Oral History Transcript — Henry Kendall

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Interview with Henry Kendall
by Finn Aaserud at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
November 25 and 26, 1986

Then I came back to MIT. But I had been involved in important collaborations in high-energy physics outside of MIT.

Well, I switched out of nuclear physics and atomic physics because it was becoming of less and less interest in the middle fifties. I think the fundamental problems had in some measure been solved, and I found high-energy physics potentially more attractive.

Aaserud:

Then you were really covered, on a week to week basis at any rate, it seems (not quite, but close. I looked at the New York Times during the period, and the first mention is in July 1971.

Kendall:

That's right, that was our first news conference.

Aaserud:

And then it goes on and on.

Kendall:

Oh yes, we've been cited in the New York Times an enormous number of times, over the years; it must be between one and two hundred times, I guess.

Session II: 26 November 1986

Dr. Aaserud:

Aaserud:

Did you feel that kind of institutional pressure for conformity while a JASON member?

Kendall:

It was not a question of pressure for conformity within JASON. There was no pressure for conformity at the level I operated at. There might have been some in choice topic. The group could look at a wide range of technical problems and, I believe, choose what to investigate. On the other hand, that did not necessarily mean under all circumstances the government would do what you wanted. In fact, it was not even true that under all circumstances the government would even listen to what you had to say. That was the government's choice.

Anyway, it became clear by 1973, at least in the area of reactor safety, that neither the regulatory agency, the industry nor the Congress were about to move toward a solution of all of this, and until the scandal over reactor safety became noxious and there was a big constituency in the public, there was nothing done.

But the long-term consequences of this controversy have been major changes. The Congress has now become totally skeptical about nuclear power. The Congress scrapped the AEC and the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy after the stench of their behavior became apparent even to reluctant and obtuse observers. The industry has been backed into a corner, largely as a consequence of its own ineptitude and of improved public understanding of just what the nuclear proponents were doing that was not in the public interest. This took a very long time, a decade or more, to accomplish. There was a time around 1976 when we first began to appreciate the fact that the public perception of nuclear power was turning over (and the perception was correct (and got stronger and stronger. Of course, Three Mile Island in March 1979 helped that along, and it has been helped along even further by Chernobyl and the general dismal economic circumstances of nuclear power.

Yes, Toward a Solar Future deals with solar energy in that broader sense.

Eventually we had to pay (a lawyer, and we began to spend, not a few times ten thousand dollars, but many times ten thousand dollars, and got foundations to help us. But once we had incorporated and gotten the direct mail program, then we could look to having hundreds of thousands of dollars. I can't reconstruct an exact spending profile over the years, but once the direct mail started, we were able to expand.

Oh, we had a big bulge in our membership in 1980, 1981, 1982 (in that period (when the arms race became a major issue. We were the first group who could capitalize on the concern over nuclear arms and the risk of nuclear war. We had a big direct mailing (millions of pieces of mail soliciting membership. We had a big bulge in our membership then, and we have hung onto that, too.

Well, there are not many organizations in the various areas that we deal in, at least not ones that are very nationally known and very effective. I think that in terms of size and scale, in the areas in which we have decided to concentrate heavily, we are certainly lead players, and I'm glad to report that. We certainly have had the lead role in the Star Wars controversy (and now many people in the Congress recognize that. We are not interested in science and social policy; we are interested in those social policies that have a heavy component of technology. It is that aspect that we in some sense are uniquely suited, to address, because the majority of the people that run UCS are scientists of one sort or another.

Thank you.