The Army’s Nuclear Power Program: The Evolution of a Support Agency

On August 6 and August 9, 1945, the world became aware of the destructiveness of nuclear energy when the US Army Air Corps dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even before the bombs were detonated, though, President Harry Truman had directed his thoughts toward non-military uses of the atom, recognising that the atomic bomb had given man a new understanding of the forces of nature. This book examines the history and development of nuclear power from the perspective of the US Army’s nuclear power programme, telling its story from the creation of the Office of Research and Development through the programme’s days of growth, and on to its eventual decline. This history examines the development of the United States Army’s nuclear power programme from its inception, through the development and operation of six small nuclear power plants throughout the Western Hemisphere, to its evolution into a military support agency. The Manhattan Project District Engineer, General Kenneth Nicols, who generated the idea for the programme, worked for the development of atomic energy for peaceful purposes. From the initial plans to develop nuclear power plants at remote bases, the book traces the path the Army took in getting its proposals approved by the Atomic Energy Commission, formally organizing the nuclear programme, and building a prototype of a nuclear power plant. Seperate chapters are devoted to Fort Greely, the nuclear programme at the height of its success and accomplishment, and its subsequent decline and transitional period.