Federation of American Scientists 70 years of and counting Alexander DeVolpi Retired, Argonne National Laboratory Freeman Dyson Retired, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University Charles D. Ferguson President, FAS Richard L. Garwin IBM Fellow Emeritus, IBM Thomas J. Watson CHARLES D. FERGUSON Research Center Editor in Chief Frank von Hippel ALLISON FELDMAN Co-Director, Program on Science and Global Managing and Creative Editor Security, Princeton University ___________ Robert S. Norris Senior Fellow for Nuclear Policy, FAS B. Cameron Reed Charles A. Dana Professor of Physics, Alma FAS Public Interest Report College 1725 DeSales Street NW Megan Sethi Suite 600 U.S. Historian and Adjunct Professor, Cal Poly Washington, DC 20036 Pomona and Southern New Hampshire PHONE: 202.546.3300 University FAX: 202.675.1010 Daniel Singer EMAIL: [email protected] Of Counsel, Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & The PIR welcomes letters to the editor. Letters Jacobson LLP should not exceed 300 words and may be edited Jeremy J. Stone for length and clarity. Founder, Catalytic Diplomacy ___________ Annual print subscription is $100.00. An archive of FAS Public Interest Reports is available online at: http://fas.org/publications/public-interest- reports/. Cover image: U.S. military observe the explosion during Operation Crossroads Baker, a nuclear test conducted on Bikini Atoll on July 25, 1946. Source: U.S. Department of Defense. PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE: REINVENTION AND RENEWAL Charles D. Ferguson………………………………………………………………………………..1 THE LEGACY OF THE FEDERATION OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTS Megan Sethi………………………………………………………………………………………...5 SCIENTISTS AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS, 1945-2015 Robert S. Norris…………………………………………………………………..…………….....12 GOVERNMENT SECRECY AND CENSORSHIP Alexander DeVolpi……………………………………………………………………………......15 FAS HISTORY, 1961-1963 Freeman Dyson…………………………………………………………………………...………23 FAS IN THE 1960s: FORMATIVE YEARS Daniel Singer………………………………………………………………………………...……26 REVITALIZING AND LEADING FAS: 1970-2000 Jeremy J. Stone……………………..………………………………………………...……………29 FAS’S CONTRIBUTION TO ENDING THE COLD WAR NUCLEAR ARMS RACE Frank von Hippel…………………………………………………………………………………35 FAS ENGAGEMENT WITH CHINA Richard L. Garwin……………………………………………………………………………...…40 NUCLEAR LEGACIES: PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING AND FAS B. Cameron Reed……………………………………………………………………………....…43 MORE FROM FAS Allison Feldman……………………...……………………………………………………………47 FAS LEADERSHIP AND STAFF..……………………………………………………………52 *Peter Agre *Wolfgang Ketterle *Sidney Altman Nathan Keyfitz Bruce Ames Ali Khademhosseini *Philip W. Anderson *Brian K. Kobilka *Kenneth J. Arrow *Walter Kohn *David Baltimore *Roger D. Kornberg *Paul Berg *Robert J. Lefkowitz Drew Berry *Roderick MacKinnon *J. Michael Bishop *Eric S. Maskin *Gunther Blobel Jessica Tuchman Mathews *Nicolaas Bloembergen Roy Menninger Josh Bongard Matthew S. Meselson *Paul Boyer Richard A. Meserve *Michael S. Brown *Mario Molina Tad T. Brunye Stephen S. Morse *Linda B. Buck *Ferid Murad Anne Pitts Carter *Ei-ichi Negishi *Martin Chalfie Franklin A. Neva *Stanley Cohen *Douglas D. Osheroff *Leon N Cooper Aydogan Ozcan *E.J. Corey *Arno A. Penzias Paul B. Cornely *David Politzer *James Cronin Paul Portney *Johann Deisenhofer Mark Ptashne Sidney D. Drell George Rathjens Join with more than 60 Nobel laureates on FAS’s Ann Druyan David M. Reif Board of Sponsors in being part of a community Xiangfeng Duan *Burton Richter Paul R. Ehrlich *Richard J. Roberts devoted to solving the world’s science and security Demetra Evangelou Jeffrey Sachs problems. George Field Sara Sawyer *Jerome I. Friedman *Phillip A. Sharp Your contribution helps FAS to… *Riccardo Giacconi *K. Barry Sharpless *Walter Gilbert Stanley K. Sheinbaum *Sheldon L. Glashow Evgenya Simakov Reduce the risks of nuclear proliferation *Roy J. Glauber Neil Smelser Increase government transparency *Joseph L. Goldstein Marin Soljačić Stop the spread of WMDs *Paul Greengard *Robert M. Solow *David J. Gross *Jack Steinberger Balance research and security Tina Grotzer *Thomas A. Steitz *Roger C.L. Guillemin *Joseph Stiglitz W. Nicholas Haining *Daniel Tsui *Leland H. Hartwell *Harold E. Varmus *Dudley R. Herschbach Robert A. Weinberg https://fas.org/join/ Frank von Hippel *Steven Weinberg *Roald Hoffmann *Eric F. Wieschaus John P. Holdren *Torsten N. Wiesel *H. Robert Horvitz *Frank Wilczek Peter Huybers *Ahmed Zewail *Eric R. Kandel Leon Lederman* *Nobel Laureate Above: Linus and Ava Helen Pauling demonstrating in the streets for peace. San Francisco, CA, 1960s. Source: SCARC Holdings, Oregon State University Libraries. Charles D. Ferguson rom its inception 70 years ago, the founders and members of the Federation of American Scientists were F reinventing