Morehead Patterson_sandb1920.jpg

Morehead Patterson (S&B 1920)

American Businessman. Diplomat. Investor. Groton School*. Yale University. Skull and Bones. Oxford University. Harvard University.

President, CEO and Chairman of American Machine and Foundary. AMF was founded in 1900 by his father Rufus Patterson).

Patterson led expansion of AMF from $5million a year company to $500 million a year conglomerate.[1]

Chairman of the Nuclear Standards Board of the American Standards Association.[6]

Member of the advisory committee of the Forty-second Street Branch of the Chase Manhattan Bank.

By 1961, AMF controlled and operated 42 plants and 19 research facilities across 17 countries, producing everything from remote-controlled toy airplanes to ICBM (Intercontinental ballistic missiles) launching systems. AMF was the builder of the launching silos for the Titan and Atlas ICBMs, and also developed the rail-car launching system for the solid-fueled Minuteman missile.[7]

1959 - Elected Chairman of the Brookings Institution.[6]

In 1958, Walter Bedell Smith (CIA Director) was appointed as a special advisor to the secretary of state on disarmament. At the same time Smith, an outspoken proponent of nuclear expansion, served as president and chairman of the board of AMF Atomics Incorporated (by Morehead Patterson (S&B1920)and of the Associated Missile Products Company, two corporations with large Pentagon contracts. He also served as vice-chairman of the American Machine and Foundry Company and director of RCA and the Coming Glass Company.[8]

Late 1950s and early 1960s, the company ran neck-and-neck with General Dynamics in the construction of nuclear power reactors. AMF sold Pakistan and Iran their first nuclear reactors.[3,3] Peter Karter was among the engineers working on the reactors AMF built in Pakistan and Iran under the Atoms for Peace program.[3,14][3,15][3,16]

1954 - Ambassador to the United Nations. Represented the United States at the UN Committee on Disarmament and at the International Atomics Energy Agency Negotiations in London in 1954 and 1955.[6]

In the late 1950s the company won a contract for designing and constructing “a small 1 MW swimming pool-type reactor” at the Soreq Nuclear Research Center in Israel, which for a short time helped the Israelis conceal the fact that they were also building a much larger reactor for military purposes elsewhere in the country with French assistance during the same time.[3,4]

After World War II ended, Patterson determined that the company had to ‘grow or die’.[3,3] One of AMF’s post-World War II ventures was “AMF Atomics”: a division that made “low-dose irradiation equipment” for “the US Army Quartermaster Corps’ bulk-food irradiation program”.[3,5]

1920 - Graduated Yale, Skull and Bones Patriarch.

Groton Classmate - Henry R. Robinson (S&B 1920)[6]

Died 5 Aug 1962, from Heart Attack. Age 64.[6]

[1] - FYI - Wiki - Morehead Patterson (S&B 1920)

[2] - John Motley Morehead III (1870-1965) and Rufus Lenoir Patterson II (1872-1943)

[3] - FYI - Wiki - AMF

[3,3] - Diversified Success, Time Magazine, 19 May 1961

[3,4] - The U.S. Discovery of Israel’s Secret Nuclear Project

[3,5] - AMF nuclear engineering brings you advanced … RADIATION PROCESS EQUIPMENT (May, 1956)

[3,14] - Nucleonics, McGraw-Hill., vol. 21, 1963, p. 30

[3,15] - How to Dispose of Radioactive Wastes, Peter Karter, Electric Light & Power, 1967, Page 3

[3,16] - Mastermind of the MRF Logsdon, Gene. BioCycle. Emmaus: Apr 1993. Vol. 34, Iss. 4; pg. 49, ff.