Part 6 (2/2)

Warrenas request landed on the desk of Carrol Wilson, the AECas boyish-looking general manager. An engineer and an MIT graduate, Wilson had been appointed by President Truman just days before the transfer occurred. His uncle, Frank J. Wilson, one of the AECas security consultants, had headed up the income tax investigation of Al Capone and also was responsible for the recording of the serial numbers of the bills that led to the capture of the Lindbergh baby kidnapper.8 Under Carroll Wilsonas direction, the AEC developed new rules for human experiments, which were summarized in a letter sent to Stafford Warren at UCLA on April 30, 1947. The commission would allow human experiments with radioactive materials to continue provided several conditions were met. First, no experiment could be undertaken unless the procedure was expected to benefit the patient. Second, the medical file should contain doc.u.mentation showing the patient understood the procedure and agreed to it. The experiment, Wilson cautioned: should be susceptible of proof from official records that, prior to treatment, each individual patient, being in an understanding state of mind, was clearly informed of the nature of the treatment and its possible effects, and expressed his willingness to receive the treatment.9 In view of your recommendation, the Commission does not request that written releases be obtained in such cases, but it does request that in every case at least two doctors should certify in writing (made part of an official record) to the patientas understanding state of mind, to the explanation furnished him, and to his willingness to accept the treatment.

Wilsonas guidelines were strong and unambiguous, but when Joseph Hamilton and his Berkeley colleagues injected Hanford Jang and Elmer Allen a few months later, they flatly ignored this first rule. Wilson had made it clear that radiation experiments could proceed only if the patients might benefit. Neither the americium nor the plutonium was expected to benefit the two California patients.

The Berkeley experimenters could not plead ignorance, because Wilson had ordered the letter outlining the new guidelines to be circulated to all of the AECas area managers.10 And it is obvious that the letter had been disseminated to the Berkeley scientists because the so-called consent form in Elmer Allenas file repeats almost verbatim parts of Wilsonas directive. The records made public so far do not explain why the Berkeley group ignored AEC policies. But it was not the first time, nor would it be the last time, such a violation occurred.

About the time that Hanford Jang and Elmer Allen were injected, a new blue-ribbon panel of experts was brought together to help the AEC further define its research goals. This panel, called the Medical Board of Review, urged that even more restrictive guidelines governing human radiation experiments be implemented. The review board recommended that doctors obtain not only the patientas informed consent in writing but also the written informed consent of the most responsible nearest of kin. It is not known if the review board recommended the tighter restrictions in response to Hamiltonas continuing experiments, or if the board even knew about those studies. But it is clear that this recommendation became part of the official AEC policy. In a November 5, 1947, letter to Robert Stone, who was also at Berkeley, Carroll Wilson summarized the review boardas guidelines and explained why and under what conditions it was allowing human radiation experiments to proceed: The atmosphere of secrecy and suppression makes one aspect of the medical work of the Commission especially vulnerable to criticism.11 We therefore wish to record our approval of the position taken by the medical staff of the AEC in point of their studies of the substances dangerous to human life. We believe that no substances known to be, or suspected of being, poisonous or harmful should be given to human beings unless all of the following conditions are fully met: (a) that a reasonable hope exists that the administration of such a substance will improve the condition of the patient, (b) that the patient give his complete and informed consent in writing, and (c) that the responsible nearest of kin give in writing a similarly complete and informed consent, revocable at any time during the course of such treatment. Were it not for the extreme value and pressure for securing reliable information on the limits of human tolerance of radioactive substances there would be no need for explicit reference to this subject. We wish to see immediate and steady increase in this gravely important subject of human tolerance to radioactivity, but we believe that since secrecy must of necessity mark much of the medical research supported by the federally-sponsored AEC, particular care must be taken in all matters that under other circ.u.mstances would be open to investigation and publicity.

