NBS

PUBLICATIONS

NATL INST, OF STAND & TECH

AllliO? ES^7fil

m

QC100

U57

No. 690

1985

c. 2

Allen V, Astin Memorial Symposium

National Bureau of Standards

January 28, 1985

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Allen V. Asdn

1904-1984
AGENDA

no. (o^io

9:30-9:45 a.m.

Ernest Ambler, Director, National Bureau of Standards

Introduction

9:45-10:15

Elliot Richardson, Former Secretary, Department of Commerce

"Scientific Evidence and the Policymaker"

In today's complex society, public confidence is vital. To that end, the policymaker must put a premium on obtaining reliable facts that are used and perceived to be used by that policymaker.

10:15-10:45

James D. Ebert, Vice President, National Academy of Sciences

"Rigor and Discipline in Science"

The scientific method, how science progresses, what is and what is not science.

1 0:45-11:15

Walter Hamer, Retired Chief, Electrochemistry Section, NBS

"Reminiscence on the AD-X2 Episode"

Dr. Hamer was a member of the Electrochemistry Section throughout the entire period AD-X2 was an issue.

11:15-11:45

Frederick Seitz, President Emeritus, Rockefeller University

"Controversies Affecting Science Today"

Science is involved in many more public issues today than in the past. Why does this arise and how is science affected by it?

11:45-12:15

William Carey, Executive Officer, American Association for the Advancement of Science

"The Advancement of Science Today"

The problems of fostering science and an appreciation of it today.

12:15 p.m.

Conclusion
ALLEN V. asTM

A Commemorative Career Biography

Interstate highway 270 leads northwest from Washington, DC, joins its parent interstate 70 some 40 miles

from the city at Frederick, MD, and thence continues

west across the continent until it loses its identity in central Utah. While passing the town of Gaithersburg,

MD, at a point 20 miles as the crow flies from the

White House, even the casual traveler on 1270 will notice a large fenced park-like area to the west of the

highway, with rolling lawns, a patch of woods several acres in extent, and scattered trees artfully planted to blend in form and texture. He will see a tall building in the form of a rectangular parallelepiped dominating a

series of long, low, modern buildings nestled into the

landscape, with trees and shrubs softening their contours. In his quick passage, he will observe a tall flagpole

and flag in front of the tall building, and, should he

think about it at all, may wonder if the flagpole and flag

denote that this is an official institution rather than a recreation area, and then the park will be out of view.

This is indeed an official institution. It is the headquarters of the National Bureau of Standards (infor- mally referred to simply as "the Bureau"), custodian of

the Nation's fundamental units of measurement on

which all scientific and industrial measurements are ultimately based, and the Nation's primary measurement laboratory. The site is larger than appears to the

motorist, totalling 576 acres to provide isolation essential for the delicate experiments carried out there. The

tall building so obvious to the traveler is the administration building, and it presides over 25 others in which

highly specialized scientific work is carried out. Some

2,770 scientists, administrators, and support staff work

in these buildings and in addition to this headquarters

site, the Bureau operates two others: a large one in Boulder, CO, where 470 people work, and small but

important stations broadcasting standard frequency

and time signals from Fort Collins, CO, and the island of Kauai in Hawaii.

That the headquarters site of the Bureau is lo- cated on this handsome, spacious site is due to the ef- forts and leadership of Allen V. Astin, the Bureau's

fifth director, whose entire working career of 39 years was spent there—years for which the histories of the

man and the institution are inseparable. Beginning

with requests for appropriations in 1956 in the fourth

year of his tenure, and culminating in the final move in 1967 from its previous 7

