debate about the proper role of the military with respect to the development, production and control of nuclear weapons. The act that was signed by President Harry S. Truman on 1 August 1946 created a civilian agency, the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), to take over the functions and assets of the Manhattan Project, but the commissioners were not appointed until October, and AEC did not assume its role until 1 January 1947. In the meantime, the Military Appropriation Act of 1946 gave the Manhattan Project $72.4million for research and development, and $19million for housing and utilities at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge. The Atomic Energy Act provided for a Military Liaison Committee to advise the AEC on military matters, so Patterson appointed Lieutenant General Lewis H. Brereton, who became chairman, along with Major General Lunsford E. Oliver and Colonel John H. Hinds as Army members of the Military Liaison Committee; Forrestal appointed Rear Admirals Thorvald A. Solberg, Ralph A. Ofstie and William S. Parsons as its naval members. Organization Patterson asked Groves to create a new agency to take over responsibility for the aspects of nuclear weapons that still remained under the military. It was to be jointly staffed by the Army and Navy, and on 29 January 1947, Patterson and Forrestal issued a memorandum that formally established the AFSWP. Its chief would be appointed jointly by the Chief of Staff of the Army and the Chief of Naval Operations, along with a deputy from the opposite service. Both would be members of the Military Liaison Committee, because the Atomic Energy Act stipulated that the Military Liaison Committee was the sole military body that dealt with the AEC. In February 1947, Eisenhower and Chief of Naval Operations Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz appointed Groves as head of the AFSWP, with Parsons as his deputy. Accordingly, Groves was appointed to the Military Liaison Committee, although the newly appointed AEC chairman, David E. Lilienthal, told Patterson he did not think it was a good idea, because Groves had run the Manhattan Project by himself for four years, and was not used to having to compromise. Groves and Parsons drafted a proposed organization and charter for the AFSWP, which they sent to Eisenhower and Nimitz for approval in July 1947. Groves did not get everything he asked for; he wanted a status equal to that of a deputy to the Chief