Civilian federal agency (nuclear weapons and energy) · United States
United States Atomic Energy Commission
The civilian federal agency that directed U.S. nuclear weapons development and testing from 1946 to 1974, succeeding the wartime Manhattan Engineer District.
The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was created by the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, transferring control of nuclear weapons development from the wartime Manhattan Engineer District (see Manhattan Project) to civilian federal authority. It directed U.S. nuclear weapons testing and nuclear energy research until it was dissolved in 1974, its functions divided between the Energy Research and Development Administration and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Role in Documented Cases
The AEC directed the 1946–1958 nuclear testing program at Bikini and Enewetak Atolls in the Marshall Islands, including the 1954 Castle Bravo test, documented in this archive at Marshall Islands Nuclear Testing, and subsequently directed and funded medical studies of populations exposed to test fallout.
Accountability
Congressional and later Department of Energy reviews, along with declassification programs beginning in the 1990s, examined AEC-era testing and human-subjects research practices, including conflicts of interest raised by the AEC both causing radiation exposure and directing subsequent research on the exposed population. No AEC official faced individual legal accountability; institutional successor agencies have since funded compensation and health-monitoring programs for affected communities.
Sources
Official Records
Atomic Energy Act of 1946
Books
The Making of the Atomic Bomb