Test site position proves memorable

Sun City resident recalls his days as medical director

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When Len Kreisler took on the job of medical director for the Nevada Test Site in 1973, he had no idea his first day on the job would be a memorable one.

Kreisler brought his family to Nevada from Peekskill, N.Y., where greenery dominates and rain is often in the forecast. That first day, he rode in an old Cadillac ambulance to the on-site housing units -- trailers set in the middle of nowhere.

"There was nothing but desert, just a wasteland, and I thought to myself, 'What the hell, there's nothing out here,' " he recalled.

But there was something out there -- a dead body in one of the trailers. The man was in his mid-60s, sitting at a desk. He was "bluer than heck" and had froth at the mouth. The coroner showed up and asked what he should write under "cause of death."

Kreisler told him an acute myocardial infarction with pulmonary edema.

"The coroner hesitated and said to me, 'How do you spell that?' " Kreisler said. "I said, 'You're a doctor and you don't know how to spell it?' and he said, 'No, no, I'm not a doctor. I run the gas station in Tonopah.' "

Kreisler learned his new position required overseeing not one but four medical centers that were long treks from each other. He oversaw a staff of 35 paramedics, seven nurses and four other doctors. The number of test site workers that they all cared for varied, getting as high as 10,000 people. The medical budget was $4 million.

"Everybody got new computers every two years," he said.

The old ones were fine, Kreisler said. It was just the department's way of seeing that its budget wasn't cut. Other millions were spent on more frivolous items.

The test site had its own bowling alley, for example. There was a movie theater and, due to one high-ranking military man who knew his way around the bureaucracy, an Olympic-size swimming pool made of stainless steel. Kreisler said it must have cost a couple of million dollars to build.

Kreisler and his family -- wife Joan, children Kevin, Kay and Ken -- lived in a house near Maryland Parkway. He was not allowed to tell them anything about his work, not even that it was outside Las Vegas.

There were a few clues, Joan Kreisler said, like messages that her husband was to meet a United States Air Force associate "in a place unknown," but she didn't know he was traveling to a top-secret area.

"He'd leave the house at about 6:30 in the morning and be home by 5," she said. "It didn't seem unusual."

But a Las Vegas Review-Journal story ran with a front-page picture of the airstrip at Area 51 years later. It was taken with a telephoto lens, back when civilians could get closer to the secret base than they can now.

Kreisler recalled how his wife was holding up the newspaper and asked, "This were you work, isn't it?"

So his secret was out -- at least with his family. But another person, a colleague back in Peekskill, thought he knew why Kreisler left a thriving practice to head to Las Vegas. He had bugged Kreisler night and day for a valid reason until the test-site doctor finally whispered, "I'm going out there to be a doctor for the mob."

The ruse was kept up for a decade before Kreisler told him the truth.

It wasn't just Kreisler who had a secret. He recalled the first time he flew up to the test site with other workers in an unmarked 737 that "even had a stewardess." When the captain announced the plane was descending, everyone put their window shades down. Even though he already had top-secret clearance, he was told to exit last, then was blindfolded, something he found utterly ridiculous.

"I was pretty vocal," he said. "I told them what I thought of that."

His vocals were apparently heard. After that, he was never blindfolded again.

One time he flew up later in the day than usual and saw planes bearing red stars and lined on the tarmac. They were Russian MIGs, either captured or flown to America by defectors. He asked why he'd never seen them before.

"The guys said, 'The Russian satellite comes over between 1 and 2 (p.m.), so we have them in the hangers until it's passed over.' "

An accident at the test site occurred while he was in Las Vegas. A tunnel test caused the mesa to collapse when workers went out to collect recording equipment from the area.

Kreisler rushed to UMC to advise them helicopters would be bringing in the injured.

"I had to verify there was no radiation involved," he said. "Everybody's got Jane Fonda syndrome when it comes to that place."

Part of his job was giving physicals to possible new hires. He recalled one young man who said he was nervous about working at the test site around nuclear weapons. He told Kreisler he experienced flashbacks from the war.

"So I asked him, 'When were you in Vietnam?' and he said, 'I wasn't. I get the flashbacks from seeing it on TV,' " Kreisler said.

The man was scratched off the hiring list.

Kreisler is now retired and lives in Sun City Summerlin. He spends his time writing novels. His newest is "Death By Any Means," published by Durban House and available through Amazon.com.