Page 174 - James Rodger Fleming - Fixing the sky

many with him, concluded that the weekly injection of silver iodide from a single
generator in New Mexico had excited a hitherto undiscovered natural rhythm of
the atmosphere, with the result that the rainfall had yielded to the will of man. . . .
In his mind, and in the minds of many others, there was but little doubt that the
weather processes could be intensified or repressed to suit human needs. 62

Langmuir was unable to accept the criticism of Petterssen or the analysis of
weather bureau statistician Glenn Brier that the atmosphere frequently exhibits a
natural seven-day periodicity. 63
After the New Mexico incident, Suits again warned Langmuir that his field
experiments and unsupported claims might put Project Cirrus at risk and expose
the lab to litigation. He pointed out that Schaefer and Vonnegut were “a great
deal less certain” about the interpretation of the New Mexico results than he
was, and that ground-based seeding would again raise legal questions for Gen-
eral Electric: “If the [cloud seeding] program develops in such a direction as to
subject the Company to serious hazards from a liability standpoint, it may very
well become impossible for us to continue with this work.” In a long letter to
Langmuir, with carbon copies to Schaefer and Vonnegut, Suits reminded the
team that “there has been no recent change in the law which makes it less neces-
sary at present for General Electric personnel to be cognizant of the hazards from
the standpoint of legal liability than when the agreement referred to above was
reached.” Suits again reminded the team that GE employees were to serve only as
advisers to the government: “GE personnel must not engage directly or indirectly
in seeding experiments which might lead to harmful weather phenomena. They
may engage in laboratory experiments which they consider advisable and in very
small scale weather experiments for confirming laboratory tests with actual mete-
orological conditions.” Suits could not approve their publications that reported
the results of large-scale modification. He issued a similar embargo on technical
talks, claiming that GE was doing the experiments for the sake of humankind
and was earning no profits from the activity: “I do not believe that our obligation
extends to the taking of exceptional risks of damage suits as a result of any work
which we may do in this field.” 64
Langmuir retired from GE on January 2, 1950, after a forty-year career with
the company. The press release referred to him as a “world-famous scientist who
is regarded as the greatest of modern times,” a man “who continually embarks
upon mental voyages in regions so nearly airless that only the mind can breathe
in comfort.” He invented the gas-filled incandescent lamp, the high-vacuum
power tube, atomic hydrogen welding, a highly efficient smoke screen generator,
and methods for artificial production of snow and rain from clouds, and received

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