Lilienthal, David

Lilienthal, David E. 1964. The Journals of David E, Lilienthal, Harper Row. Litvinoff, Barnet. 1976. Weizmann, Hodder and Stoughton. 

The AEC succeeded the Manhattan Engineer District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. David Lilienthal was appointed the first Chairman of the AEC. Congress gave the new civilian Commission extraordinary power and independence to carry out its mission. To provide the Commission exceptional freedom in hiring scientists and professionals, Corranission employees were exempt from the Civil Service system. Because of the need for great security, all production facilities and nuclear reactors... 

In 1948, David Lilienthal, chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (USAEC), publicly informed President Harry Truman that cobalt was likely to become a readily available, inexpensive substitute for radium. USAEC officials predicted that it would take two to three years to standardize dosages so that patients could be treated. "... 

John David Anderson, introduction to Flight, 2004, p. 18. Lilienthal recognised that for man to fly direct... 

President Truman recruited five distinguished Americans to serve as the first commissioners. He first nominated Sumner Pike, a businessman and former member of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and quickly added Lewis Strauss. For chairman, Truman enlisted David E. Lilienthal. Then serving as head of the Tennessee Valley Authority, Lilienthal had proved himself an able administrator. Fvuthermore, he... 

AEC officially began operations under Chairman David E. Lilienthal. 

The 375th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, based in Alaska, regularly patrolled areas downwind of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). On 3 September 1949, an aircraft from this squadron detected high levels of radioactivity while flying a routine mission east of the Kamchatka Peninsula. Analysis of the sniffer filter confirmed that this radioactivity was fission-derived. The laboratory estimated that a nuclear device (later to be dubbed Joe 1 ) had exploded in the USSR on 29 August. This news was communicated by Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) chairman David Lilienthal to President Harry S. Truman on 20 September, who informed his Cabinet three days later. 

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