Banker McNamara The Month at Caltech

Trustee Diversification Biologist Beadle Caltech's board of trustees has elected four new members. Following a decision at their November 1 national meeting to increase the size of the board from 40 to 45, the trustees added George W. Beadle, Otis Chandler, Robert S. McNa- mara, and Ruben F. Mettler, bringing the total current membership to 42. The increase in size of the board will permit a wider variety of interests from all areas of the country.

With his election to the board, George W. Beadle, 66, resumes his connection with the Institute where he was a mem- ber of the faculty from 1946 to 1961. In 1958, while he was professor and chairman of the biology division at Caltech, Beadle won the Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine for his research on the role of genes in controlling biochemical reactions in the bread mold Neurospora. He became president of the University of Chicago in 1961, a position from which he retired in 1968. Since his retirement he has served as director of Engineer Mettier the American Medical Association's Institute for Biomedical Research. Beadle is the author of a well-known textbook on genetics, and co-author with his wife, Muriel, of The Language of Life, which Publisher Chandler won the 1967 Edison award for the outstanding science book for youth. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has received Nixon's task force on science policy, is a and I have suddenly a big second one dis- honorary degrees from 28 universities Caltech graduate. He received his BS appearing. That is gratifying. In addition, and colleges in this country and abroad. degree from the Institute in 1944, his I must say one thing: Among all the MS in 1947, and his PhD in electrical theses that I have seen at Caltech, it is Otis Chandler, 41, publisher of the and aeronautical engineering in 1949. the geology theses which I enjoy the most. Los Angeles Times, is the third member Mettler began his career as associate They are descriptive, and they are inter- of his family to serve on Caltech's board director of the guided missile research esting, and I can understand most of of trustees. His father, Norman Chandler, division and Thor program director for them. is a 28-year member and was recently the Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation (a Biology and chemistry are two fields elected vice chairman of the board; his precursor of TRW). From 1962 to 1968 which are an excellent example of inter- grandfather, the late Harry Chandler, he served as president of the TRW disciplinary work. They work in many was a trustee from 1920 until his death Systems Group, where he directed space respects in common; in fact, they do in 1944. Otis Chandler received his BA programs for the Vela, Pioneer, and more than that. They list the same course degree from Stanford University in 1950 Orbiting Geophysical Observatories satel- in the catalog under different titles; and then served two years in the Air lites. Under his leadership the TRW biology such-and-such, and chemistry Force. He joined the Times Mirror group also developed the lunar module such-and-such, and it is the same course. Company, the parent firm of the Los descent engine for the Apollo program, That has a tremendous advantage. The Angeles Times, in 1953, and became contributed ideas for modernizing the student need only take one course. One publisher of the newspaper in 1960. He Minuteman ballistics missile program, year he lists it under biology, and the has won journalistic awards from the and helped with the Navy's program for next one he lists it under chemistry. It is Universities of Missouri and Southern integrating its antisubmarine defense. very useful. Chemistry theses, of course, California and an honorary doctor of Mettler has received many honors for his are full of hexagons. That I have laws from Colby College. engineering work: In 1955 the Junior observed. They also involve teamwork, Chamber of Commerce listed him as one and when I sign the final approval of a of America's ten outstanding young men; chemistry thesis, I am rather uneasy. I Robert S. McNamara, 53, former Sec- in 1964 he received the "engineer of the am never sure whether I am giving an retary of Defense and currently president year" award from the Engineering additional degree to a member of the of the World Bank, was graduated from Societies of Southern California; and in staff, or, worse than that, maybe I am the University of California at Berkeley 1966 he was given Caltech's Alumni awarding the degree to the wrong in 1937. In 1939 he received his MBA Distinguished Service Award. student. from the Harvard Graduate School of As far as mathematics is concerned, Business Administration and served as they have the shortest theses. Every thesis an assistant professor there from 1940 to Treatise on the Thesis is read by an official reader, because we 1943. During World War I1 he worked try to make sure that every so often for the U.S. War Department in Britain, It is one of the unenviable duties of there will be a sentence that has a noun setting up a statistical control system over the dean of graduate studies at Caltech to and a verb. The readers like the mathe- the flow of materiel, money, and person- read every graduate thesis every year. matics theses because there is no sentence nel. He also served with the U.S. Air In 1969 there were about 125 of them- with a noun or with a verb; it is all hidden Force in India, China, and the Pacific upwards of 20,000 pages-with most of in a symbol and an equality sign. A and was