Thousands of human radiation experiments, many of them unethical and without therapeutic benefit, were funded by the AEC over the next three decades of the Cold War. But Wilsonas two letters show unequivocally that within the first year of its creation, the commission had clear, strongly worded rules governing such experiments. Although President Clintonas Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments pointed out that Wilsonas second letter contained the earliest known use of the term ainformed consent,a the historic significance in this doc.u.ment seems to have been lost on them.12 They mentioned the letter then all but dismissed it, saying the standards it enunciated may not have received wide circulation. aMaybe it means Wilson was just a good writer,a speculated Ruth Faden, who chaired the panel.13 But Joseph Volpe, who worked as an attorney at AEC headquarters at that time and knew Carroll Wilson personally, said that it was ainconceivable that [Wilson] didnat see that this policy reached everyone in the organization.a14 At the same time Carroll Wilson and his lawyers were drawing up new rules for ethical human experiments in the future, the commission began to cover up any evidence of the plutonium injections from the past. The cover-up is well doc.u.mented in memos, many of which remained cla.s.sified for fifty years. Whatas not clear is who specifically decided that the experiments should be kept secret and who ordered the cover-up.

The Atomic Energy Commission had squeaked into existence following a year of congressional battles and behind-the-scenes struggles. Not surprisingly, the general manager and the appointed commissioners were eager to prevent news of a possible scandal from reaching a public already apprehensive about atomic bombs. The AEC was intent upon making atomic energy as unthreatening as electricity; public disclosure of the injections would have damaged the commissionas bomb-building program and its efforts to build a civilian nuclear power industry.

With the ruthlessness of a political ward boss, the AEC suppressed all evidence of the plutonium injections and other human experiments and embarked on a deliberate campaign to squelch information that could tarnish its prestige, promote lawsuits, or cause embarra.s.sment. Scientific reports were regularly scrutinized by the commissionas cla.s.sification officials as well as by employees who worked in its medical and insurance departments. Wrote the medical advisor in Oak Ridge: There are a large number of papers which do not violate security, but do cause considerable concern to the Atomic Energy Commission Insurance Branch and may well compromise the public prestige and best interests of the Commission.15 Papers referring to levels of soil and water contamination surrounding Atomic Energy Commission installations, idle speculation on the future genetic effects of radiation and papers dealing with potential process hazards to employees are definitely prejudicial to the best interests of the government. Every such release is reflected in an increase in insurance claims, increased difficulty in labor relations and adverse public sentiment. Following consultation with the Atomic Energy Commission Insurance Branch, the following decla.s.sification criteria appears desirable. If specific locations or activities of the Atomic Energy Commission and/or its contractors are closely a.s.sociated with statements and information which would invite or tend to encourage claims against the Atomic Energy Commission or its contractors, such portions of articles to be published should be reworded or deleted.

Three scientific papers on the plutonium injections had been completed at the time of the advisoras warnings: The Chicago scientists had written a 1946 report describing the injections and postmortem a.n.a.lyses of injectees Arthur Hubbard and Una Macke. The Berkeley group had written the 1946 aMan and Rata paper describing the injection of house painter Albert Stevens. And Samuel Ba.s.sett and Wright Langham were putting together the collaborative report on the Los Alamosa”Rochester injection program, which would be published in 1950. The paper describing the plutonium injections of Macke and Hubbard, which had been decla.s.sified and then recla.s.sified arestricted,a was one of the first articles to set off the AEC alarm bells. An AEC decla.s.sification official, C. L. Marshall, warned that the distribution of the report could have dire consequences for the fledgling commission. (Marshall is the same official who blocked the release of Hamiltonas aMan and Rata paper on grounds that it might adversely affect the national interest.) Marshallas memo proves conclusively that AEC officials covered up the experiment because of fear of lawsuits and adverse publicity: This doc.u.ment appears to be the most dangerous since it describes experiments performed on human subjects, including the actual injection of the metal, plutonium, into the body.16 The locations of these experiments are given and the results, even to the autopsy findings in two cases. It is unlikely that these tests were made without the consent of the subjects, but no statement is made to that effect and the coldly scientific manner in which the results are tabulated and discussed would have a very poor effect on the general public. Unless, of course, the legal aspects were covered by the necessary doc.u.ments, the experimenters and the employing agencies, including the U.S., have been laid open to a devastating lawsuit which would, through its attendant publicity, have far reaching results.

