ABSTRACT
In the beginning, there were meteorologists, physicists, and charlatans attempting to modify the weather either with chicanery or with amazingly little knowledge of the atmosphere. Suddenly the scientific potential of weather modification seemed as broad as anyone could imagine. Weather control seemed to be imminent with these spectacular discoveries occurring in a postwar world accustomed to startling scientific and technological advances that had become common during the war. The major national droughts of the early 1950s led to public disappointment in and skepticism of weather modification claims and expectancies. Most often projects to make rain were offered and attempted by relatively untrained World War II pilots, by crop dusters, and by just plain hucksters without any skill or knowledge of the weather. Experimentation in weather modification expanded during the 1960s, largely in the western United States as the result of a new research program developed within the Bureau of Reclamation, brought about by the interests of several western senators.
