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tr José Israel Vargas o ii to ootnit The former minister, an advocate of nuclear enery and critic of corporatism, looks back on his career as a scientist and policy maker Fabrício Marques Published in April 2011 osé Israel Vargas, 83, who was born in Minas Gerais — My friends joke that to physicists, I’m a chemist, and to state, is not just a privileged witness to the develop- chemists, I’m a physicist. I think they mean I’m equally ignorant ment of Brazilian science in the twentieth century. in both areas. The field that most attracted my generation was As Minister of Science and Technology from 1992 nuclear physics and nuclear energy, where the biggest technical to 1998 – a position he held longer than anyone and scientific advances during and after the Second World War else has – he became one of the most influential had been made. Brazil had had the good fortune to have a gen- voices in science and technology policy in Brazil. eration that produced a series of great scientists at the USP. This He graduated from the Federal University of Minas Gerais line of scholarship came out of the brilliant Italian school led by (UFMG) in 1952 with a degree in chemistry but soon be- Enrico Fermi. At USP, Gleb Wataghin and Giuseppe Occhialini came involved with physics. He gained solid experience taught Marcelo Damy, Abraão de Moraes, Mário Schönberg, in physics at the University of São Paulo (USP) and the Paulus Aulus Pompeia, César Lattes and Oscar Sala. I came into Aeronautical Institute of Technology (ITA) and received contact with this generation of scientists when I went to study a PhD in nuclear science from the Department of Physics chemistry at the Federal University of Minas Gerais in 1948. In & Chemistry at the University of Cambridge. He was one my second year, I transferred to USP, in Alameda Glete, where I of the formulators of Brazil’s nuclear energy policy at the stayed for almost two years. Like every young person at the time, beginning of the 1960s, an activity that was interrupted by I was a left winger, involved in student protests and the “The oil the military coup of 1964, which led to Vargas leaving the is ours” campaign, which was led mainly by the Communist country and living in exile in France for six and a half years. youth movement. I made friends with and got to know people While in France, he worked as a researcher at the French there who were to become important scientists. Atomic Energy Commission’s Center for Nuclear Studies in Grenoble. Vargas returned to his policy-making career n For example? in Brazil under Aureliano Chaves, then Governor of Minas — Ely Silva, Luís Hildebrando Pereira da Silva, Ernst and Gerais. In the Figueiredo administration, he became the Amélia Hamburger, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, José Secretary of Industrial Technology in the Ministry of In- Goldemberg, Victor Nussenzweig – with whom, as a matter dustry and Commerce. Itamar Franco’s presidency saw him of fact, I was imprisoned during the oil campaign. I went moving to the Ministry of Science and Technology, where back to Minas leaning towards physics. Although I continued he remained through Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s first studying chemistry, I became a high-school physics teacher, term in office. “Because I’m jinxed, I was always appointed and I taught physics in a university-entrance-exam prepara- during times of crisis,” says Vargas, who, three years ago, tory course in the School of Philosophy at UFMG. compiled a book, Science at a Time of Crisis, from some of his writings generated over the last thirty years. A defender n What was your stay at ITA like? of nuclear energy and critic of corporatism in Brazilian sci- — At the time, ITA was running a development course for ence, Vargas talked about his career in this interview with high-school physics teachers. It was an initiative of the CNPq Fabrício Marques. [National Council for Scientific and Technological Develop- ment] organized by Paulus Aulus Pompeia, who was one of the n You have a degree in chemistry, but you embarked on a most important figures in Occhialini and Wataghin’s group. career in physics. How did that transition happen? Pompeia had participated in the most remarkable achieve- n special issue jan / apr 2011 n PESQUISA FAPESP 006-011_entrevistaingles_Julho2011.indd 6 09.09.11 15:37:18 ues s lucia rri lucia s T PESQUISA FAPESP n special issue jan / apr 2011 n p 006-011_entrevistaingles_Julho2011.indd 7 09.09.11 15:37:24 ments in physics in recent times, the passed the public-service exam and for- discovery of so-called penetrating show- mally became the full professor. I made a ers. That discovery was one of the first lot of efforts to get a hold of the necessary to demonstrate that the atomic nucleus t resources for doing