Brewington, Percy, Jr.

              



ORAL HISTORY OF PERCY BREWINGTON, JR.
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
August 27, 2013
 
MR. MCDANIEL: This is Keith McDaniel and today is August 27, 2013 and I am here in Oak Ridge with Percy Brewington. Mr. Brewington, thank you so much for taking time to talk with us.
MR. BREWINGTON: I appreciate your asking. Thank you.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, let's start at the beginning. Why don't you tell me... tell me where you were born and raised, something about your family.
MR. BREWINGTON: I was born in upstate Pennsylvania; Gordon Fee was also from Pennsylvania. He went to Penn State. I went to Drexel Institute of Technology. It's in Philadelphia. They had a co-op program so the first year you'd go for the full first nine months, then six months in school and six months in the industry. So it took about five years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: I liked that because I didn't have enough money otherwise.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, what year were you born?
MR. BREWINGTON: I was born in 1930. My wife was born in 1929.
MR. MCDANIEL: 1930, okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: My wife, a wonderful woman, was also from Pennsylvania, from Benton, Pennsylvania, a small town -- 600 people. Of course, being born in 1930, we were raised during the Depression. God, I wish somebody would explain to me what was so hard about the Depression. As a kid it was wonderful! (laughs)
MR. MCDANIEL: What did your father do?
MR. BREWINGTON: Well, my father, (coughs) excuse me.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: My father ran a newspaper. He started out as a printer. The Brewington family were printers in eastern shore of Maryland. He had an uncle that brought him into the printing business. My father went to Philadelphia and worked a year or so, and then went to a newspaper in Benton, Pennsylvania -- a town of what -- six or seven hundred. They needed an editor, publisher and he took the job. He bought the paper shortly thereafter, but what he really was a master politician. (laughs)
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BREWINGTON: Big Democratic politician. He got to be the Marshall for Eastern Pennsylvania which was a pretty powerful job.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, what does that mean? I don't think we have those in Tennessee... a Marshall.
MR. BREWINGTON: Well, they keep things square at the federal courts.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I see.
MR. BREWINGTON: They don't ride around with guns in their hands and capture criminals, necessarily. They do pursue the law. He was very active in politics. Unfortunately, he died when I was 5 years old so I never really got to know him. But in our town that of six or seven hundred when he died, the governor came to the funeral along with about 5,000 other people.
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow.
MR. BREWINGTON: So he was a very popular man.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: Everybody thought that I should be a politician, too.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay...
MR. BREWINGTON: I had two brothers that were sheriffs of the county, but somehow it just didn't seem like what I wanted to do.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right...
MR. BREWINGTON: So, I went to college. My wife was raised on a farm while I was an in-town boy. Went 12 years to the same school. That doesn't imply, or I hope it doesn't imply that it was a one-room school building (laughs) because it was a consolidated school.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure...
MR. BREWINGTON: She went to a small country school and, God, she learned English so well. She has to correct me quite often. (laughs) But the first day of school, when we got to about ninth grade, we boys would go and watch the school buses come in from the consolidation process.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And we'd check the girls out.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And here steps out this real pretty girl with long brunette hair, and flashing eyes. I thought, “Oh, my God, she's really something.” (laughs) So I started trying to find out what we could do to meet.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: The local girls in town were having a Halloween party and they said, "Will you come to the party?" and I said, "I will come if you'll invite Pauline Rasks." And [they] invited Pauline and that was the start of an affair that lasted and lasted and still is lasting.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BREWINGTON: So, she became a nurse. She went to Philadelphia to Temple University and became a nurse. And, of course, Drexel was located in Philadelphia. We married when we were 21. We eloped before she graduated. Of course, if the school had found out that she was married that would have been the end of her nursing career.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BREWINGTON: Yes. But, gosh, we'd already been going together for six or seven years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. BREWINGTON: So, anyway, I was still going to school. She helped put me through school. We lived in a third floor apartment in a row house in Philadelphia close to Shibe Park. We could hear both the Athletics and the Phillies cheering. It was a hot, miserable place, and Drexel was a terribly tough school.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MR. BREWINGTON: I had breezed through Benton High School with such ease I really thought I was pretty darned hot. (laughs) Got to Drexel and found that it was a big local school and all the local students were about two years ahead of me in math. Not good for an engineer.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: So I found it very difficult. But I stuck it out. But what made it even tougher -- that was in 1948 I started, and the GI Bill was in effect and you talk about serious students.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I'm sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: Boy, they were something. They set a marker that was hard to keep up with. I didn't keep up with it, but I stuck out the program and graduated as a civil engineer. We had our first daughter in Philadelphia. She was a little early. She was born the day after Hurricane Hazel.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right? What year was that?
MR. BREWINGTON: That was in 1954.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm not familiar with Hurricane Hazel.
MR. BREWINGTON: Oh, it was a really terrible... We had moved out to the western side of Philadelphia -- Paoli. The storm was bad, it knocked trees down. Of course, the only place to have this child was Temple University Hospital. It was on the northeast side of Philadelphia.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: So, every road I'd start down had trees down, electrical wires down... (laughs) Anyway, we got there in time. We just couldn't call our daughter, 'Hazel.' (laughs)
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: We called her Patrice, and she was the most ornery little kid when she was born. She was scarlet, she was screaming, she was premature, she had the colic and she stayed that way for months.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really? Oh, gosh...
MR. BREWINGTON: But she's just one of the smartest kids you'd ever know. And she got over the colic after a while, but she was very mischievous, very entertaining. (laughs) We went in the Army, I was in the ROTC program, and spent two years. Started out at Ft. Belvoir. I was in the Corps of Engineers. Went to Ft. Benning for two years to man up, the first atomic type field Army. Third Infantry Division.
MR. MCDANIEL: And what did that mean?
MR. BREWINGTON: That meant that they were reforming the military units to learn how to fight in an atomic war, a nuclear war.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure...
MR. BREWINGTON: And this was the first trial thing. 
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I see.
MR. BREWINGTON: And it was a great experience.
MR. MCDANIEL: Was that in...? Is that Washington?
MR. BREWINGTON: Ft. Belvoir's in Virginia, close to Washington.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, that's right...
MR. BREWINGTON: Of course, Ft. Benning is in Georgia.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Anyway, we had a real good time there. What was nice about it, they were filling up the unit and there were about a dozen young second lieutenants to report there and I was the first.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay...
MR. BREWINGTON: I didn't know how a second lieutenant was supposed to act... (laughs) When they introduced me at the first staff meeting, I stood up and said, "I'm really glad to be here and glad to be able to serve with you in this atomic type field Army." I sat down. There was not much applause. (laughs) When I walked out, the Chief Warrant Officer said to me, "Percy, second lieutenants are supposed to be seen and not heard."
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay! There you go! (laughs)
MR. BREWINGTON: But it was a good career for two years. My son, Steven, was born at Ft. Benning. The hospital there was at the main post and I was out at Sand Hill. It was a good experience; you had to run through the sand and all this. I got to weigh 210 pounds and that was solid.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Anyway... When Steven was born, he was born in the post hospital. It was a beautiful old building with columns in the front. I was on maneuvers out at Sand Hill and they called me and I went in. By the time I got there, they had him all cleaned up... He had golden hair. It was slicked back and he looked like he had a suntan already.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, my!
MR. BREWINGTON: And he had a smile on his face... just a wonderful difference from our first born. 
MR. MCDANIEL: Right... (laughs)
MR. BREWINGTON: So, after our two years... I like the Corps of Engineers. I still love the Corps of Engineers. That's my background. So, when I was about to have my two years complete, I went to the Corps in Atlanta, Georgia, and said, "You have any positions?" and they said, "No, we don't, but we do in Mobile, Alabama." So we rode down to Mobile to look at it and we had a '49 Chevrolet. We had a little outfit in the back seat where the kids could stand up and look out.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: As you approach Mobile on Highway 98, on the eastern shore, you come up and there is this whole bay laying out and our young daughter, who was not quite two, said, "Mighty God! Look at all the water!" (laughs) She was always very entertaining. We went back to Ft. Benning to visit one time and we were going through the area, and they'd made that hospital into a museum.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BREWINGTON: And I told him that that was because of him. Our third daughter was born in Mobile.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, you moved to Mobile.
MR. BREWINGTON: We moved to Mobile.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: It was a great place to live.
MR. MCDANIEL: And you worked for the...
MR. BREWINGTON: I worked for the Corps of Engineers.
MR. MCDANIEL: Corps of Engineers...
MR. BREWINGTON: The Mobile District. That was...
MR. MCDANIEL: What year was that? About?
MR. BREWINGTON: That was 1957.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay... '57.
MR. BREWINGTON: I stayed at Mobile from '57 to '67.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. What was the kind of work that you did there?
