ALSOS Mission

Pash, Boris T. 1969. The Alsos Mission. Award Books. 

For example, elections are considered mission critical to governments, which are bound by law to conduct them at set periods. They are also mission critical to the councils which are bound to collect and collate ballots to acceptable levels of accuracy to the populace. Both can involve significant amounts of technology, but it is the risks of the technology combined with the level of training, and the capabilities of the staff involved that influence the success of any given election process. 

Although the analysis dates from the 1940s, the final ALSOS mission report is still a useful case study today, in that it illustrates an analysis of whether a country s BW activities are defensive or offensive. This is a crucial distinction, because if BW activities are assessed as defensive, the program is permitted under current international law as embodied in the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), but if the activities are assessed as offensive, the program is prohibited by the BTWC. 

Roosevelt did not respond immediately to the letter, and it took two months before decisions were made. In particular, the letter prompted Roosevelt to establish what came to be known as the Uranium Committee, thereby setting in motion events that would culminate in the establishment of the Manhattan Project and the successful development of nuclear weapons. Einstein also expressed deep concern about the moral implications of the development and use of nuclear weapons. See also ALSOS MISSION EINSTEIN-RUSSELL MANIFESTO GROVES, LESLIE RICHARD. 

NODDY SUIT. British slang for a chemical warfare (CW) protection suit. See also MISSION-ORIENTED PROTECTIVE POSTURE (MOPP). 

NUCLEAR PILE. The early nuclear reactors, such as the one at Stagg Field, were fashioned from stacks or piles of graphite blocks interspersed with slugs of natural uranium. This construction led to such reactors being dubbed piles or nuclear piles. The preferred term currently is nuclear reactor. During World War II, the ALSOS Mission uncovered an unworkable pile constructed by Germany. 

Pash joined the U.S. G-2 Army Intelligence reserves as a second lieutenant in 1930. During the early part of World War II, he oversaw some U.S. Army intelligence-gathering operations along the border with Mexico whose purpose was to uncover possible Japanese activities to secure landing sites for their aircraft and submarines for an attack on the continental United States. Pash was later made responsible for the security of the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory, which performed work for the Manhattan Project. Leslie R. Groves, the head of the project, recommended Pash to head the ALSOS Mission. 

Pash, Boris. The Alsos Mission. New York Award House, 1969. 

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