scientific work; these is much more complex than had previ- efforts were very urgent. I subsequently ously been imagined. There were some nn established a strong relationship with twenty-odd students from all over Brazil and a Marcelo Damy and took part in numerous in that course. The prospects that nuclear working groups organized by the CNEN energy offered for the world’s economy a [National Nuclear Energy Commission], and for science were tremendous. It was which he presided over. I was appointed a natural that young people with scientific ad member of CNEN’s board, and, in that ca- inclinations would want to move into that pacity, I acted as his deputy on the Board area. The course was especially interest- ana ra of Governors of the International Atomic ing because Pompeia brought the leading Energy Agency [IAEA] in Vienna, where lights of Brazilian physics to lecture and n I was on various committees. Two of the give conferences. There were also two great dn more notable ones were the committee American physicists in Brazil at that time, that established the rules and safeguards Richard Feynman and David Bohm, the a a a for controlling nuclear activities via in- latter of whom was fleeing from McCa- spections and the one that was responsible rthyism. Abraão de Moraes, an important n for formulating the international stan- Brazilian physicist, suggested that Pompeia dards for nuclear data. recruit me at ITA. So although I had re- cently graduated in chemistry, I ended up n Why were you relieved of your duties in the physics department. the municipal college. Soon after that, the with the CNEN after the 1964 coup? Institute for Radioactive Research [IPR] — Naturally, they remembered that I had n What was the environment at ITA like? was founded in Belo Horizonte, and I was been a student agitator; the revolution — I was at ITA from 1952 until 1954. invited by Professor Francisco Magalhães had a long memory; like all revolutions. It was an extremely interesting period Gomes, its organizer, to do precisely the I was subjected to three police inquiries because ITA had recruited the very best work I wanted to do, nuclear research. and my laboratory was invaded by an people in Brazil: young scientists and en- army detachment. I was relieved of my gineers in various areas, but especially in n The next step was a PhD from the Uni- duties, supposedly at the request of the mechanical engineering, materials sci- versity of Cambridge. CNEN board; however, I decided not to ence, aeronautics and, of course, math- — Exactly. At that time, the first Latin leave Brazil until things had been clarified, ematics. It had hired a large number American course in nuclear chemistry was in order to avoid being tried in absentia. of scientists, including many from the being given in Chile, at the University of In 1964, I received invitations to go to Massachusetts Institute of Technology Concepción, sponsored by the University the United States, Argentina, the Neth- (MIT). There were some Germans from of Cambridge and by Unesco. I received erlands and France. I chose France, spe- Von Braun’s group, along with Belgian, a grant from the CNPq to attend the cifically Grenoble, but I maintained close French, Czech and Swiss researchers, who course; just two of us taking the course relations with the National Institute for began working on the project to develop were Brazilian. There I met Alfred Mad- Nuclear Science and Technology, which the first Brazilian airplane, the seed of dock, who suggested I should do a PhD was located in Saclay, near Paris. I went what would one day become Embraer. at Cambridge and offered to be my tutor. to Grenoble because one of my friends at ITA was a special place, because it offered I started in 1956. Cambridge University the International Atomic Energy Agency, accommodations, food, a small salary and had been the main center for the develop- Pierre Balligand, who had been the di- a minimal work schedule, which allowed ment of nuclear science. There were some rector for power reactors there, became people to attend the various courses at five or six Nobel prize winners there at director of the Center for Nuclear Stud- ITA. One of those was taught by Walther the same time I was. The lead researchers ies in Grenoble, along with Louis Néel, a Baltensperger, from the Zurich Polytech- were from the English nuclear-armament Nobel prize winner in physics. nic, who became a close friend. What’s program, and many had taken part in the more, I used to go to São Paulo once a Manhattan Project. A number of scientists n What kind of relationship did you week to attend David Bohm’s seminar at were lecturing there at the time, including maintain with Brazil during that time? USP, and I frequently stayed with Fernan- James Chadwick, who had discovered the — In 1969 or 1970, I was asked by the do Henrique Cardoso.