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Heisenberg's Uncertainties by Daniel d. Kevles

During the Second W orld War, close scientific friends, like the physicist the nightmare that German physicists Samuel Goudsmit, had pleaded with would deliver an atomic bomb into him to emigrate, but he had returned Hitler's hands haunted the inner circles home, insisting that he was a German of American science. Like most night­ patriot with a duty to help maintain mares, this one melded foreboding with havens of decency in his country and facts. Hitler's government controlled protect German physics for the future. rich natural-uranium mines and the Wartime intelligence reports revealed world's only plant for manufacturing that his patriotism had deepened to heavy water, an essential ingredient in include the hope of a German victory, nuclear-reactor research. Germany had because it would counter the inroads of been a superpower in world physics, a Soviets and Slavs threatening from the Mecca for American students, its scien­ east. The reports also indicated that the Alfred A. Knopf, 1993 tists mighty contributors to the recent Germans had initiated an atomic proj­ $27.50 revolution of quantum mechanics. ect, and that Heisenberg-"the most 60B pages Despite the loss of many world-class dangerous possible German in the field scientists as refugees from Nazism, because of his brain power," as a distin­ Germany still appeared formidable. guished British physicist told American Otto Hahn, who, in 1938, had identified physicists-was involved in it. How­ the phenomenon of nuclear fission using ever, in December of 1944 an American tabletop apparatus in his Berlin labora­ scientific team, sent to Europe to ascer­ tory, remained in Germany; so did Wer­ tain the state of Getman nuclear affairs ner Heisenberg, a theorist of towering as part of a United States Army intelli­ talents, who had conceived the famed gence mission code-named Alsos, tenta­ uncertainty principle and, in 1932, at tively concluded that the German the age of 31, had won a Nobel Prize for atomic-bomb project was paltry and his co-invention of quantum mechanics. was several years behind the Manhattan In the mid-1930s, Heisenberg, unim­ Project. peachably German but no Nazi himself, In 1947, Heisenberg explained in the had defended Einstein's physics­ British scientific journal Nature that he "Jewish physics," Hitler's minions called and his colleagues had known how to it-and had found himself labeled a make a bomb but had been reluctant to Reprinted by permission; "white Jew," his career and his life at build one for Hitler, and he added that © 1993 Daniel]. Kevles risk. While he was on a visit to the in any case they had not had to face up Originally in The New Yorker United States in the summer of 1939, to the moral decision of whether to

