Chronicles Newsletter of the UCSD Emeriti Association
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Chronicles Newsletter of the UCSD Emeriti Association September 2009 Volume IX, No. 1 ARMS AND THE SCIENTIST: HERB YORK’S R ACE AGAINST OBLIVION By Sandy Lakoff on the “cardinal decisions” – those af- fecting war and peace. In 1604 – at the early dawn of the The partnership was uneasy on both modern era – Francis Bacon predicted sides. Politicians already felt, with Clem- that science would become a novum orga- enceau, that war was too important to num – a new instrument – through which be left to the generals. Now they came humanity would acquire ever greater to believe that it should no more be en- command over the forces of nature. trusted to a “scientific and technological Herb York belonged to a generation of elite,” as President Eisenhower warned physicists who lived and worked during in his farewell address. When Niels Bohr a time when that prophecy was fulfilled, tried to persuade Churchill to inform the in fateful form, by research showing that Soviets of the bomb project so as to fore- the tremendous energy locked in the nu- stall a post-war arms race, he was rudely cleus of the atom could be released and rebuffed. “I did not like the man when put to controlled use. The application of you showed him to me, with his hair this knowledge to the development of Herb York all over his head, at Downing Street,” atomic explosives determined the path Portrait by Manuel Rotenberg Churchill growled to his scientific advis- of Herb’s career. As he worked to build er. President Truman was just as dismis- and design these devices, he grew to un- technologists were admitted, sometimes sive when Leo Szilard tried to persuade derstand the terrible perils they pose and grudgingly and suspiciously, to the cor- him and Secretary of State Byrnes to therefore did his utmost to end the arms ridors of political power. “With the dis- demonstrate the bomb rather than use it competition he described as a “race to covery of fission,” C. P. Snow remarked, against Japan. Years after Robert Oppen- oblivion.” “physicists became almost overnight, the heimer gained honor and fame as direc- In 1943, as a precocious 21-year old, most important military resource a na- tor of the Los Alamos Laboratory, where he was drawn out of graduate studies tion-state could call upon.” For the first the first bombs were built and tested, he at Berkeley to work in the Manhattan time in history, he observed, they were was declared a “security risk” because Project “Rad Lab” run by his mentor and being asked on a regular basis to advise during the war he had misled security of- Nobel laureate Ernest O. Lawrence. In ficers (to protect innocent friends) and earlier times, scientists and engineers socialized with radicals. had bent their talents only sporadically For their part, scientists had conflict- to improving the arts of war. As a result ing feelings about working on defense v v v v v v of their role in World War II they en- Inside projects. Norbert Wiener, the math- tered into a new symbiotic relationship President’s Message. 3 ematician and father of cybernetics, de- with politicians. Science was now seen as cided early on to have nothing to do with an “endless frontier” that would provide The Budget Crisis & UCSD. 4 military applications. Alvin Weinberg, not only national security but also con- Mentoring Program . 6 Director of the Oak Ridge lab, called the tinued prosperity. Government became dependence of science on government Anecdotage . 7 the patron of science, at first especially support a “Faustian bargain.” The same of military “R&D” and eventually across Mark Your Calendar . 8 Robert Oppenheimer who said, after the board. In exchange, scientists and Continued on p.2 ➝ UCSD Emeriti Association Page 2 September 2009 v Chronicles the atomic bomb was dropped over Ja- pact on him while he was growing up in York became more his own man and grew pan, “we scientists have tasted sin” also Rochester, New York. He followed cur- accustomed, through service on a series remarked, upon learning of a new ap- rent events in the newspapers but was of committees, to give his views as a spe- proach to designing the H-bomb, “when most fascinated by a book on astronomy cialist on technical feasibility. On one of you see something technically sweet, you that opened his mind to science. When those committees, he was at first reluc- go ahead and do it and you argue about the atomic bombs used against Hiro- tant to join the other scientists in going it only after you have had your technical shima and Nagasaki brought the war to beyond a technical evaluation of how a success.” Hans Bethe said that he agreed an end, York shared the general