The decla.s.sification officeras opinion was seconded by Birchard Brundage, an Army major in Oak Ridge who went on to work with Stafford Warren at UCLA. aIt would be unwise to release the paper,a he agreed, aprimarily because of medical legal aspects in the use of plutonium in human beings.a17 Brundage added that Warren felt that since plutonium was not available for offsite work, it was not aessentiala to distribute the paper. Norris Bradbury, Oppenheimeras successor, had doubts about the wisdom of completing the Los Alamos report on the injections because of the aatt.i.tude taken by the AEC in regard to this type of research.a18 And Andrew Dowdy, the supervisor of the University of Rochesteras Manhattan Annex, requested on February 18, 1947, that the report not be decla.s.sified for general distribution outside the AEC without Rochesteras foreknowledge. aI make this suggestion because of possible unfavorable public relations and in an attempt to protect Dr. Ba.s.sett from any possible legal entanglements,a he stated.19 But some of the experimenters were eager to have their work published, and a dispute, only vaguely discernible from the exchange of memos, arose between the bureaucrats and the scientists. The AEC on April 17 then issued a blanket order: It is desired that no doc.u.ment be released which refers to experiments with humans and might have adverse effect on public opinion or result in legal suits.20 Doc.u.ments covering such work field should be cla.s.sified asecret.a Further work in this field in the future has been prohibited by the General Manager. It is understood that three doc.u.ments in this field have been submitted for decla.s.sification and are now cla.s.sified arestricted.a It is desired that these doc.u.ments be recla.s.sified asecreta and that a check be made to insure that no distribution has inadvertently been made to the Department of Commerce, or other off-Project personnel or agencies.

Itas not clear what three doc.u.ments the AEC memo was referring to, but undoubtedly one was the Arthur Hubbarda”Una Macke paper written by the Chicago group, and a second may have dealt with the uranium injections administered at Rochester. An additional item in the memo further confirms that the AEC knew the plutonium experiment was of no medical benefit and clearly distinguishes between such experiments and studies that might help patients: aThese instructions,a the memo added, ado not pertain to doc.u.ments regarding clinical or therapeutic uses of radioisotopes and similar materials beneficial to human disorders and diseases.a

20.

s.h.i.+ELDS WARREN: aPATRIOTIC ENOUGH TO LIEa

While bureaucrats within the Atomic Energy Commission were putting together new rules for future human experiments and trying to bury the evidence of old ones, s.h.i.+elds Warren, who had been part of the first Navy inspection team to go to j.a.pan shortly after the bombings, returned to that country for another look. His mission this time was to help set up a study of the surviving bombing victims and their descendants. j.a.pan was rebuilding itself when Warren arrived in the spring of 1947. Freshly cut lumber was being brought into the cities. New buildings were going up, their sides covered with corrugated iron or flattened tin cans. The roads had been greatly improved. aPeople more alert, many smiling, look fat and well-fed.1 Striking change,a he wrote.