32 Engineering & Science/Spring 1993 proceed toward an atomic weapon, be­ national security, Powers has exhumed cause even the military agreed that the a trove of material and deployed it bril­ task was too large for wartime Germany. liantly, though somewhat repetitiously, They had therefore directed their ener­ to illuminate the hidden history. His gies toward making a reactor-which book is provocative and often gripping, they called an "engine"-to exploit and it inventively compels a reconsidera­ nuclear energy as a source of power to tion not only of Heisenberg's war but of drive ships and electrical generators. the relationship to it of several key The question of Samuel Goudsmit, who headed the Alsos Manhattan Project scientists, Goudsmit why German scientific team, promptly responded, in among them. Life (and elsewhere), declaring that Powers notes that the German nu­ physicists did not German physicists had tried to build a clear effort, called the Uranium Club at produce an atomic bomb, that they had failed because of the the time, comprised "an unruly mailing meddling of Nazi administrators and list of competing scientists whose only bomb remains their own commission of serious techni­ shared hope was to survive the war." highly charged. cal errors, and that Heisenberg's account Some in Heisenberg's branch of the club, It bears upon how disingenuously covered their blunders including Heisenberg himself and his with a newly minted morality. To close younger friend Carl Friedrich von we judge any Goudsmit, who was Dutch by birth, Weiszacker, who was the son of the scientist who par­ and whose parents had died in the second-highest official in Hitler's Holocaust-and to many other Allied Foreign Office, also wanted to exploit ticipated in the physicists-the aim of trying to protect the government's interestin nuclear Nazi machine or, physics did not justify collaborating matters to rescue German physics from with the architects of Auschwitz. Nazi know-nothings. This was a for that matter, The question of why German physi­ hazardous game, as Heisenberg knew. scientists any­ cists did not produce an atomic bomb Some of Heisenberg's intimates where who for the remains highly charged. It bears upon revealed in a trail of leaks intended for how we judge any scientist who partici­ the Allies how he was playing the game. sake ofscience or pated in the Nazi machine or, for that Consistent in content, the leaks were ideology enter into matter, scientists anywhere who for the exemplifed in a remarkable, unequivocal sake of science or ideology enter into a message that one of Heisenberg's confi­ a potentially potentially Faustian bargain with the dants-thetheorist Fritz Houtermans, Faustian bargain state. Scrutiny of the official German a socialist who had spent time in both records by several historians has revealed Nazi and Soviet prisons and was under with the state. that Heisenberg and his colleagues did suspicion by the Gestapo-had asked a in fact understand a good deal about the Jewish-refugee physicist named Fritz fundamentals of bomb physics, and that Reiche to carry by memory to the Unit­ early in the war they raised the prospect ed States. A contemporary handwritten not only of a power source but also of summary of Reiche's report, which he "an explosive of unimaginable conse­ delivered to a group of physicists in quence," as Heisenberg put it in a Princeton in March of 1941, reads: lecture to a gathering of high German Reliable colleague who is working officials in February of 1942. at a technical research laboratory asked In Heisenberg's War: The Secret History him to let us know that a large num­ of the German Bomb (Knopf, $27.50), ber of German physicists are working Thomas Powers argues that we can intensively on the problem of the judge Heisenberg only if we can know uranium bomb under the direction of his intentions, and those the official Heisenberg, that Heisenberg himself historical record does not reveal. To tries to delay the work as much as ferret them out, Powers has meticulously possible, fearing the catastrophic searched through what he calls "the results of a success. But he cannot shadow history of the war," seeking in help fulfilling the orders given to him. letters, diaries, recollections, and intelli­ In September of 1941, Heisenberg gence files what Heisenberg and his paid a visit to his mentor and conscience, friends "said to each other in the small Niels Bohr, in occl).pied Denmark, hours of the night." An accomplished attempting, it seems, to convey that he investigative journalist and historian of was at work on anuclear-reactor project

Engineering & Science/Spring 1993 33 Theodore von Ka nnan (soon to arrive at Caltech) took this snapshot of Heisenberg (light suit) in 1927 at the Intemational Physics Conference at Lake Como, Italy. Wolf· gang Pauli is the other hatless gentle­ man at right.

and wanted to keep his research confined But did he, as his disbelievers insist, critical mass would be only a few tens of to thar, bur he so fumbled rhe rry that emphas ize the difficulties because he had kilograms, wbich was in tbe right ball­ he left Bohr furious, and convinced that committed the key techn ical blunder of park and was small enough ro be consid­ he was designing a bomb. overestimating them? The issue turns ered obrai nable ~ indeed, at a meeting in The options for delay were inherent on how large the critical mass of pure U- Bedin in 1942, responding to a question in the details of bomb physics. By late 235 would have to be. In several war­ from Field Marshal Erhard Milch, of the 1941, the Germans, like the Allies, time comments, Heisenberg implied Air Force Ministry, H eisenberg had said recognized that tWO types of atomic that as much as a thousand kilograms that London could be leveled with a weapons could be fashioned -{me of would be required-a quantity that bomb abour as large as a pineapple. The pure uranium 235 (U-235), the readily would indeed have Ix",n impossible to Farm Hall transcripts. which the British fissionable isotOpe of the element, and obtain soon enough ro affect the out­ kept secret until February of 1992, and the other of plutonium , a newly discov­ come of the war. He was heard ro make whi ch Powers has exami ned , reveal that ered element that would be prod uced in a comparable estim ate on August 6, on Aug ust 6 H ahn recalled Heisenberg's the controlled chai n [eanion of a nuclear 1945, rhe day the uran ium bomb was tell ing him more than once during the reactOr from a sister isotope, uranium dropped on Hirosh ima. At the time, war that a uranium bomb could be made 238 (U-238). They also knew that U- Heisenberg and njne other German with only 50 kilograms of the pure 235 represents less than one percent of nuclear physicists , including Hahn and metal. That same night, Heisenberg natural uranium and ca nnot be chemi­ Weiszacker, were interned at Farm Hall, admitted to Hahn that he had never cally separated from its far more abun­ an estare outside Cambridge, England, actually calculated the necessary mass. dant sister. Separation by nonchemical where the bedrooms and common rooms Eight days later, in a lecture to his means would be extremely difficult, so were electronically bugged and the con­ colleagues on bomb physics, he led them obtaining enough pure U-235 to make versations routinely recorded and tran­ through the exercise of desig ning a an explosive-what physicists call a scribed. The night of August 6, the weapon, showing that it coul d be done ;'critical mass"-would require at least microphones picked up an unguarded, witb 16 kilograms of U-235 , which was several years and unrold millions of emotional discussion that starred with very close ro the actual critical mass of marks. Powers points OUt that whenever skepticism that the Americans had the metal. The lecture was stunning in Heisenberg touted the destructive power succeeded in prod ucing a nuclear bomb, its techni cal mastery, but also impressive of a uranium bomb he also stressed th e because the Germans did not thjnk that was the faCt that Heisenberg had adum­ diffic ulties, th us discourag ing purs ujt of anyone could possi bl y have obtained brated part of his analysis in calculat ions a U-235 weapon and encouraging the enough pure U -235-perhaps two rons, that he had made just twO days after investment of resources primarily in the Hahn remarked that Heisenberg had Hiroshima. Powers contends that Hei­ creation of a reaCtOr that would produce sa iel at one point- tO fo rm a cri tical senberg's reso lution of the criti cal-mass power and- ultimately, perhaps­ mass. problem was so quick that he must have element 94, as the Germans called Several times during the war, howev­ worked out the intricacies of a uranium plutOnium. er, Heisenberg had indicated that the bomb much eadier, and the Farm Hall

