A Chemist in the White House

Harry S. Truman
How to Best Use This Awesome Power

In December 1946 President Harry S. Truman appointed me as a member of the nine-person General Advisory Committee (GAC) of the newly-established and appointed Atomic Energy Commission. The GAC held its first meeting in Washington on January 3, 1947, and on the average, we met every other month, including meeting with President Truman. I served on the GAC until the end of my term on August 1, 1950, attending all but one of its 21 meetings. We were very influential in advising the AEC on the rehabilitation of the Los Alamos Weapons Laboratory (which had become somewhat disorganized after the end of the war), the operation of the AEC facilities for the production of fissionable material, the diminishing role of secrecy in the operation of the AEC, the distribution of radioactive isotopes produced in the AEC facilities, the instigation of the AEC’s marvelous program of support of basic research in U.S. universities and colleges, the operation of the national laboratories, the direction of the emerging civilian nuclear power program, the AEC organizational structure, and many other areas where we thought our advice, sought or unsought, would be helpful. . . .

Soon after he became president, I participated in an important recommendation to Truman that was not accepted. In June 1945, six committees were established at the Metallurgical Laboratory to make recommendations to the government regarding postwar policy. One was a Committee on Social and Political Implications. It was headed by German-born James Franck, a venerated Nobel laureate (1925) in physics. I was a member of this group. Other members, all chosen by Franck, were Donald Hughes, James Nickson, Eugene Rabinowitch, Joyce Stearns, and Leo Szilard. The committee’s report, shaped mainly by Szilard, with some drafting help from Rabinowitch, was completed on June 11, 1945, and signed by every member of the group. It made, basically, three points. The first was that the United States could not avoid a nuclear arms race through a policy of secrecy. The second was that the best hope for national and world safety from the consequences of the bomb lay in international control of atomic energy. The third was that the military use of the bomb against Japan was “inadvisable” because it would “sacrifice public support throughout the world, precipitate the race for armaments and prejudice the possibility of reaching an international agreement on the future control of weapons.” We suggested, instead, that the power of the bomb first be demonstrated in an uninhabited “desert or barren island.” This event would be followed by an ultimatum to Japan to surrender, with the implication that thus many lives would be saved.

The Franck Report was delivered to Washington on June 12, 1945, by Franck and Compton. Secretary of War Henry Stimson was not available so the report was left for review by George L. Harrison (former chairman of the New York Federal Reserve Bank and president of the New York Life Insurance Company), who was serving as deputy chairman (Stimson was chairman) of the so-called interim committee, a committee charged with the planning that would be necessary in anticipation of the use of the atomic bomb and the revelation of its existence. Harrison referred the matter to the interim committee’s Scientific Advisory Panel, consisting of Compton, Fermi, Lawrence, and Oppenheimer, who considered it at a meeting on June 16th at Los Alamos, and decided that the bomb should be used to help save American lives in the Japanese war; the interim committee, and finally President Truman, came to the same conclusion. In a poll of 150 Met Lab people in July, 60% favored the military use of the bomb in Japan. A total of about 25% favored giving a demonstration in the United States with Japanese representatives present, followed by an opportunity to surrender before the bomb would be put to military use in Japan. Also in July, a petition prepared by Szilard with 70 signatures at the Met Lab requested that the bomb not be used without warning. The indications are that neither the Franck Report nor the petition reached President Truman (who sailed for Europe on July 6, to confer at Potsdam with Josef Stalin and Winston Churchill), although he may have been briefed on the gist of the recommendations. In any case, the recommendation that there be a demonstration of the atomic bomb was not accepted.

In a remarkable recent book, Danger and Survival — Choices about the Bomb in the First Fifty Years, McGeorge Bundy makes the suggestion that influential Japanese observers might have been invited to witness the American bomb test at Alamogordo on July 16th. This would have given the Japanese the opportunity to learn of the terrifying impact of the bomb and the option to forestall its use on their cities by agreeing to terms of surrender. This more practical alternative was not suggested by members of the Franck committee, in part because the requirements of secrecy (compartmentalization) prevented them from having any information about plans for the Alamogordo test. However, in the July 1945 poll at the Met Lab that I mentioned earlier, one of the options was to give an experimental demonstration of the bomb in the United States.

I can understand and do not quarrel with the decision to use the Hiroshima bomb (although I am not convinced that the follow-up Nagasaki bomb was necessary). Accomplishment of the objective of ending the war at the earliest possible date undoubtedly saved hundreds of thousands of lives. An ineffective or failed demonstration of the atomic bomb would probably have prevented so early an end to the war. The use of the bomb dramatized its terrible power and contributed to the subsequent deterrent effect of improved nuclear weapons in forestalling another world war for a record period of more than 50 years and perhaps indefinitely. . . .

A GAC action that gained the most publicity was the recommendation (at a meeting on October 28-30, 1949, which I missed due to a visit to Sweden) that the AEC not proceed with a high priority program to develop the super bomb (hydrogen bomb). I had sent a letter to Oppenheimer saying that I had reluctantly come to the conclusion that the United States should proceed with such a program because it was certain that the Soviet Union would do so:

The indications are that Oppenheimer did not present my letter for discussion at the GAC meeting.

The majority opinion of the GAC (Conant, Rowe, Smith, DuBridge, Buckley, Oppenheimer) recommended against the production of such a super bomb....

Two members (Fermi and Rabi), in a kind of minority report, recommended that the United States invite the nations of the world to join us in a solemn pledge not to proceed in the development or construction of weapons in this category:

The members of the GAC learned from President Harry Truman on January 31, 1950, of his decision that the United States should proceed with the development and production of the hydrogen bomb. . . .

The opinions of the members of the General Advisory Committee that our country should not give high priority to the development of a hydrogen, or “super,” bomb are, in retrospect, provocative and tantalizing. Had I been present at the GAC meeting in October 1949, I suspect that I might have associated myself with the opinion expressed by Fermi and Rabi, i.e., that “it would be appropriate to invite the nations of the world to join us in a solemn pledge not to proceed in the development or construction of weapons of this category.” Such a posture might have, as a minimum, slowed the nuclear arms race and, as a maximum, mitigated the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union. Oppenheimer’s role in formulating the negative recommendation on the super bomb, played an important role in the suspension of his security clearance a few years later.

During April and May 1954, early in the Eisenhower administration, hearings were held into the matter of security clearance of J. Robert Oppenheimer before the AEC Personnel Security Board (Chairman Gordon Gray, Ward V. Evans, and Thomas A. Morgan). Charges of security indiscretions, dating as far back as the period immediately preceding World War II, were brought by AEC Chairman Lewis Strauss and sanctioned by President Eisenhower. A long string of witnesses for the prosecution and defense testified before the board. I was not called as a witness because I would not be helpful to either side — the prosecution, because I maintained that I did not regard Oppenheimer to be, or to ever have been, a security risk; and not to the defense, because I would need to testify that Oppenheimer had failed to present my letter of October 14, 1949 for discussion at the GAC meeting that month, which I missed. The board, mistakenly I believe, found him to be a security risk and upheld the suspension of his security clearance by a vote of 2 to 1 (Evans voted against the suspension while Gray and Morgan voted to uphold it). This unfortunate action had a devastating effect on Oppenheimer and contributed, I believe, to the deterioration of his health and premature death in 1967. . . .

