20131122 the president from the future 1

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THE PRESIDENTFROM THE FUTURE

By Michael Kirsch

NOVEMBER 22ND, 2013

A TRIBUTE TO JOHN F. KENNEDY

WWW.LAROUCHEPAC.COM/JFK

50 YEARS BEHIND


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The President From the Future WWW.LAROUCHEPAC.COM 1

INTRODUCTIONEvery real crisis in living standard, technology,

and social strife ongoing in the United States today hasits root, fundamentally, not in what has occurred since John F. Kennedys assassination, but in what has not oc-curredin the deprivation of what Kennedy made pos-sible.

The toleration of the lies surrounding his and hisbrothers assassination, which made possible the even-tual shutdown of every single one of Kennedys future-orientated policies, doomed the population of the

United States to an increasingly backward existence, asexpressed in a declining power of each citizen, produc-tion capability, technological progress, and lack of fu-ture orientation.

John F. Kennedys programs for applying the dis-coveries of nuclear energy to desalination, power pro-duction, space rockets, and construction projects, alongwith his relaunching of Franklin Roosevelt era watermanagement, would have created a fundamentallydifferent United States and a fundamentally differentAmerican citizen, had he lived to complete them.

By making himself an instrument of national sov-ereignty, Kennedy became the champion of pivotal sci-enti c policies and investments which had been stalledor blocked by Wall Street in uences during previousadministrations.

The following examination of John F. Kennedysscienti c-economic legacy, demonstrates beyond alldoubt, that had his programs been carried throughas planned, water availability, food production, pow-er production and consumption, population growth,overall living standards, education, and technological

progress would have increased at rates far above thosewhich have taken place since 1970. Had we continuedKennedys program:

Nuclear desalination, along with major continen-tal-scale water development projects would have al-lowed for increased water use throughout the 1970s and1980s, with increased agricultural production for do-mestic use and export.

Breeder reactors utilizing 100% of the potential en-ergy of uranium and thorium would have been a stan-dard power source in the 1980s; the waste heat fromreactors would have been integrated with industry inthe 1970s.

Nuclear propelled space vehicles reaching the endof the solar system, landing on Mars, and facilitating apermanent moon base would have been operational inthe 1970s, and conducting regular trips in the 1980s.

Ignition of fusion would have been achieved in the

1980s, with reactors producing electricity in the 1990s.Power production and consumption would have in-

creased ten times by the end of the century, instead ofonly three, and nuclear power would have made up forat least half of that increase.

There would be 440 million Americans instead of308 million in 2013, each possessing an overall powerthree times that of today.

These are the facts. Kennedy was assassinated toprevent a trajectory for the United States and the worldwhich would have put the oligarchical organization of

society out of existence, establishing a world of trulysovereign nation-states.

What follows is an in-depth review of six largelyunknown, but essential, scienti c initiatives of Kenne -dy, which remain as the true legacy of the United States,though temporarily lost. May this document serve tocrush the myths, engineered in recent decades, by dem-onstrating the actual economic program of a sittingpresident, which contradicts nearly every false Malthu-sian, overpopulation, and monetarist dogma.

This tribute to John F. Kennedy, 50 years after his

assassination, is dedicated to his creative legacy, whichthe oligarchical forces behind his assassination soughtto permanently take off the agenda of our nation. Maythe understanding of this legacy increase the powerof those who choose to ght to return mankind to hisproper role as a continually evolving creative force onthe planet, and in the solar system.


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jectives in the peaceful usesof atomic energy.

The study being con-ducted at my request by theNational Academy of Sci-ences on the development

and preservation of all ournational resources will focuson the nations longer-termenergy needs and utilizationof fuel resources. The otherstudy to be launched soon bythe Federal Power Commis-sion will determine the longrange power requirements ofthe nation and will suggest

the broad outline of possible programs of growthfor all electric power companiesboth privateand publicto meet the great increase in powerneeds. Your study should be appropriately relat-ed to these investigations.On July 14, 1962, Kennedy wrote to the Chairman

of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy in Congress,Concerning Use of By-Product Steam from the Han-ford Nuclear Reactor, intervening to put the plannedN-Reactor at Hanford, Washington onto the commercialelectricity grid, which was being blocked. In 1962, theU.S. had only 800 MWe in experimental reactors aroundthe nation, the largest at 200 MWe capacity. The Han-ford reactor would be four times larger than any nucle-ar plant yet built.

My message of March 1 on the nations naturalresources pointed out that a major challenge inresource conservation lies in the ef cient utiliza -tion of our energy resources, including heat pro-duced as a by-product of industrial processes.

The new production reactor now being con-

structed by AEC at Hanford, Washington, to man-ufacture plutonium will produce as a by-product,very large amounts of steam. By direction of theCongress, the reactor, at an additional cost of$25,000,000 has been designed so that the by-product steam can be used to generate electricity.I was disappointed last year when the Congress,despite strong efforts by you and others, did notauthorize federal construction of generating fa-

cilities at Hanford to con-vert this steam to electricpower.

In my judgment, it isclearly in the public inter-est to utilize the heat out-

put of the Hanford reactor,and to obtain maximumbene ts from the publicinvestment already com-mitted for this facility ifthere is a feasible way todo so.

Two months later, onSeptember 26, 1962, Kennedysigned the Atomic Energy

Commission Authorization Bill, celebrating the victoryfor nuclear power for electricity.I am pleased to sign H.R. 11974, the Atomic Ener-gy Commission 1963 Authorization Bill. One por-tion of this legislationfor which we have waitedfor quite some timewill make it possible for thesteam produced by the Hanford new productionreactor to be transformed into electricity and dis-tributed to the homes and factories of the Paci cNorthwest.

This project is for peacetime application andatomic heat for electricity which will produce amillion kilowatts, approximately. It will be fourtimes larger than any other project in the world.It will give the United States a freer margin for su-periority in the peacetime use of atomic energy.

Civilian Nuclear Power: A Report to the President

Then, on November 20, 1962, Kennedy received the

completed report of the Atomic Energy Commission,drafted by his appointee Leland Haworth, for a com-plete transition of the U.S. into a nuclear economy. Thisseventy-six page report, titled Civilian Nuclear Power,a Report to the President1 was far more than a list ofsuggestions of speci c projects. It presented a programto transition entirely from a fossil fuel driven electri-

1. http://energyfromthorium.com/pdf/CivilianNuclearPower.pdf

In 1961, I joined Kennedy's "best and brightest" exploring the New Frontier.I rst met John Kennedy on the re -viewing stand of the inaugural parade.Within weeks he visited the Atomic

Energy Commission for a brie ng, andI encountered one of the most impres -sive intellects I have ever met. Even onthe esoteric subject of nuclear energy, heresponded with penetrating questionsre ecting an immediate grasp of the is -sues. The feeling of youth and energythat pervaded his administration beganat the top. Glenn Seaborg


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4 WWW.LAROUCHEPAC.COM 50 Years Behind

cal grid, to one completely nuclear. It presented a planto transition from then-current reactor technology, topartial breeding (converter reactors), to full breeder re-actors, which create more nuclear ssile material (fuel)than they consume, in the course of creating energy. Itputs forward the feasibility of dual purpose plants, forhigh process heat in industry, to be operational by the1970s, as well as desalination. Here is a brief excerpt:

Our supplies of uranium and thorium contain al-most unlimited amounts of latent energy that canbe tapped provided breeder reactors are devel-oped to convert the fertile materials, uranium-238and thorium-232, to ssionable plutonium-239and uranium-233, respectively. Successfullydone, this will render relatively unimportant thecost of nuclear raw materials so that even verylow-grade sources will become economically ac-ceptable.

The use of nuclear energy for electric powerand, less immediately, for industrial process heatand other purposes is technically feasible and ec-onomically reasonable.