34 Engineering & Science/Spring 1993 Calculation of the critical mass requires certain essential numbers transcripts, he says, offer strong evidence ries to go with them, had obviously been that characterize that Heisenberg "cooked up a plausible undaunted by the obstacle, and wartime the jissioning method of estimating critical mass Germany had been able to provide the which gave an answer in tons, and that immense resources that Wemher von behavior of U - he well knew how to make a bomb with Braun required for his Peenemiinde 235 .... It is far less, but kept the knowledge to rocket projects. Heisenberg had niether himself." the Big Science temperament nor the clear from the Powers gives too much credit to experience to envision an industrial-scale Farm Hall Heisenberg. Calculation of the critical separation effort. Physicists in other transcripts that mass requires certain essential numbers branches of the Uranium Club did, but that characterize the fissioning behavior he did not throw his prestige behind Heisenberg had ofU-235. These numbers can be deter­ their ambitions. not acquired these mined reliably only by actual measure­ Not that he lacked opportunity: he ment. It is clear from the Farm Hall was party to several crucial meetings numbers experi­ transcripts that Heisenberg had not that high Nazi officials held during the mentally in the acquired these numbers experimentally six months starting in December 1941 in the course of his wartime research, to evaluate military-research programs course of his and that no one else had, either. The for their pertinence to the war effort. wartime research news of Hiroshima-that it had been Powers, taking an original tack, probes and that· no one bombed with a uranium device enor­ Heisenberg's silences in these collo­ mous in explosive power yet compact quies-what he did not say or did not else had, either. enough to be carried in an airplane-had do to advanc~ a bomb project. In all the provided him with a giant hint toward meetings, Heisenberg accorded no more determining the numbers: they had to than brief and casual mention to the conform to the reality of the working alternative route to a bomb-reactor­ weapon, and that constraint enabled him produced element 94, which did not to figure out the critical mass in a tour pose a severe separation problem-nor de force of rapid, but advantaged, esti­ did he call for a craSh program to pursue mate and deduction. At Farm Hall, it. He apparently did not even mention Heisenberg explained to Hahn that the element 94 at a meeting in Berlin on reason he had not calculated the critical June 4,1942, where he had the atten­ mass of the isotope precisely was that he tion of Albert Speer, the boss of the had believed that U-235 could not be German economy and an enthusiast of separated out-which is to say that big-payoff projects (like von Braun's, for Heisenberg must have judged obtaining example, for which he would ultimately even tens of kilograms of pure U -235 a provide tens of thousands of slave labor­ virtually impossible task. He was right ers). When Speer asked how much that separation would be costly; the money was needed to press ahead with principal American installation for the the nuclear effort, Heisenberg men­ purpose, at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was tioned a figure so ridiculously low that huge. Yet Manhattan Project scientists, Speer decided-and so informed Hit­ a number of whom had in the 1930s ler-to relegate the project to a low built sizable cyclotrons and big laborato- priority. In Powers' view, Heisenberg