Dwight David Eisenhower
The President’s Science Advisory Committee

Although I had earlier contacts with Dwight David Eisenhower, my formal association with his administration began when I was appointed to the newly-created President’s Science Advisory Committee (PSAC) early in 1959 and attended the monthly meetings in Washington, D.C. from April 1959 until January 1961. The PSAC was a very influential group. A major component of our advice to President Eisenhower, illustrative of this “cold war” period, was in the military field, where we advised on anti-submarine warfare, missile and potential anti-intercontinental ballistic missile programs, continental air defense (including early warning against missile attacks), chemical warfare, plans for limited warfare, and especially arms limitation and control. In addition, we gave advice on high energy and accelerator physics, life sciences, science and foreign relations, space science, and basic research and graduate education. I served as chairman of the Panel on Basic Research and Graduate Education and our report, “Scientific Progress, the Universities, and the Federal Government,” which became known as the “Seaborg Report,” drew special attention from President Eisenhower and had a substantial impact on federal support of graduate education and science.

Long before my service on PSAC, however, it became clear that Eisenhower actively sought the advice of and participation of scientists. An early indication was the Atoms for Peace Program, an idea he introduced at a meeting of the United Nations in December 1953, which led to the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). His proposal was motivated by a desire to encourage worldwide investigation into the most effective peacetime uses of atomic energy and to begin to diminish the potential destructive power of the world’s atomic stockpiles. He suggested that the United States and the Soviet Union and other nuclear-capable states begin and continue to make joint contributions of enriched uranium-235 to such an agency under the aegis of the United Nations for use as fuel in nuclear power reactors throughout the world. Although initially receptive, the Soviet Union soon opposed such a role for the agency, citing such objections as the potential for increased numbers of nuclear weapons as a result of the production of plutonium in such reactors. After more than three years of debate a modified International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) (without a nuclear fuel repository function), with headquarters in Vienna, Austria, became operative in 1957. Today there are more than 123 countries participating in the IAEA, which administers the safeguards in the Nonproliferation Treaty and is destined to play a key role in the continuing nonproliferation regime; the IAEA implements the original objective of providing assistance on the peaceful uses of atomic energy to non-nuclear countries.

Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace Program also resulted in a series of International Conferences on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy held in Geneva, Switzerland. In August 1955 I attended the first of these conferences, where I served as chairman of a session called “Heavy Element Chemistry.” Here, I was excited to meet for the first time a number of Soviet nuclear chemists and nuclear physicists, and to learn of their experimental results, to meet Otto Hahn (the codiscoverer of nuclear fission), and to talk with many other famous nuclear scientists. Ernest Lawrence and I became acquainted with many of these scientists at evening dinners, and one result of this was a visit of Otto Hahn at our invitation to the United States and Berkeley later that fall.

Niels Bohr lectured on “Physical Science and Man’s Position.” He spoke in English (the talks were translated into French, English, Russian, and Spanish, and transmitted through earphones to the audience), but his “live” English was so heavily accented that much of the English-speaking audience had difficulty understanding him until some of us, idly turning the dial, successfully “tuned in” to the English translation. We all wondered where the organizers found a translator who spoke “Bohrese.”. . .

PSAC considered a wide range of topics, with some emphasis on military matters. Illustrative of the topics are the names of the many PSAC panels, consisting of members of the PSAC and additional knowledgeable scientists and engineers — AICBM, Anti-Submarine Warfare, Arms Limitation and Control, Basic Research and Graduate Education, Chemicals, Continental Air Defense, Early Warning, High Energy Accelerator Physics, Life Sciences, Limited Warfare, Missiles, Science and Foreign Relations, Space Science, and Ad Hoc Missiles Study. . . .

Occasionally, we met with President Eisenhower. I recall a meeting in the Oval Office with him on May 19, 1959. We discussed the growing complexity in military systems (the president commented that military establishments are, and always have been, obsolete), the importance of arms control (the president agreed emphatically), the cessation of nuclear testing in the atmosphere (the president suggested that PSAC continue to advocate this), and the strengthening of science in the free world. . . .

I served as chairman of the Panel on Basic Research and Graduate Education. The first meeting of the panel was held on November 16, 1959:

Then the meeting of the PSAC was held the next day, for which my attendance was interrupted by a meeting with Vice President Richard M. Nixon . . .

Following a number of additional meetings of my panel, and with critical drafting help from (McGeorge) Bundy, my panel finished our report, “Scientific Progress, the Universities and the Federal Government,” by the time of the November 1960, meeting of the PSAC; the report later became known as “the Seaborg Report.” When the report was made available to President Eisenhower, he became so interested that he actually edited and made some changes in it. When the members of the PSAC met with the president on December 19, 1960, in the Oval Office of the White House, he took special note of my PSAC panel report. Perhaps the report’s most famous recommendation was the statement that the basis of general policy should be that basic research and the education of scientists go best together as inseparable functions of universities. Furthermore, the report also stated that federal support for basic research and graduate education in the sciences should be continued and flexibly increased, so as to support excellence where it already exists, and to encourage new centers of outstanding work. . . .

Shortly after the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy, I wrote a letter of appreciation to President Eisenhower:

Dwight Eisenhower was impressive in many ways, and I particularly admired his dedication to the achievement of an agreement to put an end to the testing of nuclear weapons. He played a leading role in the initiation of a moratorium on such testing, which began in 1958 and continued until the Soviet resumption of testing in the fall of 1961. I was honored that in addition to his selection of me to serve as a member of PSAC, President Eisenhower also approved the choice of me as a recipient of the Fermi Award in 1959 (which, incidentally, gave me the financial freedom to go to Washington when the time came in 1961), and my nomination as a member of the National Science Board. He had a good rapport with his PSAC and encouraged the members to establish a subcommittee to deal specifically with disarmament studies. . . .

John Fitzgerald Kennedy
A Passion for Arms Control

The main theme in the administration of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the pursuit of a nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union. I believe that the achievement of the treaty can be traced in large part to the deep commitment of President Kennedy, to his persistence in pursuing the goal despite numerous setbacks, to his skilled leadership of the forces involved within his administration, and to his sensitive and patient diplomacy in dealing both with the Soviet Union (which meant, basically, with Nikita Khrushchev) and with the United States Senate. It is my view that President Kennedy’s performance in this matter had qualities of excellence which are worthy of study and emulation.

The failure to achieve a comprehensive treaty ending all nuclear testing by the superpowers is a major disappointment. Despite some near misses, this glittering prize, which carried with it the opportunity to arrest the viciously spiraling arms race, eluded our grasp. It is important, I think, to consider why this happened. Basically, this was because of deep mistrust between the superpowers; this mutual suspicion has operated until recently to thwart the hopes of the largest part of the world community.

A telephone call that changed my life came on the afternoon of January 9, 1961. I was in the HILAC Building of the Radiation Laboratory of the University of California at Berkeley. My habit each Monday was to take refuge there from my administrative duties as chancellor of the Berkeley campus in order to follow progress in my own academic field, nuclear chemistry. The call came from President-elect John F. Kennedy. He asked me to accept the job of chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. When I asked him how much time I had to make up my mind, he said, “Take your time. You don’t have to let me know until tomorrow morning.”

That evening I discussed Kennedy’s offer of the chairmanship of the AEC with my wife Helen, and our six children. It was a big decision because we would be taking all five of our school-age children out of their schools and away from their friends. The kids did not like the idea of moving from Lafayette, California, to Washington, D.C. and during dinner, demanded a vote on this issue. The vote was seven to one against moving (with Helen and the six kids, including one-year-old Dianne, voting against). However, I exercised the veto power inherent in the head of a democratic institution and said, “I think we should make the move.”