In addition to its ultimate importance as ameans of exploiting a large new energy resource,nuclear electric power holds important near-term possibilities: as a means of signi cantlyreducing power generation costs, especially inareas where fossil fuel costs are high, as an im-

portant contributor to new industrial technology,and to our technological world leadership.The report detailed the hurdles already crossed to

achieve low capital cost of plants, long fuel life, ef cien-cy, and showed the overall physical cost to be below thatof coal plants. With these achievements, along with thebuild-up of the parts and manufacturing base for nucle-ar power components in the 1950s, nuclear reactors pro-ducing electricity were now ready for commercial de-velopment, and to be produced within the private sector(a process which did proceed in that decade). The onlyhang up for long term nuclear power, the report con-cluded, was the limitation that the reactors developed

This graph from the Civilian Nuclear Power report of November1962, shows the Atomic Energy Commissions projection of growthof nuclear energy, measured in Q (quintillion BTUs)/yr, where .1Q/year = 3.34 terawatts. In 1960, the U.S. economy used a little lessthan 1.5 terawatts. Their projection of growth, which was less thanwhat actually occurred for the decade of the 1960s, would have putthe U.S. at 5.4 terawatts, nearly double the 3.2 terrawatts of U.S.in 2013. Roughly half of this would be electrical, or about 1000 GWof electrical power, mostly nuclear, as compared with only 470 GWof electrical power in the U.S. in 2013, only 20% of which is nuclear.


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only used 1% of the energy available in the uraniummined, since less than 1% of mined uranium is ssion-ready U-235. The amount of energy extractable from theuranium reserves known at the time was less than thatextractable from known fossil fuel reserves. If this 1%from uranium were our only potential source, the con-tribution to our total energy reserves would scarcely beworth the development cost. Fortunately however, thisis only a fraction of the story.

The solution of this problem was outlined in greatdetail in the report, describing the investments needed

by the government to develop a commercial breeder re-actor, that could utilize 100% of the potential energy inmined uranium, by utilizing all of the U-238.2

2. The non- ssile, but plentiful U-238 and Th-232, can be con-verted into the ssionable isotopes Pu-239 and U-233, respective-ly, by the absorption of fast neutrons. A small amount of U-235,surrounded by a blanket of U-238 or Th-232, can, in the process ofssioningthereby releasing energy, utilized in a power plantsimultaneously create an amount of fuel equal to, or even greaterthan the initial U-235 introduced into the reactor core.

By the breeding of fuel, low grade ores could beused, and even trace amounts of uranium could thenbe used, making the resource virtually unlimited, dueto its prevalance in seawater and dirt. 3 Nuclear energy,

3. Seaborg later noted in an interview conducted in the 1990s,that after he discovered plutonium in 1941, the concept of thebreeder reactor, of which he was one of the main developers andproponents, was quickly apparent. There was almost immedi-ately, the possibility that it would be possible to use plutoniumas an intermediate in what came to be known as a breeder reac-tor, that is, the Uranium-235 chain reaction operating to produce

neutrons that some of which could be absorbed in the uranium,abundant U-238, to form plutonium. And then that plutoniumcould be used as a fuel to continue the reaction. And if one couldproduce, as you were burning plutonium, more plutonium than you consumed, then you could continually replenish the core andhave a reactor that was, in effect, using as a fuel the non- ssion -able uranium-238, through the plutonium as an intermediate.If we could develop the breeder reactor so that we could use thenon- ssionable uranium-238 via the ssionable plutonium-239,then we would have hundreds of times more fuel. And not onlythat. Because of its abundance, it would be possible to use lowergrade uranium in ores. It would be economically feasible to do

This graph puts the forecast included in Leland Haworth's report within the overall, constant rise of power per capita in U.S. history, which hastaken place in leaps, relative to applied discoveries. The dark line shows the actual power per capita since Kennedy's assassination, decreasingin recent years to 10 kW/capita, versus the 20 kW/capita which the full development of nuclear energy entailed. Power per capita is a measureassociated with overall power and organization of society to not only reproduce the current generation, but produce one capable of operatingwith more power in and over the world.


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as opposed to fossil fuels, served as an inspiration forcheap power for the world, since its capabilities wereindependent of geological deposits existing nearby, andnot all nations have cheap access to fossil fuels.

They thus concluded that three simultaneousphases should be pursued: 1) early construction of themost competitive existing types of nuclear reactors, 2)development, construction, and demonstration of reac-tors which produce some fuel but less than used, and 3)intensive development of breeder reactors, which pro-duce more fuel than is used.

In addition, they discussed reprocessing, where s -sile and fertile fuels are recaptured from used fuel as-semblies and ssion products are removed.

The report stated that some reactor prototypesconceived may have application for process heat, andwould reach the full scale operational phase by the early1970s. The report called for eight prototype reactorsto be constructed, half partial breeding and half fullbreeder reactors, and suggested that breeder reactorswould be the standard nuclear reactors for electricity by theearly 1980s.

They estimated that by the end of the century, halfof electricity would come from nuclear power. The Fed-

that. So youd have much larger supplies of uranium, enough tolast, I dont know how long, thousands of years, probably, if thebreeder reactor was developed.

eral Power Commissions forecast of a tenfold increasein electric energy use by the end of the century, whichthey cited, meant that fossil fuel electric energy, beinghalf by their measurement, would still grow four or vetimes.

The bene ts of developing the breeder reactorwere long lasting, and would come from new complexdesigns and materials used to construct the reactor, re-quiring a period of national investment without quickpayback, outside of the cost-bene t analysis which wasimposed on the nation after Kennedys assassination.

When one considers the depth of the complete pro-gram, it is clear that Kennedys requested AEC reportis the most ambitious program for full development ofnuclear energy, a level from which all administrationshave subsequently plunged.

Kennedy Launches the Nuclear EraAs part of Kennedys 1963 western states tour, he

stopped for a ceremony on September 26, 1963 at theHanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State, tocelebrate the construction of the Hanford N-reactor,the largest plant of its kind in the world.

Kennedys dedication launched a new era of 1 GWreactors across the United States. The speech incorpo-rated elements of the report he received the precedingNovember from Leland Haworth, and presents a con-

Leland J. HaworthLeland Haworth was one of two ap-

pointments made to the Atomic EnergyCommission in Kennedys rst monthas President, along with Glenn Sea-borg. Haworth played a key role in thepromotion of Operation Plowshare, ledthe plan and drafting of Kennedys re-quested breeder reactor report CivilianNuclear Power, which he considered hismost important contribution to the AEC,along with his efforst toward the Lim-ited Test Ban Treaty. Haworth is shownhere (left) on November 20, 1964 as thenDirector of the National Science Founda-tion, viewing the Sun at the prime focusof the McMath Solar Telescope at the KittPeak National Observatory near Tucson,Arizona.

NOAO/AURA/NSF


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cept of technological evolutions, brilliantly capturingKennedys personal mission toward mankind as a whole:

I am also glad to come here today because webegin work on the largest nuclear power reac-tor for peaceful purposes in the world, and I takethe greatest satisfaction in the United States be-

ing second to none. I think this is agood area where we should be rst,and we are rst. We are rst.

It is extraordinary how long ittook. It is extraordinary what en-ergy, human energy, was required

to get this concept accepted. Butas Scoop Jackson said, just as ittook a decade to get the Grand Cou-lee, which of all the extraordinarynational assets I have seen in thelast two days is the most extraordi-nary, because it not only led to theprosperity of this valley, but led towhat has been happening here for20 years, and now leads to thisnewbreakthrough...

There are two points on conser-vation that have come home to mein the last two days. One is the ne-cessity for us to protect what we al-ready have, what nature gave to us,

and use it well... that is the traditional concept ofconservation...

But the other part of conservation is the newerpart, and that is to use science and technology to

achieve signi cant breakthroughs as we are doing

As par t of his 13 state western tour, on September 26, 1963 President Kennedy participatedin groundbreaking ceremonies for the construction of a dual-purpose reactordesignatedthe N-Reactorat the Hanford nuclear reservation near Richland, Washington. Kennedyhad personally aided in the ght to achieve the public power component of the reactor, mak -ing it the nations rst reactor producing both plutonium and power for the electrical grid. Itwas also the largest reactor at the time, producing 1 gigawatt of electricity. Here Kennedy isshown with a rod of uranium, holding i t to a geiger counter and initating the groundbreaking.

This graph depicts a growth of the electric capacity increase forecast by the Kennedy administration, as expressed in Kennedy's Hanfordspeech: "Do you know that... we double the need for electric power every 10 years?" The United States would have had 2,800 GW of capacity(7 electrical kW/capita) in 2013, instead of the 470 GW (1.5 electrical kW/capita) we have today.