1 -acre site at Connecticut and

Van Ness Streets in northwest Washington, DC, Astin

guided the acquisition, design, and movement to the

Gaithersburg site, as it is now called.
EATJ^Y VPARS

The headquarters site of the Bureau was not nearly so

large when Astin first arrived to work there in 1930. The Bureau was then located on 58 acres on the north

and south sides of Van Ness Street, V/i miles northwest

of the White House. In the 29 years of its existence it had already reached eminence in the scientific world. It had begun its existence in 1901 as the laboratory

charged by Congress, in carrying out its constitutional

authority "to fix the standards of weights and

measures," with "the custody of the standards,. . . testing and calibration of standard-measuring ap- paratus. . .the solution of problems which arise in con- nection with standards . . . [and] the determ.ination of

physical constants, and the properties of materials

when such data are of great importance to scientific or manufacturing interests and are not to be obtained in

sufficient accuracy elsewhere." As such, it was one of a number of standards laboratories established by in- dustrial nations at the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century. The inexorable

march of the industrial revolution, the expansion of

science, and the requirements of national and interna- tional trade made mandatory a worldwide system of

units of measurement and their associated standards. The burgeoning electrical industry showed that simple

standards for mass, length, and time were no longer sufficient. The relatively simple offices of weights and

measures had to be replaced with much more sophisticated institutions. From its earliest days, the Bureau has always been

a many-sided institution. Its work on the basic stan- dards of science necessarily led it to become concerned

first and foremost with highly accurate and sophisticated measurements. Moreover, since it has to serve the

interests of the most advanced aspects of science and

technology, it has always carried out a strong program

of basic research. Thus, it has always been well known

throughout the world as a scholarly institution with

first class scientific work in physics and chemistry,

devoted to painstaking accuracy and precision of

measurements, and, most importantly, totally objective

and dispassionate in its scientific work. But, in accord- ance with its enabling legislation, the Bureau has gone

beyond basic research in physics and chemistry and

questions related to the basic standards of physics. It has always carried out a strong program in materials

science, and has always contributed to -the voluntary

standards system of the Nation. For a large part of its history the Bureau was involved in developing specifications for purchases by the Federal Government and in the testing of materials for those purchases, from which

experience it occasionally issued bulletins of great utility to business and consumers. A large part of its work has

been in investigations for other agencies of the U.S.

Government so that in 1930 when Allen Astin first came to the Bureau fully 54 percent of its total budget

of $2.94 million was funds transferred from other agencies of the Government.

This is the organization Allen Astin found when,

as a young man of 26 he joined the Bureau on the first of September in 1930, unaware that he would spend the

remainder of his career there. He had not had an easy

life. He was born in Salt Lake City, UT, on June 12, 1904. His father, John Andrew Astin, from a coal mining family in Monongahela, PA, had been mo\'ed there

at the age of 7 along with five siblings by his widowed

and largely destitute mother, a converted Mormon.

John Andrew became a school teacher and met and

married Catherine Varley. The birth of Allen was

followed by that of two sisters, Marie and Helen, but

the father died when the young Allen was only 4 years

old. His mother had to work to support the family, and

3
Allen helped out. Beginning at the early age of 8 he

consistently held odd jobs—carrying newspapers, working on berry farms, digging ditches, and similar tasks. Totally disciplined, he was able to save enough money

to enter the University of Utah where he studied

physics. He was a campus leader, edited the school

newspaper, and met and fell in love with Margaret L. Mackenzie, a student one year behind him and a talented writer. An excellent student, he won a scholar- ship for graduate school at New York University

CNYU) and, upon receiving his B.S. degree, left for New

York in 1925. In 1927, after receiving a master's degree,

he returned to Salt Lake City long enough to marry

Margaret, and the young couple returned to NYU

where Margaret did graduate study in journalism and

Astin finished his Ph.D. in 1928. He was then awarded

a National Research Council Fellowship at Johns

Hopkins University, and the family moved to Baltimore, where in 1930, their first son, John Allen, was born.