Warren worked with a acompulsive zeal,a a colleague recalled, snacking on acranberries in any form and crackers.a2 He visited hospitals and doctors in Nagasaki and Hiros.h.i.+ma, occasionally examining patients who were still suffering from injuries received during the bombings. Many still had low blood counts and keloids, ugly overgrowths of scar tissue that occurred following thermal burns. Warren examined fifty-seven people. Some underwent sternal bone marrow biopsies, a procedure in which a small core of marrow is removed from the thin bone of the breast. During one biopsy, a needle broke and had to be extracted with pliers. When the patient shunned a second biopsy, Warren noted in his diary, aStoicism of the j.a.panese not too marked.a3 Soon after he returned to the United States, Albert Baird Hastings and Alan Gregg, both members of the AECas Medical Board of Review, the panel that had been convened briefly in 1947 to help the commission chart its new research program, approached Warren with a job offer. Was he interested in becoming the interim director of the AECas Division of Biology and Medicine? This was not the first time Warren had been approached to do work for Americaas nuclear establishment. When the United States entered World War II, s.h.i.+elds Warren was a reserve officer in the Navy. In early 1943 Stafford Warren paid him a visit. He atold me that I had exactly the skills that he needed for a project that he was involved with but couldnat tell me anything about it and would I leave the Navy and take this on? Well, I told him that I thought I was being useful where I was and didnat feel that while the war was on I could move around like a free agent and so I did not come into early contact with the Manhattan Project.a4 In 1947, however, the time was right. aThere were so many opportunities and such fine people to work with in this new Atomic Energy set-up that it was one of those challenging things I couldnat pa.s.s up,a he said in an interview which was filmed in 1974 and later converted to videotape.5 Warren was a pathologist at that time with the New England Deaconess Hospital in Boston, a position he maintained on a part-time basis during his AEC years. He commuted from Boston to Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., lugging back and forth a fat briefcase filled with doc.u.ments. At the age of forty-nine, the expressive face of his youth had been winnowed down by the years: the full lips thinned and pressed against words that sometimes came haltingly, the eyes inscrutable behind spectacles, and lines of fatigue coursing down his cheeks. He could function efficiently on five hours of sleep but confessed that as he grew older, he had been forced to lengthen his usual rest to six or six and one-half hours a night. He worked six days a week, as he would continue to do until his seventies, and spoke in a slow deliberate voice in order to camouflage what one colleague described as a agentle stammer.a Warren was the ideal man to head up the AECas biomedical programs.6 He was a highly regarded scientist who had already made several important discoveries related to cancer. Early in his career, he had discovered that cancerous cells might be transported through the body by the lymphatic system, a finding that led to the practice of removing lymph nodes near cancerous tissue.7 He was also an expert on the effects of radiation on the human body. But even more important, he had the sophistication to navigate Was.h.i.+ngtonas political waters.

Warren was probably the most influential biomedical scientist in AEC history and one of the enigmas of the Cold War. From 1947 to 1952 he helped the commission cobble together a vast network of national laboratories, universities, and hospitals that would investigate every imaginable effect of radiation over the next three decades. The research was part of the AECas dual mandate under the 1946 Atomic Energy Act to both promote atomic energy and protect the public from its harmful effects. Through grants, fellows.h.i.+ps, contracts, construction projects, and the funding of huge machines, the AEC created a new industry and became one of the largest sponsors of scientific research in the United States.

Warren arrived at the AEC when the nuclear weapons program was in its infancy. Only five atomic bombs had been explodeda”one at Trinity, two in j.a.pan, and two at Crossroads. By the time he left in June of 1952, the arms race with the Soviet Union was well under way and the atmospheric testing program had become part of American life. Policy decisions Warren and other postwar researchers made during those years have affected the health of generations of Americans. For the atomic veterans and residents who lived downwind of the test site and the weapons plants, those decisions would have tragic consequences and sp.a.w.n a bitter debate that continues to this day.

After overcoming his initial doubts, Warren supported the first atomic bomb test in Nevada, in 1951, during which dangerous amounts of fallout were released and people living downwind were put at risk. The aominousa implications of inhaling alpha particles from fallout, which had been brought to Warrenas attention by Joseph Hamilton in 1949, were glossed over and the food chain dangers ignored.8 Warren also partic.i.p.ated in the debates over the placement of troops in Nevada. He repeatedly protested the reckless, short-sighted plans of the armed forces, only to capitulate or be overruled by his superiors. In time, volunteer soldiers would find themselves crouching in trenches one mile from Ground Zero, and specially trained pilots would be directed to fly straight into the hot, gaseous heart of thermonuclear clouds.

