United States. Congress

This interview with Superconducting Super Collider General Manager Edward Siskin is part of a series conducted during research for the book Tunnel Visions, a history of the SSC. Siskin discusses his experience working under Adm. Hyman Rickover in Naval Reactors, as well as his subsequent work at the company Stone and Webster, including management of multi-billion-dollar construction projects. He recalls his recruitment to the SSC project by Energy Secretary Adm. James Watkins, sources of opposition to his appointment, and a dinner conversation resulting in the project having distinct general manager and project manager positions. He reflects on tensions in his generally positive relationship with SSC Laboratory Director Roy Schwitters and difficulties in working with accelerator construction head Helen Edwards that ultimately led to her departure. He discusses the slow implementation of a cost-and-schedule-control system and argues that the Government Accountability Office identified non-existent cost overruns, serving as a tool of the SSC’s opponents in Congress. He states that the 1991 baseline cost estimate for the SSC was conservative and that the project was on track at the time of its cancellation, with all new cost increases stemming from the Clinton administration’s proposal to stretch its schedule. Siskin recalls a meeting with Rep. Tom Bevill, a key House appropriator, at which Bevill received a note from the White House indicating President Clinton’s willingness to sacrifice the project. Siskin also reflects more broadly on the political dynamics in Congress surrounding the SSC and on the difficulties in balancing scientific and engineering cultures on a large-scale project. 

This interview was conducted as part of the research for the book Tunnel Visions, a history of the Superconducting Super Collider. In it, former Democratic Louisiana senator Bennett Johnston discusses the politics surrounding the SSC, primarily from his point of view as chair of the Energy-Water Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, though he also oversaw the project in his role as chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He is accompanied in the interview by former Appropriations Committee senior staff member Proctor Jones. Johnston discusses the budgetary politics surrounding the SSC and opines that it was a convenient target for lawmakers casting themselves as budget hawks. He states that he did not regard growing cost estimates as indicative of mismanagement, partly because early estimates were unreliable, nor was he perturbed by an absence of foreign contributions. He suggests the project suffered from a lack of strong supporters in the House who could make the case for it on its scientific merits in the way he did in the Senate. Jones recalls that Johnston pressed the Clinton administration to express support for the project, and Johnston questions the story that the administration proposed a choice between the SSC and the space station. Jones and Johnston state that they did not object to the administration’s proposed stretch-out of the project schedule, despite its likely cost impacts, because it would have kept year-to-year costs down. Johnston criticizes scientists who argued the project would detract from smaller-scale science, stating they misunderstood how appropriations are allocated.

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.