Interviewee: Samuel Stein

Interviewer: Michael Ruane
Date: 1998?
Place: Camp Evans – 9039
Media: NTSC Video
Summary: Mr. Irv Bauman

TAPE 23

SAM STINE (Cont’d)

Sam had hired Drs. Edith Tebo and her husband Albert to become part of his group. Sam characterized her as having idea flashes, while her husband was the opposite. He was a plotter, one step at a time, thru calculations. Both were brilliant scientists. Albert Tebo would arrive at a problem’s solution three days after Sam and Edith would, but his results were always correct.

Sam assigned Edith to a problem relating to landing visibility for aircraft, using the Oakhurst Tower, where Meteorological Equipment was installed. Dr. Tebo was assigned to measure slant visibility for the pilot’s landing operations at different levels. One problem, in her activity, was, she would rise to the tower height and would have to be brought down.

The Oakhurst Tower had a communications transmitter between Ft. Monmouth and Washington D.C. Monmouth’s Commanding General had a radio and telephone installed there. There were actually two towers, one with a microwave transfer and a Radar System on the other. Sam indicated that the tower was in place when he began working at Evans.

Back to Dr. Tebo, she became interested in Women’s Rights. She joined Dr. McAfee’s group for a while and when her work with him was completed, she returned to Sam, who was back in IR detectors and designing and building Lasers in Bldg. 40, Evans. She became a Section Chief. She was ultimately insulted in front of eighteen people, and sued, receiving a $350,000 award for her embarrassment. She quit her job at Evans and was hired at a Supergrade (above GS-16) as Head of the International Committee of the Great Lakes Environmental Society, with offices in Chicago, ill. However, her husband Albert suffered a heart attack. She had to care for him. They had three daughters, one of whom had all her faculties, but one of the others suffered blindness, the other, hearing loss.

Sam and Dr. McAfee worked together on a problem to measure wind velocity at high altitudes, where a rocket travels. Dr. M. asked Sam to procure very thin aluminum strips 1 x 10 cm. for this experiment. Sam procured the same, receiving a package containing 100,000 aluminum strips, three-millionths of an inch thick. When the package was opened the thin strips floated in the air. He took these to White Sands, installed them in a side of a rocket. When the rocket reached the required elevation, the aluminum strips were observed floating over a 300-mile distance… Sam then got involved in Sound Ranging to find gun locations.

Sam first observed Senator McCarthy as a sloppy, fat person who came to Evans looking for him. He had little else to offer about this incident. Sam met and spoke to four Presidents to include Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson. He revealed the subject of his meeting with Truman. On Project Cirrus, Sam received instructions from the White House to perform a special job. It seems an election, to be held in New Hampshire, had to be delayed due to serious forest fires. Sam went to his office in Schenectady where Truman called, asking him to go to N.H. to put out those fires. Sam objected, saying he needed clouds to seed and there were none in that area at that time. Truman exclaimed, go thru the motions, for publicity satisfactions. Sam arranged for seventeen aircraft flying over N.H. to spread dry ice everywhere.

20 min.

Page created August 2, 2002