themselves. Imagine yourself as a 26-year old chemist having participated in building the first atomic bombs. You may have joined because your graduate school adviser was going to Los Alamos and encouraged you to come. You may also have decided to take part in the Manhattan Project because you believed it was your patriotic duty to help America acquire the bomb before Nazi Imagine yourself as a 26-year old Germany did. And even when Hitler and the Nazis were chemist having participated in building defeated in May 1945, you continued your work on the bomb the first atomic bombs… because the war with Japan was still raging in the Pacific. Moreover, by then, you may have felt like Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Scientific Director, that the project was “technically sweet”—you had to see it through to the end. But when the end came—the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—in August 1945, you may have had doubts about whether you should have built the bombs, or you may have at least been deeply concerned about the future of humanity in facing the threat of nuclear destruction. What should you then do? About a thousand of the “atomic scientists” throughout the country at various sites, such as Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, Hanford, and Chicago began to organize and discuss the implications of this new military technology.1 This political activity was not natural for scientists. Almost all of the founders of FAS were so-called “rank-and-file” scientists in their 20s and 30s. Members of this youth brigade—led by Dr. Willie Higinbotham, who was in his mid- 30s but who looked younger—arrived in Washington. With their “crew cuts, bow ties, and tab collars [testifying] to their youth,” they roamed the halls of Capitol Hill, educating Congressmen and their staffs.2 Newsweek called them the “reluctant lobby.” As a history of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) notes, “Part of their reluctance stemmed from their conviction that the cause of science should not be dragged through the political arena.”3 Fortunately, these scientists persisted and achieved the notable result of successfully lobbying for civilian control of the AEC. While they also wanted Charles D. Ferguson (then Senior Research Associate international control of nuclear energy, they fell short of that goal. However, they for Nuclear Arms Control at FAS) presenting at the 11th International Summer Symposium on Science and were indefatigable in their educational efforts on promoting peaceful uses of Global Affairs, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, nuclear energy and warning about the dangers of nuclear arms races. July 29, 1999. Throughout FAS’s seven decades, the organization has transformed itself into various incarnations depending on the issues to be addressed and the resources available for operating FAS. To learn about this continual reinvention, I invite you to read all the articles in this special edition of the Public Interest Report. This edition has an all-star list of writers—many of whom have served in leadership roles at FAS and others who have deep, scholarly knowledge of FAS. These authors discuss many of the accomplishments of FAS, but they also do not shy away from mentioning several of the challenges faced by FAS. What will FAS achieve and what adversities will occur in the next 70 years? As scientists know, research results are difficult, if not impossible, to predict. However, we do know that the mission of FAS is as relevant as ever, perhaps even more so than it was 70 years ago. Nuclear dangers—the founding call to action—have become more complex; instead of one nuclear weapon state in 1945, there are now nine countries with nuclear arms. Instead of a few nuclear reactors in 1945, today there are more than 400 power reactors in 31 countries and more than 100 research reactors in a few dozen countries. Moreover, some non-nuclear weapon states have acquired or want to acquire uranium 1 Alice Kimball Smith, A Peril and a Hope: The Scientists’ Movement in America 1945-47 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, The MIT Press, 1971). 2 Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, Jr., The New World, 1939/1946: Volume I, A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1962), p. 448. 3 Ibid. enrichment or reprocessing facilities that can further sow the seeds of future proliferation of nuclear weapons programs. For these dangers alone, FAS has the important purpose to serve as a voice for scientists, engineers, and policy experts working together to develop practical means to reduce nuclear risks. FAS has also served and will continue to serve as a platform for innovative projects that shine spotlights on government policies that work and don’t work and how to improve these policies. In particular, for a quarter century, the Government Secrecy Project, directed by Steve