Within a few days I accepted the offer. On January 20, 1961, decked out in morning coat and top hat, I sat with the official party on the stage before the Capitol, waiting for the inauguration of John F. Kennedy as the 35th president of the United States. As Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. describes it, “it all began in the cold.” Before the new president came in, I saw several of my friends who were also part of the incoming administration: McGeorge Bundy, national security advisor, Dean Rusk, secretary of state, and Robert McNamara, secretary of defense. The ceremony began, and after the oath, President Kennedy spoke eloquently and pronounced his now famous “ask not what your country can do for you” line, which had great appeal for the crowd.

Later in the day, I went to the reviewing stand set up in front of the White House where I first met the new attorney general, Robert Kennedy. He greeted me very warmly and brought his brother, the new president, up several rows in the stands to meet me. This was my first face-to-face meeting with John Kennedy. He stood beside my seat and we carried on a cordial chat. After expressing his delight at my willingness to serve in his administration, he proceeded to give me my first assignment. “I know there is another vacancy on the Atomic Energy Commission,” he said, “why don’t we fill it with another, perhaps young, scientist who could attain experience in the AEC and then go on to other positions in the government?” Having myself advocated two scientist-commissioners to deal with the commission’s increasingly technical problems, I was only too happy to comply with this first order from the new president. In the end, Kennedy’s foresight paid off as we recruited physicist Leland Haworth from the Brookhaven Laboratory, who, after a few years’ service as AEC commissioner, indeed went on to become the director of the National Science Foundation in 1963. President Kennedy’s crisp style and appreciation for science during this first meeting reassured me that I had made the right decision to accept the AEC chairmanship. . . .

In the exciting early months of Kennedy’s “one thousand days,” the AEC got involved in the formulation of several major decisions of the new administration. These included the nuclear test ban negotiations with the Soviet Union and Great Britain, the man-to-the-moon decision, the cancellation of the nuclear-powered airplane, and the funding of two $100 million projects, the Stanford linear accelerator and the New Production Reactor (NPR) at Hanford, Washington State.

I met frequently with President Kennedy and his other advisors. I was struck by his informality. Part of the president’s informality was his tendency, which became famous, to pick up the phone and call officials, even of subcabinet rank, in order to get firsthand information on issues. To this day there are many stories told about individuals who received such calls and their incredulous reactions, which apparently delighted the president. On one occasion, when he called me at home, one of my young sons who answered the phone became distracted and delayed informing me that I was wanted on the phone; the president waited patiently for several minutes until I responded.

I served as chairman of the five-member Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) from March 1, 1961 until August 17, 1971. President John F. Kennedy appointed me first to a two-and-a-half year term, the time remaining on the appointment of John McCone, whom I replaced as chairman. Kennedy reappointed me to a full five-year term when the initial appointment expired in 1963. President Lyndon B. Johnson reappointed me in 1968, limiting the appointment, at my request, to a two-year term. When President Richard M. Nixon reappointed me in the summer of 1970, it was with the understanding that I would return to my professorial post at Berkeley a year later. The termination date of this appointment, August 17, 1971, occurred while I was in the Soviet Union leading a group of U.S. nuclear scientists, engineers, and administrators on visits to Soviet nuclear establishments and laboratories. The president asked me to continue with the visit and to serve in September as head of the U.S. delegations to the Fourth UN Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in Geneva and the Fifteenth General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna.

Many recall the Atomic Energy Commission only, and perhaps ingloriously, for its development and testing of nuclear weapons and its sponsorship of nuclear energy as a source of electricity. While these were two of its principal functions, the agency also had major programs for the production of nuclear materials; reactor research and development for the armed services, including the nuclear navy; research in high-and low-energy nuclear physics and in chemistry and biology; production and sale of radioisotopes for use in medicine, agriculture, industry, and research; licensing of the use of nuclear materials for power plants and other peaceful purposes; and international cooperation in developing the peaceful atom. . . .

To the American public, perhaps the most important science decision made by Kennedy was the Apollo Project. The AEC got involved in the U.S. space program mainly through two nuclear space projects, called SNAP and Rover. SNAP (System for Nuclear Auxiliary Power) used radioisotopes or mini-reactors to produce long-lasting power for spacecrafts and space instruments. It proved, in the case of radioisotopes, a very successful program. In Apollo’s second trip to the moon, astronauts left there a data-gathering device whose sole source of energy derived from a SNAP battery fueled by plutonium-238. I took special pride in its success because I was a codiscoverer of this element (and this isotope) back in 1941.

In contrast to SNAP, Rover, which was aimed at producing desk-size nuclear reactors to propel rockets in space, proved far more ambitious but less successful. The nuclear-powered rocket would have been much more powerful and efficient than any chemical rocket. Because of this advantage it held much hope in the 1960s for lunar and inter-planetary space flight. But the obstacles were formidable and the project was terminated during the Nixon administration.

SNAP and Rover defined the AEC’s roles in the national space program and brought me into the highest-level space policy deliberations. As a member of the space council chaired by the vice president, I developed a close relationship with Lyndon Johnson. . .

In May 1963 I led a ten-man delegation to the Soviet Union for a tour of nuclear facilities. The president made Air Force One available to our delegation, and we arrived in Moscow on May 19, after a record-breaking eight hours and 39 minutes non-stop flight from Washington, D.C. Our tour of facilities, some not shown before to Western scientists, and the cordial treatment we received, helped to affirm my belief that science can successfully serve as a common meeting ground and a common language between the East and West. . . .

I met and had a long talk on Wednesday, May 29, 1963 in Moscow, with Soviet President Leonid I. Brezhnev . . .Brezhnev’s manner was warm and friendly; he seemed to display a good understanding of science and technology when he spoke of the details of the work in various institutes. All in all he made a favorable impression of a man who wanted to get along with the United States. My talk with him was perhaps even more interesting in retrospect, since his replacement of Khrushchev as first secretary of the communist party of the Soviet Union occurred less than a year and a half later. I think it is worth mentioning that although at the time of our meeting a number of people regarded him as a mere figurehead, the opinion was growing among certain experts (including Ambassador Kohler) that he was assuming a position of increasing importance and that — I was told prophetically — he might actually be the successor to Khrushchev. I had the impression which I could not document, that he spoke as though he anticipated his future role in government.

It is symptomatic of the extreme insularity of Russian leaders that, as I was told later, I was the first non-Communist American to meet Brezhnev. The only American to meet him before me had been Gus Hall, head of the Communist party in the U.S. . . .

Very early in the Kennedy administration, on March 7, 1961, I attended a lunch in the Gold Room at the White House with President Kennedy. . . . At the meeting McCloy and Dean briefed those present on the current status of agreement on the aims of the test ban negotiations. A very spirited discussion followed, which was concluded when the president rose and said, with a bit of a twinkle in his eye, that he was glad to see that there was agreement on the U.S. side, and now we would see if we couldn’t get the Russians to agree, too. My journal entry describing the conclusion of this meeting reads:

My own predilections were strongly on the side of arms control in general and a test ban in particular. I felt that the future of mankind required such steps to arrest the arms race. Yet I was not inclined to put down those in the AEC community who held opposite views, usually because of strong feelings about the requirements of national safety. There seemed little doubt that there were elements of risk in seeking a test ban agreement with the Soviet Union. The question that weighed heavily, however, was whether the risks of not reaching an agreement might not be greater. The opposing views of the administration leadership and much of the AEC community continued to wage war in my head and conscience for the entire period of the test ban negotiations under Kennedy, more than two and a half years. I tried to play the honest broker between them, calling to the attention of each what seemed to be valid points raised by the other. At all times, for example, I tried to counsel the administration against positions that might alienate the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, whose strong influence in Congress could block the approval of a test ban treaty. I was in effect playing a double game in a way that I thought served the national interest. Overall, my hope is that I struck approximately the right balance in attempting to nudge the government apparatus toward policies and practices that favored a test ban while still according with the technical and national security realities. . . .

