William L. Uanna

William Lewis Uanna
William Lewis Uanna
Born	(1909-05-13)May 13, 1909 Medford, Massachusetts
Died	Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Buried	Arlington National Cemetery
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1941–47
Rank	Major
Service number	O-1107189
Commands held	1st Technical Service Detachment
Battles/wars	World War II: Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Occupation of Japan
Spouse(s)	Bonnie née Leonard
Other work	Chief of Central Personnel Clearance at the Atomic Energy Commission The Assistant Area Engineer at the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project Intelligence Specialist at the Central Intelligence Agency Special assistant to the Secretary of Commerce Chief of the Division of Physical Security, Department of State

William Lewis "Bud" Uanna (May 13, 1909 – December 22, 1961) was a United States security expert, who gained prominence as a security officer on the Manhattan Project, which built the first atomic bomb during World War II. He later served as Chief of the Division of Physical Security at the United States Department of State.

Uanna joined the Army in May 1941, and was commissioned on November 1942. Assigned to the Counter Intelligence Corps, he served on the staff of I Service Command and X Corps. In August 1943, he became an instructor at its school in Chicago, where he wrote a manual on physical security. He joined the Manhattan Project in late 1943, and in August 1944, was appointed Security Officer at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, one of the Manhattan Project's largest sites. In February 1945, he assumed command of the 1st Technical Service Detachment, which was responsible for the security of 509th Composite Group, including its personnel, bases and equipment. After the war ended he accompanied the Manhattan Project team sent to survey the damage done by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In 1947, he was chosen by the newly created Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to head its program to provide security clearances to its personnel, for which he named and developed the criteria for the Q clearance. He was an administrative officer at the Central Intelligence Agency from 1949 to 1951, and from 1951 to 1953 was the special assistant to the Secretary of Commerce. He was responsible for physical security at the State Department from 1953 until his death in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1961.

Early life and education

William Lewis Uanna was born in Medford, Massachusetts, on May 13, 1909, the son of Italian immigrants Anthony Uanna and his wife Theresa née Ferullo. He attended Medford High School, and then Tufts College on an athletic scholarship, where he was a halfback on the college football team, and an intercollegiate wrestling champion. He earned a degree in engineering, but soon returned to Tufts to get an M.A. in education, and became a teacher. Over a six month period he taught physics and mathematics in high school.

After leaving teaching, Uanna was employed on a series of projects working for private companies as well as the City of Medford, the State of Massachusetts and the US Army Corps of Engineers, progressing from a rod man on a surveying crew to a construction superintendent. As a civilian with the Corps of Engineers he was involved in the construction of Grenier Army Air Field in New Hampshire and Fort Devens in Massachusetts, where he later served as an Army Counter Intelligence agent during Word War II. During 1938 to 1942 he attended Suffolk University, graduating with an L.L.B. He then passed the Massachusetts Bar examination and was admitted to practice before the Federal Bar. He later described this time as "a most difficult one as the demands of my position caused me to miss many of my classes".

While attending law school and working as a construction superintendent he became aware of the importance of management and administration. He purchased the seven-volume set of books published by the International City Managers Association (ICMA), read them several times, and became an Associate Member of the ICMA in 1940. Between 1949 and 1954 he attended the American University in Washington, D.C.. He was required to submit a thesis to receive a Doctorate in Public Administration, but his schedule at the U.S. Department of State kept him from finishing.

Counter Intelligence Corps

Enlisting in the Army on May 28, 1941, Uanna was assigned to the Corps of Intelligence Police (CIP). The CIP had been formed shortly after the United States had entered World War I on the side of the Allies in the summer of 1917. The corps had languished after World War I and almost ceased to exist. Even through Germany's September 3, 1939, attack on Poland and the bombing of Britain that followed it lay dormant. Finally, the CIP began to mobilize in the last half of 1941 at which time it was provisioned for 500 agents. It would never reach more than 5,000 agents during World War II but the quality of the personnel made up for their quantity.

