“The News”, Vol.1-No. 1, was first published on Jun 25, 1948. [Today (2018) after 70 years ORNL plans to publish “The News” on-line]. The FORNL web-site will continue to provide significant past events and contributions titled “Treasures from the Archives.”
ORNL scientists and atomic energy facilities were the center of focus for a CBS film crew, here to shoot some scenes for one of a distinguished journalist, Edward R. Murrow's “See It Now” T.V. Series. The filming included pictures of the Homogeneous Reactor, shots of the Tower Shielding Facility and scenes of the Biology Division showing tests on bone morrow transplants in mice. His T.V. series on “Atomic Time Table” also included interviews with Lewis L. Strauss, Sir John Cockcroft, Admiral H. G. Rickover, and Edward Teller.
Two current members of ORNL, E.O. Wollan, associate director of the Physics Division and R.J. Fox, Engineering and Mechanical Division were present during the historic experiment that now marks the Fifteenth Anniversary of man's first self-sustaining controlled nuclear chain reaction. On December 2nd, 1942, beneath the West Stands of Stagg Field, University of Chicago, the cadmium plated control rods were withdrawn which unleashed and controlled the energy of the atom. This success is accredited to the late Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Enrico Fermi for his work on transuranic elements.
Dr. Wernher von Braun, technical director at Red Stone Arsenal, Huntsville, Alabama and an outspoken space scientist visited ORNL and had an opportunity to view the “Swimming Pool Reactor.” Prior to becoming a U.S. citizen, at the age of 19 he helped develop the German V-1 and V-2 rockets used against London during WW II.