awarded the Legion of Merit them submitted close to the deadline for mathematics thesis starts very simply and promoted to lieutenant colonel before getting degrees in June. with one assumption; then you look at his discharge in 1946. For 14 years after But now it is fall, and the spring the last page and there is the conclusion. the war McNamara served as an execu- reading marathon is so far away that In between you find a sequence of self- tive of the Ford Motor Company; he Dean H. F. Bohnenblust can speak of it evident lemmas. was made president in 1960. In 1961 he almost affectionately,as he did at an Physics theses are frankly the ones I became defense secretary under President outdoor dinner welcoming new graduate like the least. What is more, they remind Kennedy, a position in which he worked students on October 3 in Winnett Plaza: me of the nightmare of the contract closely with Caltech's president, Harold bridge player. He held four aces, four Brown, who was Secretary of the Air There is something that is really very kings, four queens, and one jack, and Force from 1965 to 1969. Since April characteristic about the theses in geology. after very scientific bidding he finally 1968 McNamara has been president of They are terribly long, and in a certain reached a contract of seven no trump. the World Bank and also of the Interna- sense this is very satisfying. It is rather Lo and behold, the man on his left led tional Finance Corporation and the discouraging to come into my office in with a green card he had never seen International Development Association. the morning, and there in my "in" basket before. Well, when you read a thesis in is a huge stack of theses which I am physics, somehow they always come up Ruben F. Mettler, 45, assistant presi- supposed to read. Well, each thesis with a new particle that you have never dent and executive vice president of appears in duplicate, so whenever I get a seen before. TRW Inc., and chairman of President nice fat geology thesis, I read it through, Finally, this leaves engineering. Now, this is really much too complex an and I hope that you will not feel that you organization to speak about. It is the are just students, but that you are biggest division and it contains many members of our research staff. specialties. Frankly, I think that some of them are completely indistinguishable from each other, such as applied mechan- ics and mechanical engineering. Thank God, Dean Lurie, who is associate dean, Honorary Degree is reading the theses in engineering now. But before he helped me, I remember at Harrison Brown, professor of geo- least one difficult case: You know, a chemistry and of science and government, thesis begins with a title; then after a received the honorary degree of Doctor while comes a page where the student of Science from the University of Cam- dedicates his thesis to somebody he really bridge on November 1 on the occasion cares for. I found that page filled with of the 150th anniversary of the Cam- mathematical symbols; no explanation. bridge Philosophical Society. Brown, who Well, I spent a whole night trying to also serves as foreign secretary of the figure out what he was trying to say. All National Academy of Sciences, received I can tell you is that after a long search I this tribute at the Cambridge ceremony: finally discovered that he was speaking about the cross product of two vectors Young Americans, in order to be able to and was dividing the cross product by the afford college education, cannot rely first vector and by the second vector, and like our young men on grants from that left the X. So when I analyzed the public funds. Often they must to a large symbols, slowly the sentence came out extent make their way by their own gifts and the dedication was to Maxine, his and sweat. Even so this man, being an wife. Of course, I could not let that go expert pianist, scraped together the means by, so I spent another night of work of embarking on his studies by perform- ing in nightclubs, whether solo or as explaining to him how I had deciphered leader of his own jazz band or producing what he meant to say in his dedication. songs of which he had himself composed A few years later he came back to me both the words and the music. Hence and said, "You know, that really con- no doubt the confidence, hence the keen vinced me that somebody had read my and enterprising spirit, with which he thesis." initiated his bold plan of collecting all the springs of scientific knowledge into one reservoir, so that anyone who wishes to be informed of the best attestation for any measurement could have some- 1 would like to conclude with one where from which he might most con- remark wherein I am really quite serious. veniently derive it. But he could never Consummate scientist and jazzman Brh I have concentrated on theses in speaking have acquired the authority necessary for about the different options, and, for all so great an undertaking if he had not of you who are going to go on for the himself been a consummate scientist. PhD degree, naturally the thesis work For this is the man who determined the will be the important part of your pro- age of the earth by much more certain proofs, through scrutinizing the lead gram. Somehow you are registered as found in isolation in iron and in stone "graduate students." I do not quite like meteorites. He has also propounded a the name student-it implies to some probable theory of the origin of the extent that you came here as an outsider, planets. as an individual, and that you will be Nor as a researcher into atomic nuclei with us a certain