ABSTRACT
For ten years prior to the Atoms for Peace proposal, I was employed in commercial and U.S. government nuclear enterprises, where interests and aspirations regarding nuclear weapons, military propulsion, and commercial nuclear power were increasingly comingled, even though the resultant development and especially the production programs were carried forward on a segregated basis. Following World War II, the tightly controlled, secret, wartime nuclear weapons program gave birth, as well as gave way, first to the prospect and then to the reality of broad development of other uses for fission energy, such as naval nuclear propulsion, electric power generation, and radioisotope production and use. The underlying and coherent technological relationships of all these activities were evident not only to those with professional mobility, but provided for flexibility and mutual support, not only in technology development but also in training, organization, and staffing, and in development of infrastructure for the growing agenda.
