Blue-Ribbon Panel

Among companies turning out nuclear products, supersonic planes and guided missiles, the scramble for contracts is matched only by the scramble for talent. The fields are so new and complicated that there is only a small number of top men. This week the Convair Division of General Dynamics Corp., which has more than $1 billion in Government contracts for bombers, missiles, etc., garnered an imposing roster of talent.

In as assistant vice president for nuclear planning went Dr. Frederic de Hoffmann, 30, who joined the Los Alamos group fresh out of Harvard University at 20, rose to be Dr. Edward Teller's first deputy in work on the hydrogen bomb (TIME, March 7). As consultants, Convair added a blue-ribbon panel of 14 experts. Among them: Dr. Teller, now professor of physics at the University of California; Dr. Hans Bethe, first to calculate systematically all thermonuclear reactions; Dr. Theodore von Karman, who developed Jato, later served as chief scientific adviser to the Air Force; Massachusetts Institute of Technology's electricity wizard, Dr. Lan Jen Chu.

What was the high-powered team hired to do? Convair was mum. But there was no doubt that the experts would help Convair design air frames for nuclear-powered planes and aid in building Atlas, the intercontinental ballistic missile.

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