Leon Smith, nuclear pioneer, dies

  • Published
  • By John Cochran
  • 377th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
Leon D. Smith, a pioneer in the United States military's nuclear enterprise, died Oct. 14 in Albuquerque at age 92.

"The nation has lost one of the founders of our strategic deterrent. I was honored to know Leon Smith. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Marie, his wife of more than 70 years, and all their family members," said Maj. Gen. Garrett Harencak, commander of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center here.

Smith began his service in the nuclear enterprise at the dawn of America's atomic age. He was drafted into the Army during World War II, serving as a private in the field artillery, and then was sent to study communications at Yale, electronics at Harvard and radar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After being commissioned as an Air Corps lieutenant, Smith served as a weaponeer in the ordnance squadron of the 509th Composite Group, which dropped the atomic bombs that effectively ended World War II.

After the war, he left the Army to join the bomb fuzing group at Sandia National Laboratories, when it was attached to the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. He served as a weaponeer for the first postwar nuclear test in 1946.

In the decades that followed, Smith is credited with leading revolutionary developments in weapons technology, including work on components, such as the permissive action link, that continue to play a major part in the national commitment to nuclear weapons safety, security and use control.

During his 40-year SNL career, he initiated systems engineering in 1955 and directed the components, weapons development, and monitoring systems groups before retiring in 1988.
On Sept. 29, 2011, Smith was in the first class of eight people inducted into the "Order of the Nucleus" at the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History in Albuquerque.

At that event, Harencak lauded the honorees, collectively and individually.

"These patriotic Americans are supporting and have supported the nuclear enterprise with great distinction. Recognizing these outstanding contributors in this way is a small token of our esteem for all they have done to maintain a strong nuclear deterrent that has guaranteed our liberty for generations. All of you here support or work for the nuclear enterprise directly. You have significantly enhanced our mission and continue to do what our president told us to do -- 'Provide a safe, secure and effective deterrent for us and for our allies.'"

On Nov. 19, 2010, Smith visited Kirtland AFB and gave a presentation to Airmen of the 898th Munitions Squadron about his wartime experiences.

The electrical engineer spoke about being chosen in 1944 for the seven-member fuzing group assigned to the 509th Composite Bombing Group and his subsequent experiences at Wendover Field, Utah, where the group conducted design and flight-testing activities under technical direction of Robert Brode, head of the Fuze Development Group at Los Alamos.

He addressed the fuzing group's experiences in the summer of 1945 on Tinian, a Pacific island in the Northern Marianas chain, where they continued flight-test activities and prepared "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" for delivery.

"As one of three weaponeers in the program, I lost a coin flip or I would have been on the Enola Gay on the August 6 mission over Hiroshima," Smith said.

He said the most common question people ask him is about how he felt when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima
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"It had been a long war, with fierce battles and high casualties on both sides. It was estimated that in the planned land invasion of Japan, the U.S. would lose 1 million more soldiers. I felt a sense of relief because the war would soon be over," he said.

Smith ended his presentation by quoting British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who spoke to the U.S. Congress in January 1952 about the value of maintaining an effective nuclear deterrent.

"Be careful above all things not to let go of the atomic weapon until you are sure, and more than sure, that other means of preserving peace are in your hands."