JFK Assassination Forum
JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion & Debate => JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion And Debate => Topic started by: Mitch Todd on June 27, 2025, 01:11:24 AM
-
Prouty tells this story about how, in late November 1963, he was tasked with being a military escort for a group of VIPs to the US Antarctic base at McMurdo Sound to attend the startup and activation of a new, small nuclear rector that would power and provide heat for the base. This is how he describes it to the ARRB:
"[...] So I called the man, and he said, "yes, we need a project officer- escort officer-" for a group of technicians from several companies who built a small nuclear plant, same as submarine power, a small. thing. And they were going to run Antarctica off that plant, [to] prove that it can be done. And so [there were] about 50 people going down there, and "...we need a military escort, and we'd like to haveve you go." So, on the 10th of November in '63, I got on a C-130 here at Andrews Field, with this party of about... plus or minus 50- I have all their names, they're all businessmen; Caterpillar Tractor, Martin-Marietta, people like that doing this thing. And we flew down to New Zealand, which is the Navy base for the Antarctic project that they run; and then from there we flew to McMurdo.. While we were there, the little, small little thing, [it] would have fit on this table- was down in a hole, 180 feet below ground; and we went down and took a look at it and everything, saw everything else. There was a control room up above, and they said, "We're going to turn the thing on." And some guy pulls a handle, and all the lights in the base went off and the heat stopped, and everything else. And then he pulled another handle, and everything started; and for ten years, that little thing down there ran that whole base. It had a drawing equivalent of a town of 25,000 people. Everything went... I never knew whether they did it thinking there was going to be an energy crisis or something, but all of a sudden, they didn't need any more petroleum in Antarctica. It was really sort of a miracle. But a very interesting thing."
I found a history of this reactor here: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph241/reid2/ (http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph241/reid2/) with a PDF version of the most important source document here: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph241/reid2/docs/AJUSvIIn2.pdf (http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph241/reid2/docs/AJUSvIIn2.pdf)
In Prouty's telling, his group was there to witness the initial operation of the reactor. But it's initial operation happened 16 month before, in July, 1962. It went through a testing phase for another 23 months before being declared operational.
I don't think that Prouty is being outright dishonest here, but I do think that his story betrays a poor understanding of what was going on at the time, and why. I would say that it's more likely that he simply misunderstood the nature of the trip, that it was really just a dog and pony show for some Federal Vendor VIPs, and Prouty's mind made it into a more important event than it really was. This seems to be a common problem with him. He takes something he knows a little bit about, and lets his imagination inflate its significance. Sometimes quite a bit.
-
Prouty tells this story about how, in late November 1963, he was tasked with being a military escort for a group of VIPs to the US Antarctic base at McMurdo Sound to attend the startup and activation of a new, small nuclear rector that would power and provide heat for the base. This is how he describes it to the ARRB:
"[...] So I called the man, and he said, "yes, we need a project officer- escort officer-" for a group of technicians from several companies who built a small nuclear plant, same as submarine power, a small. thing. And they were going to run Antarctica off that plant, [to] prove that it can be done. And so [there were] about 50 people going down there, and "...we need a military escort, and we'd like to haveve you go." So, on the 10th of November in '63, I got on a C-130 here at Andrews Field, with this party of about... plus or minus 50- I have all their names, they're all businessmen; Caterpillar Tractor, Martin-Marietta, people like that doing this thing. And we flew down to New Zealand, which is the Navy base for the Antarctic project that they run; and then from there we flew to McMurdo.. While we were there, the little, small little thing, [it] would have fit on this table- was down in a hole, 180 feet below ground; and we went down and took a look at it and everything, saw everything else. There was a control room up above, and they said, "We're going to turn the thing on." And some guy pulls a handle, and all the lights in the base went off and the heat stopped, and everything else. And then he pulled another handle, and everything started; and for ten years, that little thing down there ran that whole base. It had a drawing equivalent of a town of 25,000 people. Everything went... I never knew whether they did it thinking there was going to be an energy crisis or something, but all of a sudden, they didn't need any more petroleum in Antarctica. It was really sort of a miracle. But a very interesting thing."
I found a history of this reactor here: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph241/reid2/ (http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph241/reid2/) with a PDF version of the most important source document here: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph241/reid2/docs/AJUSvIIn2.pdf (http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph241/reid2/docs/AJUSvIIn2.pdf)
In Prouty's telling, his group was there to witness the initial operation of the reactor. But it's initial operation happened 16 month before, in July, 1962. It went through a testing phase for another 23 months before being declared operational.
I don't think that Prouty is being outright dishonest here, but I do think that his story betrays a poor understanding of what was going on at the time, and why. I would say that it's more likely that he simply misunderstood the nature of the trip, that it was really just a dog and pony show for some Federal Vendor VIPs, and Prouty's mind made it into a more important event than it really was. This seems to be a common problem with him. He takes something he knows a little bit about, and lets his imagination inflate its significance. Sometimes quite a bit.
It is yet another example of Prouty's frequent habit of exaggerating and/or fabricating.
And, really, the fact that he was selected to go on the trip suggests he was viewed as an errand body, a flunky, a nobody by his superiors.
Furthermore, recall that Prouty claimed, in writing, in 1989 that Edward Lansdale sent him on the South Pole trip to get him out of the way ("to get me out of his way"). Fiction. In another telling, Prouty said Lansdale informed him one day in the hallway that he had been selected to go on the trip. But Prouty was interviewed by the ARRB, he changed his story and said his boss was the one who sent him on the trip and who informed of the trip.