That same year, Astin's postdoctoral appointment was coming to an end. With a thesis and postdoctoral work on the dielectric constant of electrolytes, a wife and infant son, he was faced with the prospect of

finding a job at a time when the great depression was

just beginning and jobs were hard to find. Astin sent out, in his words, "what must have been scores of letters," in an attempt to find a job. One of the places he

looked at was the Bureau, and he came to visit H. L. Curtis, who was Chief of the Capacitance and Induc- tance Section of the Electricity Division, because his

title indicated that the group embraced the study of

dielectrics. Providentially, Curtis had the previous year begun a project on the study of the dielectric behavior

of very pure materials, and had money for the study,

albeit from an unusual source. The funds came from

the National Research Council, which in turn had

received them from the Utilities Research Commission

of Illinois. Despite its official sounding title, this commission was not a public agency, but a unit of the con- glomerate built by the utilities magnate Samuel InsuU,

which was already experiencing difficulties because of

the 1929 stock market collapse. Nevertheless, Curtis

had the funds to support his project. He hired Astin,

although not as a civil servant member of the NBS staff, but as a Research Associate, receiving his pay from the

commission via the National Research Council. Astin

began investigating the nature of energy losses in capacitors.

Astin's scientific inclinations were ideally suited to the Bureau. For his thesis work at NYU, and subse- quently as a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins, he

had done definitive measurements on the dielectric constant of electrolyte solutions. In 1925, the year Astin

arrived at NYU, E. Huckel, using the theory that he

and P. Debye had developed 2 years earlier, had published a theory of the dielectric constant of electrolytes.

Experimental results were, however, widely different from his theoretical predictions. Astin set out to do a

definitive measurement. He developed a new resonance method for measuring dielectric constants, exhaustively

analyzing and eliminating possible sources of errors. For

his work he built an oscillator and vacuum tube volt- meter, an experience in electronics that he was to use repeatedly in his career. His results were also widely dif- ferent from theory, but from his viewpoint that was of

lesser importance. He had done a definitive measure- ment. His scientific instincts were ideal for the Bureau. Astin spent the next 2 years working with Curtis on losses in precision capacitors. He became known in the Bureau because of his experience in electronics, and

also, one can surmise, because of his personal characteristics. Even as a young man he showed the

characteristics that he would become best known for as director. He was a friendly man, but low key and rather

reserved. He liked people, and people liked him because

he listened and respected the opinions of others. A

slender man with warm, friendly eyes, he never evinced

anger, gave all questions serious consideration, and ap- peared always to be in control of his emotions. He was

under the control of reason rather than emotion, and

as a result, his opinions were always respected because

they were above personal feeling. He became well in- tegrated into the Bureau.

4
In 1932 the InsuU empire collapsed; Insull was

forced into receivership and eventually fled to Greece.

Astin, of course, knew that InsuU's situation was very poor, for it was a source of constant headlines, and in the winter of 1931-1932 he had warnings that the commission project was going to end. In 1981, reminiscing on those days, Astin recalled, "Well, 1 had another

scramble for a job .... If 1 sent out in 1930 a couple of

dozen inquiries, 1 must have sent out 50 inquiries in 1932." His anxiety was doubtless heightened by the fact that in that year his second son, Alexander William, was born.

In the depths of the depression finding a job was a

difficult matter, but fortunately for Astin his future did

not hinge on a positive response to his letters. He was accustomed to riding to work with M. F. Peters, a neighbor, who worked in the Heat and Power Division

of the Bureau in a laboratory concerned with auto- motive ignition problems, and who had been after Astin to help him on his projects. Peters had funds

from the Navy to study aircraft ignition, and he de- cided that he and Astin, in Astin's words, "could cook

up a project for work for the Navy ... so we concocted a project which (well, I guess in retrospect I can't be very proud of it) was one of the first death ray projects. Our

goal was to try to bring down an airplane by radio waves . . . the principle being to . . . misfire the sparkplugs of the engine." A demonstration for the Navy was

arranged in which an engine was stopped (by a high

powered discharge of static electricity close to the

engine, not by radio waves), the project was funded,

Astin received a civil service appointment, and in this almost bizarre way became a member of the NBS staff, completely shifting the direction of his scientific work in the process. The Bureau underwent a change of leadership in 1932, for on July 2, George Burgess, its director since 1923 died of a stroke while working at his desk, and

Lyman J. Briggs, associate director for research and

testing became director. Under Briggs, the Bureau was

a very relaxed place to work. Astin recalled the atmosphere: "It was friendly, peaceful, cooperative ... and

free, very free [with] very little accounting. It was an

ideal atmosphere, I think, and I enjoyed it and I'm sure my associates did as well." When Astin was asked in

later years about the environment he tried to maintain

as director, he replied, "From my knowledge of Dr. Briggs, I figured if I could be as good a director as he

was, I would have succeeded admirably."

In this congenial, cooperative atmosphere Astin

worked diligently on his "death ray" project, even though it became clear that the chance of success was

small. But cooperation in Briggs' Bureau was the order

of the day, and Astin had a rare commodity in those

deep depression years: he was one of the few people at the Bureau who was experienced in electronics. Because

of this, and certainly because of his polite, cooperative

nature, he was sought out by another Curtis—L. F. Curtiss—for cooperative work that was to become of

great importance in Astin's future career. Curtiss, an

expert in radioactivity who worked at that time in the

Atomic Physics, Radium and X-ray Section, had the

idea of studying cosmic rays by sending up a Geiger counter in a weather balloon and transmitting the out- put of the counter back to the ground. He approached

Astin, who, intrigued with the idea, and interested in the technique of doing the job, agreed to cooperate.

Assistance from the Weather Bureau was obtained, and

Astin, while working with Peters in the Heat and Power

Division to find a way to bring down airplanes with

radio waves, also worked with Curtiss of the Optics

Division on telemetry from weather balloons, all without need for accounting time to the different projects. That such a situation could exist —indeed, was en- couraged—exemplifies better than words the nature of

the working environment at the time. And that Astin

could work successfully on two different projects with

two different people attests to his scientific talent, his

ability to work with others, and his rising position at the Bureau. The "death ray" project was to fail, but the cosmic

ray telemetry was to succeed admirably. A system for telemetry of atmospheric pressure, temperature, and

humidity —a "radio meteorograph"—was developed.

1 5
Balloons were launched from the roof of one of the

Bureau buildings, achieving a then record height

of 127,000 feet on March 23, 1956. Cosmic ray measurements were made with the cooperation of S. A.

Korff, a world authority on cosmic rays firom the

Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM) of the

Carnegie Institution of Washington, DC, an organization that was to have a profound effect on Astin's later career. The telemetered counting rate data, rising to a peak and then dropping as the altitude increased,

showed that the preponderance of observed cosmic rays

are secondary showers caused by ionization of the air by the primary rays. They also showed that Astin had

become one of the world's experts in telemetry, and had

emerged from the laboratory and gained experience in

field work.

Astin and Curtiss were not the only ones working

in telemetry at NBS. In the Radio Section of the Electricity Division, the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics had

initiated a project with very much the same aims as the

Weather Bureau had in the Curtiss-Astin project, but

without the cosmic ray aspects. This work was carried out by Harry Diamond, W. S. Hinman, Jr., and F. W.

Dunmore. An engineer by training, Diamond was an

ingenious inventor whose career was to become inter- twined with Astin's, and his group was in friendly competition with Astin and Curtiss. Two years after Astin

and Curtiss had developed a working radio meteorograph, the Diamond group, using different physical

principles, developed an improved one, which was to be

called a "radiosonde." It was subsequently adopted by

both the Navy and the Weather Bureau, and several million units were mass produced in the next 30 years. While carefully pointing out that he and Curtiss had

made a radiosonde 2 years before the Diamond group, Astin recognized that the Diamond device was

superior, and with characteristic objectivity said about

Diamond, "Harry beat us out on that. 1 have no

hesitancy in bowing to a superior inventor."

In the fall of 1935, it having become clear that it was not feasible to bring down airplanes by radio waves, Astin concluded that the "death ray" was impractical and wrote a final report. With the end of this project and the associated Navy financial support, the

31 -year-old Astin was again faced with finding a job. He

seriously considered transferring to the Navy Department, where Peters could help him in finding a job but

he liked the Bureau too much—he fit in too well —so he

went to see Briggs, who, having already identified Astin

as a possible future director of the Bureau, found funds

to support him. In January 1936, he was back in the

Electricity Division with H. L. Curtis working on the

dielectric research that had been terminated when the

Insull funds had been discontinued more than 2 years previously, and, of course, the balloon telemetry work

with L. F. Curtiss. Astin was much happier with this arrangement. He had always considered the ignition

work with Peters a stop-gap and was happy to return to the scientific work for which he had been trained. He

spent the remaining years of the 1930's working on the

methods for measuring losses in capacitors and on the nature of those losses, publishing two classical Bureau

papers on the subjects. At the same time he finished up

his work on telemetry with Curtiss, his job—figuring out how to do it —having been accomplished.

Despite the depression, the 1930's were happy

years for the Astin family. On coming to Washington,

Allen and Margaret had rented a small, semi-detached

house north and west of the Bureau near the

Maryland-District line. Having lived in apartments in New York and Baltimore, the young couple found having a house a luxury. There they reared their children,

and Astin began gardening, a hobby he was to indulge

in for the rest of his life. Indeed, in later years, at a house they had built in Bethesda in the early 1940's, Astin was to become a test grower of hybrid roses for the famous Jackson and Perkins firm, having as many

as 150 roses in his garden. Astin, having grown away

from the Mormon church at the age of 20, and his family, along with Bureau friends, often took Sunday

walks along the C&O canal towpath, where the

children frightened Margaret when they played on the

rocks at Great Falls. The woods were a cathedral for Astin, who was ever the romantic (in New York Allen

6
insisted they live in a fifth-story apartment on 242nd

street because it had a marvelous view of the Hudson).

An avid sports fan, he was a passionate follower of the

fortunes of the Senators, and later the Redskins and

Orioles. The Astins often took the children to the

Senators games as family outings. Equally passionate

devotees of the theater, concerts, opera, and ballet, Allen and Margaret spent many evenings at Constitution Hall, in the cheapest gallery seats, as the family was by no means well-to-do. On national holidays, a flag

always flew at the Astin house, for he was a staunch

patriot. It was a quiet, peaceftil time.

THE

WAR YEARS

The march of world events was soon to affect Astin's career dramatically, as it did practically all other

human beings in the world, for on September 1, 1939,

Germany marched on Poland, England and France

declared war, and World War II began. Despite the fact that the United States was still ambivalent about what

its position should be, Briggs was a perceptive man. On

the very day that Germany attacked Poland, he wrote a memorandum to the Assistant Secretary of Commerce

detailing the types of activities that NBS was prepared

to carry out should the United States enter the war, and thus began the Bureau effort in World War II. Besides its activities in testing supplies for the military,

greatly expanded calibration services in response to re- quests fi-om industry, greatly expanded production of

optical glass, and many other such activities, the

Bureau was to become involved in four major research

efforts: the atomic bomb, synthetic rubber, guided

missiles, and the proximity fuze. The radio proximity ftize has been called the sec- ond most important military development of World

War II —second only to the atomic bomb. The proximity ftjze is an old idea in ordnance circles, and its advantages are obvious. If a shell can be made to explode

when it is say within 20 meters of an aircraft target, the

target size is greatly expanded, and many more hits are made. Moreover, bombs dropped against enemy troops

on the ground are much more effective if the bomb ex- plodes some distance above the ground, for then fox- holes are no longer protection, as they • are against

bombs equipped with contact fuzes. Increases of five to twenty times in effectiveness can be expected, and this, coupled with the concomitant decrease in logistical re- quirements, makes the proximity fuze militarily worth

almost any expenditure. England and Germany, in

fact, had been at work for a number of years on such

fuzes, and it is only natural that one of the first military

research projects undertaken by the U.S. Government

was the proximity fuze. It was begun by the National

Defense Research Committee (NDRC) set up by the

President in 1940 to initiate and speed the development

of new and improved instruments of war. TTiree principal types of fuzes were considered: radio fuzes, photoelectric fuzes, and acoustical fuzes. The first work was on the photoelectric fuze. It was started by Merle A. Tuve, chief physicist of the

Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, who went to Briggs to ask for the assistance of his friend and profes- sional associate Lauriston S. Taylor, an x-ray physicist in the Bureau's Atomic Physics, Radium and X-ray Section. The very next day Taylor was at DTX'l. Security

procedures prevented him from knowing exactly what

he was working on, but it involved electronics. Since he

had not kept up with this burgeoning field, he in turn

7
went to Briggs to ask for the assistance of Astin, who

was Taylor's friend and neighbor, and whose scientific work he knew well. Briggs acceded to Taylor's request,

as did Astin, and, as often happens, Astin got into

work on proximity fuzes via an interconnected network

of personal and professional acquaintances. Astin and

Taylor began working together immediately.

Other parts of the proximity fuze effort were

rapidly organized. After discussions between Briggs and

the NDRC, Alexander Ellett, professor of physics at the

University of Iowa but then with the NDRC, was given

the responsibility of organizing work on the remaining

types of fuzes. One of his first efforts was to recruit Diamond in December 1940 to work on the radio fuze. The

situation with both Tuve and Ellett from the NDRC

coordinating fuze work at the Bureau was clearly

untenable. Tuve and the DTM were given responsibility for fuzes for rotating projectiles —anti-aircraft and

artillery shells. Ellett and the Bureau were given responsibility for fuzes for bombs, rockets, and mortars. From

then on, the two efforts were carried out separately.

Ellett was the liaison man between the NDRC and the

Bureau and responsible for all the Bureau fuze work.

By the time these administrative efforts were completed, the Astin-Taylor effort was well underway.

After only a few days at the DTM, they moved to the

Bureau, finding inappropriate but available space in the

recently completed high voltage building. A staff was

recruited, and early in 1941 Astin and Taylor were

already carrying out field tests on bombs on which they

personally had mounted fuzes, they alone having

security clearances. Field testing was to become their main activity in the early ftize development effort. It soon became apparent that the photoelectric fiize had some inherent problems. It was sensitive to the sun,

clouds, and so forth, and would fire prematurely. Moreover, the radio fuze project under Diamond was beginning to bear fruit, and by the end of the spring of 1941,

Astin and Taylor were devoting their ftiU time to field testing, which thenceforth included all types of fuzes. Further development of the photoelectric fuze was

taken up by J. C. Henderson of the DTM, who moved

to the Bureau for the purpose. The first field tests were held at the Dahlgren

Proving Grounds, about 75 miles south of Washington

in Virginia. These were simple air drops—first from

5,000 feet and later from higher altitudes. Astin's

telemetry experience was to prove useflil from the very beginning of the testing. For all the fuzes, the theory of

the devices and the circuit design were relatively clear. The real problems were in size limitations, mechanical

rigidity, size and stability of vacuum tubes, and, most

importantly, designing arming mechanisms so that

fuzed bombs could be handled safely. The first failures occurred with the filaments in the vacuum tubes, since the filaments were operated at higher than normal current, and the repeated laboratory testing had weakened

them so that they failed under the rigors of the field

test. This was confirmed by attaching to the fuze a small transmitter which by telemetry transmitted to the

ground information on the operation of the fiize circuits, and soon telemeters for various purposes were

placed on all fuzes for testing. Astin's experience in telemetry was crucially important in developing these

telemeters. Testing expanded rapidly. Rockets became of in- tense military interest and fuzes for them had to be

developed. The production of fuzes from the development effort increased. The size of the field testing unit grew. Dahlgren could not handle all this activity.

Rockets were tested at Aberdeen Proving Grounds,

north of Washington in Maryland. Bomb dropping

from fighter planes onto enemy bombers in the air (a new tactic for defenses against bombing) was tried at Cape May, NJ. Scheduling at the sites became increas- ingly difficult, and a whole new proving grounds was

sought and finally found at Corncake Inlet, some 30

miles south of Wilmington, NC. Corncake was more

than a one-day round trip from Washington, so that a shop area, loading rooms, film processing room, and so

forth had to be constructed, and the site itself had to be

improved. Even the facilities of Corncake were to be ex- ceeded by early spring of 1942, and another site —200

acres about 20 miles south of Washington at Port

8
Tobacco, MD—was acquired and equipped. This site was used for firing radio type proximity fuzes against

chicken wire mock ups of airplanes suspended some 90

feet above the ground from a network of poles. Similar

experiments were conducted at the Lakehurst Naval

Air Station, NJ. The whole proximity fuze effort had grown enor- mously, and the work pace was little short of frantic. Astin began to receive more and more leadership

responsibility. With the size and geographic dispersion

of the field testing operation he often had to act in- dependently. By the end of 1942, the whole proximity

fuze effort had been organized into the Ordance

Development Division, with Diamond as chief and

Taylor as his deputy until the latter left in the spring of

1943 to start an operations research effort for the 8th

Fighter Command and 9th Air Force. (He returned to the Bureau after the war to resume his x-ray studies.) At

about the time that Taylor left, Astin received his first

official management post when he was appointed Chief

of the Optical Fuze Section, where the work was con- cerned with the final stages of the photoelectric fuze ef- fort (on which work was discontinued in the fall of

1943) and continuing efforts on electronics and circuit design. This position was to be the last in which Astin

would be concerned primarily with technical activities. A new item of ordnance is not sent to the field to be used until it is requested by the field commanders.

Early in the winter of 1944, it was clear that the radio

proximity fuze was ready for operational use. Three

members of the Bureau staff were sent to the European

Theater of Operations to explain the new bomb and

rocket fuzes to the U.S. 8th and 9th Army Air Forces and the Royal Air Force. Hinman, who had worked on

the radio fuze with Diamond from the beginning was

the first to go. He was followed by Astin and later by R. D. Huntoon, who had worked extensively on circuit design on the radio fuze, and conducted many field

tests with Astin. Astin went to England where he

visited various Air Force units to introduce them to the

fuze, and he conducted a field test to demonstrate its ef- fectiveness at Ashley Walk in England. The tests were

eminently successful, perhaps too successful, for the

bomb fuzes were to play no part in the Allied invasion

of Europe. As Astin was to recall later,

I spent roughly six months in Europe to persuade

Air Force generals to let us use the proximity fuze on bombers. The generals would not permit their use for fear that we would compromise our air superiority. Their general philosophy was that this was a much more valuable weapon to the enemy

than it was to us. If we were to use it the enemy

might get it and copy it and use it against us, and it would be disastrous. This was doubtless a frustrating decision to all the people who had worked literally night and day to develop

the fuze. But it was used in 1945 with great effectiveness by the 15th Air Force in the Mediterranean Theater

against enemy anti-aircraft positions defending the

approaches to Austria and Germany. It also was used

effectively in the Pacific, particularly in the Iwo Jima

campaign, and against the Japanese mainland. Indeed,

30 to 40 percent of all bombs dropped by carrier-based planes in the later stages of the war were equipped with

proximity fuzes. The fuzes for rotating projectiles

developed by the Tuve group at DTM and the Johns

Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory saw much more

extensive use by all branches of the Allied Armed

Forces in all the theaters of operation. For his work on

the proximity fuze, in 1947 Great Britain awarded

Astin His Majesty's Medal for Service in the Cause of

Freedom, which, however, in accordance with the Constitution, he could not accept.

The trip to the European theater had a profound

effect on Astin. Although he and his colleagues worked

literally night and day (from 1941 to 1945, Astin

worked every day of the year), and their work was to have an important effect on the war and on military

history, Astin had always felt that he was not contributing as much to the war effort as members of the

armed forces were. The sight of damaged aircraft re- turning from missions with their heart-rending cargo of

injured and dead crew members affected him \'ery

deeply. He returned fi-om Europe a more serious and
even more motivated man. Upon his return, Diamond asked him to become

his deputy as Assistant Chief of the Ordnance Development Division. Astin accepted, and from then on was no longer to carry out research himself, but to become a manager of others who were carrying it out. Scientists who become managers often state (sometimes faceti- ously) that they would much rather be doing research than getting involved with all the administrative matters that management entails. Astin never felt that way,

and certainly never said such a thing. When asked

about becoming a manager, Astin replied with his typical forthright objectivity, "When I came back (from

