Science and state

This interview is part of a series conducted during research for the book Tunnel Visions, a history of the Superconducting Super Collider. It also covers a range of other topics concerning George (Jay) Keyworth’s service between 1981 and 1985 as science advisor to President Ronald Reagan. Keyworth recounts his previous career at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, his selection as science advisor, his access to White House policymaking via counselor to the president Ed Meese, and his own interactions with Reagan. He notes that Reagan had a faith in technological ingenuity as part of a broadly optimistic outlook on humanity. Keyworth also discusses his strong relationship with engineer and executive David Packard as well as deliberations concerning stealth technology, missile basing, the AIDS crisis, and space policy. He expresses disdain for the space station and space shuttle programs and his regret that the Reagan administration did not do more to reform NASA. He recalls spending political capital securing White House support for basic research, including the SSC and funding increases for the National Science Foundation. He argues that Brookhaven National Lab’s Isabelle collider was poorly justified whereas the SSC was an ambitious and inspiring project. Keyworth asserts that he was able to commit the White House Office of Management and Budget to pursuing the SSC before he was assigned full-time to working on the Strategic Defense Initiative ballistic missile defense program in 1983.

This interview is part of a series conducted during research for the book Tunnel Visions, a history of the Superconducting Super Collider. The quality of the audio recording was poor, resulting in a significantly flawed transcript. In the interview, David Goldston discusses his work as a Republican staff member for the Science Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, and particularly his efforts on behalf of Rep. Sherwood Boehlert of New York to exert congressional control over the SSC project and ultimately to erode support for it. He stresses Boehlert’s general support for scientific research and the specificity of Boehlert’s objections to the SSC, and he notes it was deeply unusual for a science issue to become the subject of a major dispute in Congress. Goldston details maneuvering in committee and on the House floor to place targets for cost and international contributions in the Superconducting Super Collider Project Authorization Act of 1990. While the act did not become law, he notes how its provisions became an important reference point in portraying the SSC project as slipping out of control. He also assesses the legitimacy and political utility of various arguments surrounding the project, such as its status as a “Cold War” project, the dissent among physicists over it, and supposedly lavish spending at the SSC site. The interview concludes with a discussion of the SSC dispute moving into the appropriations process and appropriators’ inability to counter the political momentum building against the project.

This interview is part of a series conducted during research for the book Tunnel Visions, a history of the Superconducting Super Collider project. It mainly addresses Adm. James Watkins’s experiences as Secretary of Energy in President George H. W. Bush’s administration, focusing on his perception of the value and management of the SSC project. Watkins had previously served as Chief of Naval Operations (the highest-ranking officer in the U.S. Navy) and as chair of President Ronald Reagan’s Commission on the HIV Epidemic. Watkins recounts that his earliest months as secretary were dominated by the expansion of environmental remediation at Department of Energy nuclear weapons production sites and that he regarded DOE project management capabilities as poor compared to the Defense Department. He states that he first focused on the SSC when a change in its magnet design precipitated an increase in projected cost and that he questioned whether a design change was necessary. He asserts that early SSC cost estimates were unrealistic and that international contributions should have been secured earlier. He reflects that his imposition of his own oversight structure on the project stemmed from his lack of confidence in scientists or DOE to manage large-budget projects. Watkins stresses his own high regard for the SSC and scientific research, and he recollects Bush’s personal support for the project and the difficulties encountered in maintaining congressional support and gaining support from Japan. He castigates the physical sciences community for infighting and criticizes scientists’ skills in advocating for themselves politically, pointing also to his own work on behalf of ocean scientists following his time as secretary.

In this interview, Mike Duncan of Optica speaks with physicist, engineer, and inventor Peter Schultz. Schultz recounts his early life in New York and New Jersey, and his education at Rutgers University, where he began studying the physical properties of glass. He describes his early work after graduate school in glass science at Corning in New York, and how that work evolved into research into fiber optics with Bob Mauer. Schultz describes the development of fiber optics over the course of the 1970s, and its industrial and commercial importance. He recounts his move from Corning to other companies working on fiber optics in the 1980s, SpecTran, and then the Germany-based Heraeus, where he became CEO of US operations. Finally, Schultz discusses consulting work in Russia, and his visit to the White House to receive the National Medal of Technology from Bill Clinton.

This pair of interviews was conducted as part of the research for the book Tunnel Visions, a history of the Superconducting Super Collider. The first interview begins by examining Schwitters’s perspective as leader of the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) while the initial design phases of the SSC project were unfolding, including his preparation of briefing materials on the project and service on its Board of Overseers. Schwitters also discusses early SSC cost estimates, his service on the National Academies site-evaluation committee, and his selection as director of the SSC Laboratory. He addresses the disappointment of some that Maury Tigner was not chosen, negotiations for Tigner to be deputy director or project manager, and Tigner’s departure from the project. Schwitters reflects on considerations in the development of the management & operations contract proposal, personnel-recruiting difficulties, and the tension between industrial and scientific styles of project management, including Tom Bush’s management of the SSC magnet program. The first interview concludes with a detailed account of difficulties in working with the Department of Energy, and particularly Office of Energy Research Director Robert Hunter, in assembling the lab’s senior management in early 1989.

