Interview with Lewis Gibson Miller, September 14, 2005

Nevada Test Site Oral History Project University of Nevada, Las Vegas Interview with Lewis Miller September 14, 2005 Las Vegas, Nevada Interview Conducted By Suzanne Becker © 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 Lewis Miller September 14, 2005 Conducted by Suzanne Becker Table of Contents Introduction: birth ( Los Angeles, CA, 1931), family background, childhood and education in Las Vegas, NV ( beginning 1941) 1 Military service and electronics school ( U. S. Navy, 1950- 1953) 3 Discharge and return to Las Vegas, NV ( 1953), works for Frontier Radio and TV, takes position at NTS as Communications Department technician for REECo, training in microwave systems at Raytheon ( 1956) 4 Work in maintenance of weather stations at NTS, comments on unique experience of working at the NTS in the 1950s 6 Details of balloon tests performed by Sandia Corporation ( later National Laboratories) at the NTS 7 Participation in Operation Hardtack II ( 1958) 10 Work and workforce numbers at the NTS during the moratorium ( 1958- 1961) 11 Participation in Operation Roller Coaster ( 1963) 12 Comments on typical work day and commuting to the NTS 14 Work on various Plowshare projects 15 Participation in Cannikin ( 1971), living and working on Amchitka Island 17 Life at the NTS, and involvement in geophysical program ( polar cusp) for LANL ( ca. late 1970s to early 1980s) 20 Work on Vela Uniform program ( Hattiesburg, MS, 1961) 21 First impressions of the NTS ( 1956), and balloon preparation for tests 23 Becomes offsite supervisor ( after 1961) for Net- 12 radio system used by USPHS, later EPA; work on video systems for underground and tunnel shots at the NTS 27 Adaptation of NTS technology to real world use; work on communication technology for Shoal ( 1963) 29 Impressions of tests: Hood ( 1957), Sedan ( 1962), Pile Driver ( 1966), and Buggy A- E ( 1968) 32 Reflections on testing, maintenance of weapons stockpile, effects of radiation 34 Radiation exposure and health effects 35 Work with scientists at NTS and LANL 36 Thoughts on reactivation of NTS and use of site for other purposes ( alternative energy, Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository) 38 Recollections of protesters at the NTS 41 Downwinders and compensation for radiation- induced injuries 43 Comments on the media and public relations with local residents during testing and other major events 44 Camaraderie with peers during testing 46 Conclusion: final comments on career in testing ( 1956- 1992) 47 UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 1 Interview with Lewis Miller September 14, 2005 in Las Vegas, NV Conducted by Suzanne Becker [ 00: 00: 00] Begin Track 2, Disc 1. Lewis Miller: My name is Lewis G. Miller. I was born in Los Angeles, California March 8, 1931. My mother and dad were with me at the time, of course, and my mother was born in Los Angeles and my dad was born in New York. I spent my early years, most of the time, in California, although I traveled to Florida and New York a couple of times before I was ten years old. To visit or to live? My dad was a type of person that liked to roam around. And in fact my dad, who moved here in June of 1941, had opportunities to buy a lot of property that is now worth millions. Moved here to Las Vegas? To Las Vegas. And did you move to Las Vegas then also? I moved to Las Vegas also. We lived in Burbank, California that the time. OK, so you moved from Burbank to Las Vegas. In June of ’ 41. And you were just a kid still. I was ten years old at the time. So how was that? Well, it was a novel experience. For one thing, we moved here because I had a lot of problems with, well, I wouldn’t call it asthma but breathing problems and they said the desert would be UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 2 good for me. My dad had an opportunity to manage a guest ranch out in Paradise Valley, which that ranch was located where the University of Nevada now sits in Las Vegas. That used to be a ranch? That was a ranch at one time. It was dirt road from the corner of Main and Fifth Street, which is now Las Vegas Boulevard. From there on out it was dirt road all the way to the ranch. In fact, let’s see, right there, that one little picture [ showing photograph] is my dad and my mother. I’m swimming in a pool, that’s where I learned to swim, at the Bar W Ranch. See right in the middle there? My dad with a western hat? Oh, yeah, look at that. Dad posing in his western hat. And he ran that ranch. That is just to the east of where UNLV [ University of Nevada, Las Vegas] sits, on the other side of Maryland Parkway, which there was nothing else out there at that time. Unbelievable. So what was that like then? I assume you got to spend a lot of time out in the area. Oh, a lot of time, out in the desert and rode horses. The ranch was a guest ranch owned by a man named Murray Wollman, and it was called the Bar W. Murray Wollman and his wife Agnes Wahlman owned the Wollman Hotel on the corner of Fourth [ Street] and Fremont [ Street], and then also this ranch out in the valley. My dad did not have good health and passed away Christmas Eve of ’ 46. So my mother did not work before that and went to work at the Flamingo [ Hotel and Casino] as a food checker. Well, I should say she worked at the old original El Rancho Vegas [ Hotel and Casino] and then went to the Flamingo, and had one very interesting experience. Had Howard Hughes come down and hug her. But that was the days of [ Benjamin] Bugsy Siegel and all the good stuff, and she knew all of those people. What were your folks’ names? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 3 Miller. My dad’s name is the same as mine, Lewis G. Miller. My mother was Martha Mary Miller. My mother lived until she was ninety years old, so she had a long life history. Just curious, did you have siblings? No. I was the only child. And I went to grammar school here, Fifth Street Grammar School. From there I moved over to Las Vegas High School, Class of ’ 49. In fact I’m going to a reunion here Saturday. [ 00: 05: 00] After I graduated out of high school, I went to work for about a month at a sheet metal organization that was doing all of the air conditioning units at Nellis Air Force Base at that time. Working out in the sun, I said there’s got to be a better way to go, so I asked a good friend of mine, Jack Clark which is that gentleman up there in my Navy picture [ showing photograph] if he’d like to join the [ U. S.] Navy and he said sure, let’s do it. So we joined the Navy. So you guys were friends and decided that— Oh, yeah. In fact Jack Clark is a very good friend of Jim Rogers, and in realty with him, in fact. Jack and I graduated out of high school and so forth. We went all through school. But upon joining the Navy, I qualified for electronics school; I was sent to [ Naval Station] Treasure Island up at San Francisco for one year of electronics school. During that period of time, of course, the Korean conflict started, so I got out of school, asked to go aboard a destroyer, and was assigned to a destroyer escort, the USS Wiseman ( DE- 667), and sent over to Japan to pick up the ship, which was over in Korea. From Yokosuka, Japan went by train through Hiroshima and Nagasaki to Sasebo and caught my ship in Sasebo and then spent the next couple of years in the waters of Korea and Japan. And was extended because of the Korean conflict; got out of the Navy the end of March in ’ 53. And where were you stationed? Where were you at this time when you got out of the Navy? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 4 I left the ship in again Yokosuka, Japan and took a troop ship back to Seattle, Washington, where I was discharged. After I arrived in Vegas, first thing I did was take the mustering- out money and buy a car. Then I needed to pay for it, so I went for a job. I went to work for Frontier Radio and TV. This was right at the start of television coming to Vegas. So I spent approximately three years at Frontier Radio and TV. While there, I also obtained my radio- telephone license first- and- second- class. What did you do for them? Television repair, two- way radio repair, installation, that type of thing. Excuse me a second [ pause]. At the Frontier, one of the men working there was a friend of a gentleman out at the Nevada Test Site [ NTS] and said that they were looking for technicians out at the test site. So I went up there, I drove up to the test site— which was an experience at that time, sixty- five miles, it was a two- lane road, the Widowmaker they called it as it was going— and went to the administration building at Mercury. They said fine, you’re hired. I was the twelfth person in the Communications Department. Well, that was in August that I went up there. I went up on a Friday and they said come to work on Monday, so August 20, 1956 I went and started my first day of work at the test site. Now I’m just curious at this point, I’d say you���re pretty close to a native of Las Vegas. Pretty close, yeah. And coming back after the war, and were you aware of the test site being out there and, you know, were you kind of following along with the development of this—? Oh, yes. We used to watch the atmospheric explosions whenever they had them. Oh, sure. So you’d seen those prior to working up at the test site. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 5 Oh, yeah. So upon going to work there, of course the first thing they did was put me in for a Q- clearance. That I went through very quickly; in thirty days I had my Q- clearance. [ 00: 10: 00] Then an opportunity arose whereby the next test series, which was going to be called [ Operation] Plumbbob in 1957, they were going to try a new method of doing atmospheric testing that would be less expensive than steel towers. That would be using balloons to raise the devise cab up into the air at various heights; five hundred, seven- hundred- and- fifty feet, or fifteen hundred feet, and detonate the device at that location, being held by a tethered balloon. Sandia Corporation [ later National Laboratories] in Albuquerque was doing the experimental work on the balloon platforms that were to be used. They had contacted Reynolds Electric [ Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Company, REECo] through the AEC [ Atomic Energy Commission] about getting support for their program. Being as I had had radar and sonar and various types of work in the Navy, the department manager, Ken Bean of the communications for Reynolds, asked me if I would like to be on that team. I said yes, I would. First thing they did was we’re going to fly you back to Boston to attend a Raytheon school on microwave. And I said OK. Anyway, went back there, met one of the Sandia engineers in Boston; at Waltham actually where the school was. We attended a two- week Raytheon course in microwave. The idea of the microwave system was to be able to use video cameras, which were very new at that time— they were not anything like they are now— to observe the balloon both from a vertical position and a horizontal position; to be able to spot it when it was raised with the event cab to location before the detonation. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 6 So having completed that school in the fall of ’ 56, came back to the test site and continued work there. I might say that while I was at the test site, before I went into the balloon program, I had the opportunity, or one of my functions, was to take care and maintain weather stations located at the test site; which is now where the nuclear dump is proposed to be, where the nuclear reactor test motor was. It involved going out in the mornings about twice a week and making a loop of about sixty- five or seventy miles through desert with a four- by- four to these remote towers that would record weather information— wind speed, rainfall if any, wind direction, and all of that— so that they had an idea of the whole area, of the wind patterns and so forth. Right. And that’s to get the conditions— Right. Make sure we’re shooting in optimal conditions. Yes, it helps before the actual test events to show what the wind patterns were and so forth, because before every event there is always a weather briefing. They have to know what the wind is going to be and all conditions, clouds, rain, atmospheric conditions before a shot takes place. Now I don’t want to interrupt you too much but I’m just curious because you’re out on this pretty important and impressive— you know the test site at that time, well, it remained— but this is a big deal, this is brand- new, this is science at its peak, we’ve never done this before. And you’re out there and you’re twenty- five years old or so, and I’m just wondering, if you recall at all, what that experience was like. It was a very unique experience. In fact I felt very privileged because I was closely associated [ 00: 15: 00] with several high- ranking people in Sandia Corporation; Ph. D. s. We would sit in meetings and discuss what we were going to do on this balloon platform system. You see, we UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 7 tested it. They put in winch bunkers— Area 7 was the very first site used at NTS— and we did our tests there. Another interesting thing, this is jumping ahead a bit, but the first successful balloon test we had was with an actual device. Several before that had had failures, so we learned from those failures. And that’s something I want to go back to, but go ahead. Well anyway, we did the tests. We would take the balloons which were shipped to us, Sandia came out of course, the crew from Sandia. Let’s see, there was about four or five people from Sandia and about six people from REECo. And just so I can get sort of an accurate picture, when we’re saying “ balloons” I’m assuming we’re talking about rather large kind of— Yes, large, fifty to seventy- five- foot- in- diameter balloons. OK. I’ve seen the pictures but— Yeah, I’ve got a bunch of pictures someplace of them. I don’t know where they are but I have a bunch. Wait just a minute. Hang on just a second. I might have—[ pause]— it involved the seventy- five- foot balloons. Well, there’s two— I should say there��s also a smaller balloon, I think the smaller balloon was fifty foot— which would lift different amounts of weight, depending upon the device to be tested. There was a cab underneath the balloon. What was involved with the balloons, the balloon consisted— I’ll get back a little bit— of a nylon shroud, and inside the shroud was a polyethylene liner that was filled with helium. We used a pad that was developed at BJY, if you’re familiar with BJY. OK, it’s about ten miles from CP One [ control point one] at the junction of the road to Area 51, Area 7, and Area 12. On this pad there were winches and tie- downs and so forth. The nylon shroud would be laid out. The people involved with the balloon, which was myself, would take the polyethylene liner and go inside the nylon shroud and string UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 8 the polyethylene liner inside, come out to the— well, it was a hole like a porthole in the bottom of the balloon, and then the helium gas would be fed to the balloon with tie- down ropes being used to hold it as it came up. When it reached its full inflation, a lowboy trailer with a twenty- thousand- pound cement block on it— or ten- ton, I should say— would come alongside and the balloon would be transferred from the tie- down winches to the lowboy, which would transport the balloon to the ground zero area in [ Area] 7, at this time, for the test. So this is a pretty good production, getting it ready. Oh, it was a very, very big production. You also had to be very careful of winds and everything else because high winds would be very disastrous for you. How long did that particular part of the preparation take, for you guys to get everything set up and ready to go? Usually probably a day ahead to get everything set up and then a day to do the actual inflation and transport it to location. At the location, of course, and there was a lot of development done on this, there were winch shelters, triangular- patterned. Let’s see, they were out one thousand feet. About a thousand feet, yes. And in fact, at the Desert Research [ Institute], at the memorial, at the museum [ Atomic Testing Museum], the woman upstairs has a drawing that was made by one of the engineering firms of the balloon layout showing the winch shelters and how they were spread out. Anyway, there’s cables laid there, too, and also involved in this, all the cables that were brought in to hold the device cab and to keep it in place, were tested. Even though they were [ 00: 20: 00] tested by the factory, we learned again from our earlier mistakes. We would pretest. If they were tested to fifteen thousand pounds, we’d test them to twenty. Because, again, this is UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 9 backtracking a little bit, when we were doing the initial tests we had a couple of cases where cables popped. The fittings on the end popped off. We had a case where the bolt sheared because it wasn’t a special specification bolt. And which tests were these? These were the primary tests to test the balloon with a shot cab with lead bricks in it for weight, preliminary to see how the control system— because once the balloon was transferred to the shot cab at ground zero and hooked to the main cable that would let it raise up, you would go back to CP, the control point, and in there, there was a console with two video monitors. They would take the cameras— there was one in the main winch shelter and one camera at ground zero looking up— and you’d have the two pictures of the balloon and you’d have this control panel that had all the winch functions on it, raising and lowering the winch cable. The winches were elevator winches, they were huge. And on this panel you’d raise the main winch, which would allow it to go up, and you’d let the guy winches out as it went up to keep the tension the same. There were tension monitors on it. All of the electronics and all of the remote was all part of our job, our part of the crew, and no one else touched it except the balloon crew. The gauges on the console would monitor the pounds of tension on each guy and on the main cable and it also checked the footage as it went up. When it got, let’s say, to a prescribed height of five hundred foot, you would then tighten the guy cables down to hold it in a steady position. One of the big concerns from the diagnostic side of the picture, of the laboratories, was being able to take readings from the explosion. If they didn’t get all the data they needed from the explosion, it was worthless to have the explosion. So that consisted of not only cameras supplied by EG& G [ Edgerton, Germeshausen, and Grier] but a lot of other sensing equipment that was in various bunkers around the area, and it all was aimed at a certain location above UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 10 ground zero. With the tower, it was very simple. The tower went straight up. You knew where it was. This was a balloon that you could move with the guy cables. So that was the purpose. On a test run before a shot, we’d run the balloon up with an empty cab, mark a spot where it was, surveyors would verify that location. We would— and we developed this too— by the vidicon and the camera, marking a spot on the vidicon so it wouldn’t change on the screen, and then locate that spot on the screen. When it went up with the actual shot cab, the person operating the console would take the balloon to that location, turn to the test director and say, It’s on the spot, and he would give the go- ahead for the countdown. And that was basically it. Now the only people that ever operated the balloon console for an actual shot were two or three of the Sandia people: one a Ph. D., another engineer, and myself. I was one of the few. I had the opportunity— when they stopped nuclear testing in November of 1958, I believe it was, [ Operation] Hardtack Phase II, OK, they wanted to get off the most nuclear events they could on the last day before the moratorium. They decided on using three balloon shots, in Area 7, Area 9, and Frenchman Flat. And they had one problem, because we’d been working eighteen to twenty hours a day, of how they were going to be able to be in condition for it. Because, only two or three people had operated the console to do this. First, we rigged up a method of changing the cables between the areas so the balloon console could be switched to whatever area [ 00: 25: 00] and checked out. I was fortunate to be chosen to do the one in Area 7, which was unusual because I was a REECo contractor employee, not a Sandia Corporation or a laboratory [ employee]. It was a LASL [ Los Alamos Scientific, now National Laboratory] shot and the test director, Bob [ Robert] Campbell was asked if he thought it was OK if I had that shot. He said, Yeah, let’s give her a whirl. And so I did the Area 7 shot which involved, of course, UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 11 overseeing the whole operation of getting the balloon filled, down to ground zero, arming party, checking everything out, going back to CP, putting it in spot, and telling the test director we’re OK. I felt good about that. I bet that was exciting. Yes. And then Russ Frame had the other one and Jerry Larson had the other one. Now I have a couple of questions because you mentioned the moratorium and Hardtack and I’m wondering, that last balloon shot, did it go? Yes. All three went. In the last twenty- four- hour period, all three went. OK. And since we��re talking about the moratorium, I’m just wondering what your memories— because it seems that there was a shift. We switched from the atmospheric testing and then to underground, and there was a period in there that there was a lull. And I’m just wondering if you have any memories of what it was like, since you were so intricately involved prior to that moratorium. Well, I’ll say this. It was something like when I first went to work at the test site, I think Reynolds had about two hundred employees. They used to vary their work force between two to four hundred and six or eight thousand, depending on a test series, because every test series would run for, let’s say, six to eight months. They would hire all of these people to come in and build towers and do all sorts of different things, housing, feeding, a vast amount of work was involved. And Reynolds was the prime support contractor, so their work force would jump up tremendously for maybe ten months, and then drop back down. When they went into the moratorium, the work force— I think we had some hundred- and- twenty technical people working at Reynolds at the time in the radio communications shop, and that dropped down to about thirty. OK, so there was quite a— UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 12 Quite a layoff. And then we went into other work. I did the offsite communications for many years. And also— in fact, I have one, right up there [ showing photograph? Document?]— they had some testing using balloons. At that same time, there were some ideas, being as the spherical balloons had worked, but there was one problem with spherical balloons. If wind came up, they were very prone to taking undue stress and moving because they caused a wind blockage. So Sandia Corporation worked toward developing shaped balloons, like a dirigible, the same as the ones that fly over the ball games and everything like that. And those, because of the way they are built, will turn into the wind if they’re anchored and they also have some lift from their tail assembly. So this was two plus factors. And we experimented with those types of balloons. Also there was a proposal made that should there ever be a resumption of atmospheric testing in the Pacific, high- level, they could use these balloons to go up to like ten thousand feet. They even made up a whole book— Sandia made up a book; it’s in the National Archives— of what this would involve and the crew that would do it. So it was laid out. Yes. And I was one of the ones on that crew, too. [ 00: 30: 00] But anyway, later on in [ Operation] Roller Coaster, which was up at the Tonopah Test Range [ TTR], where they brought in the military and the British and they had troops that were going to— they were going to simulate troops getting radioactive exposure. So they wanted a balloon that could measure the controlled radioactive release. They used a shaped balloon that would support a net across the dry lake out there with blinds across with all measuring devices to see the radiation exposure. Roller Coaster was a very interesting program. I got called back to work on that. I was at a project up in Fallon [ Nevada]; project Shoal, putting in the communication systems. Sandia UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 13 Corporation was asked to do this, and this was the time that EG& G had taken over the balloon program. And for this program they had these shaped balloons up there, they had a lot of problems on getting them up in position and so forth. They’d lost a couple. I had a call up in Fallon that said, Can you come down here, drop that project for about a week, get some of the old crew that you had, and go up to Tonopah and see if we can get this thing going with Sandia? They’d like to have you. So I flew back down to Vegas, the crew