In 1954, Customs
officials prepare to
check cargo at the
Port of New York,
loaded into an
“Inspectoscope”;
an operator in a
booth viewed the
contents on a
screen.
Project Doorstop was the first air passenger
security-screening effort in history, well before
nationally publicized anti-hijacker measures at
airport boarding gates. Those later efforts were
triggered by the hijacking-to-Cuba
craze, which began in 1961 and peaked
at a rate of three airliner takeovers
every month over the summer of
1969. Because hijackings appeared
more of a nuisance than a threat,
only a few airports bothered to check
passengers for guns and bombs. That
changed in November 1972, after
three hijackers threatened to drive a
Southern Airways DC-9 into a reactor
at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The combination of nuclear energy
and airliners so frightened the Nixon
administration that it ordered a crash
program to take effect at all of the
nation’s 500-plus main airports—and
in less than two months. The hijack-
The 1953 film The ing-prevention program used metal detectors
49th Man presumed for passengers and X-ray machines for carry-on
that atomic bombs
luggage, with the intent to spot explosives, guns,
would arrive by
freighters or private knives, and grenades.
boats. By contrast, Project Doorstop was looking
for one thing only: radioactive emissions from a
few pounds of uranium or plutonium smuggled
52 AIR & SPACE
by international passengers. The reason was
that weapons-grade uranium or plutonium was
then (and is now) an essential ingredient for any
nuclear bomb, whether a low-yield fission device
or city-busting H-bomb.
Doorstop’s radiation scanners began appearing
at select locations in August 1954. These came in
two sizes: five-foot-long, 800-pound steel cabinets
called “passive detectors,” about the size of an office
desk, which could screen airline passengers and
their luggage; and small, portable, less sensitive
units mainly for use by Customs inspectors clam-
bering around ships’ holds.
The Doorstop detectors were placed to catch
Soviet A-bomb components before they could TOP: NENY23567 VIA EBAY; BOTTOM: COURTESY HERITAGE AUCTIONS
reach a destination inside the United States.
The reasoning during this pre-ICBM era went
as follows: Any successful sneak attack from the
Soviets would depend on waves of heavy bombers
carrying atomic weapons. Those enemy bombers
would betray themselves on North American radar
nets, thus preventing tactical surprise. Therefore,
American war planners reasoned, it might be
tempting for the Reds to plant nuclear weapons
inside our cities and air bases, under the control
of nearby agents. Those hidden bombs would be
triggered just before Soviet aircraft started to show
up on radar, greatly hampering American defenses.
While it might seem that a determined enemy
airspacemag.com
 would recruit expendable agents and fellow trav-
elers to sneak as many bombs as possible across
unguarded stretches of the frontier—the typical
plot in smuggled-bomb fiction then and now—
that wasn’t the scenario predicted by agencies
charged with managing Project Doorstop. One
of those agency panels was the Interdepartmental
Intelligence Conference, chaired by FBI director
J. Edgar Hoover.
After consultations with Soviet hands and
war-gamers at the Pentagon, Hoover and his
THE FIRST PASSENGER-SCREENING
PROGRAM, PROJECT DOORSTOP,
WAS LOOKING FOR ONE THING
ONLY: RADIOACTIVE EMISSIONS
FROM A FEW POUNDS OF URANIUM
OR PLUTONIUM SMUGGLED BY
INTERNATIONAL PASSENGERS.
To be useful in detecting uranium, Doorstop’s
detectors would have to be located within a few
feet of passing luggage and passengers. Also, the
equipment couldn’t attract attention: If the Soviets
figured out what the Americans were doing,
they’d just sneak their bombs into the country
some other way.
Where to put the big passive detectors? At the
outset the Atomic Energy Commission had only six
machines available for use by U.S. Customs Service
agents. The answer rested on several presumptions.
First, the Soviets ran a strictly top-down organiza-
tion and would never trust smuggled bombs with
low-level agents or American sympathizers. The
Soviets would take every precaution to keep the
authorities from uncovering even one smuggled
weapon ahead of an attack. Such a discovery would
rock the world and justify an immediate strike on
Soviet targets.
Finally, the Doorstop analysts believed that
Russian control over detonation timing would be
strict. Just a few diplomats could be entrusted with
such a grave responsibility: probably only the top
officials at the Soviet embassy in Washington and
the legation on Park Avenue in New York.
Putting all these presumptions together, the

counterparts decided the Soviets would rely on

a very small number of tightly controlled, very
powerful bombs.
All nuclear detonations must start with small
chunks of uranium or plutonium metal brought
to a critical mass. While the quantities needed for
a workable bomb can be as small as a baseball,
the two elements, if left in the open, will betray
their presence to radiation detectors with X-ray-
like emissions called gamma rays and particles
called neutrons. These are products of sponta-
neous atom-splitting that goes on constantly in
weapons-grade uranium and plutonium.
Here is where the problems of A-bomb spot-
ting begin. Gamma rays can be blocked with steel
or lead sheets. What about neutron emissions?
Neutrons are harder to shield, needing thick
layers of water-bearing materials or plastic.
Plutonium inevitably sheds huge numbers of
neutrons every second. It’s an unavoidable result
of its production in nuclear reactors.
The problem the war-planners confronted
was that weapons-grade uranium gives off much
August 1949 was the less radiation than does plutonium. “The good
date of the Soviet’s news is that plutonium is far more detectable,”
first nuclear test says Penrose Albright, a former director of the
COURTESY ECOMUSEUM

