Retired Lt. Gen. Ernest Graves was just a major when he was assigned to the SM-1, the first-of-its-kind nuclear power plant that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was building on Fort Belvoir in the late 1950s. At the time, Major Graves was tasked with overseeing the final stages of construction, then operating and training the staff for the reactor.
The SM-1 was the first nuclear reactor in the country to generate power connected to the commercial grid when it achieved its first criticality in April 1957. Sixty years later, a 93-year-old Graves and his wife, Nancy, visited the facility to discuss its history with professionals from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other Department of Defense agencies charged with handling nuclear-related missions for the military.