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today, and in that way to conserve the resourceswhich 10 or 20 or 30 years ago may have been whol-ly unknown. So we use nuclear power for peacefulpurposes and power.

Do you know that in the next 10 years, I hopethe people of the United States realize itwe dou-

ble the need for electric power every 10 years? Weneed the equivalent of a new Grand Coulee Damevery 60 days. In the next 20 years we are goingto have to put in the electric industry $125 billionof investment, and when we do that this countrywill be richer, and our children will enjoy a high-er standard of living. We dont realize that whatwe regarded as af uence 30 years ago is now waydown below. Air conditioning, television, electric-ity, and all the rest have changed the life of this

country, and we are going to nd the same ex -traordinary changes in the next 20 or 30 years....

We must hasten the development of low-costatomic power. I think we should lead the worldin this. By 1967, 1968, 1970,in the Northeast UnitedStates, where power ratesare nearly double yours, weare going to nd atomicpower increasingly com-

petitive, and by the end ofthis century this is going tobe a tremendous source. Ourexperts estimate that halfof all electric energy gen-erated in the United Stateswill come from nuclearsources.

These are the things wemust do, and many more.

This great, rich country ofours has a long, un nishedagenda, but it has always had that agenda in creativetimes, and this is a creativetime in our country andthroughout the world. Allof the trained and educat-ed men and women who

are making our country over, who are building abetter standard of living for our peoplethis is atime when we wish to encourage that release ofenergy, human energy, which is the most extraor-dinary of all.

Therefore, I am proud to come here across the

United States as President to express our thanksto you, to express my pride in what is being begunhere today, which puts the United States, as I said,once more in the lead in a whole new area, whichcan mean so much to people around the world.

"This great, rich country of ours, has along , un nished agenda, but it has al-ways had that agenda in creative times,and this is a creative time in our countryand throughout the world."

This graph compares three rates of growth of kW per capita beginning at 1962.The lower dark curveshows that which did occur during the decade of the 1960s , a 2.7% growth in power per capita per an-num, before leveling o in the 1970s, and declining in recent years. The second shows the forecast ofthe Kennedy administration, one the impact of nuclear ssion energy. The upper dark curve takes intoaccount a continued annual growth of of power per capita of 2.7% per year (or 30% per decade), whichserves as a true standard for growth, as it was actually attained by the overall e ects of Kennedy'sspace program, the investment tax credit, and the implementation of nuclear energy, the latter whichtook place at a rate much greater than expected in the 1962 Kennedy forecast. This third curve alsotakes into account the implementation of fusion energy, which would have brought the United Statesto over 25 kW/capita by 2013.


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NUCLEAR DESALINATIONKennedys program for desalination, which be-

came nuclear desalination in 1963, would have solvedmost of the worlds water problems. Kennedy spoke ofdesalination in his 1960 campaign speeches and actedon his promise soon after his election. On February 23,1961 Kennedy gave a special Message to the Congresson Natural Resources, restarting new projects for oodcontrol, dams, etc., and including saline and brackishwater conversion.

No water resources program is of greater long-

range importance for relief not only of our short-ages, but for arid nations the world overthan ourefforts to nd an effective and economical way toconvert water from the worlds greatest, cheapestnatural resourcesour oceansinto water t forconsumption in the home and by industry. Sucha break-through would end bitter struggles be-tween neighbors, states, and nationsand bringnew hope for millions who live out their lives indire shortage of usable water and all its physicaland economical blessings, though living on theedge of a great body of water throughout thatparched life-time.

This Administration is currently engaged inredoubled efforts to select the most promisingapproaches to economic desalination of oceanand brackish waters, and then focus our energiesmore intensively on those approaches. At my re-quest, a panel of the Presidents Science AdvisoryCommittee has been working with the Secretaryof the Interior to assure the most vigorous and ef-

fective research and development program pos-sible in this eld.

I urge the Congress to extend the current sa-line water conversion research program, and toincrease the funds for its continuation to a levelcommensurate with the effort our current studieswill show to be needednow estimated to be atleast twice the level previously requested.

On June 21, 1961, Kennedy remotely activated a sa-line water conversion plant in Freeport, Texas, stating:

The dedication of the conversion plant at Free-port, Texas, today is an important step towardsthe achievement of one of mans oldest dreams:securing fresh water from salt water. The Gov-ernment of the United States and the people of

this country take pride in this research enterprisewhich holds such high promise for meeting one ofmans basic needs in areas where nature has notbeen generous....

I might say that I can think of no cause and nowork which is more important, not only to thepeople of this country but to people all aroundthe globe, especially those who live in deserts oron the edge of oceans.

President Kennedy on June 21, 1961, activating by remote control,the rst Saline Water Conversion Plant, built in Freeport Texas.


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I am hopeful that the United States will con-tinue to exert great leadership in this eld, andI want to assure the people of the world that wewill make all the information that we have avail-able to all people. We want to join with them,with the scientists and engineers of other coun-

tries, in their efforts to achieve one of the greatscienti c breakthroughs of history. Im sure thatbefore this decade is out, that we will see moreand more evidence of mans ability at an econom-ic rate to secure fresh water from salt water, andwhen that day comes then we will literally see thedeserts bloom.Five days later, on June 26, 1961, he wrote a letter

to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of theHouse, transmitting a bill on saline water research.

Waterone of the most familiar and abundantcompounds on the earths surfaceis rapidlybecoming a limiting factor on further economicgrowth in many areas of this Nation and theworld. As time goes on, more and more commu-nities will be faced with the prospect of economicdistress and stagnation unless alternative sourcesof suitable water are developed.

It is essential, therefore, that we make everyeffort at this. Time to search for low-cost pro-cesses for converting sea and brackish water intofreshwater to meet our future water needs andthose of our neighbors throughout the world.I know of no Federal activity that offers greaterpromise of making a major contribution to the ul-timate economic well-being of all mankind thanthis program.

This bill will provide the Department of the In-terior with a wide variety of tools to attack thesaline water conversion cost barrier. It contem-plates a major acceleration of current programsof basic and applied research, and permits theconstruction of conversion plants far larger thanany now in existence to test the feasibility ofknown and yet to be developed processes.Four months later, the bill to expand and extend

the saline water conversion program, was passed, andKennedy signed the bill on September 22, 1961, writ-ing:

Present shortages of water are already adverse-ly affecting industrial development in importantsections of the United States. Unless these neces-sary steps are taken now, within 15 years theseshortages will become a serious handicap. Thisbill opens the door to development of a means

whereby low-cost water can be made availablefrom limitless sources.

Cheap conversion of saline and brackish wateris a goal within our reach, and dedicated effortswill answer the hopes which have attracted theattention of mankind for many centuries.Six months later, on March 1st, 1962, Kennedy re-

iterated the commitment toward progress in desalina-tion, referencing his rst message to Congress, In thesecond month of this Administration I sent to the Con-

gress a message summarizing our plans for the develop-ment of our natural resources." He continued:In the year which followed, heartening prog-

ress was made, including the following... The sa-line water program to nd cheaper means of con -verting salt water to fresh water was given newimpetus by legislation enacted last year; threedemonstration plants have begun operation andtwo more will shortly be under construction.Kennedy returned to this theme months later on

May 25, 1962, at the White House Conference on Con-servation:

Our great contribution, it seems to me, that wecan make in our time, as distinct from the contri-bution of the Roosevelts and Pinchot which was ina sense the management of resources, their pres-ervation against their unreasonable exploitationby private interestsour great contribution inthe fties and the sixties, it seems to me, is apply-ing the great discoveries of science to this ques-tion of conservation, how to get fresh water fromsalt water at competitive terms, which has been amatter of particular interest to Senator Andersonand Congressman Wayne Aspinall, and which canmean such an extraordinary amount to the peopleof the West, the Southwest, and really in a sense topeople all around the globe. I have felt that which-ever country can do this in a competitive way willget a good deal more lasting bene t than thosecountries that may be even rst in space.


