Alvin C. Graves was an atomic physicist and director of U.S. nuclear testing for many years.

Graves was born in 1909 in Washington DC, the youngest of six children. He graduated at the top of his class from the University of Virginia in 1931 with a bachelors degree in electrical engineering and later earned his Ph.D at the University of Chicago.[1]

In 1942 Graves was an assistant professor of physics at the University of Texas when he was invited to the University of Chicago to help build the first nuclear reactor there. He moved to Los Alamos in 1943, the year it opened and two years later headed the Test Division at Los Alamos.[2]

Graves was badly injured in a 1946 laboratory radiation accident in Los Alamos that killed Dr. Louis Slotin. The accident left him temporarily sterile and caused permanent loss to his vision.[3]

Graves later served as test director for most of the Nevada Test Site shots during the 1950s.[2] Graves received a great deal of later criticism for his handling of the nuclear tests which exposed many people to radiation. These included the infamous tests in which U.S. troops were close to the blast site, and the Marshall Islands tests that irradiated many Marshallese.

Graves appeared in Operation Cue, a U.S. Civil Defense Administration movie about the effects of nuclear blasts.[4]

References

  1. ^ Becker, Bill, The Man Who Sets Off Atomic Bombs, The Saturday Evening Post, April 19, 1952, page 186
  2. ^ a b Philip L. Fradkin (2004, second edition). Fallout: An American Nuclear Tragedy pp. 89-90.
  3. ^ Becker, Bill, The Man Who Sets Off Atomic Bombs, The Saturday Evening Post, April 19, 1952, page 188
  4. ^ http://www.weirdwildrealm.com/f-atomic-fear5.html
More