Engineering & Science/Spring 1993 35 In the second row, Moe Berg, the celebrated and managed, without conspiring with Powers tells the story mesmerizingly, cerebral major­ friends like Weiszacker or revealing having compiled evidence that the league catcher .. enough to raise the suspicions of the scheme was real, that it was fostered by Gestapo, "to guide the German atomic General Groves and the members of the sat with a .32- research effort into a broom closet, where intelligence operations that he estab­ caliber pistol in scientists tinkered until the war ended." lished for the Manhattan Project, and his pocket, listen­ Despite the downgrading and the that it reached its climax on December wartime reports of Heisenberg's foot­ _ 18, 1944, in a lecture hall in Zurich. In ing to Heisenberg dragging intentions, the fear that Hei­ the second row, Moe Berg, the celebrat­ talk about phys­ senberg was devoting his mighty brain ed and cerebral major-league catcher, to the cause of achieving a German who had finished his career in 1939 with ics' and resolved nuclear weapon remained undiminished the Boston Red Sox and was now an to kill him if his among Manhattan Project personnel, intelligence operative, sat with a .32- including many of its key scientists and caliber pistol in his pocket, listening to remarks indicated its director, General Leslie R. Groves. Heisenberg talk about physics, and that he was seri­ The suspicion led the physicists Hans resolved to kill him ifhis remarks indi­ ously at work on Bethe and Victor Weisskopf, both nor­ cated that he was seriously at work on mally levelheaded, to propose formally, an atomic. bomb. Berg scribbled a note: an atomic bomb. in October of 1942, that Heisenberg be "As I listen, I am uncertain-see: kidnapped in Switzerland, where, as they Heisenberg'S uncertainty principle­ had learned, he was to lecture later that what to do to H ... discussing math year. Although the Bethe-Weisskopf while Rome burns-if they knew what initiative was soon rejected-any such I'm thinking." move would surely have alienated the Although Berg obviously did not pull neutral Swiss-it eventually helped the trigger, Powers holds that the opera­ inspire several operations to deny the tion that began with Bethe and Weiss­ German nuclear effort its scientists, and kopf and eventually put Berg in the particularly Heisenberg. Zurich lecture hall contributed to the Powers devotes substantial space to clouding of Heisenberg's reputation after this campaign against Heisenberg, and the war. Goudsmit was complicit in the his account is chilling. One strategy was early kidnapping proposals and, accord­ to bomb the research institutes that Hei­ ing to Powers, in the assassination senberg and Hahn directed in Berlin, the scheme itself, having been one of the last objectives to include, as General George of Groves' men to brief Berg, in Paris, C. Marshall learned in an explanatory before he left for Switzerland. Berg later memorandum from an Army Assistant wrote, in notes about the Paris talks, Chief ofStafffor Intelligence, "the kill­ "Nothing spelled out, but Heisenberg ing of scientific personnel employed must be rendered hars de combat." Powers therein." Another strategy was a revival implies that not only-Goudsmit, but of the kidnapping idea and then its Bethe, Weisskopf, and others were psy­ transmutation into an operation that chologically disposed to reject Heisen­ Bethe and Weisskopf knew nothing berg's account of his passive moral resis­ about-the assassination of Heisenherg. tance to a German bomb because to