Uanna on Tinian Island 1945

Uanna's enlistment was supposed to be for one year, but the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, kept him in the Army until after the war. At first he performed intelligence duties relative to top secret programs such as radar, bomb sight, firing mechanisms and devices at MIT, Harvard and Yale for special manufacturers. On New Years Day 1942 the CIP was renamed the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) and was challenged with global responsibilities. In 1942 he attended the Officer Candidate School at Fort Belvoir, and, on graduation in November 25, 1942, was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army Corps of Engineers. He was assigned to the CIC as Director of Operations of I Service Command, responsible for between 300 and 400 Special Agents in headquarters and five field offices. He organized them into speciality squads dealing with subversion, espionage, plant security, sabotage, labor, water front and personnel investigations. These squads reported their findings to him.

In February 1943, Uanna was posted to X Corps, then based at Sherman, Texas, as commander of its CIC detachment. As such, he was responsible for setting up the first intelligence units working with the troops in the United States. With 112 officers and 35 agents he conducted investigations and evaluated the loyalty of individuals within X Corps and trained its troops in security procedures. At this time X Corps consisted of the 42nd, 84th, 86th, 88th and 104th Infantry Divisions. In August 1943, Uanna became an instructor at the CIC school in Chicago, where he taught subjects such as fingerprinting and telephone tapping. At this time he wrote a manual on physical security used by CIC agents. Some 1,000 copies were printed and issued for distribution by the Provost Marshal General.

Joining the Manhattan Project in late 1943, Uanna was initially assigned to the New England area, where he looked after security at 150 organizations, including key contractors Stone & Webster, General Electric, Westinghouse and American Cyanamid, and universities such as Harvard, Brown, Yale and MIT. He was promoted to first lieutenant on July 25, 1943, captain on March 25, 1944, and ultimately major on June 25, 1945. In August 1944, he was appointed Security Officer for the large town and industrial installation built by the US Government at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to enrich uranium for an atomic bomb. As such, he oversaw the physical security of the site, and was responsible for the security clearance of over 50,000 personnel. He supervised the activities of the town's police, detectives and welfare bureau and provided security for the transport of fissile materials from Oak Ridge to the weapons laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico.

In February 1945, Uanna assumed command of the 1st Technical Service Detachment, which was attached to the 509th Composite Group. He became responsible for the security clearance of its personnel, and oversaw the movement of the 509th from its training base in Wendover Army Air Field, Utah to Tinian Island in the Western Pacific. There, he was in charge of the physical security of its installations, and supervised the unloading and installation of its stores and equipment. He also looked after security at other bases that might be used by the 509th in an emergency. After the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the subsequent unconditional surrender of Japan in August 1945, Uanna accompanied the Manhattan Project team sent to survey the damage, spending four weeks in Nagasaki.

Postwar career

Uanna returned to the United States in October 1945, and was discharged from the Army in April 1946. He returned to Boston, where he practiced law and engineering, but was recalled to active duty in October 1946 to conduct an investigation into reports that servicemen had tried to sell pictures of the atomic bomb to The Baltimore Sun. These turned out to be pictures of the dummy bombs used for drop tests. In 1947, he was chosen by the newly created Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in Washington, D.C. to head its program to provide security clearances to its personnel, a requirement of the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. At this time he named and developed the criteria for the AEC's Q clearance.

In 1948 Uanna became second-in-command of an Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (AFSWP) construction program to build storage bases for atomic weapons. As the highest ranking civilian on the project he was responsible for over $100 million of works. The AFSWP was headquartered at Sandia Base in New Mexico, but Uanna operated out of Kansas City, Missouri, where he had bought a home. Here the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) sought him out to continue the relationship they had developed with him at the Atomic Energy Commission where internal FBI memos described him as the "main source of confidential information within the AEC." As the project was nearing completion ahead of schedule Uanna submitted the names of the personnel who would maintain the atomic bombs and their storage bases to the FBI for background investigations, sold his home and moved back to Washington, D.C.