time and leave as an does he think that the dangers that can individual. I would like to emphasize result from such studies are no responsi- very much that the research that you will bility of his. Indeed it was at his instiga- be doing here while-you-are^rrtt'- tion that the Federal Government of the United States set up its Arms Control and campus is not only your own research, Disarmament Agency. And he has also but it is part, and a vitally important part, been anxiously exercised about that other of the research effort of the university as great worry of farsighted men, the fear a whole. For this reason, I would much that the nations may perish rather prefer not to look at you as just students, through excess of population. For what- ever concerns man he takes to be his which are expected to take about three Who's In Charge Here ? concern. weeks. This first session will determine topics, Paul Saltman '49, PhD '53, biochemist and provost since 1967 at Revelle College This graceful tribute is actually a ground rules, and a meeting place for translation of the original which, befitting future discussions. Brown was a member of the University of California at San Diego, continues to report back to the occasion, was delivered in Latin. of the U.S. team that helped negotiate a Scholars who have not had recent occa- nuclear test ban during discussions Caltech on his trials and tribulations as an academic administrator. sion to use the Latin for "nightclubs" which began at Geneva in 1958-59. In June 1968, E&S carried his and "jazz band" may be interested in "Provost, Proteins, Protest, Pot: Higher the original wording of the third sentence Education in America Today ." Herewith, of the tribute: DuBridge Professorship some highlights from his most recent The Associates of the California informal report, made at a dinner meet- Velut hie olim, ut erat scitus clavichordii, Institute of Technology have launched a ing of the Friends of the Caltech YMCA: in noctuvigilorum tabernis sive solus fund-raising project to establish and sonans, sive dux symphoniacis quasi endow a Lee A. DuBridge professorship Corybantiis aera geminantibus conson- Can you imagine my coming to Caltech ans, sive cantica promens quorum ipse in honor of the Institute's former et verba et numeros composuerat, facul- president, who is now President Nixon's in 1945 and stepping into Robert Milli- tates ad studia capessenda corrasit. special assistant for science and kan's office and saying, "God damn it, technology. The Associates are a group Bobby, here are 15 non-negotiable of public-spirited citizens (now number- demands. Now shape up!" ing about 400), interested in the I grew up in a very liberal, permissive Armin Deutsch advancement of learning, who were household, learning how to letter signs incorporated in 1926 as a non-profit and carry placards and the like, so it Armin J. Deutsch, staff member of the organization "for the purpose of promot- never occurred to me that some student Mt. Wilson and Palomar Observatories, ing the interests of the California -some freshman-might walk in and died on November 11 of a heart ailment Institute of Technology." give me 15 non-negotiable demands. But and complications. He was 5 1. While they hope that the professorship it happened. Deutsch discovered that giant red stars may be rotated among the various fields I am concerned with universities today, generate great stellar winds which carry of scholarship at Caltech, the Associates and I would like to try to describe a matter through space. His research would like their first candidate to be kind of environmental problem which included study of the composition and someone whose interests are "in an area involves three sub-species-administra- rotation of stars, star clusters, cool stars of biological sciences in which an under- tion, faculty, and students-that operate with unusual chromospheric activities, standing of behavior is important or in within this ecological niche called a and a group of magnetic stars called an area of science or technology which university, which is also dependent on peculiar A stars. is closely associated with Dr. DuBridge's other sub-species like governors and Born in Chicago, Deutsch graduated career or interests." trustees and indignant citizens and blacks from the University of Arizona and got and chicanes and industrial-military his PhD from the University of Chicago. complexes. He was an assistant astronomer at Award Perkins Observatory in Delaware, Ohio, in 1946-47; an instructor at Harvard Cornelius Pings, professor of chemical First there are administrators-a Observatory from 1947 to 1950; and engineering, won the $1,000 Professional strange lot. What do we have with respect since 1951 had been a staff member of Progress Award for 1969 from the to governance of universities? Grayson the Mt. Wilson and Palomar Observa- American Institute of Chemical Engi- Kirk at Columbia? Two hundred and tories and the Carnegie Institution of neers. The award recognizes his work in fourteen years without a single faculty Washington. 