Whtie Sands Administrative History

An example of the caution adopted by NPS officials over Trinity Site came in a report from Ronald F. Lee, chief historian, who visited the Tularosa basin in September 1947. "The approach is long, desolate, and forbidding," said Lee, and "Trinity Camp is like a wind-blown desert outpost," He found "the physical evidences of the preparation for the experiment and of the explosion . . . fascinating and disturbing." As an historian, Lee noted also the "unexpected evidence of the human side" of the site. "Some of the scientists' names," he discovered, "are written in pencil on the unpainted wood above their stations inside the bunkers." Lee also found that "elsewhere , calculations appear in pencil - possibly last minute notes of things to attend to." Lee saved his greatest enthusiasm for the McDonald ranch house, especially its "two long tables made of composition board and unpainted wood." Clearly not sharing Edward Graves' repugnance at the artifacts of nuclear history , Lee predicted: "On these unimpressive tables it may well be, something far more important took place than the sort of signing of public documents which has elevated so many politicians' desks to American museums." Lee pleaded with his superiors to press for "the immediate issuance of an Executive Proclamation," protection of the cultural resources, and re-establishment of the interagency committee to decide on the timetable for transfer of Trinity Site to the park service. [64]

That timetable lengthened as the nation pursued its diplomatic policy of containment against Communism, and its use of the Tularosa basin to prepare for nuclear confrontation. The AEC showed little interest in protecting the cultural and ecological resources of Trinity, and made no moves to reconstitute the oversight panel mentioned by Chief Historian Lee. Johnwill Faris wrote to his superiors on several occasions about the loss of "trinitite" from the Ground Zero section (a Chevron gasoline station in nearby Socorro sold samples to its customers for fifty cents), and wondered in November 1950 whether "an attempt should be made to secure some material from the Atomic Bomb Site before it is all gone." White Sands, where NPS employees first learned of the nuclear explosion, had no trinitite, said Faris, even though "I understand that anyone can crawl through a fence and pick up all they want." The superintendent was greatly surprised to learn from Tillotson that he should display no trinitite at his museum. "This material is entirely extraneous to the story of the monument," said Tillotson, and offered as his rationale: "It would be just as illogical to exhibit a small model of an atomic bomb at Bandelier National Monument, simply because the area is close to Los Alamos." [65]

The thinking of Tillotson and other NPS officials coincided with that of the AEC more than it did park employees like Johnwill Faris. Dr. Paul Pearson, of the AEC division of biology and medicine, conducted his own study in 1951 of the bomb crater. In a telephone conversation with acting NPS chief historian Charles W. Porter III, Pearson informed the park service that his agency saw little historical value at the site. "Apparently," Porter told the NPS director, "the [Atomic Energy] Commission would like to cover the whole thing up, although there is nothing particularly dangerous about the spot now." Pearson then stunned Porter by stating "that contracts had been let for bulldozing the trinitite into trenches." The AEC believed that "there was little above ground to be seen by the public," and that "part of the equipment or detonating and measuring mechanism might be found at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, at the [AEC] Museum." Pearson did offer to give the NPS 100 pounds of trinitite "in the event that an atomic bomb national monument should ever be established," but he preferred that the park service "cover up the trinitite and plan to mark the site rather than to think of it as a future [park unit]." [66]

Indicative of the NPS's resignation over Trinity was Ronald Lee's response to Pearson. The park service "regrets" the AEC decision to bulldoze the trinitite, said the chief historian, but agreed that "the Commission is the best judge of the need for these precautions," and asked only that the 100 pounds of trinitite be sent "in a safe and suitable container for preservation" to the Santa Fe regional office. Less amenable was New Mexico governor Edwin Mechem, long a champion of White Sands. The Alamogordo native expressed his outrage at the AEC in a telegram published on March 4, 1952, in the Santa Fe New Mexican. Mechem wired the Washington office of the AEC to protest its award of the $23,600 earthmoving contract. "Believe this site ranks historically as one of the century's most talked-of places," said the governor. Mechem understood the AEC's reasoning that the "present world emergency and military uses of adjacent areas would preclude immediate establishment of monument." He asked that the contract be delayed, and another meeting of interagency personnel be held to examine the fate of Trinity Site. [67]

Mechem's commitment to the cause of the atomic bomb monument did not end with his telegram to Washington. On March 10, 1952, U.S. Representative Antonio M. Fernandez (D-NM) introduced H. 6953 to create the monument, subject to negotiations with the AEC and Defense department. Two days later, Mechem called into his Santa Fe offices three members of the Los-Alamos based commission, plus George Fitzpatrick, editor of the New Mexico Magazine, and Melvin Drake, director of the state tourism bureau. M.R. Tillotson had learned of the meeting only the day before, and attended to present the park service story. Dr. John Bugher of the AEC's Washington office spoke of the "health hazard" posed by trinitite, which as it "weathers and becomes powdered . . . presents an inhalation problem . . . [and] has a tendency to cause lung cancer." Bugher informed Mechem that his agency was "keenly alive to its medical-legal responsibilities and would be held negligent if the rapidly disintegrating trinitite on the ground were not properly disposed of." The governor then asked Tillotson if the NPS still had an interest in the monument, to which the regional director replied in the affirmative. This convinced Mechem to press for the Fernandez bill, arguing that New Mexico had much to gain in publicity and federal spending if the AEC would change its mind. [68]