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When we think of such a large percentage ofthe worlds land which supports so few people,how extraordinary an accomplishment it will bewhen we can bring water to bear on the desertssurrounding the Mediterranean and the IndianSea and all the rest. And I think that is within ourgrasp and within our lifetime, perhaps even with-in our decade, and I think it will be the prime ac-complishment of science in improving the life ofpeople in the long history of the world. And thatis within, as Ive said, our reach, and that deservesthe greatest effort by us all.

Desalination Goes NuclearIn 1962, Kennedy launched the most ambitious pro-

gram for nuclear energy in the nations history, callingfor a plan to revolutionize electricity use and processheat from nuclear energy, utilizing breeder reactors. In January 1963, in response to a report Kennedy receivedon the subject, the Presidential Of ce of Science andTechnology established inter-agency task group to in-vestigate the use of large nuclear reactors for producing

energy for sea water conversion. A desalination branchwas established in the Division Of Reactor DevelopmentAnd Technology to handle the day-to-day administra-tion and implementation of the AECs program. The OakRidge National Laboratory was assigned a major role inthe R & D program for the application of nuclear energyto desalination.

With James T. Ramey as the main author, the agen-cy issued their research of 1963 in March 1964 as AnAssessment of Large Nuclear Powered Sea Water Dis-tillation Plants, and outlined a plan to begin build-ing plants in the 1970s suf cient to supply arid regionsthroughout the United States. James Ramey testi ed toCongress on August 18, 1964, summarizing its results.4

The report estimated that if an appropriate re-search and development program were actively pur-

4. Hearings Before the Joint Committee On Atomic Energy; Con-gress Of The United States, Eighty Eighth Congress, Second Ses-sion, On the Use Of Nuclear Power For The Production Of FreshWater From Salt Water, August 18, 1964 and September 14, 1966See: http://sul-derivatives.stanford.edu/derivative?CSNID=00001878&mediaType=application/pdf and http://sul-derivatives.stanford.edu/derivative?CSNID=00002070&mediaType=application/pdf

James T. Ramey James T. Ramey (second from the right), in August1962, being sworn in by President Kennedy as a com-missioner of the Atomic Energy Commission. Rameyhad long experience in realizing the potentials ofnuclear energy against practical thinking and over-awed the inherited Wall Street foot-dragging in u -ences within the AEC. Ramey had previously workedas lawyer to the TVA, drafted contracts for theworld's rst nuclear submarine with Admiral Hy -man Rickover, and helped create Argonne NationalLaboratory for the development of nuclear reactors.

In 1956 he was appointed as the Executive Directorof the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Congresssoversight committee for the numerous programs ofthe Atomic Energy Committee, which received tes-timony on nuclear space propulsion, peaceful use ofnuclear explosives, advanced reactor applications, andother nuclear energy applications.

Within months of Rameys appointment, Ken-nedys requested AEC nuclear energy report was com-pleted, calling for a conversion of the countrys power

generation over to nuclear ssion, breeders and reprocessing and a special desalination branch was established atthe AEC with Kennedy forming a Task Group on nuclear desalination at the White House. Ramey vigorously promoted and defended the nuclear rocket program. Mr. Ramey also played a key role in the critical negotiations thataverted nuclear war during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.


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sued, large-scale dual-purpose installations could pro-duce 1,000 to 1,900 megawatts of electricity and 500 to800 million gallons of water per day, .6-.9 million acrefeet per year (MAFY). The report also suggested a pro-gram to develop and demonstrate a plant operatingwith an 8,300-megawatt (thermal) reactor and produc-ing approximately 1,400 megawatts of electricity and

600 million gallons of water per day (.7 MAFY).This 8,300 MWt reactor was the 1975 goal. The 1970

goal was for plants of intermediate size. The task groupproposed producing a half dozen intermediate sizedunits, two in Southern California, one in the greaterNew York area, several for the Gulf Coast, and one inFlorida.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern Cali-fornia was the rst site for such nuclear desalination,and entered into a contract with the Department of theInterior and the AEC in 1964 for a detailed economic and

engineering study of dual-purpose plants in the 150 to750 MWe size range and 50 to 150 mgd production capac-ity, to be operational by 1970. James Ramey of the AECremarked, Such a project could convert more waterfrom the sea than all the othersea water conversion units cur-rently operating in the world.

The nal capacity of thelarge nuclear desalination plant,once expanded to 150 mgd, wasto be enough water for a city of

about 750,000. Two large con-ventional light-water nuclearreactors, of about 3,000 thermalmegawatts each, were to be theenergy source, and the waterplant to consist of three largemultistage ash distillation sec -tions, each producing 50 milliongallons of water per day. Theplant would have been 30 timeslarger than the largest existing

water desalination plant at thattime.For scale, a desalination

plant producing 150 mgd, wouldprovide two times the currentwater use of San Francisco. Fourof these plants, or one 8,300MWt plant, would provide thewater use of Los Angeles.

In a 1966 AEC report,5 an even larger reactor was il-lustrated in a drawing, showing a nuclear-powered sea-water-conversion plant that would produce 1 billion gal-lons of fresh water per day and 4.5 GW of power. Threenatural uranium reactors would generate steam, whichwould operate the turbo generators to produce electric-ity. The steam would then travel through a ash evapo -

rator plant converting the seawater to pure water. Thereport continued, by the 1980s, plants embodying sev-eral nuclear reactors in a single installation, with a to-tal capacity as high as 25,000 thermal megawatts, couldbe in operation. A plant like this would produce 5,950electrical megawatts at 1.6 mills per kilowatt-hour and1,300,000,000 gallons of water per day at 19 per thou-sand gallons.

Before Kennedy could push the results of Rameysreport, with as much vigor and passion as he success-fully launched the space program, he was assassinated,

and the investment in the new technology was blocked.By cutting out nuclear, water shortages were guar-

anteed. Since the 1960s, there has not been a watershortage, but rather a nuclear shortage.

5. 1966 AEC pamphlet, Nuclear Energy for Desalting, byGrace Urrows, part of the Understanding the Atoms Series.

This graph shows the continued expansion of irrigated agriculture in the United States, increasingat the average annual growth rate from 1950-1965, as compared to the leveling o which occurredin the late 1970s, and recent decline. Under Kennedy's nuclear desalination program, and the na-tional water program presented in the following section, this growth in productivity would havebeen achievable.


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NATIONAL WATER PROJECTS John F. Kennedy planned to reverse the opposi-

tion to continuing Franklin Roosevelt scale waterprojects, imposed under Truman and continued un-der the Eisenhower Administration. He would proveto be the only President after Franklin Roosevelt, tothe present day, that dared to revive and continue hisprogram of water resource development, or to pro-mote the TVA and the REA with as much vigor as FDRhimself.

At a campaign event in Salt Lake City on Septem-ber 23, 1960, he made explicit the shift he would bringabout:

Let me make it very clear that I have supportedall projects which I considered to be soundly -nanced for reclamation, conservation, and powerresources, from Hells Canyon to the project inthis State. I supported the upper Colorado proj-ect as it came from the House of Representatives.My judgment is that the next administration, andthis is certainly going to be true if I am electedPresident, will reverse the policy of no new starts,

which has kept this western part of the United Stateson dead center for the last eight years. [Applause.][Emphasis added]

In the second month of his administration, on Feb-ruary 23, 1961, Kennedy delivered a Special Message tothe Congress on Natural Resources, which included anoutline for restarting new projects for ood control anddams, as part of an integrated national program:

Our Nation has been blessed with a bountiful sup-ply of water; but it is not a blessing we can regardwith complacency. We now use over 300 billiongallons of water a day, much of it wastefully. By1980 we will need 600 billion gallons a day.

Our supply of water is not always consistentwith our needs of time and place. Floods one dayin one section may be countered in other days orin other sections by the severe water shortageswhich are now af icting many Eastern urban

areas and particularly critical in the West. Ouravailable water supply must be used to give maxi-mum bene ts for all purposeshydroelectricpower, irrigation and reclamation, navigation,recreation, health, home and industry....

A. We reject a no new starts policy. Sucha policy denied the resource requirements andpotential on which our economic growth hingesand took a heavy toll in added costs and evenhuman life and homes by postponing essentialood control projects. I have requested the Di-rector of the Bureau of the Budget, workingwith appropriate department and agency heads,to schedule a progressive, orderly program of

starting new projects to meet accumulated de-mands...

