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In 1980, the [[Atomic Industrial Forum]] wrote an article quoting Lewis H. Strauss, Strauss's son, claiming that he was not talking about [[nuclear fission]], but [[nuclear fusion]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Report on public understanding of nuclear energy, #142 |date=May 1980 |editor1-first=Robert |editor1-last=Livingston |editor2-last=Bianchi |editor2-first=Ron |publisher=Atomic Industrial Forum}}</ref> As the AEC's [[Project Sherwood]] was still classified at the time he gave the speech, he was not allowed to refer to this work directly. Since that time, this claim has been widely repeated, including in 2003 comments by Donald Hintz, chairman of the [[Nuclear Energy Institute]].{{sfn|Wellock|2016}}
To support this argument, Strauss and biographer Pfau point to statements made in which he noted: "industry would have electrical power from atomic furnaces in five to fifteen years."{{sfn|Billington|2010|p=238}} It was claimed that this timeline implies that Strauss was referring to fusion, not fission.{{sfn|Wellock|2016}} But this is not a direct quote, this version of the statement appeared in the ''[[New York Times]]'' overview of the speech the next day.{{sfn|Times|1954}} The statement in question is originally:
<blockquote>Dr. Lawrence Hafstad, whom all of you surely know, happens to be speaking, today, in Brussels before the Congress of Industrial Chemistry. He heads the Reactor Development Division of the Atomic Energy Commission. Therefore, he expects to be asked, "How soon will you have industrial atomic electric power in the United States?" His answer is "from 5 to 15 years depending on the vigor of the development effort."{{sfn|Strauss|1954|p=9}}</blockquote>
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