Interview with Louis Francis Wouters, May 20, 2004

Nevada Test Site Oral History Project University of Nevada, Las Vegas Interview with Louis Wouters May 20, 2004 Livermore, California Interview Conducted By Mary Palevsky with Carol Gerich © 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 Louis Wouters May 20, 2004 Conducted by Mary Palevsky with Carol Gerich Table of Contents Introduction: After briefly discussing birth in Belgium and his childhood, Dr. Wouters describes his interest in physics, cyclotrons and his work E. O. Lawrence beginning the summer of 1939 at the University of California, Berkeley. 1 Transfer to Manhattan Project work at the outset of World War II while still a senior at the university. 2 Discussion of work at Oak Ridge ( Y- 12) during the war. 3 Dr. Wouters returns to University of California at Berkeley after World War II. 5 Los Alamos and Livermore National Laboratories begin to develop thermonuclear weapons. Tension arises between the labs and among the project’s leading figures. 7 Ethos of scientists returning from World War II and greatness of Livermore’s first decade. 11 Dr. Wouters first arrives at the Nevada Test Site in 1953. He describes early testing at the site, secrecy concerns, and the competing agendas of scientific and military testing programs. 13 Atmospheric testing continues in the Pacific as well as the Nevada Test Site. Dr. Wouters reveals his personal reactions and attitudes toward nuclear testing. 18 The development of nuclear weapons raises questions about the morality of warfare and the relationship between science and religion. 23 Discussion of nuclear and other alternative power sources 26 Atmospheric testing at the NTS assumes a frantic pace on the eve of the Eisenhower moratorium in 1958 [ Hardtack II]. 28 The venting of Baneberry in 1970 raises questions about radiological safety and underground nuclear testing. 32 Conclusion: Los Alamos and Livermore National Laboratories take different approaches to nuclear testing. Dr. Wouters describes culture and attitudes of workers at the Nevada Test Site. 38 UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 1 Interview with Louis Wouters May 20, 2004 in Livermore, CA Conducted by Mary Palevsky with Carol Gerich [ 00: 00: 00] Begin Track 2, Disk 1. Louis Wouters: My name is Louis Wouters. I was born in Antwerp, Belgium, October 29, 1921. My father had an occupation that required him to travel a great deal, and he was fortunate enough to take us along. I was the only child so that wasn’t too difficult. In 1930 he decided to settle in the United States, in California, and I went to grammar school there in Oakland where we lived, and eventually made my way to the University of California to get my bachelor’s degree. My interest in physics began in the mid- thirties. I was especially taken by the media reports about Ernest Lawrence’s cyclotron. So when I went to Berkeley I spent a little time nosing around the physics department and looking into some of the things that the physicists at that time did. And finally I was brave enough to go and see Lawrence and suggest that maybe I could spend the summer working around the lab, helping around. He was able to arrange that, fortunately, and my association from the lab began in the summer of 1939. Mary Palevsky: Let me ask you just one question about the cyclotron. What was it, as a young boy that you were looking at this stuff that caught your attention? Oh, because I had developed an interest in amateur radio and electronics, and I had done quite a bit of ham work myself as a boy. Well, not a boy, but a young teenager. And when I read about the cyclotron and its radio frequency equipment and other electronics, that kind of turned me on. And also the business of radioactivity, that was very interesting to me. And so these interests converged for me. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 2 And so when the Second World War started, I had been helping around the cyclotron and I had already developed some ideas which were beginning to be used, and so I wasn’t a “ gofer” anymore. [ laughter] So I got transferred to the Manhattan District Project right after the war started, when I was still in my senior year, and I went to full- time. And the university very conveniently altered its requirements for graduation so that I didn’t have to spend too much time in classes that last semester. What do you remember about learning about Pearl Harbor? Do you remember that day? People describe it— Oh, I was studying for finals in December, in early December, because back then the university was on a, what shall I call it, a six month— Semesters. Semester, two- semester basis. And I was in our living room, had what at that time passed for stereo, it wasn’t really stereo but hi- fi, and I was listening to some classical music. As a matter of fact, it was a really beautiful day that day, because we lived up in the hills there. It was warm enough that we had the front door open so we’d get fresh air coming in. And all of a sudden the music was interrupted and they announced about Pearl Harbor. Well, that really, you know, turned everything around. I realized right at the moment, boy, we’re going to be involved in this in some way at the lab. I just knew that right away. Well, I was already aware that they were working on fission at the lab, that they were doing basic research work on fission, and at that point, I would say within days, Lawrence converted his thirty- seven- inch cyclotron into a mass separator, a mass isotope separator. And I went to work right away on that program and stayed with it through the war, developing the Calutron, and then I was transferred to Oak Ridge in 1944 to assist in getting the manufacturing plants, the separation plants there at Y- 12 [ Oak UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 3 Ridge] getting them running, which was a very intense and exciting experience because for one thing I’d never been away from home for that length of time. And so, let’s see— [ 00: 05: 00] Let me ask you about Oak Ridge for a second. I know that we were just talking to Duane Sewell about it this morning and I’ve spoken to Herb York. Did you know either of them there? Oh yes, sure. And you had known them back here too. Oh yes, sure, same program. Oh yes, I had worked closely with Duane Sewell up on the hill when the 184- inch cyclotron was converted into a Calutron test bed. And Herb York, I can’t remember when Herb York came on, but I know that he was at Oak Ridge with us. Where he was before, I can’t put my finger on. So you did work at Oak Ridge? Yes, and when the war ended I transferred for one year to Tennessee Eastman, who were the basic contractors that we had been working with there, mainly to make a little more money so I could get back to graduate school. What do you remember about the end of the war? Well, the people at Y- 12, the scientists, were not completely in the know, so to speak. There was a very strong need- to- know separation there in the Manhattan District Program. As far as I know, Bob Thornton, who was the head of our group at Oak Ridge, was the only one who had a good knowledge of Los Alamos and why it was there and what they were doing. I didn’t know about that until afterwards, of course. But we were aware that there was an organization like Los Alamos mainly because of the weird shipping notices that we got for equipment being moved. It UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 4 wasn’t anything consistent; occasionally we would hear about it, and we concluded— that’s a whole story of its own. I don’t want to take too much time— That’s OK. Yes. We concluded, yes, we concluded there were several other sites. It was clear that there had to be, because we knew perfectly well that the product from our plant was going somewhere, that it wasn’t the finished product. By the end of the war, we were pretty well aware of what it was going to be used for. I would say by the last year that I was at Oak Ridge, that the scientists, the young scientists there at least were aware, and we may have discussed it amongst ourselves but we really kept our mouths shut about— That it was for a bomb? Well, for some kind of a military device, probably an explosive, but we couldn’t be certain. We knew that calculations of that kind had been made even before the war started. How much of the isotopic material was needed to get a runaway reaction. A question of whether that would be explosive or not had not been answered. The thing might come apart before it could detonate, really, just from the heat. But you must remember that these are very dim recollections that I’m talking about here, OK? I know. That’s all right. Well, as I say, I’ll pick it up. I spent a year in Oak Ridge. I had contacted the lab at the end of the war about coming back as an assistant, and this is a rather interesting little side story because it does bear on how these matters go in times of national emergency and how they turn off and what happens afterwards. Everyone went home, assuming that that was the end of things, just like they did in the twenties. Well, it turned out not to be the end of things. When I asked the lab in 1945 if there was any possibility of coming back as an assistant on the hill there, they were UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 5 very dim about it. They said, Well, you might be able to come back as a graduate student helper, but as far as the kind of a job that you had even before the war—— they were contemplating that things would be quite tight, that they wouldn’t have much of a budget for a while at least. [ 00: 10: 00] So that was one of the reasons I stayed in Oak Ridge, because the TEC [ Tennessee Eastman Company] people, especially the head of the department there, had gotten to know me. He wanted me to stay there in the worst way. He wanted me to come to work for Tennessee Eastman full- time and they were willing to even fund my graduate studies at the University of Tennessee. There’s some background as to why this is, and I’m not sure if it’s classified or not, so we won’t go into that. Then a year later I called Berkeley