In the fall of 1962 came the Cuban Missile Crisis, which played a crucial role in the test ban story. Periodic intelligence reports since late August of 1962 revealed the off-loading of military equipment from Soviet ships and an increase in military construction activity at several locations in Cuba. Although the AEC was not a “collector” of intelligence, it did serve as an evaluator and interpreter of nuclear-related intelligence data collected by the CIA, the Department of Defense, and other elements of the intelligence community. I served as a member of the U.S. Intelligence Board, the highest intelligence estimating body in the government. . . .

The crisis broke on Monday, October 15, when analysis of photographs from reconnaissance overflights by U-2 planes disclosed evidence of a medium-range missile site, though not yet the missiles themselves, in western Cuba. Now a nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union over Cuba appeared to be a distinct probability.

The president immediately established a top-level group formally named the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOM), to consider policy alternatives and make recommendations to him. By Wednesday, October 17, launchers and missiles could be seen in U-2 photographs, and it was clear that the missiles could be fired within two weeks. EXCOM discussions began to focus on two options: 1) a swift air strike to take out the missiles, or 2) a naval blockade while diplomatic pressure was exercised to get the missiles removed. . . .

By Friday, October 19, the blockade concept appeared to have won out over the air strike in the deliberations of EXCOM, but with the proviso that an air strike would follow if diplomacy failed. The president’s address to the nation on radio and television, which revealed the extent of the crisis to the world for the first time, took place on Monday evening, October 22. This address “brought home” to the nation the gravity of the situation. . . .

The day following the president’s address, I informed the commissioners that AEC operations had been placed under Phase I Alert, i.e., instructions to check that communications were in order, 24-hour duty for communications personnel, additional security guards, etc. It was a tense day, featured by a meeting at which the Organization of American States (OAS) endorsed President Kennedy’s action, a spirited discussion in the UN Security Council, and reactions of various types from around the world. What the USSR reaction would be was not yet clear.

Fortunately, after an historic exchange of messages between Kennedy and Khrushchev, a message came from the Soviet government on Sunday, October 28, agreeing to remove the missiles under UN inspection.

Although it was not publicly announced at the time, it is now known that, in return, Kennedy conveyed private assurances to Khrushchev: (1) that the United States would not attack Cuba, and (2) that we would remove Jupiter missiles we had deployed in Turkey.

This brush with disaster brought President Kennedy and Chairman Khrushchev closer together, a prelude to the successful attainment of the Limited Test Ban Treaty less than one year later. . . .

. . . . I have the feeling that my visit to the Soviet Union during May 1963, and my meeting with Brezhnev may have helped a little to pave the way for the move toward a test ban. A new initiative was already underway. President Kennedy and (United Kingdom) Prime Minister Macmillan had sent a letter to Khrushchev on April 24, 1963, urging renewal of negotiations on a test ban and offering to send to Moscow a very senior representative empowered to talk directly with him. This, then, was followed by President Kennedy’s extraordinary commencement address at American University on June 10, 1963, a speech that has been rated as one of the great state papers of American history. At the end of a speech that described in an eloquent fashion the common interests of the United States and the Soviet Union in peace and the avoidance of war, he concluded with two announcements:

The effect of Kennedy’s speech on the primary target audience, the leadership of the Soviet Union, appeared to be profound. Khrushchev later confided to (W. Averell) Harriman his view that the speech was the best by any American president since Franklin Roosevelt and that it had taken courage on Kennedy’s part to make it. Notwithstanding the fact that it contained some criticisms of Soviet policies and Soviet analyses of history, the address was published in its entirety in the Soviet press and rebroadcast in its entirety in the Voice of America translation.

Khrushchev made a speech on July 2, that all but sealed the agenda for the Moscow talks. He now rejected the concept of on-site inspections which the U.S. and U.K. regarded as necessary to insure compliance with a comprehensive test ban treaty. At one time he had seemed willing to accept two or three on-site inspections per year and the U.S. seemed willing to go down from 20 to perhaps as low as eight per year, but it seemed impossible to close this gap. Now he again said the West demanded these on-site inspections for espionage purposes and he said there would be no bargaining on this issue. He then went on to say the Soviet Union was ready to conclude an agreement on the cessation of nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water.

Kennedy chose W. Averell Harriman, the experienced American diplomat who had the respect of the Soviet leadership, to lead the U.S.-U.K. negotiating team to Moscow. Lord Hailsham was Harriman’s British counterpart, but Harriman was in charge of the U.S.-U.K. delegation. On the specific issue of a test ban, Harriman was told that the achievement of a comprehensive test ban remained the U.S. objective. If that was unobtainable, he was to seek a limited treaty in three environments (atmosphere, water, space) along the lines of an earlier Western draft treaty.

Notwithstanding Khrushchev’s July 2 remarks in Berlin about his willingness to accept a three-environment test ban, members of the administration, including Harriman himself, were far from certain that such a treaty on terms acceptable to the United States was “in the bag.”

As the negotiations opened on July 15, there were several favorable omens. One was the designation of Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko as the chief Soviet negotiator, indicating a welcome seriousness of purpose. . . .

Another good omen was the fact that Khrushchev himself remained throughout the first day’s discussion, and his good spirits established an unexpectedly relaxed mood for the start of the negotiations. As Harriman later described to me: “Khrushchev was very jovial in our first meeting. He said, ‘Why don’t we have a test ban? Why don’t we sign it now and let the experts work out the details?’ So I took a blank pad which was in front of me and I said, ‘Here, Mr. Khrushchev, you sign first and I’ll sign underneath.’ That was the jovial way in which we were talking.”

At this first meeting Khrushchev tabled two draft treaties, one for a limited test ban and one for a nonaggression pact. The Soviet test ban draft was simplicity itself. It had only two operative articles. The first said that each party undertook to discontinue test explosions in the prohibited environments: atmosphere, space, and underwater. The second article stated that the agreement would enter into force immediately on signature by the USSR, U.K., U.S., and France. In response Harriman gave Khrushchev a copy of the limited test ban treaty the West had introduced in Geneva.

Harriman made an unsuccessful attempt to negotiate a comprehensive test ban treaty, then went on to negotiate the details of the Limited Test Ban Treaty. The negotiations were successfully completed in twelve days of masterful work by Harriman. In order to achieve agreement with the Soviets, Harriman had to give up the U.S. peaceful uses of nuclear explosives (the Plowshare) provision in exchange for Soviet acceptance of a withdrawal clause.

Although I regard the achievement of a Limited Test Ban Treaty as a great achievement, I also regard the failure to achieve a comprehensive test ban as a world tragedy of the first magnitude. Evidence of the mutual mistrust and suspicion responsible for this unhappy outcome, revolving principally around the issue of on-site inspection, has been repeatedly demonstrated. To put the matter in its baldest form, the Soviets were persuaded that the United States wanted to inspect in order to spy; many on our side were convinced that without adequate inspection the Soviets would cheat. . . .