36 Engineering & Science/Spring 1993 berg's wife, terrified him throughout the war. More important, Heisenberg him­ self understood that resistance co build­ ing bombs for Hitler's totalitarian state Caltech's Robert A. could hard Iy be taken as establishing a Millikan (left) and Marie Curie engage in moral standard applicable co scientists thoughtful conversa· who devised thefQ for the democratic tionJ while the governments that were Hitler's enemies. dashing Heisenberg (behind them, right) Heisenberg was an unusual man in seems to have found unusual circumstances, forced to make something more difficult choices concerning himself, his amusing to discuss. But in Rome in 1931 physics, and his country in a viciously no one was yet talk­ dangerous environment. Even so, it is ing about a fission difficult to accept him as a paragon of bomb. moral purpose. Unashamedly eager to use the war to serve German phys ics, he ingratiated himself with Hitler's hench­ men by laying out the requirements for a bomb, thereby obtaining support for nuclear research, his own appointment as director of the Kaiser W il helm Institute of Physics in Berlin, and the symbolic accept it was to indict themselves for reestablishment of modern physics (his their involvements in ont or another as well as Einstein's) in rhe German of the get-Heisenberg projects- and. scientific hierarchy. H e was seernjngly beyond that, for their own determina­ tone-deaf to the moral dimensions of tion to build the world's first atomic politics, uncomprehending of the bomb. revulsion that Hitler's domination of Here is Powers' evident larger aim: Europe stimulated in Bohr and in so to spotlight Heisenberg as a moral wit­ many others. Still, wh il e Heisenberg ness against scientists who would forge was not a saint, neither was he the devil Heisenberg was an weapons of mass destruction for their that Goudsmit saw. T he Farm Hall unusual man in governments. In Powers' judgment, transcripts confi rm Powers' reading of unusual circum­ Heisenberg visited Bohr in 1941 pri­ the shadow history-that, in the context marily with the hope that if he revealed of Hitler's Germany, Heisenberg and his stances, forced to that German scientists were not build­ circle were deeply ambivalent about make difficult ing an atomic bomb All ied scientists their nuclear project, that a moral reluc­ might be persuaded to forgo the con­ tance to see it succeed contributed to its choices concerning struction of one, too. Powers proposes failure, and that Heisenberg himself, as himself, his physics, that Heisenberg's postwat claim that he confessed to his friends on August 6, and his country in moral scruple had figured in his think­ 1945, was at "rhe bottom of my heart ing about the bomb could be raken as a really glad that it was to be an engine a viciously danger­ rebuke to Manhattan Projec t scientists and not a bomb." D ous environment. for what they had done during the war. noting that if some of them were out­ Even so, it is diffi­ raged by the assertion, it was because cult to accept him they wete "extremely sensitive to any suggestion that they had done some­ as a paragon of thing wrong in building the atomic moral purpose. bomb--especiall y any suggestion which Daniel Kevles, a historian ofscience and a came from Germans." At the time of member of the Caltech faculty since 1964. is Heisenberg's visit, however, Boht, prob­ the}. O. andJ uliette Koepfli Professor ofth e ably rig htly, interpreted his purpose as Humanities. His books include The self-serving patrimism- to stop the Physicists: The HistOry of a Scientific Allies from building atomic bombs and Community in Modern America and In dropping them on Germany, a possibili­ the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the ty that, in the recollection of He is en- Uses of Human H eredity.

Engineering & Science/Spring 1993 37 Books continued

iar-the world where time runs back­ wards; the world that comes to an end; Einstein's Times the world where everything happens over and over again. In ocher worlds by .Jay A. Labinger PIifJP/e are different- they live forever; they have no memory of the past; they cannot imagine the future. In still others neither the physical world nor its inhabitants seem very different from First, a little truth-in-advertising. ours, but people perceive and react to The book jacket calls Eimtein's Dreams time differently. One world is virtually a novel, and notes that author Alan indistingui shable from the "real"' world Lightman is a physicist (Calte ch MS "73, -time passes more slowly at higher PhD "74) who teaches physics and altitudes, but the effeCt is so tiny that writing at MIT. Shouldn't we expect, it can only be measured with the most then, that the book will teach us some­ sensitive instruments-nonetheless thing about Einstein's contributions to everyone insists on living in the physics? Ir doesn't. Maybe it's more mountains. about Einstein the person? No, noc char Which is the "compelling" vision either. Nor is the book really a novel, in that inspires Ei nstein's theory? None of any traditional sense. What is it, then? them-or perhaps all of them. To be The book's basic ptemise is straight­ SUIe, some of the dreams tease us with Pantheon Books, 1993 $17.00 forward: W hile working on rhe Special relativistic-sounding concepts. In one, 179 pages Theory of Relativity, published in 1905, everyone is always moving at high speed, Einstein experiences a series of dreams si nce time thereby passes more slowly abom time. Each dream portrays an (jUSt like our world, with the speed of alternate world for which the nature of light reset [Q somewhere around 55 time is different. The dreams are framed mph). [n another, time depends on by a prologue and epilogue-in which relative location, rather than on relative we see Einstein, early one morning, velocity. Gradually, however, as we waiting for the typist to come in and do move from one world to the next, dis­ his completed paper- and are punctuat­ tinCtions between the physical, human ed by several interludes, describing and perceptual natures of time"become meetings between Ei nstein and his less and less important, as do the fr iend and colleague Besso. According differences between these alternative to the prologue, one of the dreams worlds and the one we are used ro. In provides the key inspiration: "Out of the world in which people live for only many possible natures of time, imagined one day, "either the rate of heartbeats in as many nights, one seems co mpel­ and breathing is speeded up ... at rhe ling. Not that the others are impossible. rotation of the earth is slowed .... Either The others might exist in other worlds." interpretation is valid." The world of Only in some of the 30 worlds does immortals is spli t intO the Laters, who time appear to be physically different, and fee l no pressure [Q do anythi ng, si nce most of those concepts are not unfamil- they have infinite time; and the Nows,

