Henry DeWolf "Harry" Smyth was an American physicist, diplomat, and bureaucrat. He played a number of key roles in the early development of nuclear energy, as a participant in the Manhattan Project, a member of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), and U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Henry DeWolf Smyth (1898–1986)
Smyth was educated at Princeton University and spent much of his academic career there. Pictured is Nassau Hall.
Smyth (right) with Richard Tolman, who chaired the Postwar Policy Committee.
Smyth was a member of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission from 1949 to 1954.
United States Atomic Energy Commission
The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by the U.S. Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S. Truman signed the McMahon/Atomic Energy Act on August 1, 1946, transferring the control of atomic energy from military to civilian hands, effective on January 1, 1947. This shift gave the members of the AEC complete control of the plants, laboratories, equipment, and personnel assembled during the war to produce the atomic bomb.
President Harry S. Truman signs the Atomic Energy Act of 1946
David E. Lilienthal, who chaired the AEC from its creation until 1950
President Dwight D. Eisenhower with AEC chair Lewis Strauss in 1954
AEC chair John A. McCone presents the Enrico Fermi Award to Glenn T. Seaborg in 1959. Seaborg succeeded McCone as AEC chair in 1961.