Secretary Rusk invited me to be a member of the U.S. delegation attending the signing ceremony in Moscow. . . . This historic signing (by Dean Rusk, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, and British Foreign Minister Lord Home) took place at 4:30 p.m., August 5, 1963, in the Kremlin in Catherine’s Hall. A meeting with Premier Nikita Khrushchev in his office that morning preceded the signing and a reception in the Georgian Hall followed the signing ceremony. . . .

Kennedy threw himself into the ratification process with every resource available to him. He did so out of a sense of conviction which he probably felt for no other measure sponsored by his administration. Indeed, he confided to his associates that he “would gladly forfeit his re-election, if necessary, for the sake of the Test Ban Treaty. . . .”

On September 24, 1963 the momentous vote on the treaty was taken. Every able-bodied senator was present. The treaty was approved by a vote of 80 to 19. This was 14 votes more than the required two-thirds majority, a margin that satisfied the president’s desire for a strong endorsement. Senator Clair Engle, too ill to be present, announced that he also would have voted “aye.”. . .

One day in June 1963, I received a telegram at home from President Kennedy expressing delight that I had consented to re-appointment as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. This was later confirmed by an order on June 27, 1963. Although I couldn’t remember ever discussing this with him, it seemed to me that I couldn’t turn down the president of the United States, so I accepted the re-appointment. . . .

There was a tragic irony in the circumstances in which the news of President Kennedy’s assassination reached me. As on January 9, 1961, when he called to invite me to assume the position as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, again, I was in the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory of the University of California, and again, I was in the HILAC Building, this time, participating in the reciprocal visit of Soviet scientists. I was called aside, because of some very important news. I stepped away and was told that the president and Texas Governor John Connally had been shot:

I was devastated to learn of the death of this vital and vibrant young man, John Kennedy, who had brought such a new air of optimism to Washington with his exciting “New Frontier.” He had an almost unique appreciation and understanding of the important role of science and scientists in modern society. I particularly appreciated his complete dedication to the attainment of a treaty to end the testing of nuclear weapons. I believe that if John F. Kennedy had lived and served out a second term, and if Nikita Khrushchev had survived in office, significant further steps in arms control, including a comprehensive test ban, would have ensued. The resolve of both Kennedy and Khrushchev to make progress on arms control was strengthened greatly by the searing experience of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Khrushchev in particular seems to have been persuaded by that experience to recognize that the enormous power at his disposal gave him responsibilities not only to the Soviet Union, but to all of mankind. He became, increasingly, a responsible world leader.

(Web editor’s note: A comprehensive test ban treaty was finally endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly on September 11, 1996. President Clinton’s role in this historic achievement is described in the final chapter of Dr. Seaborg’s forthcoming book, A Chemist in the White House: From the Manhattan Project to the End of the Cold War.)

Lyndon Baines Johnson
An Overwhelming Personality Supports the Nonproliferation Treaty

The presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson is perhaps remembered chiefly for his extraordinarily successful promotion of his concept of The Great Society and, unfortunately, his role as a leader in the Vietnam War. As chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, I didn’t play any important role in the achievement of the former, but I did watch (as a result of my attendance at numerous meetings) with awe and admiration, his complete dedication to and success in initiating this ambitious social program. I was also in a position to see how the over-optimistic advice and urgings of his military advisors led inevitably to our ensnarement into the Vietnam War. I recall that I was visiting the San Francisco Bay Area with my administrative assistant, Arnold Fritsch, when we saw and heard on March 31, 1968, the televised speech by President Johnson, in which he announced the de-escalation of the Vietnam War and the cessation of bombing on North Vietnam, and, surprisingly, his decision not to seek or accept the Democratic nomination for president.

The Johnson presidency was a period of great arms control activity and it produced two very significant results. One was the Nonproliferation Treaty, signed in Johnson’s last year, although not ratified until Nixon’s first year. The other was the intellectual groundbreaking for the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), the long campaign by which Johnson and Robert McNamara finally persuaded the Soviet leadership to embrace the concept of a mutual limitation on strategic weapons, both offensive and defensive. Indeed, but for the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, SALT would have begun on Johnson’s watch. His administration deserves much more credit for this accomplishment than it is generally given.

There were other events, as well. The Outer Space and Seabed treaties reserved those two environments for peaceful uses. Major cutbacks were made in our capacity to produce fissionable materials, which had grown far beyond our foreseeable needs. For example, a program was begun to stop operation of all but four of the nation’s 14 plutonium production reactors. There was also discussion, without agreement, of adding further restrictions on nuclear testing, and more preliminary consideration of a number of other arms control initiatives, including a freeze on strategic missiles.

And there were, of course, the other activities attendant with my continuing AEC chairmanship. Of special interest and great satisfaction to me were my visits to the LBJ Ranch in Texas in December of each year for my meetings with President Johnson to successfully promote the AEC budget. . . .

Many remember the remarkable courage Jacqueline Kennedy exhibited after her husband’s assassination. But I was also impressed with the performance of Lyndon Johnson, the new president. He acted resolutely in several matters I brought to his attention, some of which were so sticky that President Kennedy had asked that decisions be postponed until after the 1964 presidential election. When I briefed Johnson on these issues and pointed out the political implications, his bold answers surprised me. “Glenn,” he stared me in the eyes and said, “if it’s the right thing to do, let’s do it. The hell with the election!”

I described in detail in my book, Stemming the Tide — Arms Control in the Johnson Years (written with my colleague Benjamin S. Loeb), Johnson’s important role in the final achievement of the Nonproliferation Treaty. . . . Success came only as he turned his attention seriously to the attainment of this objective.

By the time Johnson became president, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) had adopted nonproliferation as its number one objective, and attempted to enlist the new president in that quest. Johnson went along to the extent of making nonproliferation the centerpiece of both his address to the General Assembly of the United Nations within the first month (December 17, 1963) of his presidency and his first message to the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee, sent early in 1964. His latter message essentially proposed that all international transfer of nuclear materials take place under effective international controls to prevent their use for weapons purposes. But the United States had no detailed proposal ready at that time.

At first ACDA’s enthusiasm for a nonproliferation treaty was not shared throughout the government. It conflicted with another objective, which had strong support in the State Department, and this was the establishment of a NATO naval force, manned by personnel from several nations, and equipped with U.S. nuclear weapons, the so-called Multilateral Force or MLF. This idea, which was first introduced in 1960, had several purposes. These included giving NATO countries, particularly Germany, a greater role in planning their own defense, thereby helping to dissuade them from wanting to be independent nuclear powers; preserving allied cohesion in the face of the Soviet threat; and encouraging the budding movement toward a unified Europe. It was enthusiasm for the last objective, the unification of Europe, that made George Ball (undersecretary of state) and some others in the State Department very enthusiastic advocates. While it could be, and was, argued that MLF and Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) were not inconsistent, the former tended to exclude the latter because of the Soviet Union’s attitude. The Soviets were fiercely hostile to a scheme that seemed to place a West German finger on the nuclear trigger. It began to seem clear that the Soviets would only agree to a nonproliferation treaty if we first gave up on the MLF.

