Archival research coughs up the names of vital workers who are not famous or senior or significant. Administrators, assistants, secretaries… You grow familiar with those names and sometimes you wish you could feature them in a history. But no, functionaries miss out.
Walter Zinn established the Argonne laboratory during the tail end of World War II. He left his creation in mid-1956. For seven of those years, his “Ass’t to the Director” was L. C. Furney. I have neither his first name nor a photo. What I do have is 99 archival documents from him or to him, and no doubt many more documents include him as a CC. Few of the archival documents provide a sniff of his character but listen to this, a 1949 letter to the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, after David Lilienthal made a rare laboratory visit:
Dear Mr. Lilienthal:
Furney, L. C. 1949. Furney to Lilienthal, Dec. 16, 1949. “Reading File, December 16, 1949,” Box 11, Laboratory Director’s Reading File, 1949-1957, RG 326. NARA-GL, Chicago, Illinois.
Enclosed you will find four copies each of ten photographs which were made on December 14 at the time of your visit to this Laboratory.
I am sure that you will recognize the building and the various objects in these pictures. It is my hope and that of the photographer that you will derive considerable pleasure from these pictures.
It was a pleasure to have you and members of your staff at the Laboratory this week and it is hoped that you will again pay us a visit. Yours very truly…
