Results have been obtained from initial experiments designed to study high-voltage breakdown under conditions of importance to the design of direct- collection units. A coaxial configuration was used to mock-up critical fields near grid wires. With appropriate heat conditioning, fields as high as 9.6 x 10/ sup 5/ V/cm were maintained at the surface of a 7-mil-diam tungsten wire. This represents an enhanced field of ~10/sup 8/V/cm at whisker'' sites. Breakdown criteria are proposed for three regimes; initial, field-emission, and ultimate, which differ by the amount of prior conditioning applied to the wire. Additional considerations of importance to direct collectors such as the effect of thermionic emission and ion bombardment are discussed. (auth)