38 Engineering & Science/Spring 1993 who are always busy, since they want to be able to do everything that an infinite life allows. (Does this sound at all like Caltech's Visions? anyone you know?) An understanding of relativity ari ses not out of any single by Robert L. Sinsheimer dream, but from rhe global vision of how time is constituted by interactions between the physical world, its people, and their conception of time. Even though there may be no overt This is a curious, disturbing, and scientific lesson here, Lightman still ultimately scandalous book-and provides us much to think abouc. What Caltech and those of us whose research is the tole of metaphor in scientific is identified with the Institute are the di scovery? What does the conception of scandalized. It is startling to be told time mean for the novelist? To write a that, thtoug hout one's entire scientific novel, after all, is to construct a world; and academic career, one has been a and consciously or otherwise, the pawn-worse, an unwitting pawn; and , novelist must define the nature of time worse yet, an intellectual progenitor of for that world: Does it proceed linearly still more unwitting pawns. But, if Lily or cycle back' Move rapidly or slowly? Kay is to be believed, that was my life. Smoorhly or unevenly' While such On one level this book presents the iss ues are not raised explicitly, it is hard hi story of Caltech's Division of Biology to imagine that they did nor influence (and therewith the "molecular vision of the wriring of this book. life") from the mid-1920s to the late Oxford University Press, 1993 One of the dreams can perhaps stand $49.95 1950s when the division had the for the entire book: "a world in which 304 pages generous and sustained suppOrt of the there is no time. Only images." Such a Rockefeller Foundation. Arthur Amos world is no world at all-but Lightman Noyes is portrayed as the intellectual makes it a beautiful thing to look at. In father of that vision at Caltech, and it like fashion, a book like this can be no was subseq uently implemented by novel at all-so don't read it as a novel. Thomas Hunt Morgan , George Beadle, Read it as poetry- even though it is Linus Pauling (in the Division of Chem­ not written in any form of verse- for istry and Chemical Engineeri~g), and the beautiful writing, rhe rhought­ Max DeibrUck, to mention only the provoking ideas, and above al l for the most famous (all won Nobel Ptizes). lovely images that arise from the mak­ This hi stOry is a work of considerable ing of the worlds, individually and scholarship and interest. It is dense ly collectively. 0 documented from many sources, in­ cluding the archives of Cal tech and J ay Labinger is the administrator of Beck­ the Philosophical Society, and especially man Institute, Also a lecturer in chemistry} those of the Rockefeller Foundation. he's been a member ofthe professional staff Almost every chapter has at least 50 since 1986 and has written several book footnotes. reviews for E&S. The 1930s through the 1950s (and

Engineering & Science/Spring 1993 39 Thomas Hunt Morgan George Beadle Linus Pauling Max Delbriick