'theoretical and experimental develop- meeting? Pusey at Harvard? When the ments in the fundamental behavior of going gets tough, call the cops; don't talk fluids, particularly in the critical region." to your faculty? S. I. Hayakawa with a Arms Limitation Delegate tam o'shanter and the frayed ends of a loudspeaker cord? Who's in charge here? Harold Brown is one of six members Graffiti Who becomes the dean? Who becomes of the delegation appointed by President Simple declarative statement painted the provost? Nixon to participate in strategic arms on the construction fence surrounding At a time when we are living with a limitation talks between the United States the site of Baxter Hall of the Humanities very rough and ragged interface in the and the Soviet Union. Accompanied by and Social Sciences: interaction of technology and science, his wife, Colene, Brown flew to Helsinki how much have our institutions, with the on November 11 for the first talks, GOD GRADES PASSFAIL great minds of science and technology, interacted with the men of the social Faculties in universities are an inter- sciences and the humanities to take some esting group. There was a time (Oh, it positive, dynamic step in the form of was a sweet time) you would fill out your education today? Are we still living with form for the NIH and you'd say, "Well, the Morrill Act of a hundred years ago, how much do I want this year? $150,000 worrying about land grant colleges and -$250,000Ñthey'v got a lot of money. what we are going to do in the classical And if not, then there's the NSF and the sense about agriculture in the United AEC." And, oh, the greenery just flowed. States? Who is looking toward the leader- There was a time-and it was a good ship of the university in the dynamics time because science did prosper and the of the city in America today? Columbia? journals filled to overflowing with Berkeley? Caltech? UCSD? interesting articles-that a professor I am very disturbed that over the years became a free entrepreneur, beholden to we have failed to recognize the problems no one. He moved nomadically with his of dynamic leadership in universities and grants and with his tents from place to colleges, that we always made the dean place in the desert of academe, seeking out of the guy who didn't publish quite the best kind of real estate that he could enough to get his promotion, whose wife get his hands on and the minimum was very active in Faculty Wives, and teaching loads and the maximum chance who has two lovely kids. How many of to do his own thing. I emphasize that, them have really been involved in studies because now the students want to do their of problems of adolescent behavior and own thing too-and it's very funny how the concerns of a modern student in a the professors are uptight about that. modern society? Very, very few. The fact of the matter is that the If you're going to pay a guy to be an professor's main concern was to his peers. administrator, he damn well better be in He was playing the federation meeting. the game all the time as an administrator, How were you doing? Were you playing 100 percent. And when you're paying the men's room or the main stage? him to lead, he'd better be out in front, Where were you when your slides were and he'd better not be some kind of shown? And on which airplane to Wash- pacifier, trying to cool it. Because they've ington were you? And on what councils got more cans of gas than we have water. of government did you sit? And for If the students have reasonable claims, whom did you consult so that you could you work on them; if they're unreason- have a couple of extra bucks to go off able, you call them on it. And you don't and do a little extra skiing or surfing or move capriciously and fast; you move what you will? You were not beholden to slowly and evenly and steadily. You keep students. And that's too bad, because I all of your moves completely wide open think that's what the universities are all on top, and you go out on the plaza and about: teaching and learning. Whennthe you tell them what's happening and you professors shirk their duty in this, we're involve the whole student body. in real trouble. And you better not be shocked when you get half through and some kid steps up and calls you a "fascist pig," because Then there are students-the busby- he's sure as hell going to do it. You haired, the weirdos, the wild ones, the better have some answer for him in terms bare feet up against the lectern while of, "Well, what are you doing about you're trying to teach. You're trying to making this a better place, and are you show some sort of consideration-or Provost and negotiator Saltman involved?" magnanimity-and the SDS is out flying By and large, the academic adminis- the North Vietnamese flag on the plaza trator is a person who has not by his and the Marines are marching in from own personal concern with research been one side and the citizens of La Jolla from a great researcher, nor by his concern the other, and the professors are going with teaching been a great teacher. He "Oh, my God. What'll we do?" And the has become somehow or other more and governor is saying, "Get that flag down." more involved with the problem of I really have figured it all out. The management-and I use that term students of America are giving everybody pejoratively. the old Italian high-sign. You can laugh at it-but it's very tough to do, and it's kind of communication. I finally figured tried to put together the governance for getting tougher. Because the gesture is out what the problem was. They had the college that involved every level- increasing in violence, and it is giving me never been asked to really state the the faculty, the students, and the admin- great fear. problems and their solutions, neither in istration-with every kind of problem: Great fear because I see within the high school nor in junior high school curriculum, buildings, life in the residence context of the university today a very nor any place. halls, course structure, grading, effective- unfortunate circumstance taking over- ness of teachers. And it was very curious. the