met me with a government car at the airport, we drove up that night to Tonopah, and the next week we went out and did the thing, put the balloon up and so forth. So it was successful. Oh, yes, it was successful. But that was also interesting. I mean I felt good about it. Interesting in how? Interesting in it was a completely different environment. There were no nuclear devices involved. There were many, many troops. We were using Army six- by trucks for stringing out the guy wires and stuff like this. We lost one balloon that flew across the dry lake, broke loose and ruptured and came down. We went and got that, took it back to the old airport outside of Tonopah, laid it out, repaired it, put it back together, and did it again. But things like that. So it was a different environment entirely. So just a different way of working. And so am I correct in that your career there spanned through 1992? Through 1992; thirty- five- and- a- half years. I had a heart attack in ’ 91. The doctor said it was from stress. I worked another year and I said that’s it; I said thirty- five- and- a- half years was enough. So I know there are different things, but I’m wondering if you could sort of talk about what a typical day for you was like when you were getting ready to— UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 14 With the balloons? Well, yeah, with the balloons, and then— Because the balloon thing was completely different than the regular radio shop operation. We were a separate little group on loan to Sandia. The only thing we called in was our time to the boss. I mean like sometimes we would go home at one in the afternoon, while everybody was still working. And other times we would be working around the clock. OK, so it really varied. It varied. It varied. It all depended upon the schedule, the weather, what was proposed, what shots were coming up, and so on and so forth. And during that period, were you staying out at the test site? I always lived here in Vegas, but I did spend some time [ there]. I had a room out there and quite often I’d stay out there overnight or something. On long days we’d stay over. Well, I guess it was a lot different than it is nowadays. Of course, going to the test site when I first went there, on the Widowmaker. There was no buses, you rode carpools, and at that time everybody smoked, and you can imagine six people in a car doing eighty- five miles an hour and everybody smoking. And of course on Friday evenings coming in, still doing eight- five miles an hour with a six- pack of beer and smoking is very nice. Very interesting. I’ve seen a couple of very good friends die out there; rollovers and so forth. Then they got the bus system in the early sixties going and that made quite a change to the operation, much nicer. [ 00: 35: 00] But it was a long day when you lived in town because you’d get on the bus at six in the morning, get home at six at night, so it was a twelve- hour day. And my routine would be of course reporting to the radio shop normally, except when I was on the balloon crew, and then it was strictly reporting to the Sandia compound. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 15 Now with the radio shop, what types of things were you working on? Two- way radio systems, basically. Radio repeaters. Some microwave systems. Most of my career was supporting offsite operations when I had the opportunity, like project Shoal in northern Nevada; project Dribble in Hattiesburg [ Mississippi]; project, oh, the one down in Carlsbad [ New Mexico], Gnome; Amchitka, Alaska. Well, let’s see, I’ve got deals all over— project Rulison. That was another one in Colorado. That was another opportunity I had, again, I guess because I was fairly versatile— well, well- versed in various electronic things such as cameras, microwave, radar, two- way radio, and so forth. So the offsite projects like Rulison, which was a project where, outside of the AEC but using a laboratory device, they were going to try to bust up oil shale to get oil. It was CER [ Geonuclear Corp.]— Continental Oil, EG& G and Reynolds— on a more- or- less corporate side rather than the government side [ that] were doing this with guidance from the laboratories and the AEC, to watch over it to make sure everything was adhered to. Rulison was a very interesting project up in Grand Junction [ Colorado] area, just north of Grand Junction about sixty miles. It was a device by Los Alamos. I put in the video system there that I borrowed from Livermore labs. The test director for that project was Bob Campbell from Los Alamos. I was in the shot trailer when they had the shot and all the news media were there. I was on I think it was NBC or CBS World News. My mother said, Gee, I saw you coming out of the shot trailer. In those days you came out of the shot trailer and you had a bottle of champagne to celebrate because everything was successful. And we dealt with hippies: some of the Rulison certificates show the hippies. I’ve got one up there. I don’t know where it is. No, there’s one with the hippies [ showing certificate]. Oh, yeah, look at that. In terms o