Operation Totem Cockcroft, the director of the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Harwell personally lodged a formal request for a feasibility study with the Prime Minister of Australia, Robert Menzies, at a meeting on 4 September 1952. Other matters discussed included the attendance of Butement and Leslie Martin, the Australian Defence Scientific Adviser, as Australian observers at the Hurricane test, the creation of the Australian Atomic Energy Commission, and the supply of Australian uranium to the UK. Cockcroft reported to Sir Roger Makins at the Foreign Office that Menzies had agreed in principle to Penney's reconnaissance of the Emu Field site. Penney
Leslie H. Martin off the coast of Western Australia in October 1952, and then for Operation Totem tests at Emu Field in South Australia in October 1953. When the British government established the Maralinga Test Range in 1953, the Australian government created the Maralinga Safety Committee, which became the Atomic Weapons Test Safety Committee, with Martin as its chairman. As such he was responsible for safety of the Operation Mosaic tests at Monte Bello in May and June 1956, and Operation Buffalo tests at Maralinga in September and October 1956, after which he handed over the chairmanship to Ernest Titterton. An advocate for