sense of self-righteousness of students, You know who resisted first? It's hard lauded by some of their faculty. I don't Letme end with an upbeat, Pangloss, to believe, but it was the students. They believe in this Children's Crusade. Yes, comment, because I feel that things didn't want any part of it. there are problems in the society. No, the aren't going downhill forever. I'll tell you "Hey, man, you're corrupting us. students don't have all the answers. what's going to happen this year. Saltman You're over 30, you're a fink, you're a Because if they did, what the hell am I predicts that what happened at Stanford fascist, you're an animal, you're part of doing being a provost and a professor? last spring is the model of what is going the military-industrial complex, you took Do you want to turn it over and walk to happen at UC this year. There is going federal money, you're a whore. I don't away? The answer is no; and they don't to be such a hue and cry for the stopping trust you." want you to either. But they do want of military research on university cam- It's taken us just about a year and a leadership and guidance. puses that the students-and probably half, and the students have finally agreed And they are very, very bright. And the faculty-will bring Berkeley to a to come along. But when I presented they are very concerned. And what are screeching halt until it disperses all of its bylaws that had been worked out for the we doing in a university for them? Seeing holdings in Livermore and Los Alamos. college governments to a faculty meeting, if we can load them down with more Students at Caltech-it may take them guess who all of a sudden is very uptight? calculus and thermodynamics? a little longer-are going to be investi- The faculty, bless their hearts. This problem came to me most clearly gating every grant that any faculty Cried a physics professor, "You mean when I found out that they had hung member ever had and any consulting that to say I'm going to have students on a the second provost in effigy, and then in he does for any agency of the federal judicial committee judging my actions on reality, on the basis of dorm visitation government or private industry that has a campus?" rules-a great educational problem. The in any way, shape, or form a relationship I said, "That's right." fact of the matter is that nobody was to the military-industrial complex- "Who are they to judge me?" asking students how they wanted to live whatever that may be. That's going to be And they talk about community in a in a residence hall. the real low point. That's when the real college? The faculty is very nervous, you And you begin to worry as a biologist barricades are going to have to be built. see; we have black militants on the when you know that a woman becomes a We have failed to move smartly, failed campus now, and they stomp into aca- woman physiologically between 13 and to give leadership in universities, and demic senate meetings and scare the hell 15 years old in our society, but we're still failed to be out on that cutting edge in out of every faculty member there, and treating them like adolescents when terms of our concern and involvement the faculty runs, crying "I'm guilty, I'm they come into a university at 18 and 19. with the total world scene. The universi- guilty. What do you want?" And when And yet we have never asked the students ties have not taken that kind of initiative they get in the confines of a meeting to participate in the governance of their and sparkle that they should have had where they can vote privately, I am very own lives within a university. We have long ago in trying to make changes in a nervous that they are going to manifest never asked students how they felt about world that we are so sensitive to. their masculinity in the quietude of a what they were learning in a university. I think we're going to live through the ballot box, but not out front on the plaza We have never asked students to help in year, and I think we're going to live where it counts. the decision-making process of higher through Ronald Reagan and the violence education. that he does to us and the violence that Whenever we brought this point up to the regents do to us and the violence that Thetime has come for universities to our faculty, they would say, "Well, what the Sun Diego Union does to us and all live in 1969, not in the days of the the hell do they know?" And when the kinds of ways and shapes and forms of Morrill Act, and not in the good old days students would be given a chance to say violence, be they in the form of the just after the war when we were all what was relevant or irrelevant, they environment which surrounds us or the getting the big grants from Washington. would say, "Well, you know, man, like violence that is within. We have to be much more concerned it's gotta be relevant." But I think that it's time to be making with how we can interact in a society of "Like what has to be relevant?" some very positive kinds of changes. Two students and teachers in which we become "Like, you know, man, make it relevant years ago when I came down to San the models for the society that we wish -like, you know, black and white- Diego, I was appalled by the three- to build. If we sit around waiting for like, you know, sensitivity-like, come cornered game that was being played, somebody else to write the folksong or to on, like-" with administrators in one corner, faculty build the barricade, it will be too late. It's hard to listen to or understand that in another, and students in another. We We must be the model. Now.