elation, test ban might be verified to add an opin- to work on the “Super” in the hope “that convinced that the bombings had saved ion about its strategic and political advis- it might be possible to prove that ther- perhaps a million American casualties ability. That experience persuaded him to monuclear reactions were not feasible and even more among the Japanese. be more forthcoming because he realized at all.” Szilard, who had urged Albert Afterward, Lawrence “wangled” that if scientists were asked about ways Einstein to warn President Roosevelt (Herb’s word) a combined appointment to restrain the arms race, they should ex- that the Germans were working on mak- for him teaching physics and doing re- press their opinions, in view of their “spe- ing military use of atomic energy, was so search at the Rad Lab. When, at the cial knowledge”: they “understand better appalled by the prospect of atomic war- urging of Edward Teller, a new lab was than others the thermonuclear horror fare that in 1946 he gave up physics and opened at Livermore to work on the H- that is always only thirty minutes away turned to biology – before the science of bomb, York was tapped, again by Law- from happening.” life ironically became another potential rence, to be its director. Given his close In four months at the White House, route to weapons of mass destruction. ties to Lawrence and his new role run- and afterward for three years in the Pen- York, like most scientists in all the ning the lab, it is perhaps not surprising tagon, where he became Chief Scientist countries involved in the war and subse- that when news that Oppenheimer had of the new Advanced Research Projects quently in the Cold War, did not hesitate been branded a security risk aroused ire Agency (now DARPA) and then Direc- to pitch in. He was thrilled to be asked among physicists, many of whom were fu- tor of Defense Research and Engineer- by Lawrence to work (along with Hugh rious at Teller for testifying against him, ing under Eisenhower and briefly under Bradner) on one of the techniques for York, like Lawrence, was conspicuously President Kennedy, he found himself separating the U-235 isotope of uranium silent. York gave Teller a central role at resisting efforts by “hard-sell technolo- needed for the first bomb. As victory the lab, including a veto power over all gists” to push all sorts of impractical and loomed in Europe but Japan continued scientific elements during the first year, costly schemes, justifying them by worst- to resist, Szilard and James Franck cir- and thought he did an excellent job. case scenarios of what the Russians were culated a petition at Chicago and Los It was only later that York made up to. He would later agree with Robert Alamos calling on our government not amends by writing The Advisors, a study McNamara that the arms race was fu- to use the atomic bomb as a weapon but of the conflict over the crash program in elled by an “action-reaction syndrome” to arrange a demonstration of its destruc- which he defended Oppenheimer’s pro- in which our side was usually the initiator. tive power to persuade the Japanese to posal to sound out the Soviets about a He came to appreciate the critical stance make peace. York said later that the issue mutual moratorium before proceeding to of public-advocacy groups like the Fed- did not arouse much concern at Berkeley build a weapon that would be so unnec- eration of American Scientists (in which and Oak Ridge. The culture of the Rad essarily destructive. In his later memoir, he became a leading figure) and took part Lab reflected the attitude of Lawrence, a however, York said nothing at all about in Pugwash meetings with Soviet coun- prototypical American pragmatist and an any feelings he may have had about the terparts, hoping to promote arms control experimentalist rather than an abstract treatment of Oppenheimer, at the time and limitations on nuclear testing. But he theoretician. Lawrence said at the time, or later. This behavior on York’s part did confessed frustration at the debates that York recalled, “that such matters were not necessarily indicate agreement with were swirling around nuclear weapons at best left in the hands of the higher politi- Teller that the H-bomb was needed, nor the time. The scientists’ public-interest cal and military authorities . Scientists, is it likely to have been a case of simple groups were correct in their warnings, he said, especially younger ones, should opportunism. The most plausible expla- he felt, but their prescriptions of what to not waste precious working time on ex- nation is that at the time he was still very do about the problems were often naïve traneous issues for which they had no much under the spell of his institutional and biased.