It is important to note here that West Germany was at the center of most of the tugs of war about the NPT. I think it is fair to say that the Soviets’ main interest in an NPT was to achieve thereby a German renunciation of nuclear weapons. Remembering two German attacks in a generation, the Soviets were haunted by the prospect of a vengeful Germany with nuclear weapons. They repeatedly declared or implied that they would ratify the NPT only when West Germany did. The Germans, feeling threatened by the Soviets, lacking confidence that the U.S. would always be there to protect them, and having unquestioned technical ability to make nuclear weapons, were very hesitant to forswear this possibility forever. The United States, the State Department in particular, wanted to appease the Germans, in part because we wanted to retain the cohesion of the alliance, and also because there was always the possibility that, after we and the Soviets agreed on an NPT, a disgruntled Germany might refuse to sign it.

Germany, and to a lesser extent Italy, seemed interested in the MLF from the start. The British were opposed — they didn’t think this was any way to run a navy. Other NATO allies were indifferent at best. President Kennedy was himself rather cool toward the idea, although he was willing to go forward if the allies showed a clear desire to do so. Later, after France began to distance itself from NATO, Kennedy showed more interest because of a desire to give the Germans an alternative to nuclear cooperation with France. But there was strong opposition in Congress to sharing U.S. weapons with anybody, and to do so would have required amending the Atomic Energy Act.

Despite the political problems, technical work on the MLF went forward, and when Johnson became president he was immediately subjected to strong pressures from MLF advocates in the State Department. Following some intense discussion within the administration, he authorized a campaign to sell the idea to our allies hoping to reach agreement by the end of 1964. . . .

. . . in 1967 I traveled to . . . India, Pakistan, Australia, (and) Argentina to talk to their leaders in an effort to convince them to support and join a Nonproliferation Treaty. Some countries, notably Australia, India, and Pakistan, would support a NPT only if it contained adequate guarantees against nuclear aggression. Australia and India were most seriously disturbed by China’s growing nuclear prowess, and India and Pakistan were afraid of each other. Earlier I had visited Egypt and Israel to discuss these and other matters, but I did not have the opportunity to visit the Dimona facility which included a reactor that was believed to produce sufficient plutonium to give Israel a nuclear weapons capability.

The most clamorous demand of the non-nuclears was that, in exchange for their abjuring nuclear weapons, the superpowers must do something to halt their bilateral arms race, which was regarded as a threat to everybody. The tide of revolt on this issue ran very strongly — so much so that the superpowers felt that if they did not give ground they might lose the treaty. They therefore added an Article VI pledging “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures regarding cessation of the nuclear arms race and disarmament...” Later they were forced by the efforts of Sweden’s Alva Myrdal to agree to an amendment requiring that these negotiations take place “at an early date.”

Formal UN debate on the NPT began in the General Assembly on April 24, 1968. It was approved on June 12 by a vote of 95 to 4, with 21 abstentions.

The treaty was opened for signature on July 1, 1968 in Washington, London, and Moscow. It was signed on that day by the Big Three and more than fifty other countries. Senate hearings began on July 10. There was little opposition, but the Foreign Relations Committee did not vote out the treaty until September 17. On October 11, with the presidential election campaign in full swing, the full Senate voted to postpone action. After Nixon’s election, he made it clear that he wanted action still further deferred, until after his inauguration. On February 5, 1969 President Nixon recommended ratification in a special message to the Senate. The Senate gave its consent on March 13, and two days later, having been ratified by the requisite number of countries (the Big Three plus forty), the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons entered into force. . . .

While the NPT has not ended the proliferation problem, it still is an impressive accomplishment. The treaty’s 178 parties account for 98 percent of the world’s installed nuclear power capacity, 95 percent of the nuclear power capacity under construction, and all of the world’s exporters of enriched uranium. . . .

On August 19, 1968 the Soviet Union finally agreed to schedule a summit conference that would initiate the talks on missile and launcher limitations. The date was to be in the first ten days of October, the site probably Moscow. A joint announcement was agreed upon; it was to be released on the morning of August 21. The White House press corps was alerted. However, on the night of August 20 (Washington time), armored units of the Soviet Union and several other Eastern bloc nations rumbled into Czechoslovakia to bring to a halt the liberalization initiatives of the Dubcek regime. Ambassador Dobrynin personally delivered information about the invasion to President Johnson at 8 p.m. that evening. His message concluded with the hope that “the current events should not harm Soviet-American relations, to the development of which the Soviet government as before attaches great importance.” Later that night, following an urgent meeting of his top advisors, the president instructed Rusk to call Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin and insist that he call Moscow immediately to tell them not to issue the summit conference announcement the following morning. Johnson realized that, in the general state of outrage over the invasion, it was impossible to proceed as scheduled.

And so the task of carrying forward the missile talks that Johnson and McNamara had conceived and ardently sought, passed to a new administration. Of all the tragedies that befell Lyndon Johnson, this must rank among the most grievous.

Johnson had perhaps the strongest and most overwhelming personality of any person that I have ever known. His ability to bring key members of Congress around to his way of thinking and to support of his legislative program was something to behold. I watched in amazement as he pursued his successful methods of persuasion. My wife Helen characterized his presence, on the basis of her personal experience, as literally “surrounding” the person to whom he was talking. However, during such conversations, Helen also felt that he had a genuine interest in her activities.

When Johnson wanted information or advice, he wanted it right away. For this reason, one had to be prepared to present the full story on the spot. If you did not manage to make all your points the first time around, it was unlikely that you would be allowed a second opportunity. I remember one time when I was swimming at the University Club after work, as was my custom at that time. The University Club is a men’s club (or was, at that time), and so members generally swam in the nude. As I completed a lap, an excited pool attendant informed me that the president of the United States wished to speak with me on the phone. Dripping wet, I took the call and marshaled all of my arguments against a proposition which I did not support. I remember feeling rather foolish, debating an issue with the president in that pose; however, I knew that the president might not wait until I grabbed a towel to bolster my sense of dignity. . . .

Lyndon Johnson was dedicated to the goal of equal opportunity for all Americans. As I can testify from first-hand experience, Johnson was very determined that women and minorities be represented in the appointments to the five-member Atomic Energy Commission. In effect, more than 30 years ago, Lyndon Johnson anticipated and promulgated the importance of “diversity” to our nation, which we as a nation are only now beginning to recognize and advance. His strong commitment to the Civil Rights Bill is clear in the following description of a cabinet meeting held on Thursday, July 2, 1964, the day the bill was signed :

The story of the site selection for the 200 BeV accelerator (the National Accelerator Laboratory) illustrates how effective a threat to withhold funds could be in the civil rights arena. At the beginning of the site contest, we made clear that we would demand from all the finalists appropriate local commitments and measures to prevent discrimination in community facilities and services. In February and March 1966, the commission added civil rights as one factor in evaluating site proposals. Throughout the evaluation process, we kept in contact with the Commission on Civil Rights, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and requested the six governors comply with steps recommended by the CCR be made.

Having selected Weston as the site for the 200 BeV accelerator, we moved rapidly to build the machine and the laboratory. Illinois Governor Otto Kerner and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley cooperated enthusiastically with the commission. Months before, the Universities Research Association appointed physicist Robert R. Wilson as the laboratory director who quickly assembled an excellent staff for the design and construction of the laboratory. There was, however, one problem: commitments on fair housing that we sought from communities in the Weston area had not materialized. In January and February 1967, the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, along with many of its witnesses, showed strong interest in using the 200 BeV project to ensure local civil rights for minority groups. In particular, the committee chairman, Senator John Pastore (D-Rhode Island), threatened to stall authorization for the project if fair housing was not enacted at Weston.

