James T. Ramey, 95; played role in protecting US nuclear arsenal

Mr. Ramey served as one of five commissioners on the AEC from 1962 to 1973 and became an advocate for peaceful uses of nuclear energy, such as desalinization of sea water. He is a former vice president of the Massachusetts engineering firm Stone and Webster.

He was described in a 1974 New York Times article as the “single most influential member of the commission in the past decade,’’ who for many years was the “power behind the throne’’ of the AEC’s chairmen.

One of the leading historians of the AEC, Richard G. Hewlett, said that Mr. Ramey had a very important role with the commission, because he “knew the subjects, knew the background.’’

In 1946, Mr. Ramey was a lawyer for the Tennessee Valley Authority when his boss, David Lilienthal, became chairman of the new Atomic Energy Commission. Shortly after, Lilienthal recruited Ramey to join him as an assistant general counsel.

Mr. Ramey later transferred to the AEC’s Chicago office, where he worked alongside Admiral Hyman Rickover to draft the contract for the first nuclear sub- marine, the USS Nautilus.

During the next few years, Mr. Ramey had a role providing intelligence that proved useful to President Kennedy during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

According to journalist Stephen I. Schwartz’s 1998 book, “Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of US Nuclear Weapons Since 1940,’’ Mr. Ramey was on a team of inspectors sent to Europe and the Near East in 1961 to make unannounced visits to US military installations that secretly held nuclear warheads. He found that many of the facilities had lax security.

At one air base in Italy, Mr. Ramey found a US bomber on the tarmac with a live nuclear warhead under its wing being guarded by an 18-year-old-soldier armed with a carbine. At a Turkish missile silo 12 miles from Russia, Mr. Ramey saw a ballistic missile standing vertical and exposed, visible to anyone — including Soviet spies.

According to “Atomic Audit,’’ Mr. Ramey helped write a summary of the inspectors’ findings and submitted it to Kennedy, who used that intelligence to come to a secret agreement during the 1962 standoff with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to remove US warheads from Turkey in exchange for Soviet withdrawal of missiles from Cuba.

Kennedy appointed Mr. Ramey as a commissioner to the AEC, and he was subsequently reappointed twice by President Lyndon B. Johnson. He later spent several years at Stone and Webster.

James Thomas Ramey was born in Eddyville, Ky. He was a 1937 graduate of Amherst College, where he was a forward on the basketball team.

While attending law school at Columbia University, he met his future wife of 65 years, Estelle (Rubin), who became a nationally known endocrinologist.

Estelle Ramey died in 2006. Mr. Ramey leaves two children, James N. of Bethesda and Drucilla Stender Ramey of San Francisco, and five grandchildren.

According to his grandson Dr. James T. Ramey II, Mr. Ramey was part of a long-running, top-secret program that investigated claims involving extraterrestrial spacecraft landing on Earth.

Mr. Ramey said the reason that the AEC followed up on these claims — as far-fetched as they might have been — was because the Americans feared that if such advanced technology on Earth did exist and was discovered by the Russians, it could be adapted as an advantage in the nuclear arms race.

Mr. Ramey was happy to report to his grandson, however, that while his team investigated many claims involving UFOs and extraterrestrial visitors, they found none of the evidence to be remotely credible.