During the highly emotional fallout controversy that began in the mid-1950s, Warren aligned himself with such pa.s.sionate advocates of the testing program as Edward Teller and n.o.bel laureate Willard Libby. He agreed with the no-danger chorus of scientists who claimed that the biological risks from fission products were negligible.9 He also took the position, which has since been largely rejected by the scientific community, that there exists a threshold dose of radiation below which no damage will occur.

Records show that Warren routinely suppressed information that might provoke lawsuits or harm the AECas public image, and dealt brutally with outsiders. Yet doc.u.ments decla.s.sified in 1994 and 1995 also reveal a courageous scientist who spoke out in secret meetings against proposed human radiation experiments. One of his most heroic battles centered around the ill-fated plan supported by Robert Stone and others to expose prisoners serving life sentences to total-body irradiation, a process that undoubtedly would have led to the shortening of the subjectsa lives and the possible development of cancer. Warrenas admirers viewed him with a deferential awe; his enemies saw an opportunist who s.h.i.+fted with the political wind. aHe was a G.o.d to me,a recalled fellow pathologist Clarence Lushbaugh, who worked at both Los Alamos and Oak Ridge.10 aI considered him a saint,a said retired Air Force Colonel John Pickering.11 aI was never quite sure what he was up to,a remembered physicist Howard Andrews.12 aI shouldnat say that, but I never really quite trusted this man. I worked with him, and we wrote a couple of papers together having to do with frogs and oysters and things of that sort. But as far as things that went on in some fields, I thought he was a little slippery.a San Antonio physician Herman WiG.o.dsky said he didnat think Warren awas too swift.a And retired physiologist Nello Pace said Warren was akind of a turkey, full of himselfa”not like Stafford.1314 Stafford was just wonderful. But s.h.i.+elds was very old-fas.h.i.+oned in his att.i.tude that some M.D.s have: aOnly M.D.s and G.o.d can touch people.a a Even in 1950, when Joseph McCarthy was making charges in the Senate about the Communist leanings of AEC scientists, doc.u.ments show Warren was fearless in the closed-door showdowns with admirals and generals. But he was at heart a practical man, flinty and cold as the New England soil his forefathers settled on in the 1600s and fully capable of playing the villain. aYou must realize,a fellow scientist Merril Eisenbud once said of Warren, asome people are patriotic enough to lie.a15 s.h.i.+elds Warren was born in 1898, just two years after Stafford Warren, into an old New England family of Methodist ministers, educators, and farmers. His baby name was aShewannie.a One of his grandfathers was the first president of Boston University; the other was a friend of Theodore Roosevelt and the aunwilling lawyera for Mark Twain.16 His father was a philosophy professor at Boston University and dean of the school of liberal arts.17 His earliest memories were of Cape Cod: the smell of salt marshes and tide pools and the choppy north Atlantic, somnolent and calm under a June sky. Using a cloud as a light source, the young Warren focused the lens of his first mail-order microscope on the organisms in the tide pool. Their translucent, geometrical shapes burst into view and he was hooked. Between Greek and Latin cla.s.ses at a public school in Brookline, Ma.s.sachusetts, he crammed in science courses, preparing himself for a career in zoology.

