Kenneth Davis, which teletype contained the full report of the accident.

On March 5, 1957, teletype from Los Alamos Laboratory to Rodney Southwick, Division of Information Services, AEC, Washington, D. C., with copy to General Starbird, Director, Military Applications, was transmitted and contained a suggested press release from the Los Alamos Laboratory concerning the accident.

On March 8, 1957, a teletype from AEC headquarters to Los Alamos Laboratory was received on this date, on Friday, at approximately 5 p. m. The teletype set out a revised press release concerning the accident which AEC headquarters, Washington, D. C., requested the Laboratory to issue in lieu of the release previously suggested by the Laboratory. The teletype stated that the revised press release had been concurred in by the AEC staff and was now before the General Manager for his approval.

I do think that I should say there for General Fields that when I talked to him I am convinced that is the first he heard of this as being serious in any way, and it had not come to his attention. I would not want the record to indicate that on March 8 he got it in his hands and did something with it.

On March 11, on that date, Monday morning, a teletype was transmitted to AEC headquarters, Washington, D. C., from Dr. Bradbury advising that the Laboratory did not desire to release the suggested AEC press release in view of the fact that AEC had declined to accept the Laboratory's suggested release and had substituted its own. The teletype pointed out that the Laboratory did not consider the revised press release as their own and because of this and the fact that the Laboratory did not understand the purpose for the release it was recommended that AEC issue the release.

On the same day, a letter dated March 11, 1957, was transmitted from the Laboratory to the editor of the Nucleonics magazine setting out a report of the "Godiva" accident and enclosing four photographs of the assembly after the accident. The letter made mention of previous intercourse between the Laboratory and the editor of Nucleonics relative to the accident.

On March 15, 1957, on instructions from AEC headquarters Washington, D. C., AEC, Albuquerque, the morning of this date, issued to news services in Albuquerque, N. Mex., the press release which had been written at AEC headquarters, Washington, D. C., and which the Laboratory had declined to issue as its own. The press release carried release time as 12 noon (mountain standard time) (12 noon Albuquerque, N. Mex.).

Associated Press put the story on the wires and converted the 12 noon (mountain standard time) release time to 10 a. m. eastern standard time, Washington, D. C. This was an error in that 2 hours should have been added rather than subtracted in converting to eastern standard time. The correct release time in Washington, D. C., should have been 2 p. m., eastern standard time.

The report of the accident was broadcast in Washington, D. C., approximately at 10 a. m. this date-approximately 2 hours prior to its release time in New Mexico, where the news release reportedly originated.

At 11:03 a. m., March 15, 1957, a letter addressed to the chairman of the Joint Committee, which was dated March 14, 1957, from the

Assistant General Manager, AEC, was received at the Joint Committee office. This letter contained a report of the accident to "Godiva,” a critical assembly, and represented the first formal notice the committee had of the incident.

At 2:27 p. m., March 15, 1957, the press release which was to be issued by the Albuquerque Operations Office of the AEC that date, March 15, relative to the accident was received at the Joint Committee office.

On March 18, 1957, the afternoon of this date, 3 days after the news release of the accident, the AEC congressional liaison representative in conversation with a member of the staff advised that the delay in advising the Joint Committee of the accident lay with Los Alamos in that Washington had no knowledge of the incident until the day before the Joint Committee was advised.

Mr. STRAUSS. Mr. Chairman, may I respond to the Senator?
The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. STRAUSS. I think, Senator Anderson, that this is a case where the term "accident" is a misnomer. This is the kind of mishap that occurs in the course of experimentation and of which we may have examples in the future. It raises the question in my mind as to how far the Joint Committee wishes to go in requiring reports on laboratory experiments which for one reason or another destroy the equipment employed. As it happens, I did not know of this incident until I read it in the paper. But when I read the description of it, it did not occur to me as necessarily one which I felt that I should have been informed of instantly. I was in Los Alamos within the last 10 days. I spent a day and a night and part of another day there. The matter was not mentioned in conversation. The scientists engaged in this operation obviously regarded it as of no concern and no magnitude. I regret the fact that it is described as an incident. It is a laboratory mishap.

Senator ANDERSON. You said you did not regard it as an accident. Mr. STRAUSS. I would not by the description which I have read of it, sir.

Senator ANDERSON. When Mr. Davis was testifying in the PRDC case he was asked about that, and was pinned down and finally said it was an accident.

Mr. STRAUSS. It is a matter of definition, Senator. I would not regard that as an accident. No one was injured. No contamination resulted that was outside the container of the critical assembly, and I would assume that this was the sort of thing which we might expect to happen with some frequency in the future.

The CHAIRMAN. What was the dollar value?

Mr. STRAUSS. I am unable to answer that, Mr. Chairman. I would think it was quite small.

Mr. FIELDS. My information is that it is of the order of a thousand dollars, or something in this neighborhood.

Senator ANDERSON. I think $3,000 was the figure they published, but I would agree it is very small.

Mr. FIELDS. Yes. It is not under the criteria that requires a special report to us. Could I make one statement on this, sir? Apart from the errors that were made in coordinating the time of this release with notification to the Joint Committee-and I admit there that we

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did slip and I am sorry for it-I believe that one can ascribe to what happened here from the date that this took place on February 12 up through to when it was released as due to the fact that we felt we should say something about it, but how could we say that it was not taken as a tremendous reactor accident, because it is not that. There was no intent to withhold information. There was an attempt to see what we could say about this so that people would understand it properly. That was the reason that it has taken some time in this process to do it.

Senator ANDERSON. There was also the fact that the PRDC hearing was going on.

Mr. FIELDS. That had something to do with it. We would have considered putting this out whether that hearing was going on or not, sir, in view of the concern with respect to what happens in reactors and experiments, and so forth.

Senator ANDERSON. Why do you think it was necessary to notify Nucleonics magazine ahead of the Joint Committee?

Mr. FIELDS. This apparently is a side issue that I will have to look into. I believe it has something to do with the technical man believing that there is some information here as to what happens. There is a difference between a prompt criticality and a delayed criticality. It is in this area of scientific information that there is apparently an interest in reporting it. It was no more than that and it has nothing to do with it being an accident in so far as I know.

Mr. STRAUSS. Mr. Chairman, I take a very dim view, and I think the Commissioners would, of the transmission of such information to one news medium rather than to all. That is not our policy.

Senator ANDERSON. I am sure I would be the first to agree that is the truth.

The CHAIRMAN. I believe you can arrive at different conclusions in a situation where the matters are somewhat alike. That goes into many, many questions. That is one reason why the committee wanted a full interpretation of the Commission.

(Pertinent correspondence from Nucleonics magazine follows:)

Representative CARL T. DURHAM,

NUCLEONICS,

New York, N. Y., March 29, 1957.

Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy,

Washington, D. C.

DEAR MR. DURHAM: I am writing you with reference to the mention that was made of Nucleonics on Monday, March 25, during the hearings on liability coverage. This was in connection with the release of information on the Godiva incident.

Although I believe no criticism of Nucleonics was intended, I thought the situation might be clarified if I were to describe what happened, as I understand it.

First, I should point out that in the October 1955 issue of Nucleonics, we published a technical description of Godiva--what it was and how it operated.

After the accident on Godiva, we learned from the people at Los Alamos that, if we were interested, the same scientist who authored the earlier technical article for us would write a followup technical note describing the accident. It was made quite clear to us that a general press release was being considered for issuance first, about 1 month prior to the time we could actually publish the technical note. The press release was put out for publication on March 15. Our story will come out April 8.

Thus, not only did Nucleonics not get an "exclusive" but our publication is to be considerably after the first release date.

I should point out that whenever the Atomic Energy Commission issues a press release, we on Nucleonics ask ourselves whether any detailed information not included in the general release would be useful for our specialized readership. Frequently, we will then go to the source of the information and ask for considerably more detail. Sometimes, the scientist or engineer involved in the work described in a press release wants to follow the normal custom of having a technical paper appear over his name in the technical literature. And so, if Nucleonics happens to be his choice of where he wants to publish, a technical paper or note will be sent to us in parallel with the issuance of the general press release, with the realization that Nucleonics, with its monthly schedule, cannot "beat" the daily press. And I should point out that we believe our stock in trade is not scoring "beats" on the daily press, but giving our readers full background and interpretive commentary on events as they occur.

I would also like to point out that Nucleonics has gone on record in the past (for example, in an editorial on Nuclear Accidents Are Everybody's Business in the May 1956 issue) favoring full release of information on accidents in the nuclear field.

In addition to the need for informing the general public, there is also the need for informing technical and administrative people in the atomic-energy field itself. Information release through responsible channels directed at a technical audience insures balanced and thoughtful treatment of the results reported. The inability of most lay publications to maintain staffs capable of the necessary discrimination and the need to appeal to mass audiences tends to result in a more sensational treatment of the material than the actual scientific facts merit. One need only scan the headlines covering the Godiva incident as they appeared in certain newspapers to see what is possible here. (We recognize that there is involved here a whole area of education for lay reporters and do not wish this to be construed as a blanket condemnation of a medium that has done so much to foster public understanding of atomic energy.)

