Re: O'Leary, plutonium & Vietnam

[Lester.Slaback@nist.gov]

One news report identified the material retreived  as Po.
At 80 grams the missing Pu sounds suspiciously like a PuBe
neutron source.  As such I suspect that this isotopic mixture is not
particularly useful as 'bomb' material.

Given that a war was at their doorstep I suspect the folks
picking the material up did not have a lot of free time to do Q.A. checks.

As an aside, the TRIGA fuel that was retreived eventually went  to Hanford
and was used in a TRIGA reactor there.

-- 
the above are the personal musing of the author,
and do not represent any past, current, or future
position of NIST, the U.S. Government, or anyone else
who might think that they are in a position of authority.
NBSR Health Physics
NIST
Gaithersburg, MD 20899
301 975-5810
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Lester.Slaback@nist.gov
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