Letter to S Warren, Subject: Experiment on Dogs to Be Sent to Eniwetok

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Division of Biology and Nedicine 2 - aBY oam Attached is a rather lengthy but extremely significant memo from Wright Langham t o me which I w& like t o pass on for your consideration, To boil the thing down as mch as possible, w e would like t o ' utilise the facilities which you have already paid for at the Navy*s installation i n San fiancisco. a kennel f o r raisiag dogs t o be used at Eniwetok; after the dogs go overseas this kennel wdd have no further use. W e would like t o have it continued under the auspices of the Navy and t o have carried out 9'In saying that w e would Ilke t o have this done iny actnal meaning is As I understand it you have sponsored /il // d - G,g 0 there under OUT supervision the experiment outlined i n Vright's memo, that we feel that the work not only ssd be but must be done somewhere someone, Whether it is done by us or someone else is relatively imt o work which w e will be doing here in Los Blamos using smaller animals, and we cau see a number of very distinct advantages t o putting this under our own supervision. I might add, hawever, that we wcnild be ' somewhat reluctant t o taldng this on unless w e conld get AustinBrues to join us a t least i n an advisory and consulting capaci&y. Whenever plutonium is mentioned there seems t o be somthing of a fee- that we in Los Blamos have intentions which are slightly dishonorable and that we are campaigning for low tolerances for our om ulterior motives, This is not the case; we are prepared t o abide whatever tolerances seem right and proper but w e do not wish t o be handicapped tolerances which have been rendered unnecessarily law because of the compounding of a series of safety factors which have been casually tossed into the The experiment itself, however, is entirely canplementarg For a number of reasons I am most reluctant t o start dog experiments on a large scale here at Los Alamos. duce the facilities which currently exist insan Francisco, maintaining the work would probably be somewhat higher here than elsewhere, The importance, harever, of using dogs from the same breeding stock as those used at Eniwetok should not be overlooked, It would be almost necessary t o reproThe cost of

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Dr. Shields Warren, Wch 6, 1950, page 2 I believe that after you read Wright's memo you will agree with us that this experiment should be carried out. sideration therefore are haw, where, and by whom. As I said, w e are perfectly willing t o supervise this work provided we can have the place i n San Francisco on a contractual basis. It could be arranged as an BEG research contract sponsored by the Santa Fe Office with the understanding that it wdd be supervised by our group. Another way of doing; this yould be t o arrange it as a contract directly between the University and the Navy with your Division increasing our budget by the necessary amount. shauld be decided i n Washington. The questions for conThat, however, is a matter which I feel We have asneu suspicion that shd either Austin Brues or Joe Hnmilton think of those nice facilities which will be available i n San Francisco they would be dashing f o r you under a full head of steam. We have a very real desire t o do the work ourselves althuugh we would far prefer t o have someone else do it rather than see it not get done As Wright has pointed out, had this particular experiment been started about fonr years ago many of the problems and questians which are vexing us today cauld easily be settled. The experiment is not a cheap t r e a t but as Wright points aut it i s much less expensive than extensive changes i n ventilation ina major producing facility such as Hanford or even DP West. Very sincerely yours, Health Division Leader Memo from Langham t o Shipman dtd 3/2/50