Like his father and grandfather, Warren also attended Boston University. He graduated in 1918 with a bacheloras degree and immediately enrolled in the Army. He came down with the flu in artillery training camp, and while he was recovering, Armistice was declared. aThe mortality was terribly heavy,a he remembered in a 1972 oral history interview.18 aThis convinced me that there ought to be a better way of doing medicine than this, and while I was convalescing I made up my mind that medicine was what I wanted to do.a Warren decided to enroll in medical school at Harvard. In the meantime, he had a small agrubstakea from the Army and nearly a year off, so he decided to see Americaa”by rail. aI decided the best way of doing this would be to hobo.a19 Warren worked his way across America, experiencing a slice of life that young, well-bred men such as himself rarely saw. He stoked a freight train through the Rockies, worked in the s.h.i.+pyards in Portland, flipped pancakes in a lumberjack camp in the Pacific Northwest, picked fruit in California, and cut wheat in Oklahoma. The hobo life left him with a sense of self-sufficiency and the feeling that he could meet any challenge.

Warren graduated from medical school in 1923. Following another trip, this time to Europe, he joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School and continued to teach there until he retired. When he was a young resident, he autopsied several patients with Hodgkinas disease and learned to his amazement that they had died not from the disease, but from the radiation treatment theyad been given. aApparently n.o.body knew what happened when anybody had been irradiated,a he recalled.20 At the time of his AEC appointment, he was the author of aThe Effects of Radiation on Normal Tissues,a a compilation of scientific papers, which the AEC considered the definitive work of the time regarding the effects of radiation on the human body.21 Warren maintained a punis.h.i.+ng schedule during his first few years on the job, making regular loops to the Manhattan Projectas laboratories at Los Alamos, Chicago, and Berkeley and its monolithic uranium and plutonium-producing factories in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and eastern Was.h.i.+ngton state. During the trips, he tried to a.s.sess the health risks to workers and pollution problems. One of the first things he wanted to make sure of, he told AEC officials years later, was that there were no aepidemicsa brewing at the former Manhattan Project sites.22 By 1947 the AEC was acutely aware that radioactive waste was going to be a huge problem. Government officials debated whether to dump the material in the oceans, store it in vaults until radioactive decay had progressed sufficiently, collect it in garbage cans and bury it on federal property, or shoot it into s.p.a.ce by ainterplanetary rockets.a At Hanford a biologist had discovered that radioactivity levels in fish in the nearby Columbia River were on an average 100,000 times greater than the radioactivity in the water itself.2324 But Hanford officials were determined to keep the information from becoming public: aIt is recommended that all river contamination studies indicating the extent to which aquatic life in rivers concentrate and hold radioactivity should be cla.s.sified aSecret,a a an official wrote in 1948. aIt is further suggested that all problems related to radioactive contamination of our rivers be tightly held until reasonable solutions to these problems are available.a25 Warren spent the first few months on the job trying to get a handle on what was going on. aWhen I took over at AEC, we had to pick up threads at each installation, and find out from the people there what had been going on, what the local practices were,a he said.26 aThere were zero records that I received when I came to AEC and [I] had to depend primarily on word of mouth and the medical regulations and what medical history I could get from contractor personnel of the various installations.a Around Christmas of 1947, s.h.i.+elds Warren met with Joseph Hamilton. The two doctors, both lean, well-dressed men, were reminiscing about the early days of radioisotopes when suddenly the conversation veered into dangerous territory. Warren told AEC investigators, who interviewed him in 1974 about the plutonium injections, that he and Hamilton had been discussing aisotopic injectiona when Hamilton made an oblique reference to the autilization of plutonium.a27 Hamilton began the conversation by saying that Warren must have a ashrewd suspiciona about the radioisotope research the Berkeley group had done during the war. Warren replied that he was aware of the work from Hamiltonas published reports. aYes, but there are some unpublished things that you probably havenat heard of,a Warren remembered Hamilton saying.