MR. BREWINGTON: I started out in sanitary engineering -- water supply and sewerage treatment -- and that just really didn't capture my fancy.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: They had a branch in Mobile, the Special Defense Projects branch.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: That branch was responsible for engineering, the same state as Huntsville, and Huntsville was a center for the Rocket Test Facilities at Huntsville, Alabama, and for the anti-ballistic missile development facilities. Our Special Defense Projects branch did the engineering for the facilities for those efforts, for the pre-NASA work at Huntsville, and then the Mississippi Test Facility where they tested the rockets from the assembly in Michoud, New Orleans, down to Cape Canaveralto be put together and fired.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: And the Anti-Ballistic Missile System -- the Nike Zeus System -- the facilities were at White Sands, New Mexico, and Kwajalein, out in the Pacific.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: We did the engineering then we'd give them to the local district – Albuquerque, for White Sands, and Honolulu District for the Kwajalein facilities. They would do the construction. We did the engineering during construction.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I see.
MR. BREWINGTON: It was a great experience. Also, I was on the Site Selection Board to pick the sites for the Anti-Ballistic Missile System.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: That led me to all of the wonderful cities on the north boundary of the United States.
MR. MCDANIEL: I was about to say, you got to travel all over the country, didn't you?
MR. BREWINGTON: Oh, yes. Great experience. In 1967, the program went tactical.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: Oh, by the way, one thing I didn't mention that's important -- my story, if this doesn't get too long. 
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, no! That's okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: The colonel at the ... The District Engineer in Mobile District was Col. Marshall.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: His father was General Marshall during the Manhattan Project, stationed here at Oak Ridge.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BREWINGTON: When the program went tactical, the son went to Huntsville. We established a new division in Huntsville.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: The original commander of the Huntsville division was a fellow by the name of Rip Young; he became a general. He also worked on the Manhattan Project.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure...
MR. BREWINGTON: So, I did have early ties that I didn't even know about.
MR. MCDANIEL: Let me ask you a question.
MR. BREWINGTON: Sure.
MR. MCDANIEL: You mentioned this a couple of times and me, not being a military person, I don't quite understand when you said, “It went tactical.”
MR. BREWINGTON: Tactical... That means that it had proven itself and it was going to be deployed to protect the country.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I see.
MR. BREWINGTON: To defend ourselves from incoming missiles.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. But both of these... those connections to Oak Ridge you had there.
MR. BREWINGTON: Yes. That's right. As it turned out, Rip Young -- Gen. Young became the division engineer for the Huntsville division and Col. Marshall, he was then Gen. Marshall, was the manager for the overall Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems. I respected both of them a great deal. I really did have wonderful bosses. My boss in Mobile was a little Irishman. One of the most understandable guys I've ever known.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: When I was a sanitary engineer, he had a job opening. I called him up -- Jim Danaher was his name. I said, "Mr. Danaher, I notice that so-and-so has left Mobile to go to the West Coast," said, "If you ever want to fill that job, I'd sure like to be considered for it." "Mr. Brewington, we're not going to fill that job at this time." Clank, down went the phone. (laughs) That was J.J. (laughs) He was a little short guy had a red, pimply nose... He liked his liquor...
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, of course...
MR. BREWINGTON: But he was a great man. We were dealing with a lot of high tech companies and organizations across the country. When we had these meetings, big long table, a dozen people around it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: When the occasion was right, he'd go to it, but he would sit back against the wall.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MR. BREWINGTON: And he smoked a pipe -- a crooked pipe -- and when the meeting would get tough or something, when he'd reach for his pipe, the room would get quiet and he had one or two words would redirect the whole meeting. Just a tremendous leader.
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow.
MR. BREWINGTON: He and I became better friends after I left Mobile. (laughs) He was a character. One time, one of my dear buddies who also came to Oak Ridge with me, and I were out at White Sands, New Mexico, -- going out for a trip. Mr. Danaher said, "Mr. Brewington," he said, "I think I'll go with you this trip. There's something up." We were out, right across the river from Juarez [Mexico]. We went out to eat that night, pretty nice restaurant, the waiter came to take our orders and said, "Would you like wine?" and Mr. Danaher said, "Yes. How about a bottle of so-and-so and so-and-so," which was the right kind of wine. And the waiter says, "Shall I bring three glasses?" and Mr. Danahare said, "No. If these other gentlemen want wine, they'll order it." (laughs) So that was the kind of guy he was. He did finish “His” bottle.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: He turned out to be a mentor of mine. Mentors are so important. I had several good ones. Anyway, when the project was deployed we moved to Huntsville.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: Before we moved, I was in charge of a small cadre that we were putting together to help man the Huntsville division and Col. Young came to Mobile for a briefing on the project. He was a colonel then. Going back to the airport, this was probably September of 1967. I was driving back to the airport and one of my good buddies, Houston Baker, was in the front seat and District Engineer Col. Marshall was in the back seat. I kind of looked over my shoulder and I said, "Are people here kind of interested when we will start the office up in Huntsville?" He said, "Well, I think December 18th would be a good day to start it up." (laughs) Houston Baker, one of my real, true buddies, said I almost drove off the road. But I recovered and we got to the airport.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure...
MR. BREWINGTON: But we did, indeed, move to start the Huntsville Division December 18.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really? Oh, wow!
MR. BREWINGTON: It was such a great place.
MR. MCDANIEL: And what year was that?
MR. BREWINGTON: That was in 1967.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: The Corps put a lot of attention in getting the right people. They drew people from all over the country, the best they could find. Of course, we were already pre-ordained.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, exactly.
MR. BREWINGTON: One thing that happened that helped shape the Division was the Canaveral district that had built the facilities for the launch sites down at Cape Canaveral had finished their job and were looking for work. So they moved almost the entire division up to Huntsville which was great news except they were all graded higher than we were. We ended up being deputies.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I see.
MR. BREWINGTON: But they were great guys. And they brought the NASA approach.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: Now, in Oak Ridge, we had already started systems engineering approach and a cross-schedule control system that we were applying to the small projects knowing that they would fit the big projects. 
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Well, the Canaveral people had already done this, too. Their systems engineering was an airframe type approach where you define every piece of every system and then you develop how available it will be mathematically and how reliable it will be so you can make sure you get a system up when you punch the button. It's going to start and it's going to run as long as you want it to run. So that was a benefit to the division.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: It was a very interesting time because everybody was from out of town except the secretary that had been at the construction site at Huntsville, and the fellow that's the best construction manager that I ever knew, Jim Abercrombie, was there. So they were there when we got there. But everybody else came in from across the country and just one mission -- to deploy the Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems. And we socialized together, we worked hard together. We did work hard, but it was a motivated group and a lot of fun to work for. The women all got along - had women's societies and so forth.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, of course. Now, how long were you there?
MR. BREWINGTON: Was there for five years. We went up in '67 because I was there from '67 to '72; five years. And then, President Nixon signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty with the Russians.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: That meant there was no need for a defense system. We had built the first site at Grand Forks, North Dakota. That was with the offensive missiles, the intercept missiles.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And we were building the first site at Malmstrom, Montana, which was a big radar system to track the incoming missiles. And we stopped. I mean, that was it.
MR. MCDANIEL: I mean, that was it. It was over.
MR. BREWINGTON: We had spent over a billion dollars. So there, suddenly, we were available.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Now, the division continued because we took over the... recovering the disposable munitions from around the country, took over that program, but that was my experience in Huntsville but it led to ... directly to Oak Ridge. At that time, expectations for nuclear power were at their peak.
MR. MCDANIEL: Absolutely.
MR. BREWINGTON: That meant that we were going to need additional enriched uranium. Most of the people who had been in the Manhattan Project had reached retirement age or were approaching it and some of their protégés had and there just wasn't anyone up here in the Oak Ridge operations office who had experience with big projects at multiple sites. We were going to build 18 ballistic missile sites. Had the biggest contractors in the country and the biggest technical folks in the country were working on the project.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: So, suddenly Oak Ridge found itself with the Department of Energy -- at that time the AEC -- found itself needing new enrichment facilities. The man that was the head of construction and engineering in Oak Ridge operations office -- a real historical figure and everyone that ever worked at Oak Ridge was fond of him -- Leroy Jackson.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: Now, Leroy was a tough manager, a hard-working manager. He ruled by working harder than anybody else, knowing more than anybody else and by sheer fear.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, he was at the AEC office.
MR. BREWINGTON: Yes, he was at the AEC office. He was the Assistant Manager for Construction and Engineering.
MR. MCDANIEL: I see. Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: And he was close to retirement age.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: His deputy was Bob Brown.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: Bob Brown's son later became the assistant manager at the Oak Ridge operations office.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: And Bob Brown and I... he worked for me at one of my later projects.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right...
MR. BREWINGTON: Anyway, his dad, the assistant -- Leroy's assistant -- retired.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: Bob Hart was new at the manager's office.
MR. MCDANIEL: He was the manager then?
MR. BREWINGTON: He was the manager. And a great manager. Another Irishman, by the way. (laughs)
MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly.