Uanna with colleagues at the State Department 1958

From 1949 to 1951, Uanna worked as an Intelligence Specialist at the newly established Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where he wrote the briefing manual for the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). The OPC was the covert action branch of the US intelligence community and at this time was overseen jointly by the State Department and the Department of Defense, rather than by the Director of Central Intelligence.

From 1951 to 1953, during the Korean War, he was the special assistant to the Secretary of Commerce as Chief of the Facilities Protection Board, and was a staff member of the Industrial Evaluations Board. These boards were overseen by the Interdepartmental Committee on Internal Security (ICIS) and the National Security Resources Board (NSRB). The NSRB was charged with the responsibility of developing security programs for industry. Several such programs were developed jointly with representatives of such industries or public utilities including electric power, transportation, explosives, petroleum, communications, etc. Since he was directly responsible to the Secretary of Commerce, after the Republican Administration took office in 1953 he found himself without a job.

After this, Uanna accepted a 90-day temporary assignment at the Department of State as assistant to Otto Otepka. Otepka was in charge of State's Evaluations Division. It was Uanna's expertise in countering subversion that landed him this position at the height of Senator Joseph McCarthy's accusations of the presence of Communists and Communist sympathizers in the Army and State Department. Using procedures he developed at the AEC Uanna wrote the Evaluators Handbook that would be used by State Department investigators to review the loyalty and "suitability" of employees in accordance with Executive Order 10450 and Executive Order 10501.

Marine Security Guard Graduation

In 1953 the State Department's physical security was split between foreign and domestic branches. Uanna reorganized these into one group and renamed it the Division of Physical Security. He was named as its new chief. He then published a Protection of Dignitaries Manual, established the Marine Security Guard Training School and drafted its handbook. Over time, Marine Security Guards have become the "custodians" of U. S. Embassies, Legations and Consulates and now have a reputation for their tenacity in protecting them. The Division of Physical Security would have four new branches to accomplish its mission.

As Chief of the Division, Uanna was responsible for the security of all State's personnel and facilities in the United States and abroad. This included Secretary of State John Foster Dulles whom he would personally escort. Shortly after Dulles became ill in late 1958 and was replaced by Christian Herter Uanna was posted overseas to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. His security responsibilities included the protection of all visiting foreign dignitaries, "Very Important Persons" (VIPs) that came on official visits to the United States, and also protection against penetrations, both physical and electronic ("bugs"). He hired technicians, in competition with private industry, to handle the more technical aspects of security. He was also the State Department liaison with the U.S. Department of Defense.

In 1955, Uanna participated in Operation Alert, a civil defense drill in which U.S. government officials were taken from Washington, D.C. to a relocation facility in rural Virginia. The aim was to ensure continuity of government in the event of a nuclear attack. Among his many diplomatic security responsibilities at this time was the handling of the security for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip's visit to the United States in 1957. In November 1958, Uanna's wife Bonnie and their four-year-old son Steven accompanied him to Addis Ababa, in Ethopia, when the Department of State posted him as Administrative Officer to the U.S. Embassy there, but he returned to the United States briefly to handle the state visit of Nikita Khrushchev in 1959.

While on assignment in Addis Ababa, Uanna died of a heart attack in the office of the Air Attache at the American Embassy in Ethiopia on December 22, 1961. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. He was survived by his wife Bonnie née Leonard, who died on October 25, 1992, and his son Steven Lee.

Film portrayals

Uanna was portrayed by James Whitmore in the 1952 motion picture Above and Beyond, Stephen Macht in the 1980 TV movie Enola Gay: The Men, the Mission, the Atomic Bomb, and Minor Mustain in the 1995 Japanese/Canadian film Hiroshima.

External links

• William Lewis Uanna Collection, The Manhattan Project Heritage Preservation Association, Inc. at the Wayback Machine (archived October 22, 2013)
• William L. Uanna at Find a Grave