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NCAR/TN-298+PROC Conversations with Jule Charney

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NCAR/TN-298+PROC Conversations with Jule Charney NCAR/TN-298+PROC NCAR TECHNICAL NOTE _ _ _ __ November 1987 Conversations with Jule Charney George W. Platzman, University of Chicago INSTITUTE ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, MIT LIBRARIES CLIMATE AND GLOBAL DYNAMICS DIVISION ~w- --I - --- -I I I MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE NATIONAL CENTER FOR ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH OF TECHNOLOGY BOULDER, COLORADO CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS Copyright © 1987 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology For permission to publish, contact Institute Archives and Special Collections MIT Libraries, 14N-1 18 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 02139 CONVERSATIONS WITH JULE CHARNEY CONTENTS Interviewer's foreword . Transcriber's foreword . .. viii Publisher's foreword . Outline of tape contents * . * . o 0 xi Transcript of the interview . .0 . 1 Interviewer's commentary .0 0 0 0 0 .151 Appendix ...... 158 ... Charney interview Interviewer's foreword v FOREWORD Interviewer's foreword In the Spring of 1980 Jule wrote to me of his wish to under- take a "tape-recorded oral biography." (His letter is reproduced in Appendix D to this transcript.) The publishers Harper and Row had asked him to write a biography, with financial support from the Sloan Foundation, but he felt that an oral interview would be "the best first approximation." I replied enthusiastically. A few weeks later I had second thoughts and wrote to Jule that on reflection, I had become sobered by the subtleties of the art of interviewing, and suggested we engage a professional for the "basics", which could then be supplemented by a more idiosyncratic sequel such as he and I could do. Jule was firm, however, in his preference for working with someone with whom he felt he could communicate easily as a colleague. Early in August 1980 we scheduled the interview for the week of the 25th. I then began to feel more keenly my obligation to use this occasion in the most productive way as an opportunity to illuminate the historical record through the mind of one of the leading figures of twentieth-century meteorology. I turned to three colleagues whose long personal and scientific association with Jule made them especially able to share this responsibility with me to some degree, namely Norman Phillips, Joseph Pedlosky, and Joseph Smagorinsky. From each, by telephone, I elicited extemporaneous suggestions for topics to include in the interview, and a few days later received from Norman some more deliberately worded questions. These suggestions helped to diminish my uneasiness in undertaking to be an interlocutor, a role for which I had absolutely no experience. .1 believe almost all of them found their way into the interview. As a location most likely to protect us from interruption, Jule and I agreed to conduct the interview in my room at the Holiday Inn (Blossom Street, Boston), within walking distance of his apartment on Lewis Wharf. (This proved a good choice, except for occasional intrusion of sounds emanating from both inside and outside the hotel, as auditors of the tapes will find.) The interviews were recorded in four days beginning Monday August 25. On each of the first three days we started in the early afternoon and made one 90-minute tape. On Thursday we made one tape in the morning, had lunch in the room, and made one and one-half tapes in the afternoon. A total of about eight hours was recorded. The first three tapes concern Jule's education, his doctoral dissertation, and his postdoctoral years at the University of Chicago and the University of Oslo. They span the first 31 years of his life, to 1948. Tape four deals with the Princeton years Charney interview Interviewer's foreword vi 1948-1956 and the remainder of the interview with MIT, 1956-1981. After the morning session of the last day my effectiveness declined, and when in the late afternoon We began the last tape, Jule completed the interview in an almost uninterrupted monologue, with little assistance from me. Not only was I fatigued, but in retrospect I realize that after 1956 when Jule left Princeton, my contacts with him and my knowledge of his work had diminished. Although there is little doubt that Jule's long and almost indomitable battle with cancer made grave inroads on his stamina (he reclined throughout the sessions), those who listen to the tapes and know him personally will detect no sign of this and will hear his familiar conversational style, vigorously combative, intensely groping for intellectual clarity and accuracy, displaying no false modesty but never disdainful of others, finding humor and a hearty chuckle at every seemly oppor- tunity. His conversation, firmly controlled by his wide-ranging mind, was never glib and often did not flow smoothly. Those not accustomed to it