On April 12, 1967, at the invitation of Governor Kerner, the commission met with mayors of the local communities in the site area to discuss the general issue of civil rights. I implored them to act quickly to eliminate discrimination; otherwise, “it certainly is feasible to move the site” if discrimination persisted and Congress refused to authorize the project in Illinois. The commission had already stated any of the six finalists was suitable for the project, I reminded the Illinois group. My statement was perceived by the Chicago area media as an “ultimatum.”

After this meeting, there followed a very agonizing period as Senator Pastore moved to cut funds for the project and the Illinois leadership struggled to get some fair housing measures passed. Indeed, many civil rights activists urged us to withdraw the 200 BeV accelerator from Weston as a symbolic protest. Sympathetic as I was to their motivation, and at times adopting an “hardline” position myself, as at the meeting with the Illinois group, I did not want to pull the project out of Weston. As I stated before the JCAE , we thought it would be better to stay and fight for human rights there:

Fortunately, we succeeded in convincing Illinois to move forward in civil rights and the JCAE not to cut our funds or reduce the machine’s proton beam intensity as requested by the BOB. Within months, no less than fourteen communities within the commuting distance of Weston announced fair housing measures. The National Accelerator Laboratory actually became more than a catalyst for change. From the beginning, the lab’s leadership, like the commission, made strong commitments on civil rights:

In practice, the laboratory cooperated with local unions and other groups in recruiting and training minorities in the construction work. This success story demonstrated that with enlightened federal, state, and industry cooperation, scientific advance and human progress indeed can go hand in hand.

Lyndon Johnson’s interest in increasing the role of women in government was emphasized in an early meeting in his administration. My notes from a meeting the president held with the heads of regulatory and independent agencies on January 17, 1964, underline the importance he attached to this:

My fellow commissioners and I were ordered to help him find a woman and an African American (then called Negro) for appointment to the commission. This commitment resulted in the appointment of Mary (Polly) Bunting (president of Radcliffe College) and Samuel Nabrit (president of Texas Southern University), both of whom served with distinction.

A dramatic example of changing times is a journal note I made of a telephone conversation I had with a prominent person in the nuclear power industry. He called to inquire about Polly Bunting’s qualifications for appointment to the commission. He voiced one particular concern:

The implication, of course, was that “ladies” should not be exposed to temper, and that “gentlemen” could not conduct business in their customary manner when they were present. How times have changed — as, no doubt, such prominent women as Attorney General Janet Reno and former Secretary of Energy Hazel O’Leary could testify!

Although in some ways LBJ was larger than life, towering over others both physically (although I had the advantage of being close to, even exceeding, his height) and emotionally, in the sense of his exuberant personality filling the room, he was, nonetheless, very human. In the midst of the Vietnam War, it became more and more clear how much the war weighed on him, and he showed this to others.

As I have indicated earlier I was in a position to watch the process of his gradual ensnarement into the Vietnam War based on the advice and insistence of his military advisors. . . .

(March, 1968) Despite the continually optimistic observations of his military advisors, President Johnson had by this time begun to see the light. It was only four days later (March 31, 1968) that he made his dramatic televised announcement of his plans for the de-escalation of the Vietnam war and the cessation of bombing of North Vietnam, and his decision to forego the Democratic nomination for president. Robert McNamara had already become disaffected with the Vietnam war with the result that the president had already eased him out of his job as secretary of defense, replacing him with Clark Clifford, who took office on January 19, 1968. Clifford was instrumental in convincing the president to de-escalate the Vietnam war.

I, too, was influenced by the constant favorable predictions by the military leaders for victory in the Vietnam war. My four sons and older daughter were strongly opposed to our continued involvement in the war. I came to this view by the time of President Johnson’s televised announcement of his plans for de-escalation. . . .

President Johnson did take pride in much that was accomplished by his administration in the domestic area. His commitment to The Great Society was very real and obviously, he had never forgotten the poverty of his youth and his desire to improve the lot of poor or disenfranchised Americans. I suspect that, in the long run, history will recognize these accomplishments and credit LBJ’s dedication and determination. I know that I will long remember the genuine warmth of his friendship which was based on the solidest foundation for friendship, mutual respect. . . .

On Monday, January 22, 1973, during a meeting in my office, my administrative assistant, Sheila Saxby, came in to share with me the sad news that she had just heard:

The NPT story, the major arms control achievement of the Johnson administration, can be instructive in a number of ways. It indicates that if major arms control agreements are to have any chance, the president of the United States must take an active affirmative role. Real forward movement toward a compromise solution with the Soviet Union did not occur until he made it unmistakably clear to Secretary Rusk and others in the bureaucracy that was what he wanted. The NPT story also tells us something about how arms control agreements can best be negotiated. Most arms control proposals announced publicly by both sides have been insincere. They have included features known in advance to be unacceptable to the other side, thereby insuring that they would be rejected. The cynical calculation has been that they would earn some credit in world opinion as peaceful initiatives while the rejecting side would be condemned for being intransigent. My book, Stemming the Tide, contains a number of examples of this kind of behavior on both sides, and of the resulting lack of progress. When there has been progress, it has come about through secret negotiations. These enable each side to make concessions without loss of face. They also enable each to recognize the sensibilities and irreducible needs of the other side. The device that was worked out was for us to issue an interpretation of the treaty and for them to be silent about it. Such a delicate deal could never have been worked out except in private negotiations between patriotic, yet sensitive, negotiators on both sides.

I think that President Johnson had the right approach in what he had to say on the problem of arms limitation. It was the approach that animated his efforts and that of his administration in arms control. It was the approach that led to two significant accomplishments — the Nonproliferation Treaty and the beginnings of SALT — and some lesser ones. That more was not accomplished in the Johnson years can be laid at the door of indifferent execution — some by the president himself — and inhospitable world conditions. But Johnson’s address to the problem, as expressed in these words, was exactly right. He said, “While differing principles and differing values may always divide us, they should not, and must not, deter us from rational acts of common endeavor. . . .”

Lyndon B. Johnson Library

Richard Milhous Nixon
Adjusting to Troubled Times

I continued to serve as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission during the first two-and-a-half years of the administration of Richard Milhous Nixon. I cannot give as complete an account of arms control developments as for the Kennedy and Johnson years because the Nixon administration chose to exclude the Atomic Energy Commission from much of its former participation in this arena.

I shall describe my early contacts with Nixon, many years before his presidency; my first meeting with him as president when he asked me to continue, as almost the only holdover from the Johnson administration, as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission; a confrontation with the Department of Justice in which the AEC fought to defend the rights of an individual who we believed was being falsely accused of disloyal behavior; my role as a member of a number of executive office councils; the efforts, probably unrealistic and largely frustrated, to move forward with a new generation of reactors (breeders) that would provide more fissionable material than they consumed; the Apollo 11 astronaut feats (first landing on the moon); the college student “revolution”; a brief look at how the Nixon administration approached its arms control challenges; and finally, the struggle, ultimately, partly successful, to maintain the integrity of the AEC’s basic structure against the consequences of drastic reorganization proposals that would have splintered it. . . .

My close connection with Richard Nixon began in January 1969 after he became president of the United States following his victory over Hubert H. Humphrey in the election held the previous November. In my book, The Atomic Energy Commission Under Nixon: Adjusting to Troubled Times, written with Benjamin Loeb, I covered my AEC chairmanship under President Richard M. Nixon rather broadly, including the arms control topic SALT, proposed civilian (Plowshare) and military (ABM) use of nuclear explosives, standards for the emission of radiation from nuclear power plants, problems for the AEC resulting from the rising environmental movement, the rise and fall of the breeder reactor, some administrative matters including a confrontation with the Department of Justice over a security clearance case, and a successful struggle to maintain the AEC’s basic structure and my decreasing rapport with the president. [This is in contrast to our books, Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Test Ban and Stemming the Tide: Arms Control in the Johnson Years, which focused on the attainment of the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) and the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)].

