161. Editorial Note
One of the technical papers presented at the Water for Peace conference, entitled “Desalted Water for Agriculture” by R. Philip Hammond, hypothesized that, with demonstrated methods of agriculture and “virtually demonstrated” methods of nuclear desalting, food could be grown with water costing 3 cents per day per person. (International Conference on Water for Peace) Alvin Weinberg, Director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was convinced, based on the work of his own institution, that these price estimates were “not unreasonable.” After reading the paper in draft, Weinberg determined that more research was needed, and passed the paper on to Dr. J. George Harrar at the Rockefeller Foundation because of his “longstanding interest in the development of countries, such as Mexico, that suffer from a lack of water.” Weinberg noted that the AEC was planning to conduct a small study to assess the credibility of this proposal during the summer and promised to send Harrar the results. (Letter from Weinberg to Harrar, March 23, 1967; Johnson Library, National Security File, NSC Special Committee Files, Desalination)
Hammond’s proposal focused on the creation of “agro-industrial” complexes or food factories. Weinberg wrote: “The idea of producing food in underdeveloped countries in ‘food factories’ rather than on farms seems very appealing to me. For if agriculture can be converted into an industrial operation in which a few experts make the primary decisions, and the workers carry out carefully specified tasks, one in principle avoids the problem of convincing countless peasants to change their individual farming methods.” (Ibid.) Harrar was also enthusiastic about the benefits, but cautioned that he was “not clear as to how quickly such an operation on some major scale might come into being economically.” He added that in a recent discussion with Israeli President David Ben-Gurion, “I understand that it is his hope and plan that atomic power for water desalination may become a reality in the Negev one day.” (Letter from Harrar to Weinberg, May 10; ibid.)
[Page 288]Weinberg reported to AID Administrator Bell on June 20 that the AEC’s study of the “credibility and economics” of Hammond’s proposal was underway. Although no conclusions had been reached, the trend was positive. “When these ideas were first discussed within the nuclear community, they were generally received with skepticism,” Weinberg explained. “However, in the past few months there have been enough technical developments, particularly in the technology of desalting the sea, to cause people to look much more seriously at the matter. In particular, AEC Chairman Glenn T. Seaborg and AEC Commissioner James T. Ramey have expressed interest in such agro-industrial complexes in several of their recent speeches.” (Letter from Weinberg to Bell, June 20; ibid.)