MR. BREWINGTON: And very decisive. Very... You knew where you stood; you knew what had to be done, and then he'd back off and let you do it 'til you made a mistake or until... 
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: And he required reports and all that but just a great guy to work for. He had the task of getting ready to build added enrichment plants.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: (clears throat) And...so...
MR. MCDANIEL: I've got some... If you'd like some water, I've got some water.
MR. BREWINGTON: No, I've got some...
MR. MCDANIEL: That's fine, go ahead. We've got you to Oak Ridge...
MR. BREWINGTON: Got me to Oak Ridge...
MR. MCDANIEL: We've almost got you to Oak Ridge.
MR. BREWINGTON: That's right. Yeah, because his deputy retired first and Hart asked Leroy, "Leroy, do you have any recommendations for a replacement?"
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: And Leroy's first recommendation was his deputy, a guy by the name of John Milliway who was just a wonderful guy, a real great engineer who had learned Leroy's approach.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: No, that wouldn't work because he didn't have any big... big plant, multi-site experience.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: So, Hart asked Leroy to check around. The story goes that Leroy said, "Well, I'll check with Gen. Marshall."
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: Who had been here during the construction, was the on-site man. And called Gen. Marshall and said, "You know anybody in the Corps that would be available and could do this job?" "Oh, Leroy," Marshall said, "I've been out of business so long that I just don't know anybody, but I'll ask my boy."
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: And I had worked for his "boy" both in Mobile and in Huntsville.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Rip Young -- Gen. Young at that time -- had also worked for AEC on the Manhattan Project. They called ... what Marshall called his boy -- I never called Gen. Marshall "his boy". (laughs) But they recommended me because I did have the experience and had a pretty good record, so that's how I came up here, to replace Robert Brown.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Because I had to go through a probationary period, you might say, not announced as a probationary period but I was under... under examination to make sure I could do the job.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. And that was what year?
MR. BREWINGTON: No, '72.
MR. MCDANIEL: 1972 because you were in Huntsville from '67 to '72.
MR. BREWINGTON: And, again, I came up here in December.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, right...
MR. BREWINGTON: Leroy put me through some pretty good tests.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: Finally, although I wasn't his first choice, he agreed that maybe I could do the job.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: I came up and was interviewed, of course. Hart said, "Well, he's worth the risk." I passed Leroy's test and passed Hart's test.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And they were both pretty damned rough tests. Then Leroy retired and I took over the... became Assistant Manager for Construction and Engineering which would include the increased capacity for enrichment.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, at that point, in '72, K-25 was fully operational.
MR. BREWINGTON: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Paducah was operational. As was in Portsmouth, Ohio.
MR. BREWINGTON: Portsmouth was operational.
MR. MCDANIEL: So those were the three main enrichment sites.
MR. BREWINGTON: They were the three main enrichment sites and, indeed, they had been upgraded to reach higher capacity. 
MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly. But you anticipated either expanding or building additional sites, is that correct?
MR. BREWINGTON: There were probably at least eight to 12 additional sites.
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow.
MR. BREWINGTON: Because at that time nuclear power was the thing.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: I don't know how many... close to a hundred new power plants were on the boards or in the minds across the country.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: So we were going to build, I don't know, eight to 12 new enrichment sites across the country. It was, you know, it was a pattern. It was just exactly like the defense system, the air defense system.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And so, I had that experience. One thing else I didn't mention which ties in: When Gen. Young left the Huntsville Division a fellow by the name of Colonel Caffey. How could I ever forget him?
MR. MCDANIEL: What was his name?
MR. BREWINGTON: Caffey, Colonel Caffey.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. Colonel Caffey, okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: He was very precise -- he was a good manager, but -- a little more precise, a little more into the business than I was used to working with.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. BREWINGTON: I did like and respect him. Well, he became... when Rip Young left -- Gen. Young left, Caffey became the Division engineer, Huntsville Division. Well, when the defense system went down, he came to Oak Ridge to be director of the Clinch River Breeder Reactor.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: And he brought all the great management systems that we had developed in Huntsville with him to use up here.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Which was great. At that time, the CRBR reported straight to Washington.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: I'm liable to get diverted here because things got complex.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, I understand.
MR. BREWINGTON: The CRBR was first suggested or approved by President Nixon. Early... let me get the date, I've got it somewhere here... Construction and engineering was authorized ... I brought this history, or this final report on the Clinch River Breeder Reactor...
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: ...because it's got some of those dates in here. It's got more information that we're going to need, I can see that. Let me search through some of these things...
MR. MCDANIEL: That's okay. Go ahead.
MR. BREWINGTON: Because I want to get these fairly right. Well... (paper shuffles) okay, that was in June, 1971, President Nixon announced his support for the project.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, all right...
MR. BREWINGTON: It was authorized by Congress in 1972.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: It was a joint government and industry effort.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: The utilities -- I think there were over a hundred utilities... Oh, wait 753 electric power systems...
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow.
MR. BREWINGTON: They invested about a quarter of a million dollars, at that time, in the project, so it was a joint project. They set up a breeder reactor corporation and a project management corporation to watch their part of the program.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, I understand.
MR. BREWINGTON: So Colonel Caffey came to Oak Ridge shortly after I did to take over the management.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, I want you to stop right there and tell me exactly what the breeder... Clinch River Breeder Reactor was.
MR. BREWINGTON: It was the first demonstration size, full size project of the breeder reactor concept.
MR. MCDANIEL: Which is?
MR. BREWINGTON: Which the breeder reactor used uranium as the basic fuel but it converted the uranium to plutonium.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And then plutonium could be re-used in plutonium reactors.
MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly. So, it would reproduce itself.
MR. BREWINGTON: That's right. It would make more energy than it used.
MR. MCDANIEL: And ultimately, I mean, that would be your source of fuel for reactors all around the country.
MR. BREWINGTON: Well, for the breeder reactors. Breeder types.
MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly, the breeder types.
MR. BREWINGTON: Still the light water reactors and so forth would still use enriched uranium.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: It was that demand. The French, by the way, have breeder reactors. 
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. BREWINGTON: But, work got underway in 1973 and it went ahead rapidly with good progress until April, 1977.
MR. MCDANIEL: And it was called the Clinch River ...
MR. BREWINGTON: Clinch River Breeder Reactor.
MR. MCDANIEL: Because it was...?
MR. BREWINGTON: Being built on an island in the Clinch River.
MR. MCDANIEL: In the Clinch River, right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Here in Oak Ridge.
MR. BREWINGTON: Here in Oak Ridge. And a lot of that was because TVA was one of the founding members of the program. Very good bunch of people, by the way. Now, Jimmy Carter did not like nuclear power to start with.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And he particularly, intensely disliked the breeder reactor. So, he moved to stop it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: However, Congress had authorized it for engineering design and procurement of long term items. But he could stop the construction; Congress hadn't authorized construction, so he stopped that. So the project was in a stalemate on construction but moving ahead rapidly.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Caffey was a really good, tough manager. In the atmosphere that existed there were a lot of arguments between contractors, a lot of them between CRBR contractors and claims against each other.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: And they got all wound up.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Well...
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, Caffey was with the Army Corps of Engineers, is that correct? Or at that point?
MR. BREWINGTON: No, by this time he retired from the Corps of Engineers, he was an AEC employee.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. He was an AEC employee. Okay. All right...
MR. BREWINGTON: President Reagan called for work to proceed in 1980.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: He was my favorite president. Let me digress just a little.
MR. MCDANIEL: Even if he was a Republican! Right?
MR. BREWINGTON: Right. Well, I guess I heard someplace young people are Democrats and as you get older you become a Republican. (laughs) I had long before become a Republican.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: One time, when we went up home to our Democratic relatives, we were sitting around a room having a big reunion, everybody chattering to their neighbor, I turned around to one of my sister's brothers and I said, "What this country needs now is a good Republican president." (laughs) God, the whole room went quiet!
MR. MCDANIEL: You just wanted to start something is what you wanted to do!
MR. BREWINGTON: Well, I really didn't want to but I did. (laughs) But anyway, that's a digression.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: I was a real Reagan fan.
MR. MCDANIEL: So Reagan ... he got it back on track.
MR. BREWINGTON: He got it back on track, that's right. By 1982, there was a lot of concern over the national budget. Looking for money.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And nuclear was... had fallen into... there were a lot of people who had turned against nuclear.
MR. MCDANIEL: Because ...mostly because the mid-80s and the Three Mile Island and the...
MR. BREWINGTON: The Russian...
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, and so...
MR. BREWINGTON: One of the big problems with nuclear power has always been closing the fuel cycle.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: They haven't taken care of the fuel rods although there's a facility that's capable of storing them at… [Yucca Mountain]
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: And it's still capable of storing them. I read just the other day where the Regulatory Commission had now approved it for storage.
MR. MCDANIEL: Finally.
MR. BREWINGTON: Finally. But the governor and the senators out there don't want it.
MR. MCDANIEL: They don't want it, of course.