(right), but it wasn’t Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “The

the last. Over the
bad news is that uranium is not.” Doorstop plan-
next 40 years, the
Semipalatinsk site ners knew that making weapons-grade uranium
witnessed 456 is a huge industrial challenge, but they also knew
nuclear tests. the Russians had plenty of it.

October/November 2020 AIR & SPACE 53

A hijacker’s threat to Doorstop leaders thought, the USSR would rely on
crash a commercial what would look like the most reliable smuggling
aircraft into Oak
method: couriers bringing key bomb components
Ridge National
Laboratory inside sealed diplomatic pouches. (While “pouch”
provoked an may suggest something no bigger than a polished
immediate response leather briefcase, it’s just a term of art. Diplomatic
from FBI director pouches can be any size, even a crate big enough
Hoover and
President Nixon.
to hold a Cadillac.) By international agreement,
Just two months pouches would be waved through as long as the
later, X-ray courier flashed the proper seals and documents.
machines were At this time, the United States allowed Soviet-
installed in the bloc diplomats to use only a few ports of entry.
nation’s 500-plus
main airports.
These were in New York, Texas, and Vermont.
Of those, the Soviets mostly traipsed through the
entries at New York City’s Idlewild Airport and
luxury-liner piers on the Hudson. Therefore, a 14-foot-long X-ray machine kept in the back-
Project Doorstop would concentrate five out of ground and used only for baggage toted by sus-
its six detectors in New York, for use by trained picious characters. The U.S. Customs Service had
Customs agents. The sixth would go to the port been using the Inspectoscope for several years
of entry at San Antonio International Airport. to catch duty-dodging contraband like jewelry
The first pair of top-secret, desk-size A-bomb and watches. With atomic fears rampant, some
detectors attracted no unwanted publicity when reporters speculated that the big gray box might
installed at Idlewild’s international terminal in be a new atomic-bomb-nabbing effort.
mid-August 1954, but the next week was different. Hoover was furious at the near-instantaneous
Just a day after detectors were plugged in at the security leaks, but publicity trailed off, and the
inspection sheds of Hudson River Piers 88 and 90, scanners carried on with the job. As far as we know,
dockworkers sidled up to reporters who had gath- over 16 years the machines caught no smuggled
ered to catch celebrities arriving from the Queen bombs, but they did flag many other items. The
Mary and tipped them off about the mysterious new screening operation took place in the middle
Two Russian
new cabinets. Reporters had more questions the of the uranium-mining boom, so samples of the
diplomatic couriers next day after two more luxury liners tied up. U.S. ore from abroad commonly triggered alarms, as
(in suits) were Customs Service and Coast Guard men refused to did mildly radioactive reels of recording tape and
refused flight out of comment, pointing reporters to nearby FBI agents. a wide variety of quack medical devices featuring
Australia on Unable to get any statement other than “men specks of radium. A member of the League of Free
November 3, 1979,
after they refused to
from Washington” were behind whatever this Rumanians was taken aside for questioning because
take security checks was, a reporter from the New York Times noted he was carrying plastic capsules of  “medicinal”
at the airport. that it certainly wasn’t the familiar Inspectoscope, radioisotopes for dropping into water glasses.
Despite the lack of concrete results, Hoover
was convinced that the Russians were certain to

TOP: NATIONAL LAW ENFORCEMENT MUSEUM; BOTTOM: LEE/FAIRFAX MEDIA VIA GETTY
try something, and that Doorstop’s initial efforts
wouldn’t suffice to catch them. Foreign sleuthing
might help. For more than a year, the FBI, Customs,
and Coast Guard chased leads originating from
shady informants in Luxembourg and France.
These two characters assured the Department
of State that the Russians were planning to
smuggle eight A-bombs into the United States.
Hearing about a suspicious vessel approaching the
Eastern seaboard, Coast Guard agents swarmed
the Norwegian-flag cargo ship Heina. That turned
up nothing more menacing than bales of goat hair
from Outer Mongolia. One FBI memo suggested
a close look at the owners of the SS Silver Star, a
cruise boat that docked in Washington. If a steel-
case bomb were attached limpet-style to the hull,
no gamma or neutron counter would detect it.
Hoover became furious when he learned that
when the gamma or neutron alarm lit up, Customs

54 AIR & SPACE airspacemag.com