may be disconcerted by his frequent interruptions of himself (as well as of others!), a tendency clearly revealed by the transcript. (Perhaps we are all more disjointed in conversation than we think we are.) I am reminded of Sylvanus Thompson's description of Lord Kelvin as a lecturer: "His imagination was vivid: in his intense enthusiasm he seemed to be driven, rather than to drive himself. The man was lost in his subject, becoming as truly inspired as is the artist in the act of creation." (Life of Lord Kelvin, vol. I, p. 444). Jule came to these sessions without notes. (My admonition that he not use notes was unnecessary, as he well understood the advantage of spontaneity, and indeed that was his natural style.) However, he certainly had an outline in mind of the topics he wanted to include and, moreover, it was on his initiative that the interview was conducted. Both of these circumstances, and the fact that Jule is an engaging conversationalist, made my task as interlocutor easy and pleasant. The only topic that he was at first reluctant to include was his childhood and family background -- not, I am sure, because the subject in any way embarrassed him, but simply because he felt it was not relevant to his life as a scientist. After reflection he yielded, however, and came to the first session without inhibitions about this topic, as the reader will find. My own preparation, apart from the solicited advice pre- viously mentioned, was regrettably limited to the brief intervals available after my arrival in Boston. At the start of each of the four days I wrote an outline of the topics I thought should be covered that day, and some specific questions about them. I had asked and received from Jule a copy of his vitae and list of publications, and I also brought reprints of some of his papers. However, for the most part my outline was useful only when the conversation lagged, and this happened infrequently. Jule and I probably were a little self-conscious at first, Charney interview Interviewer's foreword vii being accustomed neither to the roles we were playing nor to the unforgiving monitor of our performance. I believe this feeling rapidly receded for the good reason that we both became absorbed in the subject matter of the discussion. Indeed, time passed quickly, and at the end of a session although we had to stop the tape, we could not stop the conversation. I regret that these lively epilogues are entrusted only to my errant memory. Before going to Boston I suggested that we agree in advance on what would be done with the recorded interview. Jule was not receptive to this suggestion. He regarded the interview not as an end in itself but as a first step toward a more finished "intellectual autobiography" (quoting his letter reproduced in Appendix D). As a second step his intention was to edit a transcript but Fate, the arbiter of human aspirations, did not permit that step to be taken. Subsequently Nora Charney, Jule's daughter and Executor, agreed to share with me responsibility for disposition and use of the interview. Our desire is to promote serious historical scholarship and to preserve the original tapes under conditions of safety and controlled access. We therefore deposited them, with the transcript, in the MIT Institute Archives, where they will be subject to normal conditions of use. This arrangement was made possible and convenient for us by the Institute Archivist, Helen Samuels. Jane McNabb, administrative officer in the Department of Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at MIT, obtained the tape recorder and blank tapes and put them at my disposal. I am also grateful to Jule's secretary Joel Sloman whose meticulous transcription is a remarkable achievement in its fidelity to the spoken word, and in capturing the nuances of Jule's conversation. As our mutual aim has been to produce a verbatim transscript, my editorial contribution consisted mainly of rendering some technical terms and attending to the spelling of proper names. Edward Lorenz and Morton Wurtele assisted in the latter task. I believe that only unimportant mumblings of words or phrases remain undeciphered. To Marilyn Bowie goes the credit for converting the transcript to a formattable file on the University of Chicago's computer. Occasionally Jule and I were uncertain about names, dates, or events, or we clearly mis-spoke. I have taken the liberty to insert corrections (perhaps I should say presumed corrections) within brackets in the text of the transcript. In addition, I placed into an "Interviewer's commentary" some remarks on a few doubtful points, and into an Appendix some documents and letters cited in the transcript or commentary. Arnt Eliassen and Norman Phillips contributed to the commentary. Philip Thompson provided two early Charney letters (Appendices B and C). The University of Chicago George W. Platzman December 1982 Charney interview Transcriber's foreword viii Transcriber's foreword A transcription is like a photograph.
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