design that was much easier to assemble and maintain, and enabled a bomb-assembly team to be reduced to just 46 men. Kenneth D. Nichols, the wartime commander of the Manhattan District, now "recommended that we should be thinking in terms of thousands of weapons rather than hundreds". After Operation Sandstone, only relatively small numbers of AFSWP personnel were involved in nuclear testing. The AFSWP was heavily involved in the planning, preparation and coordination of tests, but it had limited participation in the tests themselves, where the bomb-assembly function was usually undertaken by scientists. During Operation Buster-Jangle, AFSWP personnel showed films and gave lectures to 2,800 military personnel who had been selected to witness the test, explaining what would occur and the procedures to be followed. This was expanded to cater for the more than 7,000 personnel who were involved in Operation Upshot–Knothole in 1953. Custody of nuclear weapons When the AEC was formed in 1947 it acquired custody of nuclear components from the Manhattan Project on the understanding that the matter would be reviewed. In November 1947, the Military Liaison Committee requested that custody of the nuclear stockpile be transferred to the military, but Lilienthal believed AEC custody of the stockpile was an important aspect of civilian control of nuclear weapons. He was disturbed that the AFSWP had not informed the AEC in advance of Operation Ajax. For his part, Groves suspected the AEC was not keeping bomb components in the condition in which the military wanted to receive them, and Operation Ajax only confirmed his suspicions. Reviewing the exercise, Montague reported that "under the existing law, with the AEC charged with procurement and custody of all atomic weapons, there was no adequate logistic support for the weapon." He recommended a larger role for the military, a recommendation with which Groves concurred, but was powerless to implement. Groves retired at the end of February 1948, and Nichols was designated as his successor with the rank of major general. At the same time, Forrestal, now the Secretary of Defense, reorganized the Military Liaison Committee. A civilian, Donald F. Carpenter, replaced Brereton as chairman, and there were now two members from each of the three services. On 11 March, Truman summoned Lilienthal, Nichols and Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royall to his office, and told them he expected the AFSWP and the AEC to cooperate. Nichols's position was the same as