B. This Administration accepts the goal urgedby the Senate Select Committee to develop com-prehensive river basin plans by 1970, in coopera-tion with the individual States. I urge the Con-gress to authorize the establishment of planningcommissions for all major river basins...


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INFRASTRUCTURE, A FORM OF SAVING August 17, 1962: Oahe Dam, Pierre, South Dakota

This dam will produce enough electric energy, thisone dam, to light the city of Edinburgh, Scotland. Thisdam alone will supply enough irrigation to serve an

area larger than the nation of Luxembourg. This damand the rest of the dams on this river, which 30 yearsago would have provided only oods and darkness,now provide irrigation and light, and though those ofus who are here today follow in the footsteps of thosewho made it possible, we share a satisfaction and alsoa commitment that we must, in our time, make it easyfor future Presidents of the United States and future citizens in the 1970s and 1980s to visit projects likethis which have been planned and carried out in our

day....And in 1944, under the administration of President

Roosevelt, a comprehensiveMissouri Basin plan wasauthorized to accomplish all of these great objectives.This is the fth of six great dams to control the main -stream of the Missouri River. And I can assure thoseof you at the upper end of the Missouri, and our goodfriends at the lower end, that it will continue to be ourpolicy to regulate the storage and the ow of waterin these reservoirs in

the most advantageousmanner for all concerned,that the best engineersin the world can devise.

We take for grantedthese miracles of engi-neering, and too oftenwe see no connectionbetween this dam rightout here and our Nations

prosperity and our Na-tions security, and ourleadership all aroundthe world. The facts ofthe matter are that thisdam, and many more likeit , are as essential to theexpansion and growth of

the American economy as any measure that the Con-gress is now considering. And this dam and others likeit are as essential to our national strength and securityasany military alliance or missile complex.

When we are inclined to take these wonders for granted, let us remember that only a generation ortwo ago all the great rivers of America, the Missouri, theColumbia, the Mississippi, the Tennessee, ran to thesea unharnessed and unchecked. Their power potentialwas wasted. Their economic bene ts were sparse. Andtheir ooding caused an appalling destruction of lifeand of property.

Less than 30 years ago, in the lifetime of most of ushere, as you know, fewer than 10 percentof all our ru-ral homes in this country had electric power.... Then,a farmer had no opportunity to participate in themainstream of American life, to use labor-saving ma-chinery, nor did his wife; nor did they have light, ora telephone, or a radio. Today, more than 95 percentof rural homes have electric power. The lives of thesefarmers and their families and their children havebeen enriched by living in the closest communion withthe rest of our country. The REA co-ops and powerdistricts which have marketed this power have been ahappy middle ground between private enterprise and

public coopera-tion....

The key to thiscentury is pow-er power on thefarm as well asthe factory, pow-er in the coun-try as well asthe city. And theneed for poweron the farm andthe countrysidecontinues togrow. Electric-ity rates mustremain low. More

generating capac-ity must be devel-

JFK inspecting the dam site, with the chief engineer at the dedication ceremo -ny for the Oahe Dam and Missouri River Basin Power Transmission System inPierre, South Dakota, on August 17, 1962.


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oped. And soon the vast resources of nuclear energywill be tapped.

This is not a choice between spending and saving,for REA is a form of saving, as is this dam, hours and

lives, saving farms and saving and returning to ourNations Governmentevery dollar loaned, with interest,in taxes on new appliances and new equipment, andnew farm income. This program and so many like ithave returned to the public treasuries many times theentire cost of the program.

FOR THOSE WHO COME AFTER US August 17, 1962: Fryingpan Project, Pueblo, Colorado

To many Members of the Congress, to many Ameri-cans, the words Fryingpan-Arkansas must, of neces-sity, be a name which is taken on faith. But when theycome here to this State and see how vitally importantit is, not just to this State but to the West, to the UnitedStates, then they realize how important it is that allthe people of the country support this project whichbelongs to all the people of the country.

I dont think there is any more valuable lesson,fora President or Member of the House and Senate thanto y as we have own todayover some of the bleakestland in the United States and then to come to a river,

and see what grows next to it, and come to this cityand come to this town and come to this platform andknow how vitally important water is....

I hope that those of us who hold positions of pub-lic responsibility in 1962 are as farseeing about theneeds of this country in 1982 and 1992 as those menand women were 30 years ago who began to make thisproject possible. What are we going to do in 1962,beginning today, to determine what projects we should de-velopso that by the end of this century, when there

are 300 million people in the United States, there willbe available to them land and water and light and powerand resources, and places to live, and places to rest, andplaces to work?

So we salute this project today, and we salute thosewho made it possible. And we look to the future andwe look to the past, and we commit ourselves in 1962 notonly to celebrate this project, but to move aheadin all

President Kennedy at Pueblo, Colorado on August 17th, 1962, one day after authorizing the Frying Pan Arkansas Damproject to divert water from western to eastern Colorado.


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the other areas stretching from California to Cape Cod,Mass., in building this country up....

Every Member of Congress, everyone in the execu-tive branch from the President on, in the eld of na -tional resources, has to plan during their period of ad-ministration or of ce for the next generation, becauseno project that we plan today will be bene cial to us. Anything we begin today is for those who come afterus. And just as those who began something years agomake it possible for us to be here, I hope well ful llour responsibility to thenext generation thatsgoing to follow us.

Those people whocome here from abroad,what they want to seeis the Tennessee Val-ley. Ten years from nowtheyll want to see thisproject. And I hope in space and on the ground this country will continue its march forward.

A GREAT NATIONAL EFFORTMay 18, 1963: 30th Anniversary Celebration of TVA,

Muscle Shoals, Alabama

There were many who still regarded the undertak-ing with doubt, some with scorn, some with outrighthostility. Some said it couldnt be done. Some said itshouldnt be done. Some said it wouldnt be done. Buttoday, 30 years later, it has been done. They predictedthe Government was too inef cient to help electrifythe valley. But TVA, by any objective test, is not onlythe largest but one of the best managed power sys-tems in the United States.

They predicted, and there are always those whopredict everything against something newthey pre-dicted that a Federal regional corporation would un-dermine the State governments and the local govern-ments, but State and local governments are thriving inthis valley, and hundreds of State and local park andrecreational areas have been set aside through the en-tire TVA.

They predicted that TVA would destroy private en-terprise, but this valley has never bloomed like it doestoday, and hundreds of thousands of jobs have beencreated because of the work that these men did be-fore us. New forests have been built, new farms havebeen developed, engineers who testi ed that multi-purpose dams would not work, that rivers could notbe developed for navigation and the generation ofelectricity and prevention of oods at the same time,were proved wrong. Barge traf c on this system has

grown from 33 milliontons in 1933 to2 billiontons today, on a riverspanned by more than30 dams. They are con-tributing to the life

and vigor of the larg-est supplier of powerin the United States.And as the people ofthis State and valley

who made this possible, I congratulate you all. Becausethis has not been made to work in Washingtonit hasbeen made to work by the people of the valley.

Despite a record of success, TVA still has its skepticsand its critics. There are still those who call it creep-

ing socialism, and we recently saw an advertisingcampaign which implied that TVA and public powerwere comparable to the Berlin Wall and the East Berlinpolice as threats to our freedom. But the tremendouseconomic growth of this region, its private industry, itsprivate income, make it dear to all that TVA is a ttinganswer to socialism, and it is not creeping, nor will itin the future.

There are still those, and some of them come fromMassachusetts, who say that this asset serves only the

valley. There are some people who say about everyproject to improve the wealth of this country, Thatisnt good because that helps the people in the West,or the South, or the Northeast. This great countryof ours has been developed because people workingtogether made it possible to develop this valley, Con-gressmen and Senators from the Northeast UnitedStates who have voted for it, men from this part of the

And the important lesson in all of those proj-ects is that progress isnt being made as a re -sult of a sudden idea, suddenly coming into frui -tion. This project, the Fryingpan-Arkansas,

and the project in South Dakota, represented10, 20, and 30 years e orts of devoted citizens.Things do not happen; they are made to happen...

