Interview with Harold David Cunningham, March 11, 2004

Nevada Test Site Oral History Project University of Nevada, Las Vegas Interview with Harold Cunningham March 11, 2004 Santa Fe, New Mexico Interview Conducted By Mary Palevsky © 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 Harold Cunningham March 11, 2004 Conducted by Mary Palevsky Table of Contents Introduction: Mr. Cunningham discusses his childhood, military service, college education, marriage, and early career. 1 Mr. Cunningham is transferred to the Nevada Test Site in January 1952, where he begins working for Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Company [ REECo]. 5 REECo wins the contract for construction at the Department of Defense’s Groom Lake facility [ Area 51]. 11 Mr. Cunningham discusses REECo’s role in atmospheric testing. 12 REECo is actively involved in underground testing, as well. 18 The Plowshare series calls for several nuclear tests at locations other than the Nevada Test Site. 19 Mr. Cunningham describes his experiences as a REECo manager and executive. 23 REECo managed many aspects of testing at the Nevada Test Site, including construction, mining, logistics, medical, labor, and communications. 31 Security procedures and personnel clearances affect life and work at the test site. 43 Mr. Cunningham shares his views regarding the morality of nuclear weapons and the Nevada Test Site’s role as a “ battleground” of the Cold War. 46 REECo had responsibilities relating to radiological safety for both the Nevada Test Site and surrounding areas. 52 Conclusion: Mr. Cunningham describes the working environment and camaraderie at the test site. 53 UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 1 Interview with Harold Cunningham March 11, 2004 in Santa Fe, New Mexico Conducted by Mary Palevsky [ 00: 00: 00] Begin Track 2, Disk 1. Mary Palevsky: OK, so we could start by getting some information about when you were born and where you were born and then the way in which you ended up being involved at the Nevada Test Site. Harold Cunningham: OK. My name is Harold Cunningham. I was born December 10, 1926 in a little town south of what is now Truth or Consequences [ New Mexico], used to be Hot Springs, and my birth certificate shows Arrey. You probably never heard of it. It’s near Garfield, north of Hatch. My father worked for the Bureau of Reclamation and we lived at a house at Percha Dam, which is right south of Caballo Dam. He then got transferred to a town near Las Cruces [ New Mexico]. My mother was a grade school schoolteacher and she taught at West Picacho, East Picacho, and Dona Ana. I went to school to her when I was in the first [ 00: 03: 50] grade and that’s how I got spoiled. My mother’s family lived on a farm near La Mesa. They came to La Mesa from a town near Fort Worth. My grandfather was a farmer, had six children, and I spent a lot of time with my grandparents because my mother was a schoolteacher. In the 1930s, and then beginning in the 1940s, I guess it was about 1941 that I started to high school in Las Cruces. I went to Las Cruces Union High School, it was on Alameda Street, and graduated as the salutatorian in a class of eighty students. My girlfriend whose name was Cynthia Wimberly was one year behind me. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 2 My father wanted me to get a farming deferment. I wanted no part of that so I joined the Army and took a test which qualified me to go into what was the Army’s specialized training program. As in the Navy, it was the V- 12, and this was because the students graduating from high school were not going to college and the armed forces needed people with a little education. So I passed the test. I was sent to Texas A& M for about nine months to take an engineering course. Then when I finished that I went through infantry basic and then after I finished fifteen weeks of infantry basic, which was during the Battle of the Bulge, and after firing the rifle one time I was sent to University of West Virginia at Morgantown, West Virginia to continue my engineering education. After spending six or seven months there I was transferred to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, right out of Washington, D. C., and it was a base where technical courses were taught and you had your choice and I chose refrigeration mechanic— refrigeration and air conditioning. I spent about three months in that course and then became an instructor because the older instructors were being discharged from the service. And I was an instructor there for about a year until I was finally discharged in September of 1946. [ 00: 07: 20] I wanted to go back to school but I was three weeks late, three weeks after the semester started at New Mexico A& M [ later New Mexico State]. My mother talked to Ira Renfrow who had the power to either let me start late or not start until the next semester. And she succeeded so I came back to New Mexico A& M and majored in mechanical engineering with a specialty in air conditioning and refrigeration. Now where is— New Mexico A& M? New Mexico A& M. And where is that, or where was that? What city? Las Cruces. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 3 In Las Cruces. OK. Well, the name was changed to New Mexico State University in the early 1960s because schools named “ Agricultural and Mechanical” schools had a connotation which caused women not to enroll. So as happened all over the country, except in one state and that was Texas A& M, the rest of the schools became state universities, like Iowa State and Arizona State. All right. A thing that’s kind of interesting here is that by the time I got back to school, housing was very short and they had moved in several old army barracks and put them out near Tortugas. Do you know where Tortugas is? No. It’s a little Indian community south of Las Cruces. And the conditions were horrible. Seemed like the cracks in the wall were an inch wide and when the wind blew it went right through the building. Three of us complained so much that the president of the college, Hugh Milton, [ 00: 09: 26] let three of us live in his garage for a semester, rent- free. Which was kind of neat. We were all broke. And after that then I joined the TKE [ Tau Kappa Epsilon] fraternity and moved into the TKE House. Because I had gone to Texas A& M and the University of West Virginia, I had three semesters’ credit. So I was able to graduate in August of 1948 with a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering. I got a job with a Carrier air conditioning distributor in Abilene, Texas, and I did design work for three years but I was miserable in Abilene, Texas. How come? Well, because of the— it’s the capital of the hypocrites. What do you mean? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 4 Seriously. What do you mean? In what sense? Well, if you wanted to go to a restaurant you could take a bottle in a brown bag, but liquor was not sold freely there. The preachers and the bootleggers kept the law that prevented liquor from being sold. That’s the kind of thing that bugged me. OK. Anyway, I had a good friend that worked for Robert E. McKee at Los Alamos and he told me about the possibility of getting a job with a company named Brown and Olds Plumbing and Heating Company, headquartered in El Paso. I was successful in getting this job and we moved to Santa Fe and this was in about August of 1951. We had one child and another on the way shortly. Just for the record, your wife’s name? Cynthia Wimberly [ 00: 11: 42] OK, Cynthia Wimberly, and you were married what, in the late 1940s or something? We were married a year after I graduated. Because she had another year to go, we were married in June of 1949. OK, and so you come with your first child to Santa Fe. Yes, we brought our first child to Santa Fe. And what is that child’s name? His name was Frank Wimberly Cunningham. OK. So anyway I got this job with Brown and Olds and started working at Los Alamos. And there were three companies that were involved financially. Robert E. McKee was the lead company UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 5 and Brown and Olds Plumbing and Heating Company and the Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Company [ REECo]. Anyway, we moved here [ Santa Fe] in August of 1951 and I learned in the early part of January 1952 that I would be transferred to the Nevada Test Site. I guess it was because I lived in Santa Fe and Frank Rogers lived in Los Alamos that we drove out there together, out to Las Vegas, on January 7, 1952. And we stayed at the El Cortez Hotel downtown for two or three days and then we moved out to the Nevada Test Site, to Mercury. The housing was really quite sparse. We lived in plywood hutments. They were four- man and eight- man hutments that were plywood with an oil stove in the middle. And this would never be permitted now with OSHA [ Occupational Safety and Health Administration]. Never. And the bathroom, the latrine, was a block or so down a gravel path. And we lived there for a series that started in the late winter of 1952. [ 00: 14: 17] I want to go back a little and talk about the beginning of testing at the Nevada Test Site. Is that all right? OK. Yes, and just for clarification, Frank Rogers at that time was—? Deputy manager. Of—? The Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Company. And you were with another—? No, they sent us out— well, the Atomic Energy Commission developed a contract with the Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Company to do the construction work at the Nevada Test Site. And this was after a year in which there were major, major problems with the contractor that had been doing this work named the Haddock Engineering Company. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 6 But back to the beginning of testing at the test site. You’re aware of what was happening in the fall of 1950 when it was decided that there needed to be a site in the continental limits of the United States for testing atomic devices. Correct. And Truman finally agreed that that site could be developed and a chunk of land about thirteen hundred square miles was carved out of the Nevada Test Site. The beginning of testing was Operation Ranger, and the work was started in December of 1950 with supervisors and managers being transferred from these three companies to Nevada and the local unions furnishing the manual employees. There was nothing at the Nevada Test Site in the way of facilities so these supervisors and managers were housed at the Indian Springs Air Force Base, [ 00: 16: 47] and as I recall they finally housed about a thousand people there. Indian Springs was not being used. So people commuted from Indian Springs. And these were the manual laborers— electricians, plumbers, all those kinds of people. There was a paved road that went from Las Vegas to Reno, so they went on the paved road to what is now the turnoff to Mercury. And from then on it was just a gravel road, not maintained. There were no water wells. All the water had to be hauled from Indian Springs. So this was the beginning of Operation Ranger. There was a control point established in the pass right out of what is now Mercury which overlooked Frenchman’s Flat. And of course this was all plywood. In order to have a control point there had to be signal cables run from the control point to the ground zero location which was about eight- and- a- half miles into Frenchman’s Flat. One story I get is that the people doing the work decided, you know, we can’t put the cables on the ground because the rodents will eat the insulation off. We have to put them on poles. So somebody came up with the idea, Why don’t we cut the poles in two and we can do UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 7 the work on the crossbars from the ground? Which worked out to be very well. The other story is the Corps of Engineers didn’t send enough poles so they cut them in two to get enough. OK. So anyway, you know, there were five tests in Frenchman’s Flat. These were all airdrops from planes coming out of Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque. And the first test was the twenty- seventh of January 1951. The last of the five tests was the sixth of February 1951. I guess the largest test was the 22 KT [ kiloton] test which really shook Las Vegas because they had not determined that weather had to be watched very carefully when the tests are executed because [ 00: 19: 46] the shock waves could bounce off the clouds and hit nearby areas. And this happened. It broke windows in Las Vegas, it cracked plaster at Cashman’s Cadillac on Main Street lost it plate glass window in its showroom. Las Vegas had been warned that there were to be some tests conducted but no one knew there was going to be any damage. So the 22 KT test was exciting in Las Vegas. And this Frenchman’s Flat, then it was designated as Area 5. The superintendent for these tests, or the general manager for Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Company, was a man named Joe Lopez, an electrical engineer. Very bright. And he had been working for REECo at Los Alamos. And that I think is the main reason that the AEC [ Atomic Energy Commission] selected REECo. OK. Because of him. Yes. When this series Ranger was over the Reynolds contract was not continued. A company named the Haddock Engineering Company was brought in as the general contractor. And they worked for the balance of 1951 building temporary housing, cafeterias, temporary office buildings in Mercury, building a control point building in the saddle between Frenchman’s Flat and Yucca Flats, building a power generating station in Mercury because there was no power UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 8 lines from commercial power to the Nevada Test Site. They also paved some roads. Besides the control point building, which is a concrete structure and still exists, and a radiation safety building at the control point site, those two concrete structures were the biggest project. They also built underground structures in Areas 1, 2, 3, and 4. They built four structures named the 300 Structures and two named the 330 Structures, and in these underground structures were to be placed the electronic recording equipment for the tests. They were there for Operation Buster- Jangle in 1951 and the AEC was extremely unhappy with their performance. It was a seven- [ 00: 23: 18] - day- a- week, twenty- four- hour- a- day job, the cost overruns were dramatic, and they did not continue with Haddock as a prime contractor. The temporary plywood structures in Mercury were then available for the Reynolds, or REECo, when we were then granted a contract to start work in January of 1952. And we lived in the hutments, and it was a great time, even though it was very primitive. We ate in the plywood cafeteria. We were paid a seven- dollar- a- day subsistence for the inconvenience of working sixty- five to ninety miles from town. And the way we paid for our meal, there was a turnstile where you put a silver dollar, and you could go through the turnstile and then go back as many times as you wanted. Anyway, we lived in those temporary structures through 1952, yes. Operation Tumbler- Snapper. OK? The operation that Haddock was responsible for in 1951 was Buster- Jangle. And there’s a Y in the road out past Area 7 that is the BJ Y to this day— Buster- Jangle. Interesting. So when you, just so I get clarity on this, you said at first that you worked for another contractor, then you come with Frank Rogers. So had REECo hired you or--? Well, the Brown and Olds Company had. Brown and Olds and the Reynolds Company were all affiliated with the Robert E. McKee Company. So when I was sent to Nevada in 1952 I was sent UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 9 [ 00: 25: 55] out there with the REECo company, because REECo had the contract. I understand now. All right. OK? OK, in 1952 this was the Tumbler- Snapper series. Eight tests were conducted. We went there in January of 1952 and the first test that was conducted was April the first, and we tested into early June of 1952. We had tests in Area 5, which was Frenchman’s, 7, 1, 4, 3, 2, which all were in Yucca Flats. There had been a company which was a subsidiary of Haddock Engineering Company named the Nevada Company that was responsible for maintenance work throughout the test site and the operation of the generators and I didn’t mention they also installed a steam plant in Mercury with underground lines reaching all around Mercury. And the contract with Nevada Company, with Haddock, was canceled and REECo was given the responsibility of all the maintenance beginning in 1952. The tests in 1952 were three for LASL [ Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory], one for the Department of Defense [ DoD]. They were airdrops and weapons effects tests. The way we operated at that time was that when there was to be a series of tests at the test site and Reynolds had the contract, the necessary management, administrative, and supervisory people from Reynolds, McKee, and Brown and Olds were transferred to Nevada. We’d stay there for the series of tests and when that was over we’d be transferred back to our parent company, which was a little inconvenient, but anyway we went along with it. And then after that test series was over, it was normal that the Atomic Energy Commission would have a series of tests in the Pacific. During all this time there was another company that had a prime contract at the test site and that was EG& G [ Edgerton, Germeshausen, and Grier]. They were the technical contractors [ 00: 29: 03] responsible for timing and firing and the gathering of diagnostic information. And UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 10 we, REECo, probably had twenty- five hundred to three thousand people working for us. They might have had seven or eight hundred. So anyway after 1952 I went back to El Paso with Brown and Olds. Oh wow, all the way back to El Paso. There was nothing happening in Santa Fe. So I went to El Paso, worked on the construction of a couple of buildings in El Paso, and then in 1953 there was a series started named Operation Upshot- Knothole. It lasted from March of 1953 until June of 1953. There were eleven tests. Now during this time there was only one laboratory and that was Los Alamos. Then Dr. Teller decided that there needed to be another laboratory because if you don’t have competition you’re not going to accomplish anything, so the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory was established. So we started doing work for LLL. Oh yes, in 1953 one of the shots that was interesting was an artillery test [ Grable], a cannon that was placed not too far from where the original control point was in Frenchman’s Flat, but the shell was fired into Frenchman’s Flat. And it was decided that artillery was not really the way to use the atomic device in wars, because if you’re going to create a lot of radiation it could blow right back in your face, so that was abandoned, even after two or three cannons were sent to Germany. But they abandoned the use of artillery for firing the atomic device. Did you see that one? Yes. You know the exciting thing about tests, atmospheric tests, and these were all atmospheric, was that the best time of the day for the test to be conducted was about four o’clock in the morning when there’s no sunlight, because a lot of information was gathered from photography. [ 00: 31: 56] So if you were really interested you’d get— and we were staying in Mercury, we’d get up and go out to the control point, they’d give you some black goggles, and you’d watch the UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 11 test. And when the device went off, whether it was an airdrop or whether it was a balloon shot or on the tower, it was much brighter than looking right here, much brighter. Really. Oh yes. You had to wear these glasses or it could ruin your eyesight. So anyway I guess after that series in 1953, Upshot- Knothole, the next test was in 1955, and I had gone back to El Paso for a few months and they had an operation named Teapot. There were fourteen tests. They were all in Yucca Flats except one and that was in Area 5. There were towers, there were airdrops. I don’t think balloons were used yet. So that series went on from 1955 to January of 1956. And it became apparent that the AEC was going to stop testing in the Pacific and all the tests would be conducted at the Nevada Test Site. And it was decided, or it appeared, that this would be a continuous thing at the test site, so I bought a house and we moved to Nevada at Thanksgiving of 1954. There was also another construction job awarded to REECo because we had the necessary Q- cleared personnel, and it was at a location that you can read about in Skunk Works [ Ben R. Rich and Leo Janos, Little Brown 1994]. All right. You know what that is. Yes. The area that doesn’t exist. Fifty- one. Yes. [ 00: 34: 32] OK. So we went out there and it was really crude because the sand was not sand, it was dust that you drove in until we finally— we could not find a successful water well. And so UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 12 we had to haul all the water from Mercury. We built three dormitories, a cafeteria, and a couple of hangars. That’s described in the-- OK. And the way that it was discovered that there was something going on north of the Nevada Test Site in an area called Groom Lake was that when they finally started using this site, and these were people from Burbank, California— that’s where the Skunk Works was. Oh, OK, I didn’t know that. Yes. The area was kind of nicknamed Watertown because we couldn’t get any successful water wells. The way it was discovered was that a little boy in Austin, Texas in show- and- tell got up before the class and said, My father was killed at Watertown yesterday. The plane crashed. So that’s how it came out into the open that there was something going on at Groom Lake. Interesting. That’s interesting. Yes. OK, I’ve mentioned Plumbbob. This was when it really kind of started having continual tests year- round at the test site. And Plumbbob, from May of 1957 till September of 1957 there were twenty- nine tests. And Los Alamos was doing all the testing. I don’t think that Livermore had really yet developed the capability to design and build a bomb, so it was all Los Alamos. There were towers, three [ 500- foot] and one or two 700- foot towers. We didn’t build those. There were contracts developed with a company out of Los Angeles named the Vinnell Company There were balloon shots. The balloon would be at an altitude of about [ 00: 37: 16] two thousand to twenty- five hundred feet. And these balloons were built by General Mills, which is kind of interesting. And there were balloons, there were what they called shafts, which were hand- excavated shafts so that the device could be detonated below ground. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 13 But we’re not talking real deep at this point. No, not yet. OK. Oh yes, there’s one thing that is interesting here. From the 300 underground structures, the four, and the two 330 underground structures which had the recording equipment— and the main reason I think they sent me out there was that Haddock had built the structure but had not installed the air conditioning and that was my specialty. So anyway, they sent me to Nevada to be a part of installing the air conditioning systems in these six underground structures. From the underground structures was run coaxial cable, out the front, then up the tower leg to the data gathering equipment on the tower, and this coaxial cable was three- and- a- half inches in diameter, aluminum shielded, bought in Germany. Today they would use a cable that might be as big around as your finger that would be capable of gathering a hundred times the information that that one cable was. Anyway, of course when the device was detonated on the tower everything was turned to gas and went off to the east. The tower, the data gathering equipment, and everything— the only thing that was taken off the tower was the elevator, and it was saved for the next tower. Was taken off before the shot and then saved for the next time. [ 00: 39: 44] Yes. In one of these shots, and I’m not sure which one, when the button was pushed at the control point to detonate the device it didn’t detonate. Herb Grier and Barney O’Keefe, EG& G, were at the control point. So they flipped a coin to see who would go up the tower. The elevator was gone. They had to climb the three- hundred- foot tower to correct what problem existed on the device to keep it from detonating. Barney lost so he went up and corrected it, came back to the CP [ control point], and it went off successfully. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 14 So maybe what, a dial not turned the right way or what? I have no idea. I don’t know. Anyway, he did it. He found it. Yes. Then in 1958 there was a series called [ Operation] Hardtack II. There were thirty- seven tests in various areas and I think the reason that they were testing so many was they could see the end of testing coming for a while, so in 1958 there was begun the Eisenhower moratorium which lasted until 1961. Even though testing was stopped I didn’t have to leave the test site because I was transferred out to Jackass Flats where there was to be testing of the Kiwi reactor [ Rover program— Nuclear Rocket Development Station ( NRDS)] for powering a rocket in outer space. So I was transferred out there to be in charge of the construction work necessary, and we can get into that a little later, what I did out there. OK. There were other tests that were conducted and when we went back to testing in 1961 in Carlsbad [ New Mexico] named Gnome. And this was a Plowshare shot. Not in Carlsbad, near Carlsbad. And we had the responsibility of excavating the shaft. We sent people out to Carlsbad to excavate the shaft and do whatever was necessary for the test. In 1961 there were tests conducted in Areas 3, 12, and 9 and those were all weapons tests and I think they were all Los Alamos tests. Now are we still in atmospheric testing here? Yes, we’re still in atmospheric testing. OK, and the Gnome Plowshare, was that like what, to see about mining, using it for excavation kinds of things, or do you remember why they did that? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 15 You know, I can’t answer that question. I don’t really remember. I can look it up. I don’t really remember. It was a Plowshare test. OK. So anyway we went back to testing in June of 1963 and then there had been an agreement made with the Soviet Union [ USSR] that no radiation would leave the continental limits of either country. So we had to go underground. Now, a little correction here. In 1963 there were forty- six tests at the test site and there were some tests in the Pacific and I don’t know what tests those were, in 1963. But at the test site there were DoD and Los Alamos tests. It became necessary then to start excavating what they call shafts but they were drilled, cased holes. The first one that was drilled was drilled in Area 3 and we brought in a company to drill the hole and then we cased the hole. It was cased in—? Steel. [ 00: 44: 17] Steel. OK. Yes, and I think this was probably a thirty- six- inch drilled hole with a casing about thirty inches in diameter. It went down to probably twelve or fifteen hundred feet, something like that. That was the first underground test. Then there was Operation Storax from July of 1962 to June of 1963 and there were fifty- one tests at the Nevada Test Site. The AEC and the laboratories had a little catching up to do so they had a lot of tests. And this series included Sedan, which was probably the last test that was not underground. Sedan was a test to see whether or not it was feasible to use the atomic device for excavation purposes, for building highways through UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 16 mountains or building another canal in Panama. And that was exciting but now I don’t remember the depth. It was 104 KT which was a pretty good size shot. But this was held mid- morning and you can’t imagine the dirt that went off to the east. Have you been to Sedan? I saw the crater. It’s just— You saw the crater. Well, all that dirt went up in the air and blew to the east. Yes, we just stood on the edge and said, Oh my God, this is a big hole. Yes, we put in some kind of a system to take equipment and vehicles down into that crater and do some drilling and data- gathering, and what that was was steel aircraft landing bats. You might have seen them there, laying on the side of the crater going down to the bottom? And this is the way we put equipment down into the hole. Oh, OK, well when I go again I’m going to have to look for that. I was just looking at the depth in utter amazement. [ 00: 46: 43] OK, the next test series was Operation Niblick in August of 1963 to June of 1964. Fifty- nine tests that were conducted on Los Alamos devices and Lawrence Livermore devices. DoD didn’t develop any tests but they took part in a lot of weapons effects tests. And this series included shafts, tunnels, and cased holes. We also had a test near Fallon, Nevada named Shoal, and this was a part of the Vela Uniform series. And as I recall, and it seemed kind of asinine to me, we excavated a shaft in a fault zone and what we were told was that the AEC and the laboratories were trying to determine if an earthquake could be caused by a device being detonated in a fault zone. Well, it didn’t happen. That was Shoal, near Fallon. The next series was from July of 1964 to June of 1965 called Operation Whetstone. Fifty- one tests, all tunnels and cased holes. Cased holes were called shafts in that book. But we had started doing drilling ourselves in about 1962. We didn’t really know much about drilling but we UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 17 obtained what they called class- one drill rigs. We got two of them from the oil industry in west Texas and three or four smaller rigs for doing exploratory drilling. Anyway, over a period of time— the way this was done at first was to drill a small hole, then ream it out to a bigger size, and finally get to the size you wanted. And what they really wanted was a hole that would accept an eighty- six- inch casing. So we finally developed a way to drill these holes with one pass, using what was called a flat- bottom bit. It was a large bit with a lot of small bits around the bottom. And what you do, you start out drilling and you have a pipe that holds this bit assembly and you’re circulating drilling fluid down and the drilling fluid when it comes back out is bringing the cuttings with it. So we finally got to the point