Harold M. Agnew was an American physicist and director of the [[Los Alamos]] laboratory from 1970 to 1979. He was a member of the Nuclear Intelligence Panel (NIP), a highly classified nuclear intelligence group in the U.S. government. Agnew and other NIP members were dismayed by the extent of White House interference in the investigation of the 1979 [[VELA Satellite]] sighting, which they concluded was a low-yield nuclear weapon detonation. Agnew famously stated, "If it looks like a duck, it's got to be a duck," in reference to the event, but noted that this was "not an answer [[Jimmy Carter|Carter]] liked."[^1] ### Footnotes [^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 20.