long had you been Chief of Construction, then, before the JVE [ Joint Verification Experiment]? From ‘ 77 till ‘ 88. Yeah, till ‘ 88. So I was Chief of Construction from ‘ 77 to ‘ 88 before I went to the JVE. Then I was with REECo when we started underground testing from ‘ 62 to ‘ 77. Thirty- one years overall at the test site. You did. It’s amazing to me how the test site, the career people who took it when they knew nothing and grew with experience, and then— Right. Oh yeah, everybody was dedicated. It was a dedicated bunch, from the laboratories right to the labor. I mean right on down the line. It was a great group. Good group. [ 00: 25: 00] And those that made it a career also kept improving the expertise, you know. Oh yes. And once they stopped testing, some of that starts to get lost. That’s correct. That’s correct. Like the Evolution of Drilling film I showed you the other day. Like we started like we knew in the oil industry of drilling holes, but the things they were wanting at the test site, we hadn’t done that particular thing before. Was different. And you had to do— They wanted bigger things. And you had to design— And so we had to make designs and go out and talk to different drilling companies that manufactured bits and pipe, because everything was larger. So that was the evolution, like you seen on that film. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 17 Now was this in REECo that there was a drilling group that made the recommendations on the bits and the drill equipment? Was there a group, an organized group, or was this in the process of problem- solving? No, in the Drilling Department we had engineers for design of what we wanted, but also we had Holmes and Narver and Fenix and Scisson, and they also had design people. And so when we’d come up with what we thought we needed, then those particular people would talk with each other and come up with a final design to go out for order and everything. So it was a big process. Everybody was really involved and dedicated to what they were doing. Well, and it must’ve been really interesting, too, for you to be able to compare the progress and the drilling with the Soviets, you know. In drilling, th