Alex WellersteinVerified account

Note that per this history, the AEC had already developed what became the W54, so the Army was designing the Davy Crockett _around_ it. At least a few of the documents in the footnotes, if FOIA-able, might answer your question once and for all.

I think I’m going to try and get a couple yields per se declassed.

Given the ongoing effort to develop new, low-yield warheads, that could be useful and timely. Unfortunately, I can see DOD and DOE using that fact to justify continuing to keep them secret.

Did Ted Taylor have a hand in the W54, & do you think its design influenced the design of Project Orion propellant charges? Don't recall any mention in George Dyson's book. I think Taylor joined the project in 1958.

I tend to take physicists talking in public like this with a grain of salt.

I met Ted in the 1980s. He was very down-to-earth. Talk like this was a warning about the dangers of the technology based on his direct experience (and subsequent conversion away from building bombs, even if he found the work "sweet"), not boasting or hyperbole.

Perhaps. But physicists are often very full of themselves and, if they feel they have a cause, can exaggerate.