The March 12 meeting had repercussions in Washington, where on April 2, Representative Fernandez called to his office Senator Anderson, Representative Dempsey, a staff member for Senator Chavez, as well as prominent officials of the Defense Department, AEC, and NPS director Conrad L. Wirth. All agreed that Congress should authorize creation of the atomic monument, even though "opening it to public use may not be feasible for some years." The NPS would resurvey the 1945 boundaries, in light of military needs, and also negotiate how much trinitite to preserve and how much to destroy. The AEC and Defense department would share responsibility for security of the site, and proceed with an interagency agreement to transfer the land to the NPS at some future date. [69]

A series of site visits, memoranda, and news stories followed these meetings in Santa Fe and Washington, all hopeful that Governor Mechem's demand for a new monument could be fulfilled. The Alamogordo chamber of commerce scheduled the first of many automobile caravans to Trinity in early September 1953, in order to show the public the value of the site, and also convince the AEC and military of the wisdom of providing public access. But the momentum faded in light of the ever-present security imperatives. T.E. Raynor, a free-lance writer in Albuquerque, summed up well the realities of Trinity Site in a story for the Arizona Republic: "The hitch is still that the site remains under jurisdiction of the defense department." The AEC informed Mechem on the eighth anniversary of the atomic test (July 16, 1953), that it had removed extra trinitite and had reseeded the bomb crater, as per the interagency negotiations. The agency then returned management of the site to the Air Force, terminating its "direct interest in this subject." [70]

Attention to the creation of the monument all but disappeared for the next dozen years. No official activity commemorated the tenth anniversary of the atomic test (1955), although Johnwill Faris reported in February that one of his rangers, Gilbert Wenger, "is currently working on a chart of the Atomic Bomb Site which is a very interesting subject in the area and one about which we get many questions." Not until the advent of the bomb's twentieth anniversary did the idea of a park service unit (labelled the "Trinity National Historic Site," or TNHS) reappear. Ironically, it came from AEC chief historian Richard Hewlett, who ranked "Trinity Site [in] first place in his listing of five sites recommended by the AEC's Historical Advisory Committee for [National] Landmark status." A park service report that year spoke to the deterioration of the site a decade after the end of AEC involvement. "The Army's destruction of the three command bunkers," said the NPS report, "understandable as a safety measure, is an irreparable catastrophe in terms of historic preservation." The report writer, the beneficiary of two decades' distance from the paranoia of the early Cold War, predicted that "someday, 20, 30, 40, 50 years hence, this site [which the author labeled 'as a part of the world's heritage'] will be free of present restrictions, and historically it will be even more important than it is now." [71]

From this renewed emphasis on Trinity came one last effort to establish a monument: S . 288, introduced on January 12, 1967, by New Mexico Democratic senators Clinton Anderson and Joseph Montoya. The senior senator, whose relationship with White Sands had begun nearly thirty years earlier with the pageant for the Coronado Cuarto Centennial Commission, called for the AEC, park service, and Defense department to share identification of "the structures, objects, and lands within the White Sands Missile Range meriting preservation." The remaining language in the legislation echoed earlier proposals for Defense to protect the cultural and ecological features of the site, and to guarantee transfer to the park service "when the Secretary of Defense determines that it is consistent with national security to do so." [72]

Anderson's bill would prove no more successful than previous efforts to set aside the location of America's entry into the nuclear age. The park service asked Donald Dayton to become its liaison, or "project keyman," with TNHS. This followed a recent policy that would insure that "each new area proposal is the personally assigned responsibility of a man in the field." In defining his task, Dayton asked his superiors: "I would appreciate instructions on how actively to pursue the project at this time." He conducted several surveys of the records, walked the area of the site, and interviewed military personnel. Yet in a departure from conclusions drawn by NPS officials, Dayton's recommendation reflected the realities he knew so well as superintendent of White Sands. He wished neither to fight the Army and Air Force, nor acquiesce to their power, but to devise "a way around military opposition to the pending legislation [SB 288]." Instead of trying to wedge the park service into the middle of the missile range, Dayton called for construction of a visitors center along U.S. Highway 380 north of Trinity. "There are several excellent viewpoints along this highway," said Dayton, "from which the general area of the blast site is visible." In addition, the site offered a panorama of the "broad open valley and the mountain range behind the blast site." Visitors could receive "a unique interpretive story. . . from an observation deck" at such a facility, and "periodic automobile or bus caravans" could depart for the actual site. [73]

It was fitting that the Cold War generation would close at White Sands with Don Dayton's skeptical reports on his discussions with missile range and airbase staff about Trinity Site. Dayton was in the midst of drafting a "master plan" for White Sands, an he asked the NPS review team to include Trinity as part of their work. Brigadier General H.G. Davisson, WSMR commander, claimed that the site still housed "classified" research and testing programs. His chief of facilities planning, B.H. Ferdig , disliked the ironic phenomena of tour groups coming to the range looking for the test site, even as "Ban the Bomb' Movements" wanted to protest the immorality of the nuclear age. To Ferdig, Trinity represented a "nuisance factor" compounded by AEC tests that showed high levels of radiation (50 percent above acceptable) at and near Ground Zero. Speaking prophetically as well as historically, Dayton reported in July 1967 that only "increasing public pressure" would change conditions and make Trinity National Historic Site a reality. [74]

Figure 54. Desert Maneuvers by the U.S. Army (1960s).
(Courtesy White Sands National Monument)