Appendix C

Plan for Joint DOE-DoD Nuclear Weapons Directorate

Objective

To establish a joint organization of DOE and DoD to manage those elements of the nuclear weapons programs of each agency as shall be assigned them by mutual agreement of both secretaries in the interest of making the maximum contribution to the common defense and security and protecting public health and safety.

Criteria

The joint organization should meet the following criteria:

• Its personnel must assume responsible ownership of the nuclear weapons complex, individually and collectively. Its personnel cannot take refuge in the belief that they can divest themselves of responsibility for nuclear safety by purporting to assign it to laboratories and/or contractors.
• Its distinguishing attribute, transcending all others, must be high levels of technical competence combined with managerial force and acumen.
• It must fully exercise its management authority—not simply set policy. It should issue authoritative technical direction through standards and guidelines for operation of defense nuclear facilities and also be actively engaged in ensuring that these policies, standards and guidelines are implemented at the facilities.
• It must be established in a position of such stature, stability, and permanence that it can be an effective advocate of its own needs, both within the Administration and with Congress.

Organization

• Shall consist of a single organization whose head reports directly to the Secretary in each department.
• Shall be designated "Nuclear Weapons Directorate."
• DOE field organizations whose responsibilities are preponderantly for nuclear weapons programs shall report directly to the head of the Directorate.
• DoD field organizations shall report directly to the head as needed to best achieve the objective for which the Directorate is established. (See "Studies" section.)

Scope of Responsibilities

• All DOE programs, facilities, and laboratories associated directly with nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly, stockpile readiness, testing and the like. (This leaves programs for environmental cleanup of DOE nuclear weapons activities with DOE, for the present.)
• DoD programs and activities shall be as assigned by the Secretary of Defense. (See "Studies" section.)

Senior Management

• The Nuclear Weapons Directorate shall be headed by a highly-experienced manager who is recognized as an expert in nuclear technology.
• This manager may be either a military officer or civilian (whoever is best qualified).
• If a military officer, the principal deputy will be a civilian, or conversely.
• Each shall be qualified for the assignment by education and also by assignments in weapons organizations involved in nuclear weapons assembly, disassembly, testing, and research and development.
• If an officer, the grade shall be 0-10 ("four stars"); if a civilian of comparable grade level.
• Tour length shall be six to eight years and so established by Executive Order or statute.

Staffing Principles

• The head of the Directorate shall have complete authority to select, assign, and out place personnel, both military and civilian, headquarters and field, in this organization.
• All technical personnel shall have strong academic credentials and experience in nuclear weapons or other relevant engineering and scientific assignments.
• A proper balance shall be sought between numbers of civilian and military personnel.
• All technical personnel shall be assigned based on competence, not distinguishing between civilian and military personnel.

Military Personnel

• Recognize that the nuclear weapons technical specialty will have to be reinvigorated in military personnel systems. This action is essential to meet the needs of both the Directorate and the services. Operational experience alone with nuclear weapons does not meet this need.
• Ensure that assignments of military officers to the Directorate be for 3 or more years.
• Recognize that special legislation may be needed later to achieve the needed supply of military officers. (For example, precedence can be found in the various military "special pays" and with promotion assurances found in the "Goldwater-Nichols Act")
• Examine the programs for postgraduate technical education of military officers to make sure that needs of the nuclear weapons programs are being met.
• Reestablish the program by which military officers were once sent to weapons laboratories for work assignments.
• Review enlisted staffing levels, training and qualifications to ensure that they support the agency's mission.

Civilian Personnel

• As a high priority action, seek and acquire excepted service personnel authority from Congress -- it is essential for hiring outstanding technical staff.
• Make the opportunities that civilian personnel within the Directorate have for advanced technical education comparable to those which officers are provided by their respective services.
• When reestablished, open up to civilians the program by which officers were once sent to weapons laboratories for work assignments.
• Institute a technical intern program for outstanding graduates of technical colleges and universities. (Utilize DNFSB intern program as model.)

Advice and Oversight

• Create a Technical Advisory Board to the head of the Directorate. Membership might include incumbent and former DOE and DoD senior leadership, senior military personnel, weapons laboratory directors, leaders from industry, etc.
• Recognize that an independent agency will almost certainly be required to provide safety oversight of activities under the directorate. This should not be a regulatory agency. It should be the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, which is not a regulatory agency.

Studies and Reports

• Carry out formal studies to assure that the programs transferred to the Directorate create a self- standing capability unencumbered by DOE programs which are directly related to weapons, but not essential to a self-standing capability.
• Require the head of the Directorate make a formal annual report to the Congress on the state of the nuclear weapons program. A necessary part of this report would be that on the state of the Directorate itself, especially as regards technical competence to carry out its responsibilities.
• Require the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board to include in its Annual Report a detailed assessment of the technical competence of the Directorate to carry out its safety responsibilities.