The second interview begins with Schwitters recalling the selection of Texas as the SSC site, the disappointment of some that Fermilab was not chosen, and his own willingness to relocate to any of the final candidate sites. Schwitters also discusses the recruitment of Helen Edwards to lead the SSC accelerator program and Tigner’s preferred choices for various key roles at the lab. Schwitters reflects on difficulties surrounding magnet development, Bush’s poor relationship with Edwards, and his own desire to avoid design risk and a protracted accelerator commissioning. He discusses in detail the decision to redesign the magnets with a wider aperture, including his conviction on the basis of simulations that it was necessary, and the factors driving the growth of cost estimates around the redesign. Schwitters also addresses considerations involving proposals to descope the SSC to reduce costs, difficulties in assembling a strong management team, and the shortcomings of Sverdrup as a construction subcontractor. He also reflects on his relationship with the Department of Energy, Energy Secretary Watkins’s reaction to cost increases, and Ed Siskin’s performance as DOE’s general manager. Near the conclusion of the second interview, Schwitters reflects on his goal of creating a new scientific community around the laboratory.

In this interview, former Niels Bohr Archive Director Finn Aaserud reflects on his career, including his work as a postdoctoral historian at the American Institute of Physics. Aaserud discusses his education in physics at the University of Oslo and his decision to focus his work on the history of Max Planck’s concept of the quantum. He recalls his decision to pursue a degree in the history of science at Johns Hopkins University, with Russell McCormmach as his advisor, and his research on Niels Bohr’s leadership of the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Copenhagen in the 1930s. He reflects that some scholars, particularly those invested in Bohr’s image as an intellectual, objected to the portrait he presented of Bohr as a skilled fundraiser. Aaserud recalls his move to AIP and his experiences working on the history of the JASON science advisory group. The interview concludes with Aaserud’s memories of receiving the offer to direct the Niels Bohr Archive in Copenhagen, his experiences in that role, his editing of Bohr’s collected works, and the history of the strong relationship between the archive and the Center for History of Physics and Niels Bohr Library & Archives at AIP.

The interview begins with a discussion of Giallorenzi’s youth, including his education and anecdotes about his early jobs, as well as his undergraduate and graduate work at Cornell University and his work on the scattering of laser light in Chung Tang’s laboratory there. Giallorenzi recounts his first laboratory job at GT&E Laboratories working on laser displays and arc lamps, and his move soon thereafter to the Quantum Optics Branch at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. He discusses his work at NRL on fiber optics applied to sensor technology, including acoustic and magnetic sensors, and to pathbreaking R&D in microwave photonics. He also discusses his move to leading the then-newly created NRL Optical Techniques Branch, the departure of staff working on nuclear fusion to Livermore, and new R&D directions within his branch that were necessitated by the termination of work on liquid crystals. He recalls his relationship with NRL Director of Research Alan Berman, his promotion to Optical Sciences Superintendent, his division’s focus on high-power lasers, including MIRACL, and his decision to terminate a branch within the division. He further discusses his relationship with the Pentagon, status as a member of the Senior Executive Service, and experiences as a high-level administrator. The interview concludes with discussions of other technologies NRL worked on, the balance between basic and applied research at the lab, awards Giallorenzi has received, and his work with advisory panels, the Naval Center for Space Technology, and the Optical Society of America (now Optica).

This interview is part of a series conducted during research for the book Tunnel Visions, a history of the Superconducting Super Collider project. It mainly addresses parts of Sir Christopher Llewellyn Smith’s career prior to his time as CERN Director-General, a position he held from 1994 to 1999, focusing on international perspectives surrounding the proposal and construction of large collider facilities. It covers his service as the scientific advisor to the 1984 Kendrew inquiry, which assessed UK membership in CERN, and to another inquiry, led by Anatole Abragam, which assessed CERN’s management. The interview extensively covers CERN’s preparations to build what became the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in the tunnel where the Large Electron-Positron (LEP) collider was built, and how those preparations were influenced by the U.S. move to build the SSC and, later, by the SSC’s declining political fortunes and termination. Llewellyn Smith offers his perspectives on whether it would have been politically feasible in the 1980s to build a “world accelerator,” as well as on Japanese perceptions of U.S. plans for the SSC and the prospect that the U.S. could have secured contributions to the project from Japan. He also discusses early cost estimates for the LHC and their role in efforts to secure support for building it. The interview concludes with discussions of how CERN, the SSC, and the ITER fusion facility project were organized, and of the distinct roles of major facility directors and project managers.

This interview is part of a series conducted during research for the book Tunnel Visions, a history of the Superconducting Super Collider project. It primarily addresses Princeton University physicist William Happer’s time as the Director of the Office of Energy Research at the Department of Energy, a position he held from May 1991 to May 1993. This period covers the ramp up of construction on the project and the growth of congressional opposition to it, as well as the transition from the administration of President George H. W. Bush to that of President Bill Clinton. Happer addresses his own support for the project, other scientific efforts competing for priority, the political dynamics he perceived surrounding the SSC, and his views of the management structure for the SSC that DOE implemented prior to his arrival. He observes that the management and fate of the SSC were not especially unusual in the context of other expensive DOE projects and discusses at length the failure to secure international support for the SSC, particularly the difficulty in making the project a top-priority issue in diplomacy with Japan. Happer also offers his perception of the Clinton administration’s lukewarm support for the project, the possibility it could have been politically saved, and the dangers it would have faced if it continued beyond 1993. He also reflects on whether large-scale projects such as the SSC are urgent to pursue, defends Roy Schwitters’s performance as SSC Laboratory Director, and shares his views of the ferocity of the SSC’s main opponents in Congress and of the role of Congress’s General Accounting Office in building the case against it.

Interview with Alvin Trivelpiece, American physicist who served as Director of the Office of Energy Research in the United States Department of Energy from 1981-1987. Trivelpiece provides an overview of his graduate studies at Caltech and his background in plasma physics. He discusses in detail his involvement in the beginnings of the SSC (Superconducting Super Collider), including cost estimations, funding requests, site selection, and attempts to secure international collaboration. Trivelpiece shares stories involving many key players who were supporters of the SSC, as well as some who were opposed. He also touches on the creation of other DOE projects such as Fermilab and CEBAF (Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility).