Editing Huemul Project (section)

==Cancellation==
Argentine physicists were also critical of the announcement, but found little interest on the part of Perón, who was still at odds with the academic mainstream. González was growing increasingly frustrated with Richter, and in February 1952 told Perón that either Richter left the project, or he did. Perón accepted González's resignation and replaced him with his aide, Navy Captain Pedro Iraolagoitía. Iraolagoitía soon began to protest as well, finally convincing Perón to have the project investigated.{{sfn|Hymans|2012|p=227}}

Instead of calling upon the local physics community, Perón put together a team consisting of Iraolagoitía, a priest, two engineers including [[Mario Báncora]], and young physicist [[José Antonio Balseiro]], who was at that time studying in England and was asked to return with all haste.{{sfn|Cardona|Cohen|Louie|2003|p=9}} The team visited the site for a series of demonstrations between 5 and 8 September 1952.{{sfn|Balseiro|1952}}

The committee analyzed Richter's work and published separate reports on the topic on 15 September. Balseiro, in particular, was convinced nothing nuclear was taking place. His report critiqued Richter's claims about how the system was supposed to work, especially the claims that the system was reaching the temperatures needed to demonstrate fusion; he stated that fusion reactions would require something on the order of 40 million kelvin, while the center of the electric arc would be perhaps 4,000 to 100,000 kelvin at most. He then pointed out that Richter's radiation detectors showed large activity whenever the arc was discharged, even if there was no fuel present. Meanwhile, the team's own detectors showed low activity throughout.{{sfn|Hagood|2014|p=268}} They reported their findings to Perón on 15 February.{{sfn|Balseiro|1952}}

Richter was allowed to officially respond to the report. The government appointed physicists [[Richard Gans]] and Antonio Rodríguez to review the first report as well as Richter's response to it. This second group endorsed the findings of the first review panel and found Richter's response inadequate. On 22 November, while Richter was in Buenos Aires, a military team occupied the site. They found that many of the instruments were not even connected, and the project was pronounced a fraud.{{sfn|Hagood|2014|p=268}} Argentines jokingly referred to the affair as the ''Huele a mula'', or "it smells like a con".{{sfn|Newton|1992|p=379}}