Conclusion -78- 



Although criticism and challenge have by no means been confined to 

 any one person or group, the spearhead of the opposition, so to speak, has 

 been the United States Weather Eureau. This unit has kept a watchful eye 

 on all the developments associated with Project Cirrus. In many cases 

 it designated observers to work with the project on specific operations. 

 It has conducted experiments of its own, to test the validity of Project 

 Cirrus findings, notably the Cloud Physics Project, jointly conducted by 

 the Weather Eureau and the United States Air Force. 



The running controversy between representatives of the Weather 

 Bureau and Dr. Langmuir is summarized in an article^) available in 

 his office files at The Knolls. In it Langmuir discusses and answers the 

 various criticisms and challenges. He summarizes the importance of 

 the situation in the following paragraphs. 



"The possibility of such wide -scale control of weather 

 conditions, of course, offers important military applications, 

 but since nearly all meteorologists are much influenced by 

 the opinions and the attitudes of the Weather Bureau men, 

 the opposition on the part of the Weather Bureau and other 

 groups has, up to the present, prevented the starting of any 

 military applications. 



"It was, therefore, of the utmost importance to clear 

 this matter up without getting too much publicity. It is 

 largely for this reason that no detailed accounts of the evi- 

 dence in favor of the reality of the wide -scale effects have 

 been published...." 



Langmuir has since explained orally that, in view of this situation, 

 he has resorted to the use of publicity only when other methods of bringing 

 matters to a head had failed. At the time of the preparation of this report, 

 however, both he and the other scientists associated with Project Cirrus 

 had begun to feel that the opposition was beginning to "see the light" and 

 that it would only be a matter of time before the Weather Bureau would 

 change its attitude. It is believed that the results obtained by the Cali- 

 fornia Electric Power Company (page 70) have had a great deal to do with 

 that change of attitude. 



Some picture of the Weather Bureau side of the controversy may be 

 found in testimony^) presented during hearings before Senate subcommittees 

 on three bills, as follows: 



S.5, a bill to provide for research into and demonstration 

 of practical means for the economical production, from sea or 

 other saline waters, or from the atmosphere (including cloud 

 formations), of water suitable for agricultural, industrial, 



