Atomic Energy Commission

Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), former U.S. government commission created by the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 and charged with the development and control of the U.S. atomic energy program following World War II. At the time, debate centered around the question of whether the commission should be predominantly military or civilian. The act provided for a five-member commission appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, as well as a military liaison committee which the AEC was directed to advise and consult with on all atomic energy matters that related to military applications. A civilian advisory committee to the AEC was also created and from 1946 to 1952 this committee was chaired by J. Robert Oppenheimer , who had directed the development of the atomic bomb but who opposed the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb . The AEC became the center of a nation-wide controversy in 1954 as a result of Oppenheimer's suspension (1953) as a consultant to the commission on the alleged grounds that he was a security risk.

The activities of the AEC included the production of fissionable materials, the manufacture and testing of nuclear weapons, the development of nuclear reactors for military and civilian use, and research in biological, medical, physical, and engineering sciences. Although the bulk of the AEC's work was in the field of atomic weaponry, it was also involved in projects relating to the peaceful uses of atomic energy (e.g., the development of atomic power plants for the production of electricity). The AEC was dissolved in 1974 and its responsibilities transferred to the Energy Research and Development Administration (these functions are now under the Department of Energy) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Bibliography: See R. G. Hewlett and O. E. Anderson, Jr., A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (2 vol., 1962-69); C. Allardice and E. Trapnell, The Atomic Energy Commission (1974).

Atomic Energy Commission. The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), made up of five members appointed by the President of the United States, was created by Congress in 1946. Establishing the principle of civilian control of atomic energy, Congress assigned the new agency responsibility for developing and testing nuclear weapons and for encouraging peaceful uses of the new technology. David E. Lilienthal (1899–1981), a former director of the Tennessee Valley Authority, became its first chairman. As the Cold War progressed, the agency focused its resources on weapons, expanding the U.S. stockpile, and, after January 1950, undertaking a crash program to build a hydrogen bomb. The agency's military emphasis proved a source of frustration an disappointment for Lilienthal, whose interests lay in the nonmilitary uses of atomic energy. But Cold War tensions and the still‐rudimentary state of the technology prevented major strides in civilian applications.

Although the AEC stood at the center of numerous controversies in its early years, the most divisive occurred in 1954 when it stripped J. Robert Oppenheimer, leader of the scientific effort to build the atomic bomb during World War II, of his security clearance for alleged communist associations. The chairman of the AEC, Lewis L. Strauss took the lead, for both personal and political reasons, in ending Oppenheimer's career as a scientific adviser to the AEC. At about the same time the AEC's atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons set off a major public debate over the health effects of the radioactive fallout they produced. The AEC's claims that fallout posed no significant health hazard aroused much dissent, permanently undermining the agency's credibility.

By the mid‐1960s, the AEC was devoting increasing attention to promoting the peaceful uses of atomic energy. Its encouragement of the nuclear power industry helped stimulate a boom in reactor construction. But public faith in the AEC was further shaken by its dual mandate to promote and regulate nuclear power. By the early 1970s, controversies over reactor safety, radiation standards, environmental protection, waste disposal, and nuclear weapons proliferation had severely damaged confidence in the AEC. In response to widespread criticism, Congress abolished the AEC in 1974, dividing its functions between the Energy Research and Development Administration (later a part of the Department of Energy) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
See also Federal Government, Executive Branch: Other Departments (Department of Energy); Manhattan Project; Nuclear Arms Control Treaties.

Bibliography

Richard G. Hewlett and and Francis Duncan , Atomic Shield, 1947–1952, 1969.
Richard G. Hewlett and and Jack M. Holl , Atoms for Peace and War, 1953–1961, 1989.

J. Samuel Walker

Atomic Energy Commission AEC a U.S. federal agency created by the Atomic Energy Act of August 1, 1946, charged with controlling the development and manufacture of nuclear weapons and overseeing the research and development of peaceful uses of nuclear energy. It assumed control of the nation's nuclear program when it replaced the Manhattan Engineer District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on December 31, 1946. Headed by a five-member board, the Commission used most of its resources to develop and produce weapons during the late 1940s and early 1950s, but also built a few small nuclear-power plants, primarily for research. After the Atomic Energy Act was revised in 1954 to allow private industry to construct nuclear reactors for the production of electric power, and under the direction of Glenn T. Seaborg, the AEC's chairman from 1961 to 1971, commercially profitable nuclear facilities proliferated during the 1970s.

In 1974, the U.S. government, recognizing the conflict of interest between the AEC's military and civilian commitments—regulating the nuclear industry in order to insure the health and safety of the U.S. public on the one hand, and supporting military uses of nuclear weapons on the other—disbanded the AEC in the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 and split its functions between the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which regulates the nuclear-power industry, and the Energy Research and Development Administration, which oversaw the development of nuclear weapons by the military. The latter agency was dissolved in 1977 and its function taken up by the newly created Department of Energy.