Richard Nixon’s victory over Hubert Humphrey in the 1968 presidential election presented me with a personal problem. When President Johnson reappointed me AEC chairman in June 1968, I told him that I would leave the commission if a Republican became president and designated someone else to be chairman. As a result of this consideration and my desire to return to Berkeley, I agreed to swap a new five-year full term for Commissioner James Ramey’s remaining two-year tenure ending 1970. Chairman Chet Holifield of the congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy had eagerly sought such an arrangement so that Ramey, the JCAE’s former staff director, could continue to hold the committee’s line within the commission. With misgivings that such maneuvering tended to politicize the traditional non-partisan AEC, Johnson and John Macy, head of the Civil Service Commission, acquiesced. Therefore, when President Nixon assumed office on January 20, 1969, I had the potential of one year and six months in my term as a commissioner, but I had no idea whether I would continue as chairman. . . .

My notes on a meeting of the National Security Council, held on Wednesday, June 25, 1969, contain some rather revealing statements about President Nixon’s attitudes toward national security, negotiations for arms control, relations with our allies, interactions between the executive and legislative branches, and influences on public opinion:

On March 10, 1969 Vice President Spiro T. Agnew issued a statement establishing a Space Task Group . . . This task force held numerous meetings and submitted a report to President Nixon in September 1969, which was issued, after the incorporation of a number of changes by President Nixon, on March 7, 1970:

Many of the goals highlighted in President Nixon’s “Statement About the Future of the United States Space Program” of March 7, 1970 were achieved. A total of five Apollo manned lunar landings and the Viking unmanned Mars lander were successfully launched. The “Grand Tour” missions to the outer plants — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and beyond — were successfully achieved. The success of these ventures depended on the use of the Space Nuclear Auxiliary Power (SNAP) units for communication purposes powered by radioactive plutonium-238. Many “earth resources satellites” have been launched, a program that has recently included “international cooperation in space” with Russia and plans are still active for a “large orbiting workshop,” i.e., space station. . . .

I soon found that President Nixon’s modus operandi differed substantially from those of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Rather than report directly to the president, as I had with Kennedy and especially with Johnson, I reported to Nixon through a sequential series of intermediaries. Also, I attended cabinet meetings and National Security Council meetings only on rare occasions. Nixon also eliminated the Committee of Principals that used to deal with arms control matters in the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations. Science Advisor Lee DuBridge had less and less authority and was soon bypassed on matters that used to be within the province of his predecessors. Although not cut off as completely as DuBridge, I soon found that I was often bypassed in the discussion of arms control matters. There appeared to be an attempt to change, as much as possible, all modes of operation used by previous administrations — as illustrated by the fact that the National Security Action Memoranda (NSAM) issued by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson were replaced by National Security Study Memoranda (NSSM) and National Security Decision Memoranda (NSDM). As another example of such change the Bureau of Budget (BOB) was given the new name Office of Management and Budget (OMB). President Nixon’s desire to tinker with systems that were working well, simply for the sake of change itself, would lead to a proposal to reorganize the Atomic Energy Commission in a potentially disastrous way. I will describe this in greater detail later in this chapter.

Illustrative of my mounting problem was the admonition I received from President Nixon at an early meeting on arms control matters (April 30, 1969). He asked me to confine my advice to scientific matters and not include matters with political implications:

The president’s comment, that he was more interested in my technical judgment than my political judgment, gave me much to ponder. Apparently, my possession of scientific expertise disqualified me as a source of political judgment. In my role as the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission during the Kennedy and Johnson years, I had been an active participant in all aspects of the formulation of arms control policy. President Nixon was telling me that this probably would not continue, and I later found myself in a position of being kept informed, but no longer a participant in the policy deliberations. Science Advisor Lee DuBridge later found himself cut off completely even from information about such

deliberations. . . .

Another area where I did not endear myself to President Nixon was my attitude toward his planned ABM Safeguard system. I received word that the White House wanted me to make speeches promoting this program. I believed that such a program would be ineffective, excessively expensive, and dangerously provocative. I regarded it as my duty, as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, to provide for the testing of any weapons adopted as part of our national program; however, I did not consider it to be my duty to make speeches in favor of a policy being debated by Congress.

Somewhat later, Nixon, to his credit, did change his mind, which led to an ABM treaty, which limited the testing and development of anti-ballistic missiles and prevented the deployment of nationwide ballistic missile defense systems. He signed the Instrument of Ratification of the treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). He also negotiated the SALT I Treaty which, although more limited in scope than some of us wanted, was a move in the right direction. . .

President Nixon fell heir to the United States involvement in the war in Vietnam. Although President Johnson had decided in the spring of 1968 to de-escalate the war, the hostilities persisted in a frustrating manner. I had an interesting talk with Averell Harriman about the Vietnam situation at the annual banquet of the International Platform Association (IPA) in Washington, D.C. on July 24, 1969:

In the spring of 1970, after two years of indecisive action, Nixon decided to resume the bombing of North Vietnam and to invade neighboring Cambodia in order to neutralize action supporting Vietnamese in that region. This strategy, designed to smash his way to victory in Indochina, provoked a storm in U.S. universities, a constitutional crisis in the Congress, and outcries across the world. This adverse reaction reached crisis proportions on Monday, May 4, 1970:

The situation required a briefing of federal officials by leaders in the Nixon administration which took place on Wednesday, May 20, 1970:

Within three months the U.S. campaign in Cambodia ended, but the bombing of North Vietnam was renewed. South Vietnamese forces did play an increasingly larger role in the war as evidenced by casualty figures which were greater in 1971 for Vietnamese troops than for U.S. soldiers. By the fall of 1972, Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho (secretary general of the Communist party of Vietnam) were negotiating for peace in Paris. Talks were broken off in December 1972, when the parties were unable to separate military and political issues (which would prove to be necessary for a peace agreement), and by December 16, 1972 President Nixon ordered the most extensive bombing of North Vietnam ever to take place. In spite of this, talks were resumed, a peace was forged, and all U.S. troops were finally out of Vietnam by March 1973.

I had an interesting discussion with former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara at about this time (Thursday, April 16, 1970):

Since I had requested from President Johnson, at the expiration of my term as AEC chairman in 1968, a reappointment for a two-year term, this term came to an end on August 1, 1970. Encouraged by strong endorsements by industrial and other leaders in the atomic energy community, President Nixon reappointed me as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (Figure 93) with the understanding that I intended to leave the position after one year, in the summer of 1971. . . .

The last biweekly report during my tenure as chairman was sent to the White House on July 27, 1971:

The Nixon years were difficult ones for the AEC. In part, this may have been due to the special foibles of this president and his administration. More significantly, however, our difficulties can be attributed to the spirit of the times, particularly the opposition to the Vietnam War and a rising environmental consciousness. Such factors produced an atmosphere that was not friendly to large-scale science and technology initiatives, particularly those that involved some government participation. In this uncongenial atmosphere, the AEC sustained some frustrations and defeats. Not all of these were due to circumstance. The AEC made its share of mistakes, some of which I freely acknowledge herein. On the other hand, we did some things right, and for this the agency deserves some credit . . .