Ralph E. Caudle

Ralph E. Caudle, Sr. (January 5, 1927 to October 26, 2007) was a retired United States Air Force colonel who directed the Department of Energy Office of Safeguards and Security from 1981 and from 1984 was president of Wackenhut Advanced Technologies Corporation, the Wackenhut Corporation subsidiary at Reston, Virginia.¹²

Air Force and nuclear weapons program

His obituary states that he flew 103 missions in F-84 aircraft in the Korean War, was a flight test engineer in the Air Research and Development Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base from 1956, taught at the Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base from 1961, and was assigned in 1965 to Sandia Base, Albuquerque, "involved with the nuclear weapons program." After a year as a fighter pilot in the Vietnam War beginning in 1968, the obituary states, he was assigned to the Atomic Energy Commission as Director of Safeguard and Security of Nuclear Weapons at Germantown, Maryland, followed by a tour at the Pentagon in charge of weapon systems, and he retired from the Air Force in 1975.²

Department of Energy

The Journal of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management reported in 1984 that Caudle joined the Department of Energy in 1975 as Director, Division of Operations, in the Office of Military Application, and in 1981 was promoted to head the Office of Safeguards and Security, with responsibility for protection of nuclear weapons materials and facilities and all Department of Energy classified information.¹ His obituary states that from 1975 to 1981 he was program director and director of operations for development and production of nuclear weapons, responsible for liaison and testimony to the Office of Management and Budget and Congress on budget requirements, that he was Director of Safeguards and Securities of Nuclear Weapons at the Department of Energy from 1981 to 1984, and that he received a Meritorious Service Silver Medal in 1983 and Senior Executive Service performance awards in 1983 and 1984.²

Wackenhut Advanced Technologies Corporation, 1984 to 1987

The 1984 notice in the Institute's journal states that Caudle had been named president of Wackenhut Advanced Technologies Corporation, a newly created subsidiary based at Reston into which the Systems Division, the Advanced Technologies Division, the Security Programs Division and NUSAC, Incorporated, had been merged.¹ His obituary gives his years as president as 1984 to 1987 and describes the company as providing high-level security systems for nuclear power plants and facilities.² The Wackenhut annual reports for 1985 and 1986 state that the company's Security Programs Division was selected to design the security system of the nuclear device assembly facility at the Nevada Test Site of the Department of Energy.⁴ The Wackenhut annual report covering 1984 states that the Department of Energy chose Wackenhut Services, Inc., in 1984 to establish and operate a Safeguards and Security Central Training Academy at Albuquerque.⁵

Caudle was chairman of the Institute's awards committee, writing from the company's Reston address, in 1985 and was among the nominees for member at large of its executive committee in 1986 with the affiliation Wackenhut Corporation.³ His obituary states that from 1987 to 1999 he consulted privately for government and private clients on safeguards and security policy.²