Sumner Pike

Sumner T. Pike (1891 - 1976), served as acting chairman of United States Atomic Energy Commission in 1950.

Career

A 1913 Bowdoin College graduate, Pike was a member of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from 1940 to 1946 and a member of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission from 1946 to 1951.

A Republican, Sumner Pike voted against the hydrogen bomb on many occasions. Became wealthy through the oil business. 1949, when on the Atomic Energy Commission, he stated that “only a national emergency could justify testing in the United States.” Nevertheless, nuclear bomb testing began in Nevada in 1951.

In 1950, the Joint Atomic Energy Committee voted five to four to not approve of President Harry S. Truman’s nomination of Pike as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, when he was acting as Chairman. Instead, though Pike was renominated, Truman picked Gordon Dean.

External links

*http://www.trumanlibrary.org/hstpaper/pikest.htm
*http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,812797,00.html
*http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,805463,00.html