'60s) were a perioo of revelation in biol­ skillful guiding hands of its officers Max their research guilefully co-opted to ogy, when the bases for the functional Mason and Warren Weaver, as they con­ the hidden designs of the Rockefeller and genetic characteristics of living cells trolled the flow of funds and thereby Foundation, I find close to ludicrous. were found to lie in macromolecular delicately seleCted the directions of re­ The author's bias is consis tently evi­ structures-in the specific architecture search. This hidden design was nothing dent in her choice of language and her of definable molecules. Many of these less than the "social control of human persistent (and gratuitous) attribution of advances were made at Calcech. The behavior," to be achieved through a motive. For example: genetic analyses of Morgan paved the knowledge of its basic biological origins; Graciousness notwithstanding, by way for Beadle's insightful research, the "betterment of man" tOward an ideal retrieving Garroo's "forgotten" work which first linked genes to the perfor­ conceived as the responsible, Protestant­ Beadle, of course, was engaging in mance of specific enzymatic reactions. ethic-bou nd , "Nordic" (Northern Euro­ legitimating his own findings; by Pauling's imaginative and painstaking pean) variety of homo sapiens-an ideal setting the record straight he also structural studies led finally to the first reflective of the trustees of the Founda­ carved a historical space for his own correct molecular models for proteins tion itself. contributions to biochemical genetics. and also CO the first description of the Such is Kay's thesis. To be fair, she With Pauling's own enthusiatic molecular basis of a genetic disease. does nOt accuse Morgan and the ochers of promotion, in both sciemific circles And Delbriick's introduction of bacteri­ being knowing accomplices to the exe­ and the popular media, the work [on ophage as a tool for molecular biology cution of this design. But she does con­ sickle cell hemoglobin] was regarded research led to a detailed understanding sistently focus her selective vision upon as a spectacular achievement ... of the genetic role of DNA in replica­ those aspects of their personalities that Roberr Sinsheimer at Cal tech rejoiced tion, mutation, and recombination and appear congruent with such a plOt- in rhe new powerful rechnologies . in transcription. on Morgan's instances of anti-Semitism, (italics mine). Much of this research was indeed on Pauling's small-rown-preacher made possible by generous support from background and his sciemific arrogance, Throughout the book, scientific the Rockefeller Foundation. Kay re­ on DelbrUck's lineage to the German progress is invariably coupled with a cou ntS these advances knowledgeably. elite and his fos tering of a "personality goal of social comrol. To quote a few Invariably, however, her account of this cult," on Beadle's interest in the indus­ examples: development of molecular biology is trial application of his research. I did The program expressed the percep­ ideologically slanted and hostile, all of not know Morgan, but I knew Beadle, tion thar mechanisms of upward it being embedded in, and interwoven Pauling, and Delbriick well. These men causation were necessary and sufficient with, a subtext-a subtext that purports were true scientists, independent think­ explanations of life and the most to teveal a hidden design behind the ers deeply dedicated co the pursuit of proouctive path to biological and philanthropy of the Rockefeller Founda­ knowledge. Each had his personal idio­ social control. tioo. According co the author, this syncracies, but to suggest that they were design was implemented through the somehow manipulated or suborned, Equally significant, when the precise

40 Engineering & Science/Spring 1993 Each had his personal idiosyn­ crasies, but to suggest that they mechanisms by which nucleic acids Pauling to this idea, the author manages were somehow exerted their putative power as the to implicate hi.(ll anyway: manipulated or chemical blueprints of life were elucidated, molecular biology would The synergy between intellectual suborned, their claim greater cognitive authority and capital and economic resources but­ tressed the technocratic vision of prog­ research guileful­ technological potential when address­ ing the unresolved problems of bio­ ress. With the Foundation's support ly co-opted to the logical deterioration and rational and the generous help of prominent social planning. Pasadena familie's, Millikan predicted hidden designs of that the Institute could "scarcely fail the Rockefeller Something more profound was at to win the race for human betterment" work: a cognitive and social resonance. through chemical and biochemical Foundation, I The Foundation's technocratic vision advances. find close to of social engineering and its represen­ The term "human betterment" tational strategies were articulated on must be viewed within 11 politics of ludicrous. the discursive level of program and meaning with its own historicity. policies; the scientist's technocratic "The race for human betterment" had vision of life was represented at the a specific linguistic meaning during bench. The primacy of Caltech on the the 1930s, grounded in eugenic Rockefeller Foundation's roster discourse. As the New York Times reflected these deeply shared interests announced, the Rockefeller gift to and convergent social and scientific Cal tech was aimed at "the biological ideologies. improvement of the race." ... Al­ though there is no written record that Kay's implication is clear: Caltech during the 1930s Pauling was directly and these particular scientists received motivated by the social goals of the the support of the Rockefeller Founda­ Rockefeller Foundation's agenda tion because its astute officers perceived "Science of Man" or by the eugenic an underlying "resonance," a shared campaign of the Human Betterment vision of science and society, that Foundation, his interests in human blended the long-range goals of the applications of biochemical research Foundation, the ethos of the Institute, are documented. and the personalities of these faculty. It is not unreasonable for Kay to Their science was important but their presume that when its trustees commit­ social perspective was decisive in the ted the Rockefeller Foundation to Foundation's choices. "human betterment," they had in mind That there was a shared vision of a world governed by the principles that science seems likely. That there was a had led to their personal success-prin­ shared vision of social goals is uncertain; ciples of personal responsibility, the if so, knowing these scientists, I cannot work ethic, rationality. And given the believe that it was the program of "social evidence that much of human behavior control" or "human betterment" postu­ in the world is irrational, it was not lated by Kay, although the phrase did without sense at the time to seek bio­ apparently find its way into Robert A. logical bases that might explain differ­ Millikan's mouth. But even with the ences in behavior. To leap from such a absence of any "written record" linking relatively benign concept, however, to a

