Times of Crisis 93 



Ordnance Laboratory because there already was one. You know, NOL, White 

 Oak, and NOL, Dahlgren. We did not have sufficient personality of our own or 

 sufficiently established credibility to be another NOL because the next thing 

 somebody would be saying was that we were a field station of the big boy in 

 Washington. NOTS we thought about, the Naval Ordnance Test Station, but 

 that wasn't really what we wanted to convey because we didn't want people to 

 call us a test station. We weren't a test station anymore. This was all part of our 

 big campaign which was to convince our sponsors, notably the Bureau of 

 Ordnance, that we were in business, should stay in business, and should be 

 regarded as a factor in the world of today and not yesterday. 



Things got quite bad. It was about 1956. So we started a considerable 

 campaign. It was very much of an all-hands maneuver, and all of our top 

 technical people were concerned — Niemann, Jones, Cohen, Stoner, Overman, 

 Rossbacher, Meyers, and so on. I took pains to make sure they were all engaged, 

 because this was not the kind of thing that could be brought down from on high. 



We had two things that we really needed to do. One was to get opportunity 

 from the sponsors to demonstrate our capability, and this I had to do. I was 

 going to be the front man. At least I had to take the leading part. But the more 

 important part was what happened when they grudgingly gave us something to 

 do. Then these other guys were going to have to come through and dem- 

 onstrate success. Then I could go back and say. "Look at the success we've 

 had. Now give us more." We spent an awful lot of time organizing our ap- 

 proach, and I remember the first broadside in our campaign. 



We asked for an audience with Admiral Withington who was then the Chief 

 of the Bureau. He gave us a good long time. He brought all of his staff along, 

 and he listened. I made a pitch, and when I got through. Admiral Withington 

 said, "That's the best presentation I've ever heard." 



We tried to be as honest with him as we could possibly be. Here's Dahlgren, 

 and first of all, "What's Dahlgren's situation?" Well, we described its history 

 very briefly. "And what does Dahlgren have?" This was very clearly organized 

 along the three lines I mentioned previously. "What were our strengths? What 

 did we have, and what could we do?" The last section was, "What can the 

 Bureau do?" For example, the Bureau can go on with Dahlgren the way it is. We 

 don't recommend this because we're sliding downhill. We are just getting a little 

 bit less able each year as we go on with inadequate support, without a real 

 mission, without the kind of support that is needed to keep a technical staff 

 viable and producing. You would do better not to follow this course. 



"What else could you do?" Well, you could make us a field station of NOL, 

 White Oak. This is a possibility. We'd talked about it. "Would this be satisfac- 

 tory?" We said it would be a way of keeping the field facilities operating, but we 

 didn't think that if you did that you should keep Dahlgren as a separate 

 entity. Abolish it and make it a pure and simple outlying field site for NOL. 