- JFK, August 18, 1962, Los Banos, California


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country who have helped develop the West. By work-ing together, we have recognized, that a rising tidelifts all the boats, and this valley will not be prosperousunless other sections of the country are rich, nor willother sections of the country be rich unless the valleyis prosperous. That is the lesson of the last 30 years.

From time to time statements are made labelingthe Federal Government an outsider, an intruder, anadversary. In any free federation of States, of coursedifferences will arise and dif culties will persist. Butthe people of this area know that the United StatesGovernment is not a stranger or not an enemy. It isthe people of 50 States joining ina national effortto seeprogress in every State of the Union....

Without the National Government and the peopleof the United States working together, there wouldbe... no assistance on conserving soil or harvestingtrees, no loansto help a farmerbuy his farm andno security atthe bank. With-out the NationalGovernment, thepeople of onecountry, therecould be no Coo-sa-Alabama Riv-er project, withthe rst dam under way this month at Millers Ferry.Without the people of the United States working to-gether with the National Government, there would beno Hill-Burton hospitals, which have helped developthe best hospital system in the world today... The listgoes on and on. Only a great national effort by a greatpeople working together can explore the mysteries of

space, harvest the products at the bottom of the ocean,and mobilize the human, natural, and material re-sources of our lands. I cite these examples not to showthe growth of Federal activity, for it is small comparedto the Nations, but to show the positive side of Feder-al-State cooperation, of which TVA is an outstandingsymbol... For this is and must always be one Nationunder God, indivisible.

THE SPIRIT OF THE TVASeptember 26, 1963, Salt Lake City, Utah

This State knows that the control of water is the se-cret of the development of the West, and whether weuse it for power, or for irrigation, or for whatever pur-

pose, no drop of water west of the 100th parallel should owto the ocean without being used.And to do that requiresthe dedicated commitment of the people of the Statesof the West, working with the people of all the United States who have such an important equity in the richness ofthis part of the country....

We will triple the population of this country in theshort space of 60 or 70 years, and we want those whocome after us to have the same rich inheritance thatwe nd now in the United States....

And I see the closest interrelationship between thestrength of the United States here at home and the

strength of the UnitedStates around the world.There is one great naturaldevelopment here in theUnited States which hashad in its own way a great-er effectupon the positionand in uence and pres -

tige of the United States,almost, than any otheract we have done. Do you

know what it is? It is the Tennessee Valley.Nearly everyleader of every new emerging country that comes tothe United States wants to go to New York, to Wash-ington, and the Tennessee Valley, because they wantto see what we were able to do with the most poverty-ridden section of the United States in the short spaceof 30 years, by the wise management of our resources.

50 YEARS FROM NOWSeptember 27, 1963: Salt Lake City, Utah

As I move through the West, especially in this Stateand other States where water is short, I realize thatnearly all of the standard of living which we enjoy inthis part of the United States has been due partly to ourown efforts, the generation which is now here, but re-

"We must maintain an aggressive program to useour hydro resources to the fullest. Every drop ofwater which goes to the ocean without being used forpower or used to grow, or being made availableon the widest possible basis is a waste , and I hopethat we will do everything we can to make sure

that nothing runs to the ocean unused and wasted."JFK, September 26, 1963, Hanford, WA


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later in the House by Rep. David King as House Con. Res.488. The measure received wide publicity, and judgingfrom Mosss correspondence, it enjoyed broad biparti-san support in Congress, as well as from citizens in theU.S. and Canada who wrote to Moss volunteering their

efforts to help organize for it. Among the co-sponsors ofthe NAWAPA resolution was Senator Robert F. Kennedy,who wrote to Moss:

I am glad to join you as a co-sponsor of S. ConRes. 55 expressing the sense of Congress that thePresident refer to the International Joint Com-mission the subject of the North American Waterand Power Alliance... This proposal deserves care-ful study and consideration by both the UnitedStates and Canada and has applications to the

East as well as the West.Moss actively organized for joint action betweenthe U.S. and Canada, and participated in several highpro le debates with Canadian of cials on the project.Favorable opinions on NAWAPA from Canadian legisla-tors reached as high as Prime Minister Lester Pearson,who stated publicly that water diversion from the Arcticcould be one of the most important developments inour history.

To the devastation of the people of the NorthAmerican Continent, as has been borne out in recentdecades, the visionary President, and his brother, whowould have conducted a joint study with Canada, wereassassinated.

Picture of S. Con. Res. 55, introduced on September 1, 1965 by Sen-ator Frank Moss, and co-sponsored by Robert Kennedy and others.

Map of NAWAPA as shown in September 1965 newspapers.


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FARMING THE OCEANAnother program of Kennedys which had simi-

lar potential to vastly increase the living standardand power of the human species, had Kennedy lived topursue it, was the development of resources from theworlds oceans. For Kennedy, this meant a revolutionin accessible resources for mankind, not an increase inoffshore drilling of oil.

Kennedy spoke of ocean resources as one of his keyprograms, and included it in his list of new frontiers atan October 29, 1960 speech at Valley Forge, stating:

I have said in this campaign that we stand to-day on a new frontier, a frontier that will demandof us all, in each individual home as well as theWhite House those same qualities of courage andconviction. For we are moving into the most chal-lenging, the most dynamic, the most revolution-ary period of our existencethe 1960s. The nextten years will be years of incredible growth andchangeyears of unprecedented tasks for thenext President of the United States.As part of the new frontiers in science and space,

Kennedy said We must nd ways in the sixties of ob-taining an endless supply of food and power from the oceandepths themselves and of replacing our dwindling resourcesof energy from the granite that lies beneath every conti-nent. Kennedy would go on to continue this programthroughout his Administration, including the four fol-lowing events:

Special Message to the Congress on Natural Re-sources, February 23, 1961:

The sea around us represents one of our most

important but least understood and almost whol-ly undeveloped areas for extending our resourcebase. Continental shelves bordering the UnitedStates contain roughly 20 percent of our remain-ing reserves of crude oil and natural gas. Theocean oor contains large and valuable depositsof cobalt, copper, nickel, and manganese. Oceanwaters themselves contain a wide variety of dis-solved salts and minerals.

On, March 1, 1962, as part of Kennedys SpeciaMessage to the Congress on Conservation, he said:

Our intensi ed effort to expand our knowledgeand understanding of the vast resources held bythe oceans through basic research and surveys ofgeologic and living resources will surely result inextending our known resource base, with encour-aging prospects for improving our standard of livingand adding protein-rich marine products to the diets ofthe hungry people of the world.

His May 25, 1962 Remarks to the White House Conference on Conservation asserted:

In addition, we can make the most extraordi-nary gains in getting food from the ocean depthsin the next 10 or 20 years. This question of ocean-ography has also occupied the attention of theCongress and this administration, how we candouble the amount of protein which is available topeople around the world. This is a whole new area ofconservation, unknown to those who preceded us

but which is now coming into public understand-ing as a result of your efforts and the efforts ofothers, and which can make the most profounddifference to the lives of people who live ratherlistlessly because of inadequate proteins.In Kennedys address to the National Academy of

Sciences, on October 22, 1963, among other topics, hebrought attention to the understanding and use of theresources of the sea.

I recently sent to Congress a plan for a national

attack on the oceans of the world, calling for theexpenditure of more than $2 billion over the next10 years. This plan is the culmination of 3 yearseffort by the Inter-Agency Committee on Ocean-ography, and it results from recommendationsmade by the National Academy.

Our goal is to investigate the world ocean, itsboundaries, its properties, its processes. To asurprising extent, the sea has remained a mys-


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tery10,000 eets still sweep overit in vain. We know less of theoceans at our feet, where we camefrom, than we do of the sky aboveour heads. It is time to change this,to use to the full our powerful new

instruments of oceanic explora-tion, to drive back the frontiers ofthe unknown in the waters whichencircle our globe.