Engineering & Science/Spring 1993 41 Machiavellian plot, incorporating and the increased concern with the phasis upon the "molecular vision of life" Caltech and some of the most dis­ residual panoply of genetic diseases. resulted in a diversion of support and tinguished scientists of their day and This concern led naturally to a much interest so that: "important biological intended to control "human behavior on broader interest in genetics. Instead, problems, such as differentiation, a global scale," is the stuff of conspiracy she sees only one straight trajectory: growth, the organization of cells into buffs. organs, selection, adaptation, and Molecular biology was mission­ Accordingly, Kay rejects the thesis oriented basic research. The ends and speciation have remained unsolved for that molecular biology was simply the means of biological engineering were decades." This is also off the mark. logical outcome of developments in inscribed into the Rockefeller Foun­ -On the contrary, these fields are now biochemistry, biophysics, and genetics. dation's molecular biology program, undergoing dynamic advances thanks She writes: and eugenic goals played a significant specifically to the introduction of the role in its design. The program, in maturing concepts and methods of Current discourse on genetic turn, formed a key element in the engineering technologies often molecular biology. Foundation's new agenda, "Science of characterizes these deyelopments as a It is distressing that such detailed Man," a cooperative venture between natural consequence of the theoretical scholarship should have been placed in the natural, medical, and social research that took place during the the service of a distorting, revisionist sciences. This agenda sought to 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s,a logical ideology. Kay clearly belongs to the develop a comprehensive science of evolution from the pure to the social control and a rational basis for school of historical determinism that applied. The lessons from this book human engineering. maintains the view that the course of imply the reverse: that from its scientific progress cannot be autono­ inception around 1930, the molecular Thus, she distorts the meaning of mous, but is always a response to cul­ biology program was defined and statements such as Pauling's in a 1958 tural, usually political and economic, conceptualized in terms of technologi­ broadcast on "The Next Hundred forces. While this ideology likely has cal capabilities and social possibilities. Years": Representations of life within the new instances of some validity-more so as biology were a priori predicated on Like some of his peers, Pauling saw applied to technology than to science­ interventions that, in turn, aimed the deterioration of the human race as her attempt to force the development of from the start at reshaping vital the most compelling challenge for the molecular biology into this mold is mis­ phenomena and social processes. new biology. "It will not be enough conceived and has led her to an invidious just to develop ways of treating the caricature of a great institution and In one sense, were it not so snide, this hereditary defects," he said. "We several great scientists. D view (and indeed the whole book) could shall have to find some way to purity be viewed as highly flattering. The very the pool of human germ plasm so that notion that these Caltech scientists could there will not be so many seriously have produced to order such a major defective children born ....We are scientific breakthrough as molecular going to have to institute birth Robert Sinsheimer is currently professor biology merely in order to implement control, population control." emeritus in the Department of Biological the (postulated) social objectives of the That "seriously defective" children Sciences at UC Santa Barbara. He was Rockefeller Foundation is implicitly a are born is a human tragedy, and the professor of biophysics at Caltech from 1957 remarkable tribute-although far author's tendency to regard proposals to and chairman of the Division of Biology from beyond the possible. reduce such tragedy merely as "interven­ 1968 until leaving to become chancellor of Surprisingly, Kay completely over­ tionist concepts of social control," as she UC Santa Cruz in 1977. During his 20- looks the historical connection between does in the next sentence, is simply year career at Caltech he worked with the conquest of infectious disease by the wrong-headed. bacteriophage and was a frequent contributor introduction of antibiotics and vaccines Likewise Kay's perception that em- to E&S on the ethics ofgenetic research.

42 Engineering & Science/Spring 1993