Literary Las Vegas: Len Kreisler
Las Vegas author Len Kreisler shares his medical adventures starting with his job as a U.S. Army physician in top-secret bacterial warfare research and concluding with his position as medical director for the Nevada Atomic Test Site in the book “The Obligated Volunteer.” Kreisler’s introduction promises “never-before-disclosed details” about programs he participated in and “an insider’s perspective with an invitation to share bureaucratic frustrations and voids of leadership.”
Kreisler is also the author of the novels “Death by Any Means,” “Shortfall” and “The Codes of Babylon” and the nonfiction book “Roll the Dice, Pick a Doc and Hope for the Best.” He’s at work on “Memoirs of a Caregiver,” to be filled with stories of caring for his wife. For more information on the author, visit doctorlenk.com.
Excerpt:
We didn’t have computers for me to research my assignment. Even if we had, the program at Detrick was akin to the development of the atomic bomb in the Manhattan Project … very top secret. I was later told that our government spent about $25,000 to clear me for work at Detrick; that was after my reporting to, and working at, the research facility. My family, relatives, friends, and neighbors in White Plains, New York, and elsewhere thought I was in some kind of espionage trouble when government investigators began asking questions. The same scenario took place in 1973 when I left my Peekskill, New York, general practice of thirteen years to take over as medical director for the Nevada Operations of the Department of Energy’s Atomic Test Program.
