J. Samuel Walker is an American historian and author based in Maryland, most notable for his research and writing on the nuclear age, both weaponry and atomic energy.

[3] Walker was a history instructor at the University of Maryland in the mid-seventies but was hired by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)[4] in June, 1979, working under the chief historian, George T. Mazuzan.

David Hendrickson, writing in Foreign Affairs, stated that Walker's position was "that some officials saw diplomatic benefits 'vis-a-vis' the Soviets from the use of the bomb but insists that such motivations were of decidedly secondary importance.

According to his own account, Walker's work debunked the "grievous misconstructions [which] were portrayals of the bubble issue that were central features of at least two books that came out shortly after the accident (in 1982) and in three television programs..." Walker disputed the alleged imminence of an explosion; a central point of his argument was that if the situation was as dangerous as previous writers contended, that Jimmy Carter would not have been permitted to visit the TMI power plant.

In The Road to Yucca Mountain, Walker covers the U.S. government's controversial attempts to address the engineering and social issues associated with high-level radioactive waste repository (HLRWR) management and spent reactor fuel (SRF).