It would be most unfortunate if policies were to be established that diminished the flow of normal technical information because of a blanket requirement that simultaneous release be made to the general press.

I sincerely hope this letter is helpful to the committee. If it is possible, I would very much appreciate it if this letter could be inserted in the record of the liability hearings.

Sincerely yours,

JEROME D. LUNTZ, Editor.

(Dictated by telephone by Mr. Luntz but signed in his absence.)

The CHAIRMAN. How many more Commissioners have statements? Mr. STRAUSS. That completes our presentation.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you desire to question the Commission any further?

Senator ANDERSON. No.

Representative JENKINS. No.

The CHAIRMAN. Then I suppose we can recess the Commission for this afternoon, and take up the industry people.

(Discussion off the record.)

The CHAIRMAN. I suppose you better come back at 2 o'clock. Mr. FIELDS. Mr. Chairman, we could supply written statements to those questions, if you would wish, for the record.

The CHAIRMAN. That would be all right with me, Senator. Mr. STRAUSS. Mr. Chairman, at the conclusion of this meeting, I would like to have a very brief session with you and such members of the committee as remain, to give you a piece of information.

Senator ANDERSON. I have no further questions. If questions occur to us after we have had discussions with the insurance people, we might like to submit the questions to the AEC, and would you then supply us with additional information?

Mr. STRAUSS. Yes, sir.

(The information referred to follows:)

Hon. CARL T. DURHAM,

UNITED STATES ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION,
Washington, D. C., April 8, 1957.

Chairman, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy,

Congress of the United States.

DEAR MR. DURHAM: In his letter of March 20 to me, Mr. Ramey asked that the Commission be prepared to testify at the March 25 hearings on the AndersonPrice bills on the following matters:

1. The rates, terms, and coverage of private insurance for reactor hazards. 2. A description of AEC research projects on reactor hazards.

3. Comments on the desirability of the public availability of Reactor Safeguard Committee reports on power reactors.

4. Information and comments on the status of AEC regulations or policies. which would establish criteria or factors as to the location and other safety arrangements with respect to reactor hazards.

At the conclusion of our testimony on March 25, you asked that our comments on these matters be submitted for the record. Accordingly, we are attaching. for the record our comments on the matters mentioned above.

Sincerely yours,

K. E. FIELDS, General Manager.

1. COMMENT ON THE RATES, TERMS, AND COVERAGE OF PRIVATE INSURANCE AGAINST REACTOR HAZARDS

The Commission has reviewed the information which has been made available by the insurance syndicates on rates, terms, and coverage of liability insurance against reactor hazards.

As stated in the testin:ony presented to the committee by the Commission on March 25, the amounts of coverage offered, while considerably larger than those hitherto available to other industries, are still inadequate in view of the remote possibility of claims for injury and damage in very much larger amounts. This necessitates Government indemnity legislation so that not only will the public be adequately compensated for injury or damage but also those engaged on proposing to engage in atomic energy activities will not be threatened with bankruptcy.

With regard to the terms of the private insurance, we have considered them as they might apply to the protection of the public in the event of an accident. Our concern has been that there be no gaps between the private coverage and the Government indemnity insofar as the protection of the public is involved, and we have offered comments on the proposed legislation designed to assure that such gaps do not occur.

In announcing the tentative liability insurance rates, the syndicates have indicated that the base rates for the first million dollars of coverage will be determined from analysis of type, use, size, location, and containment of the facility. The rates for additional coverage over the first million dollars will be established on a sliding scale ranging from 50 percent of the base rate for each of the next $4 million, to 2.5 percent of the base rate for each million over $40 million. The minimum rate for any million dollar increment of insurance is $1,000 for power reactors and $500 for test and research reactors. After 10 years, all rates are subject to refunds based on loss experience.

The cost of this insurance for the power reactors is unquestionably larger than that for normal liability insurance carried by utilities. On the other hand, insurance does not appear to be as significant an element of cost in the eventual economics of nuclear power as the problems of improving technology and achieving volume in manufacturing so as to reduce direct construction and operating costs.

It appears that the relative cost of insurance will be higher for small power reactors than for larger ones. However, when one considers that other costsfor the smaller projects will probably also be relatively higher, it is likely that the insurance costs will have no greater relative effect on the total cost of power from small reactors than from large. In addition, the difference may be somewhat offset by the provisions of S. 715 which will allow the Commission to fix a lesser amount of required private financial protection for the small facilities than for the large ones.