I can imagine no eld amongall those which are so exciting to-day than this great effort whichour country and others will carryon in the years to come. We needthis knowledge for its own sake. We

want to know what is under the sea,and we need it to consider its bear-ings on our security, and on theworlds social and economic needs.It has been estimated, for example, thatthe yield of food from the seas could be increased ve orten times through better knowledge of marine biology,and some day we will seed and weed and harvest theocean.Here, again, the job can best be done by thenations of the world working together in interna-tional institutions.Althelstan Spilhaus, a meteorologist, oceanog-

rapher, and inventor of the bathythermograph, wasappointed by Kennedy in 1961 as United States Com-missioner to the Seattle Worlds Fair in 1962. Spilhausdesigned exhibits showcasing future technologies,and subsequently began working on a vision of futureoceanography, coincident with where Kennedy hadbeen pointing, and published his results 1964.7 Here area few excerpts:

Food From the Sea: The nutrients needed to

sustain life in the sea are presently renewed andconcentrated by natural process which, when un-derstood, may be arti cially emulated by scien-tists. Winds drive away surface water in the lee

7. The Future of Oceanography, By Athelstan Spilhaus p.361-373, Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the SmithsonianInstitution, published June 1964; republished as Oceanography:A Wet and Wonderous Journey p. 11-15, inBulletin of the AtomicSciences,December 1964.

of a coast, bringing up nutrient-rich lower water.This suggests that barriers placed in the openocean might form arti cial lees with rich patchesof water around them. When winds diverge in theopen ocean, they also bring up bottom water atthe center of the divergence, and the natural stir-ring of currents plows the sea.

Perhaps a nuclear stovepossibly the wasteheat from an underwater nuclear power plant forsubmarine navigation beaconscould boil upthe nutrient-rich bottom water.

Self-Renewing Mines : Before man requiredfresh water from the sea, he desired just the op-positeto extract the salt. This is an ancient art;at rst the salt was used only for the seasoningof food. But in the last 40 years, not only have

sodium, potassium, and magnesium salts beenextracted economically, but also bromine andmagnesium metal. The dif culty of getting any-thing out of seawater is that everything occurs ina highly dilute state, and large amounts of waterhave to be pumped and processed.

But power is getting cheaper, and perhaps,instead of pumping sea water through plants onland, we will have oating processing plants at

This image, featured in Spilhaus's cited article, had the following caption, "This sketch byMarion Senyk a "forecast for the seventies" depicts a future permanent undersea base, asoceanographic exploration becomes a naval activity of increasing scope and importance,and as burgeoning needs of civil life become more complex.


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sea, propelling themselvesthrough the water as theytake what they need from it, just as marine animals do. Theadvantage of such oatingre neries is that they do

not occupy expensive shoreland and can move to areas ofrich sea ore. Perhaps deute-rium taken from the seawateritself will power them.

Many valuable elementsare so dilute that it is not eco-nomical to extract them fromsea water, yet nature con-centrates them in high grade

deposits on the oor of thesea. Nodules on the sea bot-tom are already being minedfor phosphorus, and nodulesof manganese, not valuableenough in itself, may containenough valuable nickel, co-balt, molybdenum, and zirco-nium to warrant scraping themoff the bottom in a deep seamining enterprise. The mostinteresting facet of this deepsea mining is that the nodulesseem to form at a rate exceed-ing what we might conceivablytake out to cover the presenttotal world consumption ofthese metals. They are like self-renewing mines.However, though these pro-

grams warranted further devel-

opment, full ocean developmentwas yet another example of afrontier to be explored and ex-panded under President Kennedy,but whose development was can-celled under the guise of cuttingcosts.

In the Spring of 1961,a team of scientists onboard drillship CUSS I (shown here) drilled veholes o the coast of Gua -dalupe Island, Mexico, thedeepest to 601 feet belowthe se oor in 11,700 feetof water, as an experi-mental phase of what wascalled Project Mohole, aprogram to drill throughthe Earths crust and intothe Mohorovic disconti-nuity (the boundary layerbetween the mantle andcrust). The rst phase wasa success and proved thetechnology and exper-tise needed to drill intothe Earths mantle, anunknown frontier whichwould bring with it un-foreseen discoveries. Theproject succeeded in re-trieving core samples ofthe rst and second layers

of the ocean crust. Kennedy appointed Leland Haworth to the National Science Foundation in 1963,where he took over direction of Project Mohole. After Kennedys murder, phase two of the projectwas cancelled, and to this day, mankind has not reached the Earths mantle.

21st Century Special ReportThe pathway to regainthe trajectory of man-kind which was robbedfrom the Americanpeople and the worldwith the assassinationof John F. Kennedy isspelled out in this re-cent Special Report pub-lished by 21st CenturyScience & Technology.

The report outlinesthe goal of a global fu-

sion economy, and theprocess necessary tobuild the productivepotential necessary toachieve it, based on atrans-paci c sciencedriver, and infrastruc -ture partnership.

www.21stcenturysciencetech.com


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deposits for in situ retorting; plans for oil shale matura-tion; coal gasi cation 35 miles east of Buffalo, Wyoming.

Infrastructure projects: A 1962 study to use venuclear bombs to excavate a harbor in Alaskas NorthSlope; a 1963 plan to create a mountain path over theBristol Mountains of California for the ATSF railroadand Caltrans; 1965 studies of possibilities for a new sea-level Atlantic-Paci c canal; creation of an undergroundstorage facility for natural gas; joining the Tennesseeand Tombigbee rivers in northeast Mississippi, by theexcavation of a three mile divide; a 1968 water resourcemanagement, dam construction, subsurface water stor-age, puri cation, and aquifer modi cation plan, at ClearCreek or San Simon, Arizona; a 1969 joint US/Australianplan for creating a new harbor at Cape Keraudren on thenorthwest Australian coast; and cratering studies for aPan-Atomic canal.

Under John F. Kennedy, Operation Plowshare wasmainstream to the United States scienti c outlook, notan obscure program conducted in the dark.

It was one of the central projects of Kennedys lead-ing science advisers, Leland Haworth, who Kennedyappointed to the Atomic Energy Commission in Janu-ary of 1961, and to lead the National Science Founda-tion in 1963. As an avid proponent of Project Plowshare,Haworth studied the proposal for a test-harbor in Alas-ka, Project Chariot in July of 1961. Another of Kennedysmain appointments, James Ramey, had worked withmany of its proponents and project managers while

serving as executive director of the Joint Committee onAtomic Energy from 1956-1962.

Two executive orders made by Kennedy on the top-ic of Project Plowshare, spanning the period from 1961to 1963, further underscore this point:

September 5, 1961: In view of the continued test-ing by the Soviet Government, I have today or-dered the resumption of nuclear tests, in thelaboratory and underground, with no fallout.... Inaddition, as the program progresses, tests will be

utilized to provide information in support of theU.S. programs to improve means of detecting andidentifying nuclear explosions for possible usein an international nuclear test control system(Vela), and to study the use of nuclear detona-tions for peaceful purposes (Plowshare).

September 11, 1963: The United States willdiligently pursue its programs for the further de-velopment of nuclear explosives for peaceful pur-

poses by underground tests within the terms ofthe treaty, and as and when such developmentsmake possible constructive uses of atmosphericnuclear explosions for peaceful purposes, theUnited States will seek international agreementunder the treaty to permit such explosions.

Kennedy included reference to spirit of OperationPlowshare as one of his new frontiers of science, dur-ing a campaign speech on the theme of frontiers. Echo-ing Plowshares namesake, the prophet Isaiah, Kennedy,stated, And, if we can ful ll our hopes for peace, in-stead of beating our swords into plowshares, and ourspears into pruning hooks, we can convert our bombsinto power reactors that will electrify the frontier andthe jungle.

Diagram of Project Chariot, a plan for a harbor in Alaska created bynuclear excavation. Leland Haworth went on an exploratory missionfor the project in July of 1961. A nuclear cratering test was proposedfor this site but not executed; tracer tests and numerous bioenviron-mental studies were conducted at the site from 1959-1962.


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NUCLEAR ROCKET PROGRAMWhile Kennedys economic crash program to

land on the moon succeeded, and had permanent

and qualitative effects throughout the economy,Kennedys space program was not limited to send-ing a man to the moon, but aimed at the long-termcolonization and control of the solar system, in-cluding the development of a nuclear rocket, explo-ration of Mars, and building a permanent lunar base.

