SECRET
classified notebooks by the physicists. The operating rules for the Nth Country Project are given in Appendix A.
Several comments can be made about the manner in which the Experiment was conducted. It proceeded on a relatively low-key basis (in all, only three man-years of effort were spent over the two-and-a-half year period of the Experiment). While the three designers had technical support, they were not allowed to interact or discuss their ideas with these people (except through written documents); they thus lacked the vital feedback process of explaining and defending their work in the context of a larger group of interested, equally talented but differently oriented technical staff members.
The Experiment was formally ended on April 10, 1967,
A short follow-on Experiment is now underway: the designers were given the results of the test and asked several questions about their current design, its possible extensions, and alternative design approaches. A report will be issued later describing these postshot activities.
I would summarize the conclusions of the Exoeriment in two statements:
Appendix 1, considers the costs of building and running a small weapon laboratory and production facility. These data, plus a typical estimate for a plutonium production reactor, give a third conclusion:
SECRET
8
