Interview of Philip M. Smith by Dian O. Belanger

• Main Author: Smith, Philip M. (Philip Meeks), 1932-
• Other Authors: Belanger, Dian Olson, 1941-
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: Byrd Polar Research Center Archival Program 2009
• Subjects: National Research Council (U.S.) > Interviews; Military roads > Antarctica > Design and construction > Interviews; Ice > Antarctica > Measurement > Interviews; Operation Deep Freeze; Arctic regions > Discovery and exploration > Interviews; Polar regions > Discovery and exploration > Interviews; Antarctica > Discovery and exploration > Interviews; Smith; Philip M. (Philip Meeks); 1932- > Interviews; Antarctic; Arctic; Byrd; Greenland; Marie Byrd Land; Meeks; Ross Ice Shelf; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Sheet; Ice Shelf
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1811/36753

The Antarctic Deep Freeze oral history project was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation and supported by the Antarctic Deep Freeze Association. The original paper copies and unaltered tapes have been deposited in the library of the National Science Foundation. Lieut. Philip Smith was a crevasse expert in an Army transportation unit in Greenland when Admiral Dufek asked him to blaze a safe trail to Marie Byrd Land. He agreed immediately. After recon-noitering a route by air, the crevasse team blasted and filled seven miles of deadly fissures where the ice sheet met the ice shelf. Smith then guided the first tractor-train through. On his return ship, he was recruited to work for the IGY with the National Academy of Sciences in Washington. The would-be geologist returned to do ice deformation measurements on the Ross Ice Shelf in Deep Freeze III and the following summer to coordinate IGY programs from McMurdo. Joining the US Antarctic Research Program at the National Science Foundation, he planned summer field research supported by LC-130, promoted cooperative international scientific projects, drafted policies on tourism, and helped work out the transfer of financing Navy support to NSF, which then purchased the Navy's services. After science policy work in other agencies, in 1981 he became executive director of the National Research Council, whose Polar Research Board he had earlier helped found to advise NSF on long-range planning. National Science Foundation Antarctic Deep Freeze Association