Question: References to various historical rad events? -Reply

[FRAMEP@ORAU.GOV]

>Does anyone have references to journal articles, historial non-fiction,
>medical records or summaries thereof, narratives or other information
.....
>  The young physicist at Los Alamos who, as I recall, separated two
>hemi-  spheres of Pu, averting disaster but sacrificing his own life, in
>1944-45;

A somewhat unusual source but one that is exceptionally detailed is the
article "The Death of a Nuclear Scientist" in the Oct. &, 1961 issue of
MacLeans Magazine. The scientist in question, Louis Slotin, was
Canadian and MacLeans is Canadas version of Time/Newsweek.
This criticality accident occured in 46. An earlier accident at Los Alamos,
involving (I believe) exactly the same sphere of plutonium, killed a
gentleman by the name of Daghlian. Slotin, apparently, was involved in
the dose calculations for that accident.  I think you are referring to the
Slotin accident because other individuals were present at that one and
Slotin took the time to separate the two sections of the beryllium reflector
before leaving the room.  Slotin worked in Oak Ridge before he went to
Los Alamos. When here, he was the guy who drove Fermi from his hotel
to the Oak Ridge graphite reactor for its first criticality.

>  Karen Silkwood;.

Another unusual source, and one that takes a skeptical approach, is
"Karen Silkwood Without Tears" (two parts)from the November and
December issues of the Saturday Evening Post 1979. A similar skeptical
article appeared in the early to mid 80s in Penthouse but the copy that
was circulating around the office disappeared so I can't give an exact
citation.

Take care

Paul Frame
Professional Training Programs
ORISE
framep@orau.gov