under the cont

rol of the new rocket an

d missile testing facility. Interest in Trinity Site was immediate. In September 1945 press tours to the site started. One of the famous photos of ground zero shows Groves and Oppenheimer surrounded by a small group of reporters as they exami

ne one of the footings to the 100-foot tower on which the bomb was placed. That picture was taken Sept. 11. The exposed footing is still visible at ground zero. On Sept. 15-17 George Cremeens, a young radio reporter from KRNT in Des Moines, visited the site with soundman Frank Lagouri. They flew over the crater and interviewed Dr. Kenneth Bainbridge, Trinity test director, and Bush, base camp commander. Back in Iowa, Cremeens created four 15-minute reports on his visit which aired Sept. 24, 26,27 and 29. A 15-minute composite was made and aired on the ABC Radio Network. For his work Cremeens received a local Peabody Award for "Outstanding Reporting and Dr. Kenneth Bainbridge, left, is interviewed Interpretation of the News." At first Trinity Site was by George Cremeens from KRNT radio, Des encircled with a fence and Moines, Iowa. radiation warning signs were posted. The site remained off limits to military an

d civilian personnel of the proving ground and closed to the public. In 1952 the Atomic Energy Commission let a contract to clean up the site. Much of the Trinitite was scraped up and buried. In September 1953 about 650 people attended the first Trinity Site open house. A few years later a small group from Tularosa visited the site on the anniversary of the explosion to conduct a religious service and prayer for peace. Similar visits were made annually in recent years on the first Saturday in October. In 1967 the inner oblong fence was added. In 1972 the corridor barbed wire fence which connects the outer fence to the inner one was completed. Jumbo was moved to the parking lot in 1979. Trinity Site open houses are now conducted in April and October because it is generally very hot on the Jomada del Muerto in July. (White Sands Missile Range) White Sands Missile Range has developed from a simple desert testing site for the V-2 into one of the most sophisticated test facilities in the world.

The mission of White Sands Missile Range begins with a customer -a service developer, or another federal agency, which is ready to find out if engineers and scientists have built something which will perform according to job specifications. It ends when an exhaustive series of tests has been completed and a data report has been delivered to the customer. Between the beginning and the

end of the test program, be it the Army Tactical Missile System or newly designed automobiles, range employees are involved in every operation connected with the customer and hi