again and they said, Yes, we’ll be very interested in taking you on as an assistant. Talk about a change in attitude, I’ll tell you! And that was entirely because in the interim people had, Lawrence especially, had become aware of the risk that the Soviets posed. People have questioned Lawrence’s views about the Cold War and about our competition with the Soviets. I had the opportunity on several occasions, especially one that I’ll tell about later, to get a pretty good idea of how he felt about that, and he was a very, very intense patriot, believe me, he really was. He put the lab’s work ahead of everyone else’s at every stage of the game. He was that foresighted. Of everyone else’s in what sense? In the sense that he would risk, to some degree risk, changing the lab’s course and shifting people to programs that had not yet been approved, that had to do with, for instance, the thermonuclear later on. Not at the time that I went back to Berkeley but several years later. Part of this was because he had fairly close contact with the AEC’s military representatives in Washington. So he was pretty much keyed in on what the latest data information was on our UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 6 military status, the nation’s military status. Please, I often use the words “ we” and “ our” in a national sense as well as a personal and local sense, so you’ll have to sort that out. OK. Thanks. Well, when I got back to Berkeley they were very strongly working on converting the cyclotron to higher energies. There were people interested in studying the nucleus more strongly. And Lawrence also was working with some military people on radiation detectors, and in 1947 or 1948 he asked me to look into crystal counters and scintillation counters, and so I began specializing in that. First time I was called to Washington was, I think, in late 1948, right after the Sandstone tests [ Operation Sandstone, April/ May 1948]. The Navy found that they were in woeful shape when it came to nuclear radiation measurements. Ernest Lawrence heard about that and he said, Go to Washington to this meeting and tell them about scintillation counters, or words to that effect. So there I came to Washington, walked into this meeting which was a panel of admirals and generals and— And you’re less than thirty years old at this point. Right. You don’t forget little things like that. Actually I can’t remember much of what was said or what I said, but the gist of it generally was that they needed ideas and more research and quick research on radiation instruments. And shortly after that the AEC formed this photomultiplier steering committee, and I was appointed to that. And that was my first major undertaking, so to speak, outside of the lab because the work we did on that, that I did when I was at the lab, was partly coordinated through that group. OK. So let me see that I understand this. After Sandstone, which you weren’t involved in— No, no, I wasn’t involved in it at all. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 7 [ 00: 15: 00] — there’s this realization that that there’s not an ability to measure radiation accurately, quickly, whatever, and this is a technical crisis that needs to be handled. So at that point you’re working no longer simply as a lab person but on a national level with the AEC. That right. That’s right. Now, all through my career I’ve had that happen to me in a number of cases, and it isn’t until quite a bit later that I recognized just what you said, that I was working both nationally as well as at the lab. But let me continue. The question of how the lab got into the thermonuclear business in Livermore has been reviewed by many people. And one of the interesting things is that when I read those versions I see many places where the authors disagree with one another, and me, disagree with me, or I disagree with them, maybe. Right. So you’ll give us your version? Yes, I will do that. Not here of course but— Why not here? Well, that would take too long. Oh, OK. Well, can you give me a short version? Because I’ll tell you what my personal interest is. Because as a researcher I’m reading a lot of those various accounts, and I think it’s very valuable to have the viewpoint of someone who was here on the ground, not just from the scholars. You tell me what you want, and you don’t have to tell me what you don’t want. Well, one of the things which I find a bit of a shame is that Ernest Lawrence is by far given too little credit. There is no question in my mind that he had a major hand in setting up this second lab. What the relationship was with Edward Teller’s initiatives, my own personal opinion is that he gets more credit— no, that’s not really what I should say. The credit is not shared enough with other people. That’s probably a better way to put it. He certainly deserves a lot of credit, but there are a lot of other people that deserve credit too, like [ Stanislaw] Ulam at Los Alamos. In UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 8 my judgment he probably was the key figure in making the whole