MR. BREWINGTON: So, I don't know what's going to happen.
MR. MCDANIEL: Of course.
MR. BREWINGTON: But anyway, the budget and program, the Congress said, no more funding.
MR. MCDANIEL: And that was in '82...
MR. BREWINGTON: That was in '82. They indicated no more funding.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: The private sector developed a plan to raise another million dollars for Congress to supplement the 1984 appropriations, so it was 1984 that the project was not authorized by Congress.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And that's when it was terminated. The Secretary of Energy said terminate this thing on a reasonably quick basis.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: So that was the end of the CRBR. Now, let's see, where am I? Oh, I'm back... Now I'm going to go back.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: I'm going to go back to when I came up here.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: The project to expand the existing enrichment plants, diffusion plants was still in effect.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: That was being completed.
MR. MCDANIEL: Because you needed the uranium.
MR. BREWINGTON: Needed the uranium, right.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah, you needed the uranium.
MR. BREWINGTON: I know one of my early visits to get acclimated to the process was at the Paducah site.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: You know who was head of the Paducah site at that time?
MR. MCDANIEL: Clyde Hopkins.
MR. BREWINGTON: Clyde Hopkins!
MR. MCDANIEL: Clyde Hopkins was, wasn't he?
MR. BREWINGTON: A great guy. Not bad progress for a guy who was a financial analyst.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: I remember one thing that he took great joy in showing to me and I took great joy in seeing -- these great, big diffusion tanks.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure...
MR. BREWINGTON: Had to be put together and welded tightly.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh...
MR. BREWINGTON: And the final alignment was made with an ordinary garden shovel wedging it in.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BREWINGTON: Clyde took great joy in that and so did I. Take it down to basics! But anyway... and that project was very successfully completed. On the fringes, of course, was the development of the gas centrifuge.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And it was going great guns. So, although our nationwide expansion, at first, was aimed at the diffusion process, the centrifuge used just a fraction of the energy that the diffusion plant did and it was a great technology. So the decision was made to use the centrifuge.
MR. MCDANIEL: Kind of like the difference between the calutrons and the gaseous diffusion was the gaseous diffusion and the centrifuge.
MR. BREWINGTON: Just the progressive nature.
MR. MCDANIEL: Much more efficient...
MR. BREWINGTON: Much more efficient.
MR. MCDANIEL: ...and cheaper, you know, I would imagine, to a certain degree.
MR. BREWINGTON: To a certain degree...
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right...
MR. BREWINGTON: Not considering inflation. (laughs)
MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly.
MR. BREWINGTON: And, you know, it's got to be a good process; the French are using it. Iran is using it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: It's the process for enriching uranium used across the world.
MR. MCDANIEL: Today.
MR. BREWINGTON: Today.
MR. MCDANIEL: Absolutely.
MR. BREWINGTON: Our machines were bigger and our machines were better.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: And they were well developed. It's a shame we didn't finish the project.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: One of my jobs then was to expand the capacity to manage the job.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And it was easy to do, really, because what did I have as a source of people? The Huntsville Division who had just given up the defense system.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
MR. BREWINGTON: So I did move to hire a lot of people from there and the local engineer said, well, jeez, if you're not... didn't work for the Corps of Engineers in Huntsville and you didn't go to Auburn -- all my associates went to Auburn and I became an Auburn alumni honorary.
MR. MCDANIEL: Honorary, sure...
MR. BREWINGTON: He said, “We don't stand a chance.” We did promote several of them because they were good people.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: But most of them stayed on the local work because there was plenty of other construction going on here.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right…
MR. BREWINGTON: Now, Hart was very good to work for because he supported me in bringing people. Just two examples. We were looking for a construction manager. Well, first, let me go to another guy.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: I'd worked in Mobile and Huntsville with a real wild man. He was like a Bolshevik.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh.
MR. BREWINGTON: Damn good engineer, tough, mean son of a gun, named Joe Trotter.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: And he could, he could chop your head off. He and I used to talk on the phone, we'd both get so mad we'd both hang up. Well, he was out at the Maelstrom site when the defense program folded. He was on his way from Maelstrom to the New England division to work for the Corps of Engineers.
MR. MCDANIEL: He was...? Now, he was where? Maelstrom?
MR. BREWINGTON: Maelstrom, Montana, where they were building the radar for the defense system.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: The first radar. And he was heading to New England for the Corps of Engineers there. So, he called me when he was just about to get to Cincinnati, he said, "Percy," he said, "Do you have anything for me?" He said, "I just don't want to work in New England." (laughs) And I said, "Joe, when you get to Cincinnati, take a right." And he did. And he came to work.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: He was a real Bolshevik, though.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh...
MR. BREWINGTON: Which ties into the story of finding the construction manager at... and Bob Hart's great support. I searched and searched, but I couldn't find anyone. And this was a senior executive service position, which was a nice... about as high as you could get.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: So I called my old buddy, Jim Abercrombie, who had been construction manager for the NASA work, for the development work on the space test vehicles at Huntsville. He also worked on the ballistic missile defense program. Just the best construction manager. He'd gone to Auburn - he didn't graduate. So, I called him up and I say, "Ab, we're having trouble finding the kind of guy we want for managing the work at Portsmouth." I told him about the project. I said, "Wonder if you have anybody you could recommend." He said, "How the hell do you know I wouldn't be interested?" You know, very blunt. (laughs) That guy was just a great guy. He did a lot of consulting for the Corps across the world.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: He was really the best construction manager I’ve known. I said, "Well, Ab, if you're available, I'm not going to look any more."
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: He said, "Now, remember, I'm not a college graduate. You have to be a college graduate to be an ...." And I said, "Well, I'm not sure about that."
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: So, I go to Bob Hart and Bob Hart with his administrative people, and I say, "Yes, we can do that."
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: So anyway, Abercrombie came to work.
MR. MCDANIEL: He came to work for you.
MR. BREWINGTON: And it was kind of funny because Bob Hart had said, when I was looking, before we found Abercrombie, "Well, if worse comes to worse, we can always just send Joe Trotter up there." And I just laughed and said, "Bob, you don't know him very well, do you?" (laughs) But it all worked out well and Ab did go to work at Portsmouth. We just put together a terrific team. From, again, from across the country.
MR. MCDANIEL: And that was to go to Portsmouth to build the enrichment facilities...
MR. BREWINGTON: The enrichment plant.
MR. MCDANIEL: ...which was going to be centrifuge. Is that correct?
MR. BREWINGTON: It was going to be centrifuge.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Another interesting, somewhat comical -- to me, at least -- incident. There was competition to where to put that site.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Portsmouth's greatest competition was Oak Ridge. The Assistant Secretary of Energy visited the sites, and there were public rallies. And I remember -- I don't know how, I forget where it was held -- but the Oak Ridge rally, the signs were all printed signs, printed in the Union Carbide shops, I'm sure.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: And most of them had pretty girls holding them up.
MR. MCDANIEL: Of course.
MR. BREWINGTON: And it was just a very mature, very controlled...
MR. MCDANIEL: Civilized.
MR. BREWINGTON: Very civilized.
MR. MCDANIEL: Very civilized.
MR. BREWINGTON: So, we go to Portsmouth. They have the rally in a stadium that Bronco Nagurski probably played football in. The white or the ... down here it was white collar people, up there it was blue collar people. They were tough guys. The paint was still running down -- the hand-written signs.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: And it was really... The difference was just so dramatic.

MR. MCDANIEL: And if you're a politician, how can you argue with that?
MR. BREWINGTON: You can't argue with that. (laughs) The site went to Portsmouth.
MR. MCDANIEL: That was the point, wasn't it?
MR. BREWINGTON: That's right. But it was all done quite properly.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: And it was a good place for the plant because they had good people. Goodyear Atomic ran the diffusion process and they were great contractors.
MR. MCDANIEL: But all those -- Paducah and Portsmouth and Oak Ridge -- were all managed out of Oak Ridge operations.
MR. BREWINGTON: All managed out of Oak Ridge operations, sure. So, there we were and we had a good basis for going ahead and just making great progress. Machine development continued and made advancements. It was really my favorite program I've ever been associated with. Because I'd been able to pick the people, pick the contractors, develop the systems for controlling it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: One thing I've learned, that you needed to control the cost and schedule and know where you were to deal with Congress.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: If you didn't know where you were, you just weren't going to get anywhere.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: We had the systems engineering approach, the aerospace approach that determined availability and reliability of the process. So we put both of those into the basic planning for the project and it was a great project and we were making great progress.
MR. MCDANIEL: And this was in the time frame of mid to late '70s?
MR. BREWINGTON: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. That's what I was thinking.
MR. BREWINGTON: The nuclear power option was waning some at the time. I remember the first contract we had was an 8-A set-aside for site work, earth moving and so forth. The Corps of Engineers believed in competitive bidding.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: For fixed-price contracts.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: We had a competitive bidding and we had a contractor who was a low bidder, that was an 8-A contractor -- good contractor.
MR. MCDANIEL: What did that...? What does that mean? 8-A?
MR. BREWINGTON: Set-aside for minorities...
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: ...disadvantaged.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: The deputy... Let's see... one of the second men in, what were we then? Were we DOE then? Went from AEC to ERDA to DOE.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
MR. BREWINGTON: I got the word from the Deputy, "Don't award that contract."
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: So I call Abercrombie. 
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure...
MR. BREWINGTON: He said, "Percy," he said, "why don't you just tell him you've had competitive bids, it's been authorized by Congress and we've got an 8-A contractor ready to start."
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: "So we're going to award the contract."
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: So I sent a wire to Washington. "The project was authorized, we've taken competitive bids, we got a low bidder, he's an 8-A contractor, we're going to award the contract."
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: I sent it up to Washington; didn't get a response. I thought, 'Boy, I have made an enemy for life!' But, you know, it was interesting, after I retired and he'd retired, someone had contacted him for the name of a person for a job in... it was still related to the DOE program.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
MR. BREWINGTON: But a good position. And by God, he called me and asked me if I'd be interested.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BREWINGTON: I said, "I'm a little surprised that you called." He said, "Well, you know, I remember that wire that you sent me." (laughs) 
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Now, was it going on in Portsmouth and Oak Ridge at the same time?
MR. BREWINGTON: Oh, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Both places.
MR. BREWINGTON: The development...
MR. MCDANIEL: The development...
MR. BREWINGTON: Couple of things were going on. There were three operating contractors who were making machines. Oak Ridge, Goodyear Atomic...
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And Air Research. 
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: I didn't say Boeing...
MR. MCDANIEL: No, you didn't say Boeing. Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: Oak Ridge was not in the manufacturing business. They were in the development business.
MR. MCDANIEL: The development business. Right, sure...
MR. BREWINGTON: Three contractors: Boeing, Goodyear Atomic and Air Research 
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And they were proceeding well, all well-established. One point that might be more of local interest than all this other palaver I've been going through...
MR. MCDANIEL: That's okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: In our cost and schedule analysis, we were very, very precise. We had these charts, every month we'd go over them with everyone. And on the machine thing, you'd see this little blip.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh.
MR. BREWINGTON: You could peel down and by the time we got to Boeing, that little blip was a big blip.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really?
MR. BREWINGTON: They, of course, were building facilities here in Oak Ridge, but in the meantime, they were making rotors out in Seattle.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Dick Grant was the local man in charge of the effort, the president of Boeing Oak Ridge outfit. And he said, "Percy, we're ready to build. We're ready to make 'em here." And I said, "Well, why aren't you?" And he said, "Well, the Boeing people out in Washington want to make 'em there."
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BREWINGTON: "They're making good machines..." And they were! I got together with the local heads...
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: Including my buddy, Gordon Fee, and we discussed this matter and we said, “Well, you know, we probably ought to move that operation and get them started making machines in Oak Ridge.”
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: So, I went out to Seattle and met with -- Bud was his name. Nice guy, nice guy. I dealt with so many nice guys... a few were not so nice.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure...
MR. BREWINGTON: So we talked. "Percy," he said, "it can be your decision, but I want to ask you one question: Would you rather deal with a bear you know or one you don't know?" and I said, "Well, Bud, We'd like to deal with a bear we can train." So we moved it to Oak Ridge. (laughs) So that's how making rotors in Oak Ridge started.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: And, thank goodness, we're still making rotors in Oak Ridge.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really? Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: That's the one effort that's still continuing. Hopefully, they will complete the centrifuge plant at Portsmouth someday.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, exactly. Because it was stopped.
MR. BREWINGTON: It was stopped.
MR. MCDANIEL: Dead in its tracks.
MR. BREWINGTON: Dead in its tracks.
MR. MCDANIEL: And... when was that? '80? Mid-80s?
MR. BREWINGTON: Let's see... Yeah, mid-80s.
MR. MCDANIEL: Mid-'80s. About the time the K-25 plant was shut down, wasn't it?
MR. BREWINGTON: I guess it was that same time period.
MR. MCDANIEL: Same time period. Wasn't related, but it was the same time period.
MR. BREWINGTON: No. But yeah, again, Congress, because the nuclear power thing had deteriorated to the point where it just wasn't...
MR. MCDANIEL: Everybody was afraid of it, weren't they?
MR. BREWINGTON: Everybody was afraid of it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Politically and they were getting a lot of environmental pressure ...
MR. BREWINGTON: Lot of it, right...
MR. BREWINGTON: ...and bad PR all those things kind of culminated.
MR. BREWINGTON: Lot of things piled up, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Piled up, until they... it was a hot potato and they didn't want it, so...
MR. BREWINGTON: Now, the... Couple things that happened in the meantime.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: One of my guys that I worked with the longest; we got to know each other so well. He was always my deputy or... we were second lieutenants at Ft. Benning together.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BREWINGTON: Houston Baker.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: One of most positive-minded guys I've ever seen. Great smile. He and I could... Oh, by the way, we both took up smoking pipes because we learned from Jim Danaher that when you need to think, you're taking your pipe out and you're tamping it and all that. (laughs)
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: When we were second lieutenants at Ft. Benning, he used to lord over me. He was Baker and I was Brewington. We were commissioned on the same day, but alphabetically, he was ahead of me.
MR. MCDANIEL: He was ahead of you, that's right.
MR. BREWINGTON: So he had a bit of rank on he, he said. (laughs) Of course, we joked about that a long time.
MR. MCDANIEL: By minutes, I'm sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: We both stayed in the Reserve and when it came to being promoted to major, I guess it was, his paperwork got screwed up and I got appointed a day before he did. (laughs) So then, the tables turned.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: But he was a great... a great guy. We worked together in Mobile, we worked together in Huntsville and he was my deputy up here.
MR. MCDANIEL: In Oak Ridge?
MR. BREWINGTON: In Oak Ridge. Very able. When we were -- another just, diversion, I'm probably diverting too much here...
MR. MCDANIEL: That's okay. 
MR. BREWINGTON: But... Just comical things that happen in life.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: When we were working on the test facilities at Huntsville and Mississippi test, for the NASA rockets, Houston was the kind of guy that could deal with the Von Brauns and so forth. I didn't have nearly as important a job as he did.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: He was in charge of the structural part of the rocket test stands. They just shook the devil out of the structure.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: My job was to merely bring water to the back of the flame buckets. When the rockets went off the hot flames came down and were diverted with a flame bucket. And the flame bucket was kept from melting by a flow of water. My job was to bring the water to the back of the flame bucket.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: We kept building bigger and bigger test stands. While Houston was dealing with the higher-ups -- he had a great personality -- I was dealing with the technicians.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: We were building this big stand. There was a technician, and these guys all came from Germany, well not all, the basic core came from Germany -- pure Nazis, too! (laughs) Excuse me.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: But Fritz Vandersee was the guy that I interfaced with. And I said, "Fritz, you know I could tell how much water we needed to bring to the flame bucket to get rid of all that heat but where do we put the holes?" He said, "Perce, vat we'll do, we'll give her a coat of red lead, we'll turn her on for just a *fssst* second and we'll drill the holes where the paint is burned." (laughs) So his approach was the practical approach.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. BREWINGTON: Houston was a great guy to work with. Unfortunately, he died a couple of years ago. When Reagan came to office -- this is now the shift back to the CRBR.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: Which reported directly to Washington. He said, "Okay, it's time to go ahead with the CRBR."
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: I don't want it to report... I don't know whether he said this or the Department of Energy decided, 'Well, we'll put it under Mobile.'
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I see.
MR. BREWINGTON: Excuse me, Oak Ridge.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oak Ridge.
MR. BREWINGTON: Because we had a pretty good capability for advanced construction systems. I went up to be under the Oak Ridge operations office. It's located in Oak Ridge that's where it should be, by the way...
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly...
MR. BREWINGTON: Everybody here agreed, of course. Since the centrifuge project set was going so well and Houston was as much into it as I was, they asked me to take over the CRBR. Houston could finish the centrifuge project (GCEP). So, my old buddy Col. Caffey from Huntsville Division, just was not in the plan. They wanted a big change.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: And he had done a good job keeping things going while Carter was trying to kill things.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: So I said, "Yeah, I'll go down there." I didn't know what I was getting into. (laughs) Of course, all the brain work had been done, you know, the contractors all loved Caffey because he had kept the thing alive. Although they hated each other...
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: They had all these claims against each other. Caffey retired. I did always respect him.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: But the great thing he had done, he brought the same systems to manage CRBR that I brought to manage the GCEP. So going down and taking over from that respect was a simple thing.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: I told the Oak Ridge manager -- that was Bob Hart then. I said, "Well, look, I'll go down if you'll let me take Charlie Fox... Dr. Charlie Fox, a nuclear engineer.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Worked for me on the centrifuge project, absolutely the smartest nuclear engineer I've ever known. I really shouldn't judge that because I'm not a nuclear engineer. (laughs)
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And he's very, very outspoken, and he has been my nuclear 'brain'...
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Bob Hart and I decided, better take John Wagner with you. John Wagner was a contracts man. But a great manager. We decided we've got to solve all these claims between our contractors, make them friendly again.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: You've got to get along if your going to get a big job done.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: So, John was a good negotiator, excellent negotiator, so he and I and Robert Brown went down to take over the CRBR. We weren't greatly accepted.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: The message we had was pretty positive. In my first meeting with all the contractors, I said, "Look, fellows, we're going to settle all these claims between us before we start anything else because we're going to get along, we're going to work to the same objective and we can't afford to be diverted. We're going to do it here and John Wagner's going to do it." It's easy to assign people to do things! (laughs)
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, sure, of course.
MR. BREWINGTON: So, that's the way we headed. Well, Bill Snyder was the chief legal man, chief office counsel, Oak Ridge operations office. He came to see me shortly thereafter and he said, "Percy, I guess this means I ought to close my office in Washington," He said, "I've set an office up to settle these claims up there." (laughs) I said, "Well, Bill, yes, you better close it 'cause we're going to settle 'em right here." And Wagner did that job.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: And we did keep the project moving because when Reagan said, “Let's go”, the construction was approved as well as the procurement and the engineering.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And there had been great strides made in the procurement because... The machines... or the reactor vessel with just intricate... the closure device... Got some pictures I'll show you when we're done. Just how far things had gone.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: So, we worked with NRC.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. They had just about stopped working on approving the project progress.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: When we started, I met with the chief of the NRC locally, or in Atlanta, and said, "Look, you guys, we want to work with you." Said, "You want to come to the site? Come to the site. You want to go anywhere, you can go." Guy said, "You won't do it." I said, "Yeah, we'll do it! We've got to get this thing done!" (laughs)
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: So, we did establish a pretty good relationship with them. And, lo and behold, the construction permit was approved.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BREWINGTON: And I remember it was approved at 4 o'clock in the afternoon one day and I went home that night and said, "God! We've got a construction permit and we're not doing anything!" (laughs) So I got my daughter, Denise, the youngest, was home, and we got in my handy pick-up truck went down to the site and I took a chain saw and we cut the first tree down at the site.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BREWINGTON: And then I cut it in little pieces for people at the CRBR's office...
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: ...for souvenir.
MR. MCDANIEL: Souvenirs.
MR. BREWINGTON: It became quite a thing to have.
MR. MCDANIEL: I bet it was.
MR. BREWINGTON: Anyway, we did start construction on the very day that we were... construction was approved.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Stone and Webster was our construction manager and they did a wonderful job. And the island had a small coating of topsoil and then solid rock.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: We got the rock work all done, the site was ready to start pouring concrete and, lo and behold, the forces to be had convinced the Congress not to appropriate the money any further.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BREWINGTON: So, that...
MR. MCDANIEL: That killed that.
MR. BREWINGTON: That killed the CRBR.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, nothing... I mean, what was built...? Was there anything built out there?
MR. BREWINGTON: There was nothing built. The construction was complete. Much of the long-need equipment had been procured.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: The reactor vessel, the steam generator, all the long-need stuff...
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: ... had been procured. And we were just going great guns.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And just ready to ... ready to move out with the actual placement of concrete and superstructure.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: So, the site had to be re-filled, to a degree, and TVA watched that site. They coveted that site.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: They did a wonderful job. They had planned the earthwork and the, where the thing should be sited, how deep this and how deep that and where the crushed rock should go. They also planned, when it was terminated, where the crushed rock should go now... The site wasn't filled all the way up... And it's prepared, sitting down there, waiting now, hopefully, for some new reactors.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BREWINGTON: There's a program. The approach to nuclear reactors changed. Used to be buy components and bring them to the site and put them together. And that took a lot of interfaces and a lot of NRC approvals and so forth. A lot of checkpoints. Now, the approach is to build smaller reactors where the guts could be put together at a single site by a single manufacturer.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: And there is, indeed, talk of putting three of these down at the CRBR site.
MR. MCDANIEL: Wow!
MR. BREWINGTON: On the TVA system.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
MR. BREWINGTON: They wouldn't be nearly the capacity that the CRBR would be but it would advance.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: And, by the way, the rest of the world is going ahead with ...
MR. MCDANIEL: With that...
MR. BREWINGTON: with that approach. So, anyway, that's where we stood. Suddenly, I was terminating another project. Didn't want to go back to GCEP because it was going well under Houston.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
MR. BREWINGTON: So I was looking for work.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: Well, Bob Hart had retired. Of course, I wanted his job.
MR. MCDANIEL: Of course.
MR. BREWINGTON: Along with Jim Hill, who was his ...Bob's deputy during all this. And the friendliest, nicest guy you ever knew. He was a navigator on B-24s in World War II over in the Pacific. Actually wrote a book about destroying the bridge over the River Kwai, Death Bridge, they called it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really? Wow!
MR. BREWINGTON: Yeah. Just a wonderful guy. Course he wanted Bob's job, too, but he was close to retirement. And a fellow named Joe LaGrone wanted the job, too. And Joe LaGrone got the job.
MR. MCDANIEL: Joe LaGrone got the job.
MR. BREWINGTON: Joe and I came from different schools.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Joe was a program man and program man's job’s to keep the program going.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: I was a project man and a project manager's job is to finish things.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, exactly.
MR. BREWINGTON: He was always very good to me, very nice to me. He said, "Percy, how about..." talking over the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, down in New Orleans and Texas. It had developed a terrible reputation.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: The laissez-faire approach of New Orleans had taken over the project.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: The Congress and DOE... Congressman Mike Sinehar from Oklahoma was one of the principle daddies of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. They said, "It's got to be changed."
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And that, too, had reported directly to headquarters.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: So they said, "Let's move it and put it under Oak Ridge!” (laughs)
MR. MCDANIEL: Oak Ridge.
MR. BREWINGTON: Oak Ridge. And, so, Joe LaGrone said, "Percy, how about taking over that job?" The job was made easy for me by John Milliway, who Leroy Jackson had developed to be his replacement...
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: He had now become the assistant manager for construction engineering at DOE. He was a great guy. He'd learned a little bit from -- no, he'd learned a lot from Leroy about how to be a real hard nose! (laughs) 
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: And he had gone down to the SPRO and spent weeks finding everything that was wrong.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And he made a very detailed report.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: Not only what was wrong, but what should be done to change it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: So, my job was simple.
MR. MCDANIEL: You just had to do it.
MR. BREWINGTON: Just had to do it! (Laughs) Go down there and fire the AEC manager...
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: The poor guy... Changed management, the poor guy came up to me and he said, "Percy, I've only got six months to work until I can retire. Can we do anything?" Well, I had a deputy from ORO, Bill Hamstead, smart guy, really practical. Said, "Bill, you know, we really ought to find something to do with him." He said, "Well, Percy, the manager of the CRBR position is still open. Nothing to do..."
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: "Let's see if we can put him in that so he can complete his ..."
MR. MCDANIEL: His term.
MR. BREWINGTON: So we did and that worked out well.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: So, we decided to replace the operating contractor down there, so we had a competition and chose a firm to replace them.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And we had to put a new manager down there. I said, "John Wagner; what a wonderful manager."
MR. MCDANIEL: He was your contracts guy.
MR. BREWINGTON: He said, "I'm a contract guy." I said, "Oh, John you know you're much bigger than that."
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: "Not that that isn't big, but I think your future's down at the Strategic Petroleum Reserve." We knew John pretty well by then and his wife. And his wife just didn't know what to make of me.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, right, right.
MR. BREWINGTON: I suggested that, "Look, John, if you do that, your card's going to be punched with DOE forever." And he liked the challenge anyway, so he took the job. Really, with John Milliway's notes, John Wagner as a new manager, Boeing as the new operating contractor -- we selected Boeing.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: People wondered about that. 'How could you select Boeing for that job?'
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: We'd written a very precise request for proposals. And we got, I don't know, eight proposals -- good proposals.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: But Boeing answered every point in order and showed that they had the capability to do it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: So... It caused a little stir when we selected them, but we selected them.
MR. MCDANIEL: But it was also an area you knew, wasn't it?
MR. BREWINGTON: That's right! (laughs) And they did a good job.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: We did set out to correct the errors that John Milliway had found.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right...
MR. BREWINGTON: And soon had the project on a ... a good path.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: Course, one of my first jobs as a new guy up here, I got to go to meet Governor Edwards.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay...
MR. BREWINGTON: He was very interested in the project.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, he was...?
MR. BREWINGTON: He was the governor of Louisiana at the time.
MR. MCDANIEL: Louisiana, okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: (laughs) I laugh because it throws me back to another governor from the South. My wife and I were both raised, of course, in upstate Pennsylvania.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, of course.
