102 



Dahlgren 



Was the Q-clearance used only for atomic weapons? 



That's right. There were not too many people involved, but there were 

 various types of clearances. We had numbers assigned. I've forgotten what 

 mine was — N-144 or something like that. In the Navy, I think I was the 144th 

 person cleared. This was out of the whole Navy. 



The design and development were managed out of the old Bureau of 

 Ordnance which had a special section set up in Washington. To walk into that 

 place,- you had to have a special clearance. There were all sorts of security 

 devices up there, too. The group that worked in the Butler hut at Dahlgren had 

 access to that place. There were probably not over 10 or 15 Dahlgren people 

 who were cleared at that time. There were two junior naval officers — a fellow 

 named McDowell and a young Lieutenant named McFadden. The people 

 involved in the assembly, disassembly, and measurements were people from an 

 instrumentation group headed by Nils Riffolt. We also had a photographer 

 who was cleared, and we had a small group of technicians. 



Out in the battery areas, anybody who was involved in loading guns or the 

 recovery of the test device had to be cleared, but they only knew that they were 

 working on something very secret. They knew that they were not supposed to 

 discuss even the size, shape, or length and diameter of whatever it was they were 

 working with. 



Whenever we had certain types of nuclear materials here and whenever we 

 were disassembling any type of weapon, we had special people called the 

 "health people" who were assigned from Los Alamos. Their main function was 



Butler building previously used for Elsie Project. 