Long before U.S. had a serious program to landa man on the moon, there was a vigorous programunderway to develop a nuclear space propulsionvehicle for interplanetary travel. In 1957, beforethe U.S. had launched anything into space, the

main proponents of space exploration understoodthat any serious manned space program dependedon nuclear propulsion. As one expert testi ed toCongress: The nuclear engine is for astronauticswhat the combustion engine is for aeronautics.8 In remarks on the oor of the Senate during thedebate on the creation of a civilian space agency,Clinton Anderson, the chair of the Joint Committeeon Atomic Energy, stated:

We dont know what space means now, but aswe move into it, it will change us, give us differ-ent tools, technologies, and ways of looking at ourown planet. And only with nuclear rockets can wehave manned interplanetary ights, to Mars, andlater interstellar travel. As we deliberate, let us becareful, as our decisions will in uence those yetunborn, and perhaps someday may lead to peaceon Earth, where mens minds are lifted from theirEarth-bound hatreds into the universe.In August 1960, after many of Andersons hearings

in Congress on the nuclear rocket program, the Atomic

Energy Commission and NASA created the joint SpaceNuclear Propulsion Of ce to carry out the nuclear rocketproject. The same Congressional group put the nuclearrocket into the Democratic platform in November 1960.

While there was reluctance at the end of Eisenhow-er Administration to embrace the nuclear rocket, the

8. Frontiers In Atomic Energy Research; Joint Committee Sum-mary, August 1960: http://sul-derivatives.stanford.edu/derivative?CSNID=00002220&mediaType=application/pdf

John F. Kennedy Administration became the championof the program, and worked with those in the Congress

which had been spearheading efforts since the end ofthe 1950s.The anti-technology and Wall Street lobbies made

intensive efforts to strangle the space program and tospeci cally block ight testing for the nuclear rocket. 9 Despite their attempts, Kennedy made clear that WallStreet and related monetarist in uences would notcontrol the U.S. government during his watch, whenhe intervened into the heated debate which had beenongoing over funding of the rocket program. In his fa-mous May 25 1961 special address to Congress on Ur-

gent National Needs, in addition to launching his moonprogram, Kennedy approved a test ight for the Rovernuclear rocket. The latter received loud applause.

First, I believe that this nation should commititself to achieving the goal, before this decade isout, of landing a man on the moon and returninghim safely to the earth. No single space project in

9. Marsha Freeman, Nuclear Power: The Litmus Test for SpaceExploration,EIR, December 3, 2004.

Kennedys May 25, 1961 address to Congress, is appropriately rememberedas his historic challenge to the nation to land a man on the Moon, but it alsoindicated a much broader space program, most conspicously the nuclearrocket, posessing the power to transform mankinds long range control ofthe solar system and establish a permanent moon base.


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this period will be more impressive to mankind,or more important for the long-range explora-tion of space; and none will be so dif cult or ex-pensive to accomplish. We propose to acceleratethe development of the appropriate lunar spacecraft. We propose to develop alternate liquid andsolid fuel boosters, much larger than any now be-

ing developed, until certain which is superior. Wepropose additional funds for other engine devel-opment and for unmanned explorationsexplo-rations which are particularly important for onepurpose which this nation will never overlook:the survival of the man who rst makes this dar -ing ight....

Secondly, an additional 23 million dollars, to-gether with 7 million dollars already available,will accelerate development of the Rover nuclearrocket. This gives promise of some day providinga means for even more exciting and ambitiousexploration of space, perhaps beyond the moon,perhaps to the very end of the solar system itself.Kennedys space program was not to achieve a

moon landing, rather, Kennedys moon landing wasone step of a broader space program that had no endpoint.

Nuclear Propulsion 40 Years AgoIn addition to the Rover Rocket whose develop-

ment Kennedy accelerated in May 1961, a second, moreadvanced nuclear rocket program was begun by NASAand the AEC to create rocket engines that could survivethe shock and vibration of a space launch: the NuclearEngine for Rocket Vehicle Application (NERVA).

In an interview on the nuclear rocket published onSeptember 21, 1962, Glenn Seaborg, the chairman of theAEC reported that Tests in Nevada indicate operationalstatus by 1967, and that there would be the rst spacevehicle with nuclear propulsion in the 1970s. James Ra-mey, one of the leading proponents and defenders of theNuclear Rocket program, was appointed to the AtomicEnergy Commission in August 1962. Kennedy made apublic visit to the Nuclear Rocket Development Stationthat December, con rming his support for the program.

Aerojet and Westinghouse NERVA reactors testsstarted in 1964. By 1966, Harry Finger, appointed asmanager of the Atomic Energy Commission/NASASpace Nuclear Propulsion Of ce in 1960, reported thatan operating time of 30 minutes had been achieved at afull design nuclear power reactor for 1,100 megawatts,equivalent to 55,000 pounds of thrust. In 1967 a full-power test reactor had operated for 62 minutes, lon-ger than would be required for most operational spacemissions. The ability to throttle the nuclear engine, orchange the power levels while maintaining a high ef-

Right: President Kennedy makes an inspection visit to a Nuclear Rocket Development Station in Nevada on December 8 , 1962, making appar-

ent his support for the work. To his right is Dr. Glenn Seaborg, Chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Left: The rst ground experi -mental nuclear rocket engine assembly of the XE design, the fourth in a series built in the 1960s, shown here in cold ow con guration, asit makes a late evening arrival at Engine Test Stand No. 1 at the Nuclear Rocket Development Station on December 1, 1967.


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ciency, was also demonstrated. Afull 1,100-MW NERVA XE engine testin 1969 was a success.10

Due to its success, the projec-tions of NASA in 1969, were for a tripto Mars with a nuclear rocket some-time between 1979-1981, and a per-manent lunar base by 1981.

Finger reported in 2011 that nofurther tests were necessary oncethe engine of over 50,000 pounds ofthrust... was run for four hours with28 starts. However, he continued,the program went nowhere, sincethe ight test program had beenpreviously killed for budget rea-sons in 1965. In 1973, Project Rover/NERVA was canceled by Nixon. Inshort, as Finger recently stated,11 bythe late 1960s, the technology of the nuclear rocketpropulsion was fully demonstrated as being ready foright mission applications We developed and dem-onstrated in that program that back in 1970 we wereprepared to start planning for early human explora-tion to deep space including Mars. Weve been on holdever since.

The nuclear rocket achievements tragically tookplace in a nation whose capabilities to promote its ownself-development had been killed by the time of Nix-

ons inauguration to the Presidency. NERVAs success-es, launched by Kennedy, still remain the only rationalmooring point for manned space exploration and itsfull implications.

The qualitative, technological effects of Kennedy'sMoon program, whose transmission throughout theeconomy remains as one of Kennedy's greatest gifts tomankind, provide us some measure of comparison forthe truly unmeasurable transformations which wouldhave occurred, and were meant to occur under Ken-nedy's full space program, in which the nuclear rocket

stood out front.

10. In addition to achieving general speci cations of thrust,thrust to weight, impulse, engine restart, etc., which NASA re-quired, the Los Alamos National Laboratory website reports onrelated records achieved by Rover/NERVA program: 4,500 mega-watts of thermal power; 3,311 K (5,500.4F) exhaust temperature;250,000 pounds of thrust; a speci c impulse of 850 seconds; 90minutes of burn time; thrust-to-weight ratios of 3 to 4.11. http://anstd.ans.org/NETS2011/Documents/Presentations/Opening%201%20Finger%20speaker%20notes.pdf

NASA conceptual illustration of a spacecraft for a manned Mars mission. In 1969, NERVAssuccesses prompted NASA-Marshall Space Flight Center director Wernher von Braun to pro -pose sending 12 men to Mars aboard two rockets, each propelled by three NERVA engines.The mission would launch in November 1981 and land on Mars in August 1982.


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I will close by reminding you of the election of1860, when, as Lincoln said, the question waswhether the Nation would exist half slave andhalf free. Now the question is whether the worldwill exist half slave and half free. And in thatcampaign of 1860, Lincoln wrote to a friend, Iknow there is a God and that He hates injustice.I see the storm coming. But if He has a placeand a part for me, I believe that I am ready.Now, 100 years later, we know there is a Godand we know He hates injustice, and we see thestorm coming, but if He has a place and a partfor us, I believe that we are ready. Thank you." John. F. Kennedy, September 23, 1960

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