MR. BREWINGTON: We take a job in Mobile, Alabama, and George Wallace is governor.
MR. MCDANIEL: George Wallace is governor.
MR. BREWINGTON: Yeah. He was a good governor. But it was... All these things took a little adjustment.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: But, then I got to meet the Mayor of New Orleans. I forget who he was, but he had his fingers deep into the...
MR. MCDANIEL: The pies...
MR. BREWINGTON: The pie (laughs)...
MR. MCDANIEL: The pie that existed.
MR. BREWINGTON: That's right. So, we set about and, with our forces in place, got the thing pretty well straightened out.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: Got complimented by the Congress.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: I received a recognition of President Reagan himself.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BREWINGTON: Which I'm very proud of...
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. I'm sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: My wife and I got to go to the Oval Office. There were several other people recognized. But that was a big moment.
MR. MCDANIEL: I bet!
MR. BREWINGTON: One thing interesting -- these little side things I find so interesting...
MR. MCDANIEL: All right...
MR. BREWINGTON: I was standing here and he was standing here and there was an orange curtain behind us. And the... He and I both blocked out enough of the orange curtain to it turned into an orange T.
MR. MCDANIEL: An orange T, that's what I was about to... I bet! (laughs)
MR. BREWINGTON: So, anyway, that was a great moment.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you... so you finished. You got everything done down at the Strategic Petroleum Reserve...
MR. BREWINGTON: Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
MR. MCDANIEL: You're getting close to retirement age, I guess.
MR. BREWINGTON: I'm getting close to retirement. So, when I was retirement age, I retired.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: And then I went into consulting.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Bob Hart had set up a consulting organization. I joined it. I worked for Bechtel on my own. I worked for TVA and then I went to work for Jerry Childs at SAIC. Jerry, of course, had been with me through the whole centrifuge program.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. BREWINGTON: So, I did that for a while then went back to my duck carving and trout fishing and hunting. (laughs)
MR. MCDANIEL: And hunting. And you've... and you've... Now, you didn't... you didn't move to Louisiana. You just... you ran things from up here.
MR. BREWINGTON: Ran things from up here.
MR. MCDANIEL: So when you came to Oak Ridge in '72, you've been here ever since, is that correct?
MR. BREWINGTON: Ever since. I had one opportunity ...
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: ... with DOE. The head of uranium enrichment retired and the guy that was in position over that, Shelby Brewer, he'd been top DOE man on the CRBR. He and I got to be pretty good friends. He said, "Percy, how about coming up to Washington and taking over this job?" I really wasn't qualified for the job because I'm not a nuclear person.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: So, I asked my sweet wife, I said, "Dear, what would you think of going to Washington?" She said, "Dear, we aren't going any farther north." (laughs) So, that's that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. 
MR. BREWINGTON: And we happily stayed here.
MR. MCDANIEL: So let's talk just a little bit about you... your life and your family and your time in Oak Ridge from a community standpoint. I mean, I know you ... you guys, you're always working hard so there wasn't a lot of opportunity to be involved in the community, but I'm sure there was some. 
MR. BREWINGTON: There was some. I did get to work some in the community. I need to thank... excuse me... (pauses)
MR. MCDANIEL: Go ahead, sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: George Jasny.
MR. MCDANIEL: George Jasny.
MR. BREWINGTON: Was head of engineering, vice president at Union Carbide and Martin-Marietta for engineering and construction. 
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And he was a wonderful guy. And George introduced me to the service life in Oak Ridge because he was always a great community man. One of the really best engineering managers that I'd ever been associated with. So George got me involved with the hospital.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: And I got on the hospital board. George was on the board and when George retired, I became head of the board for a year or so, so I did get to serve there. Now, what happened to me? What happened to me and my association with the community?
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Because I haven't done much since then. You know, what happened to me was, first, I went on the CRBR.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: which, although now it was under Oak Ridge Operations office, was largely independent of Oak Ridge, the city of.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, exactly.
MR. BREWINGTON: And then, I went to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and that just kind of cut my ties.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: I should have done more, but I haven't.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: But we have really enjoyed Oak Ridge and the community.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, your... your children, they were, I guess they were raised in Oak Ridge, to a certain degree, weren't they?
MR. BREWINGTON: Our oldest daughter was graduated from school, high school in Mobile, Alabama.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, right.
MR. BREWINGTON: She went to the University of Alabama. Not a good place for her to go. She played for a while...
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: ...and then quit and went to work as a secretary out in Dallas.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: So she dropped out of the scene for a while.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right...
MR. BREWINGTON: Our son, Steve, went to the University of Tennessee. Then he decided he wanted a medical career.
MR. MCDANIEL: Um-hmm...
MR. BREWINGTON: He and I are very close. We've taken annual hunting trips to the West or Alaska, Canada, so forth.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Oh, for 15 or 16 years with some of my friends and some of his other friends.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
MR. BREWINGTON: He and I still hunt a lot together.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: He usually confided in me with things, but he confided in his mother with this decision. He said, "Mom, you know, I don't think I want to be responsible for anybody's life. I think I'll be a dentist."
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BREWINGTON: So he went into dentistry. Again, very interesting... When he graduated and was licensed to practice, he got looking around: Where was he going to practice? Well, he had an uncle up in Pennsylvania that was in a practice that had about five dentists. He said, "Well, come up here and work or if you don't come up here, get in with a group."
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: At the time, there was a dentist over in Karns who had set up a practice. He knew immediately dentists were supposed to be rich. So he built a new office, he bought a big car, he bought a big house and he went bankrupt.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: So that business became available and then Steve did confide with me, he said, "Dad, what do you think of my taking over that practice?" Said, "Don't have any experience, don't know... haven't done the business side." And I said, "Son, I think it'd be a good idea."
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: So he took over that practice and it's been very successful for him.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, good.
MR. BREWINGTON: He now is thinking about retiring.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh, sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: Our youngest daughter went to UT.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, did she graduate from Oak Ridge?
MR. BREWINGTON: She graduated from Oak Ridge. Our son graduated from Huntsville.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: (laughs) He had the... All his buddies were going to go to the University of Alabama. He was going to graduate from Huntsville, when I moved up here in December, he was going to graduate in June.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And so I commuted back and forth, blah, blah, blah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: And every weekend for about five in a row, he'd say, "Dad, I'm going to go to the University of Alabama." Finally, the sixth trip, I said, "Son, you're going to go to the University of Tennessee." (laughs)
MR. MCDANIEL: There you go.
MR. BREWINGTON: He said, "Okay!" So he went to the University of Tennessee and then went to Tennessee Medical School in Memphis.
MR. MCDANIEL: Memphis. Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: Anyways, he's had a very successful record. 
MR. MCDANIEL: But your youngest daughter graduated from Oak Ridge High School?
MR. BREWINGTON: Yes, she graduated from Oak Ridge. And she went to UT and took agriculture, of all things. She's a terrific girl. I've known a lot of terrific people, and am related to a lot of terrific people...
MR. MCDANIEL: That's okay. That's all right.
MR. BREWINGTON: The... Our oldest daughter, who was in Dallas, got sick. And she called from the hospital, "Dad, I'm pretty sick," and she said, "I got to have this treatment and that treatment and I don't have any money or anything." So I said, "Well, I'm on my way." And I went and asked Bob Hart, and this was right in the middle of everything was going on.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: He said, "Well, sure, you got to go take care of your family."
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: So, went over, got her treatment started, came back, they discharged her a couple days later, went over, got her all her earthly belongings which fit in the back of a Toyota SUV. (laughs)
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And brought her here. Well, she went to work for the CRBR.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BREWINGTON: Before I got there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: And she's smart. And she was a secretary and doing well. But the people down there said, "You know, Patrice, you're capable of being an engineer -- you think like an engineer." And they convinced her to go to UT and get in mechanical engineering and she's a graduate mechanical engineer...
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BREWINGTON: ...went to work for DOE in the Chicago operations office and has just retired.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BREWINGTON: So a tremendous achievement.
MR. MCDANIEL: That's great.
MR. BREWINGTON: She had no children. Steve married a great girl whose father had established the Cherokee Distributors.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: He had first son, Steven, great kid. You know, naturally, your grandchildren are great.
MR. MCDANIEL: Of course.
MR. BREWINGTON: If you're lucky!
MR. MCDANIEL: If you're lucky, that's true.
MR. BREWINGTON: If you're lucky they're great.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh.
MR. BREWINGTON: Only trouble with the boy, he was probably born at least a century late.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really? Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: Because he's into history.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: And he's into Civil War reenactments.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: He thinks in that period.
MR. MCDANIEL: It takes a unique person to do those things, doesn't it?
MR. BREWINGTON: It really does. (laughs) It really does.
MR. MCDANIEL: But it... So is... So, your... your oldest daughter's in there...? No, you said she was in...?
MR. BREWINGTON: She's in engineering. Worked for ... out of the Chicago office.
MR. MCDANIEL: That's right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And has now retired up there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: And she's married but they have no children.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. And then your other... Your son is in the area.
MR. BREWINGTON: Our son is right here in Knoxville, got this boy that's historically oriented...
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Another son that just graduated ... They all... all his children graduated from West High. He works for the Cherokee Distributor. And his daughter just graduated from West.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: And she is going, of all places, to Auburn!
MR. MCDANIEL: Auburn! (laughs)
MR. BREWINGTON: My official, unofficial ...
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure...
MR. BREWINGTON: One reason she's going there is, our middle son's middle child's, Sam, best friend also is her boyfriend.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I see.
MR. BREWINGTON: And he's going to Auburn.
MR. MCDANIEL: I see. Now where's your youngest daughter?
MR. BREWINGTON: Our youngest daughter married a PhD chemist and is now in Talbot, Tennessee. She has a very smart and pretty daughter.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: You know, it's an hour and a half away.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, exactly.
MR. BREWINGTON: So we're so fortunate.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Absolutely.
MR. BREWINGTON: Our children, two of them local. Patrice from Chicago, an hour and a half trip to... direct flight. So...
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. BREWINGTON: And we get together often.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, well that's good.
MR. BREWINGTON: My oldest grandson, Steven, the Civil War buff, and I have always had projects together.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: We built a little cabin behind our house. That's one reason I wish we'd had this interview out there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Because we used to spend nearly every weekend there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BREWINGTON: From the time he could toddle on up.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, yeah, sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: And also with his younger brother.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, right...
MR. BREWINGTON: I can remember him... We bought him this little covered wagon. He'd fill that full of coonskin hats and imitation long-barrel rifles and pull that thing across and down the hill (laughs)... We'd spend weekends in the...in that...
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, so, you and your wife, you still live in Oak Ridge. You're retired, you're probably not consulting much anymore.
MR. BREWINGTON: Not at all.
MR. MCDANIEL: You ... Do you kind of keep up with things? You know...
MR. BREWINGTON: To a degree...
MR. MCDANIEL: To a degree...
MR. BREWINGTON: I have not kept up with the centrifuge... I've kept up with it, but...
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure...
MR. BREWINGTON: You know, naturally they would ask did I want to consult with them.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: But, you know, I just didn't want to.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: It's still ... the future of the centrifuge is still very much in doubt and I just didn't want another disappointment.
MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly.
MR. BREWINGTON: You know, I had buried project after project after project...Maybe it's me. (laughs) I don't want to be the black horse.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, is there anything else you want to tell me about real quickly?
MR. BREWINGTON: Well, my life at Oak Ridge was made much simpler by guys like George Jasny and his deputy, who became head of construction and engineering for Union Carbide and then Martin-Marietta. F.S. Patton. You won't find out much about Patton.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: He's a very private man.
MR. MCDANIEL: I've been hunting for him for three years.
MR. BREWINGTON: You won't get to talk to him. (laughs) He really is a...
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right...
MR. BREWINGTON: In World War II, he was in the second or third wave of Normandy.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. BREWINGTON: He was in the Battle of the Bulge. Patton's the guy that finds trouble or trouble finds him or something... not trouble, something needs to be done.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: ...something tough needs to be done, Patton's there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah.
MR. BREWINGTON: And he had some tremendous experiences in World War II he only talks to his best friends about.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, sure, sure...
MR. BREWINGTON: I'm lucky to be one of his best friends. When I came up here, it was... it was a little more difficult than I thought to come in as a non-nuclear man in a nuclear community but Pat made life easier for me. As did Jasney. And Pat found out that I liked to fly fish for trout, and he's a big fly fisherman.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: Liked to hunt, and he's a big dove hunter and bird hunter.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: So he made sure that I got introduced to fly fishing in East Tennessee, which is great.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: And bird hunting, so we became very good friends.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: He and my buddy, Charlie Fox, who was my nuclear expert...
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: ... he's more of a hunter than anybody I know. 
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: Fellow by the name of Bill Weathersby... You know, systems engineering is designed to make sure things are done right?
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh...
MR. BREWINGTON: Before systems engineering even came to Oak Ridge, Bill Weathersby made sure things were right.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. BREWINGTON: Just absolutely the most reliable engineer I've ever worked with.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, sure...
MR. BREWINGTON: So my... my life has been made pleasant by my associations up here. Still... we still try to meet occasionally with Charlie Fox and Bill Weathersby and Patton. My son and I -- he's built a cabin down the plateau 50 miles south of Crossville.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: We hunt down there whenever we can.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Is that right?
MR. BREWINGTON: Turkey, doves, quail, deer. So there's lots of opportunity.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, good.
MR. BREWINGTON: So life is good.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, Mr. Brewington, thank you so much for taking time to talk with us.
MR. BREWINGTON: Well, I've rattled on probably much too long...(laughs) 
MR. MCDANIEL: That's okay. That's quite all right. There's a lot of stories and perspective that you're the only one can give on some things.
MR. BREWINGTON: You know, I've written down a couple of things. A backdrop for my career up here.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh.
MR. BREWINGTON: When I got here, expectations for nuclear power were about at their peak.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: That was in the early '70s. There was a projected need for added uranium enrichment that exceeded the capabilities.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: There were new technologies in the market. There was a... And the people who had done the job of building this facility -- these facilities -- were at retirement age.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: All those things influenced my coming up here. Also, there was a change in the approach to contracting, a substantial change. You know, the contractors in the Manhattan Project were... worked on a, either a no-cost basis -- DuPont took a dollar a year.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yeah.
MR. BREWINGTON: Plus costs.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Oak Ridge was a cost-plus, fixed-fee contract. By that time, NASA had had great successes. The aerospace approach had proven itself.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: There was a desire to bring the aerospace approach to AEC, ERDA and DOE.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: That led to, really a change out of the contractors.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: Couple things, in that order. When the Union Carbide contract was put up for bid, and it was changed... the change was also to get away from cost-plus contracting.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Maybe it was incentive-fee plus contracting.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: But to change the type of contracting so there would be more control. Actually, the old contracts worked wonderfully. You had to spend very little time raising hell about what the fee was and this and that and so forth.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: You could do the job. 
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: The nuclear Navy was having its influence. Admiral Rickover.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: There was a profound change that took place because the nuclear Navy is very procedural related. You know, it had to be because you're changing crews.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: The old AEC contractors, and particularly here in Oak Ridge, were knowledge-based operations. They depended on the operator's knowledge of what to do with this, that, and the other thing. And, so the nuclear Navy approach led to more procedures, more proceduralized. And then, of course, the move to ... to get different contractors.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
MR. BREWINGTON: Although there was... they were open to competition and the selection of Martin-Marietta was quite interesting.
MR. MCDANIEL: You're covering up your microphone with your...
MR. BREWINGTON: Oh, jeez... (laughs)
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: The selection was assigned to Oak Ridge Operations office. And a selection board was established. I sat on the board, Hugh Kaiser was on the board, Charlie Keller was on the board, and these are Oak Ridge operations office top people.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: Frank Christie was the head of the contracting in Oak Ridge, was the manager of the selection. We went out for proposals and got a lot of really good proposals. The selection board met and came up with our recommendation.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh...
MR. BREWINGTON: The Selection official was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear in DOE. Ruth, I think Davies, was her name. I'm not sure of the name.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: But, she didn't want who we selected.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MR. BREWINGTON: She wanted... Let's put it this way, she wanted someone else.
MR. MCDANIEL: Of course.
MR. BREWINGTON: She wanted someone with an aerospace background.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
MR. BREWINGTON: And she was very nice about it. She invited the whole board up to Washington, to D.C. And we went in her office, which was in the old Post Office building.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: This office must have been the Postmaster General's office. (laughs) It was a huge room.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
MR. BREWINGTON: Huge desk, huge fireplace -- she had a fire burning.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: Very nice. And she told us, "Well, I want to tell you why that I think we ought to select Martin-Marietta." And it was largely because of the aerospace experience and trying to bend DOE more in... adapt more of those processes. So that was a very pleasant experience with her and, again, a formidable change, a big change.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: In Oak Ridge. So there were very important things that happened while I was here and a lot of things I just didn't have much to do with.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
MR. BREWINGTON: But it was interesting the transition that has been made from AEC through ERDA to DOE and the different way things are being done.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure, I'm sure.
MR. BREWINGTON: I think Oak Ridge operations office was a stronger office and had more responsibilities in the good ole days. (laughs)
MR. MCDANIEL: In the good ole days. That's right.
MR. BREWINGTON: And I thank you and I'm sorry I rambled on...
MR. MCDANIEL: That's okay. That's all right.
MR. BREWINGTON: The subject interests me.
MR. MCDANIEL: Absolutely. Well, thank you.
MR. BREWINGTON: I thank you very much. 

[End of Interview]

[Editor’s Note: At Mr. Brewington’s request, portions of this transcript have been changed. The corresponding audio and video components have remained up changed.]