Then Hamilton plunged into the details of the three plutonium injection cases in California. At the time of Hamiltonas disclosure, Albert Stevens was trying to restart his house painting business, Simmy Shaw was dead, and Elmer Allen had just been seen in UCSFas outpatient clinic several weeks earlier. (aa feels fine, has gained weight, has good stump,a a doctor noted in his medical chart.)28 aI had not known of any work in humans in plutonium up to that time. So I talked with him a little bit about it, and we did not get any facts, figures or numbers,a Warren told AEC investigators. The two men did discuss whether the California patients gave consent for the injections because doctors at the time were areasonably sensitivea about that issue. aYou know,a he quoted Hamilton as saying, awe have had something of a problem in this because there were very rigid restrictions on the use of the word plutoniuma and the handling of the material and letting anyone know that there was any such stuff.a Warren continued: Dr. Hamilton told me that he had explained to the patients that they would receivea”now I ve got to put my thoughts in order in thisa”that they would receive an injection of a new substance that was too new to say what it might do but that it had some properties like those of other substances that had been used to help growth processes in patients, or something of that general sort. You could not call it informed consent because they (the patients) did not know what it was, but they knew that it was a new, and to them, unknown substance.

Warren said he became concerned when he heard about the injections. aAll I knew about plutoniuma”there was practically nothing written down that was availablea”was that it was very nasty stuff.a Following the meeting, Warren talked the matter over with his trusted colleague, Alan Gregg. aWeave got a sticky problem here,a Warren quoted Gregg as saying.

Warren said he eventually learned by aosmosisa that additional patients had been injected with plutonium in Rochester, Chicago, and Oak Ridge. aOne might say I would pick up a stray bit of information one place or another.a He said he a.s.sumed records on the experiment existed, but he did not see them. aAnd when I inquired of Bob Stone, he said he thought it depended primarily on peopleas memories.a Warren and Gregg ordered new rules drawn up by the radioisotope distribution committee, a panel that approved the use of radioisotopes in human research. Then the two men let the matter drop. aWe saw no point in bringing this up after the fact as long as we were sure that nothing of this sort could happen in the future. This is because we a.s.sumed that those patients were all dead at that time.a Warren said he did not know of the acontinuing contacta some of the scientists had with the plutonium patients during his tenure. aTo the best of my knowledge, from the time that I took over, there were not any injections made. And I would have insisted that they not be made if this had been brought up to me at that time.a Doc.u.ments and excerpts from Warrenas own diaries reveal that events surrounding Joseph Hamiltonas disclosure were not quite the way Warren described them. Nor was his role quite so innocent. These records suggest that Warren learned the full extent of the plutonium experiment almost immediately, not years later as he implied in his interview with AEC investigators. Recently released doc.u.ments also show that Warrenas employees at AEC headquarters in 1950 authorized additional metabolic studies on Eda Schultz Charlton and John Mousso, two of the Rochester plutonium patients. The doc.u.mentation makes it highly unlikely that Warren himself was not aware of the acontinuing contacta with those patients or that he did not know that some subjects were still alive. Some newly decla.s.sified records also suggest that Warren may have even directed trusted colleagues to make low-key inquiries. One such doc.u.ment is the 1948 transcript of the telephone conversation with Rochester physician Joseph Howland in which he is asked about Ebb Cade.

Autocratic by nature, quiet and self-contained, not p.r.o.ne to emotional outbursts or idle chatter, s.h.i.+elds Warren quickly adapted to the AECas culture of secrecy, maintaining the cla.s.sification policies that had begun to be formulated in early 1947, before he arrived. Biological, medical, and environmental reports that might promote lawsuits or have an adverse affect on public relations were routinely cla.s.sified and locked away from public view. s.h.i.+elds Warren was just as determined as AEC general manager Carroll Wilson to keep the plutonium experiment concealed. In 1948, for example, he refused to decla.s.sify two reports dealing with the injections and agreed to the publication of the 1950 Los Alamos report coauth.o.r.ed by Wright Langham and Samuel Ba.s.sett provided the doc.u.ment be given a aconfidentiala cla.s.sification and that its circulation be limited.2930 A wealth of records released in the mid-1990s show unequivocally that the AEC covered up the plutonium experiment in part because of embarra.s.sment. But Warren denied in the AEC interview that embarra.s.sment was a factor: aI donat think we thought of it f

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