This is another in the series of anecdotes taken verbatim from Les Cook’s unpublished book “Birthpangs of CANDU”, a copy of which is in the documents held by the Society for the Preservation of Canada’s Nuclear Heritage Inc. (SPCNHI) (Les Cook was the Director of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Division of CRNL from 1945 to 1956.)
“More informative about the nature of “security” problems was an incident a few years later – about 1951. Admiral Rickover had discovered that the only place available to him for testing the fuel elements for the planned nuclear submarines was the NRX reactor at Chalk River. But the US Senate/Congressional Committee had just passed a law forbidding the export of enriched uranium on the strictest of penalties. And in order to irradiate these test fuels the use of a supplemental enriched fuel rod would be essential.
The Joint Committee solved this problem to its own satisfaction be agreeing that the inside of the sealed-up US fuel rod would remain US territory wherever the fuel rod might go, so the sending of such a fuel rod to Chalk River would be considered not to be “export” as long as the rod remained inviolate.
The unique rod arrived in due course. Fred Gilbert, Superintendent of Reactor Operations, asked for some detail about the internals of the rod. Major Curtis Nelson, the USAEC administrator, supplied a statement of the rod’s nuclear characteristics but no statement on its internal construction; that was “security” information concerning US territory.
Fred Gilbert was annoyed. He was, after all, held responsible for everything that went into NRX and felt uneasy inserting a rod blindly, with no idea of its internal construction.
Fred laid the 10 foot rod out on the floor of NRX building, put X-ray films under it, pulled up a portable X-ray machine, and X-rayed it.
Next morning he walked into Curtis’ office, showed him the X-rays, said he was now satisfied and would go ahead.
What the film showed was cylinders of dense material separated by spacers, presumably of aluminum.
Curtis was thunderstruck. Although the rod had not been breached, a piece of US territory (by definition) had been violated from foreign soil, and some intelligence developed.
Although Fred and everyone else considered it a joke, for in fact they had learned nothing of importance, Curtis and his superiors in Washington, whom he contacted immediately feared for their jobs. The Joint Commission had become so powerful, and some of its members so introverted in their thinking, that they might regard this as anything but a joke – especially the making fun of their ponderous legal tinkering with a little routine and obvious technology.
For several days, Nelson and Gilbert did not speak to each other, although they were neighbours on Beach Avenue as well as office neighbours at work. As the weeks went by, and the experiments proceeded well, and no political explosions were heard from Washington, the situation gradually returned to “normal”.
The Society would be very pleased to receive further anecdotes about the early days of the nuclear industry. Anecdotes can be sent to info@nuclearheritage.ca or directly to J. Ungrin at ungrinjr@gmail.com .