business go. But that’s a personal opinion. You know, other people may disagree with that. Then there are these stories about the relationship between Los Alamos and Livermore in the beginning and how Los Alamos interfered or tried to change the business of Livermore forming, and I can’t accept those. Really. Why not? Because the intensity and the drive with which Livermore was set up was just too great. Good God, we were going like crazy to get this thing going! And that was back in 1951 before we even moved out here. Back then, we weren’t quite aware of where we would be, but that we would be doing this. Lawrence was completely committed to the idea, as far as I could tell. He had a small team of men, of engineers and others, in Berkeley examining possible sites as early as the winter of 1951- 52. That you don’t read about or hear about. And there’s an example of what I meant by saying that he committed himself ahead of time, OK? The point being that he wanted to be ready for whatever decision was made. That’s really what was behind that. It wasn’t that he knew we were going that way, but that was one of the options. And so he wanted to be ready for that option. That’s the option he preferred and he wanted to be ready for it. And that option was that you all—? To set up Livermore. [ 00: 20: 00] Oh, here you would begin designing nuclear weapons, developing, that’s the option? That’s the option. In my judgment, part of the reason for that was because Los Alamos had an excessively academic approach to things. And there were a number of men, military and civilian like Lawrence, who felt that that we would be dragging our feet if we approached the problem UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 9 that way. Livermore was as much to get Los Alamos off its butt, if you don’t mind my putting it that way, as it was to do the thing ourselves. Now I’m going to interrupt you a little here because this raises a question for me, because Los Alamos was the place where the A- bomb was successfully built during the war. Oh yes, sure. Yes. So was there a shift postwar that made Lawrence make this judgment? Oh, oh absolutely. Well, as a matter of fact— Or why would Lawrence make this judgment? Historically I’m trying to sort of understand it. [ Sigh] I know. I’m tempted to say that Los Alamos dragged its feet during the war, but that’s not true. Well, it could be. No, there were times when it had that appearance, but I really do think it was because the technology and the science were so new that we were going to stumble around before finding the answers. In retrospect, of course it’s clear, this is the way we should do it. But my gosh, how many things in life, in human experience, have been that way? In hindsight? But with the thermonuclear, there were a number of paths. And you know, recently I was reading this critique by Hans Bethe. I don’t know if you’ve seen it. I haven’t seen it, but I know Hans Bethe very well. In that paper, he tries to tell about the designing of the thermonuclear, and in order to do that he comes up with a set of schemes that they had at Los Alamos, and I forget the exact words, but they were Scheme A, B, C, D, E, and so forth. You’ve heard of that. Is this his paper he did back in the eighties? Yes, 1983. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 10 Yes, I know that paper. [ Hans A. Bethe, “ Comments on the History of the H- Bomb,” Los Alamos Science 3, no. 3 1982]] And that was a repeat of a paper he had written earlier in 1956. That was classified, right. That was classified. OK. And then one of them was broken down into Part One and Part Two, I read that. That really got me because when you look at it in retrospect, and I hope I’m not getting too sensitive when I say this, that the real thing is that there were many people, and that what you do in the end is a mix of these ideas and these paths and all of that. And the way you mix them depends on what kind of a weapon you’re interested in, what kind of an end product you’re going to put together. And so this is one of the reasons why I was saying earlier, well, you know, it’s a whole bunch of people who should really get credit. Teller’s main contribution was that he just didn’t let go. He kept going with it, kept on and on and on, and Lawrence was— some people may say he was riding Teller’s tail, but that’s not true. Lawrence was pushing just as much in his own way, on his side of, shall we say, the concrete side of it, the business of actually doing something. Carol Gerich: Louis, Bruce [ Tarter, former LLNL director writing the lab’s history] and my research backs you up a hundred percent. We think Lawrence is not given enough credit and he was the real driver. Without him there would be no lab. I’m sure of that. Yes. I didn’t think I was going into this stuff. I find it interesting to be able to tell you this, believe me, and it is— Mary Palevsky: Yes, and I think it’s interesting and I think it’s important. And there are people who probably disagree with me very strongly, what I’m saying, you know, but this is my perspective, this is what I get out of it. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 11 [ 00: 25: 00] OK, well, once we had chosen this place and Lawrence had said go, from there on it was a bunch of young guys who had never been influenced by ancient academia. Ah ha! Many of them had just come back from the war and had seen how bad things can really be. They came from backgrounds that have been lost today in our society, unfortunately. Such as? Family. Excuse me for being very conservative and very ancient about it. Religion, to a certain extent certainly. Respect for the individual and for society and for the role of civilization, of civilized living. And as I say, they had seen the worst of life and they weren’t going to allow that to happen, and the way to do that was to get going and work and make their contribution. And boy, I’ll tell you, it was a great ten years in the beginning of this lab, great ten years. By the time we got to about 1965 or so, bureaucracy began to overwhelm us. OK, so let’s take some time to talk about those first years, then, because I think that’s historically really valuable for us to understand better. So you’ve got not only people who had the privilege of not having to go to war, but you’ve got people who had seen the war. I’m going to phrase this question in terms of what you just said about hindsight. Looking back, we now see that the Cold War went on for a really long time. And one of the ways I’ve been beginning to think about the contrast with nuclear history is that I think everyone expected, working on the Manhattan Project, or hoped that that single weapon would either early on deter the Germans from using it— we won’t get into that history— or end the war quickly once the German defeat came. When you get into the Cold War and the development of nuclear weapons, you’ve got something more open- ended— Let me give you a little tip here. One of the things that puzzled me and has puzzled many other people is how the Soviets behaved after Berlin. They didn’t get into Japan till the very end, with UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 12 a small landing party at the tip of the island there. I think Stalin was very disappointed that we had managed to discover and make the atomic bomb and display it, because I suspect, and this is a suspicion on my part, that if we had committed this half- a- million troops or whatever to an invasion of Japan, it is a distinct possibility that he would’ve decided this was a fine opportunity to take over Europe. The thing that inhibited him from doing that was the atomic bomb. And there are little clues here and there which I happen to think kind of indicate that. Take it or leave it. Yes. What’s an example of one little clue? His behavior at Potsdam. The things that he said and the way he responded to Truman when Truman told him about the atomic bomb. The fact that they did not move large troops across Siberia to the Japanese side. Yes. And, well, I can’t say— those are the main ones, OK? Correct. Thank you. That’s all I’m asking for, are the main ones. So that’s to my question about the Cold War threat. And you were going to say something about Berlin. Stalin and Berlin. How he behaved. After Berlin. After Berlin. Yes. Oh, excuse me, that might’ve been a poor choice of words there. What I meant by that was after they had occupied Berlin, then that was the end of the war, of the European war. Oh, I see what you’re saying. [ 00: 30: 00] Yes, OK, all right, I’m sorry. After Berlin. Got it. I’m thinking Berlin during the Cold War. No, no, no. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 13 You meant once Berlin was occupied during World War II, then their behavior in the east, in the Pacific. I understand. OK. So we were talking about the early days of the lab. You moved out. What year is that that you moved out to here? 1952. September 1952. Where do we go from here? Tell me a little bit about the things you were working on early on when you come out here. OK, I’ll tell you. Let me— I think I know where we ought to start. My first expedition to Nevada Test Site was in March of 1953, and it’s something that I won’t forget because I took the train. Got that, Carol? Carol Gerich: I got it. There was an argument with Carothers in the oral history about that, if you remember. [ See LLNL Archives 1983 oral history of Louis Wouters by James Carothers, Item ID# 2582.] Mary Palevsky: I read it. I did. She was talking to me about it earlier. I read it last night. He was saying you couldn’t have taken the train or you shouldn’t have taken the train. Oh no, no, no, other people took the train with me. I wasn’t the only one on that train. I know you weren’t, yes. Carol Gerich: Yes, that’s right. No, but Jim Carothers was saying that you were alone. And I do remember that when we got into the car— there were several cars to pick us up and take us out to the test site at the old Las Vegas railroad station— I do remember that when I got into the car, much to my surprise and not exactly shock but kind of wariness, I sat next to Edward UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 14 Teller. He was going out to the test site on his first visit. And that’s what I remember of that first trip. Mary Palevsky: So he was an intimidating— what kind of figure—? No, no, he slept most of the way. He was tired. I was tired. I think we both slept most of the way. But your impressions of him, if he hadn’t been sleeping, I mean he was— At that time? Yes. Neutral. Neutral. Neutral, yes. That’s the best way I can say. We had been exposed to him quite a bit here, and I told this story to Carol [ Gerich] before, and that is that when the lab got started we needed a lecture hall, which we didn’t have. There wasn’t any place big enough to really handle fifty or sixty people. We ended up in the high school auditorium in Livermore, . And Teller told us all about the thermonuclear business and the designs and all that, all highly secret stuff, and all there were were two guards at the two doors of the Livermore High School auditorium. It was that casual and informal back then. No one would dream of bugging the Livermore High School auditorium if they weren’t told ahead of time, you see. That’s right. Carol Gerich: And when I interviewed Edward Teller I asked him about that, Louis, and he said, I may not talk about it. Really? That’s Edward all right. Carol Gerich: He still would not talk about it. No kidding. I can’t find that very secret or anything. My goodness. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 15 Mary Palevsky: Well, one of the things you did say in the Carothers interview that fascinated me, and you may have nothing more to say about it, but you may, was your realization of how easy it was when you realized it, how it is to make, I guess, an atomic weapon or a thermonuclear weapon or both? To put it together. Well, certainly the A- bomb was not difficult, in hindsight. I won’t go any further into detail about that, but yes, it seemed to me easy. I certainly didn’t have any problems with the analysis and the arithmetic. It was not that bad. But of course my main address was in making measurements in nuclear radiation, prompt radiation reaction history, that kind of thing. That’s the main reason I was transferred out here, was to assist in setting up the diagnostic programs. Right. Now as a layperson I have a question about that whole realm, this thing you call reaction history, and also maybe because I’m the daughter of an experimental physicist. But reading some of the things that I read from that other interview and other things that I’ve read, tell me if I’m correct here. There seem to be two things going on. One is the experimental physics where you’re really trying to figure out what happens when certain kinds of explosions take place or [ 00: 35: 00] reactions take place, for the science of it. And then there also seems to be this— is it separate or do they overlap? The question about what weapons do and how weapons act and how weapons behave. So the weapons tests are themselves sort of experimental physics but more because you’re looking for certain kinds of weapons to do certain things? That’s a big, long, complicated question. Well, probably the best way to answer that is to point out that as we went down the road of nuclear testing, the test programs divided into military interests, which were really pointed towards what are called “ nuclear effects,” and the actual design work, which was the nuclear UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 16 designs, the actual weapon designs that we do. Now I have always been very concerned about that because I think this country made a mistake in dividing those. Really? Yes. None of the other countries have. In other countries, the design work and the effects are merged as a continuum. And the reason is that I found myself being drawn into the problems of the military and understanding what was going on. They were so far apart and the need- to- know had been so constructed that they didn’t know where to begin in understanding the nuclear effects business. Sure, the blast effects and the explosions can be modeled and treated as a continuum of the high explosive regime, OK? But you have to make the measurements. If you’re going to measure blast and shock and all that, you’re going to do it in a nuclear radiation environment, and so you’ve got to protect yourself. You’ve got to know how bad that is going to be. Well, they didn’t. There was no way for them to know. Oh. The military? The military. Well, I mean it was very difficult for them to know, let’s put it that way, because of this separation, because this need- to- know line had been drawn between what happens nuclear- wise and what happens effects- wise. That’s very interesting. Oh yes. Oh yes. It was a barrier no one could overcome. The security people and others were hardnosed about that. And the sad part of it is that down the road, it ended up creating an inverse effect, namely that when the military labs and military side of the business began to feel confident many years down the road, they began to exclude us, OK? A