Europe), Harry Diamond wanted me to be his assistant

chief, and I enjoyed it and never wanted to go back to technical work. I enjoyed the administrative work. It appealed to me, and so when the war was over I never gave it a thought." Indeed, in management Astin found

his true talent. He had personality traits that made him

an ideal manager of scientific people. Scientists —good

scientists—are creative people; they need freedom if they are to be successful in their creativity, and more

than most people, they need to feel that an idea is their own before feeling fully committed to it. Astin seemed

instinctively to have understood all this, so that while

he knew what he wanted, he also knew that in order to

get it done he could not simply issue orders for it to be

done. He had the ability to impart his wishes by the

most subtle of suggestions, so that the person working

for him would, by his own volition, and by his own

logic, be led to do the thing that Astin wanted him to do. He gave a person a great deal of rope, but never per- mitted the person to hang himself; he pulled him back

first. And he was always open to suggestions. A rea- soned, logical argument for a change of course always

found an attentive ear, and, if necessary, a change to the new direction. He also had a deep sense of humor

and enjoyed a joke, even when it was at his expense. People felt comfortable with him. Thus, while it took 14 years for Astin to be appointed to his first managerial

position, his career as a manager and executive was to advance rapidly.

The Bureau at the end of the war was a far dif- ferent place from what it had been at the beginning.

The open, unfenced campus of 58 acres through which

visitors and neighbors could roam freely had grown to

71 acres that were completely fenced and guarded. Van

Ness Street, which ran through the campus, was closed

to civilian traffic. Myriads of new and temporary struc- tures were spotted over the site. The staff, which had

numbered 950 in 1939, now consisted of about 2,300, of

which almost 1,300 were scientists and laboratory

assistants. The annual budget had grown from just

under $3 million in 1939 to just under $13 million in

1945, fully two-thirds of which was transferred funds,

mostly from the military services. Practically all the

work was classified. Badges were worn by everyone and

checked by guards at the gates.

It was to be some time before the Bureau could

again become the open, civilian agency working

primarily in support of the measurement and standards

needs of the science and industry of the Nation that it had been before the war and that had been anticipated

in its enabling legislation. Indeed, it took the traumatic

experience of the AD-X2 battery additive affair, and the

firing and rehiring of Astin, who was then its director,

before this could be accomplished.

In the uneasy cold war atmosphere that followed

the end of World War II, the Bureau was much too important a military resource to revert immediately to a

civilian agency. Its capabilities in atomic energy, guided

missiles, and the proximity fiize were too important to disband. Thus, already in 1944, Briggs had signed an

agreement with Army Ordnance to continue the proximity fuze work; a contract had been signed with the

Navy for the continuation of guided missile work; the

Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) had been formed

in 1946 to replace the Manhattan District and offers of

support for enhanced Bureau programs were forthcoming. In 1945, ground was broken for a new building to house ordnance research; in 1951, with assistance from

the AEC, a cryogenics laboratory was constructed in Boulder, CO, on 220 acres of land that had been

donated to the Bureau by the citizens of that city, and

10
in the same year, a guided missile laboratory was

established on a Navy site in Corona, CA. At the

height of the Korean war, funds from the military and

the AEC were to exceed $40 million, which constituted more than 85 percent of the Bureau's annual budget.

At a time when science and technology were getting

ready to flourish and the Bureau's help in measure- ments and standards was to become essential, the

Bureau was close to becoming a military laboratory.

Two events were to take place that had great importance on the future of the Bureau and on Astin's

career. On May 7, 1945, the date of his 71st birthday,

Briggs submitted a letter of resignation as director of the

Bureau, and on November 7, Edward U. Condon,

then associate director of research of the Westinghouse

Electric Corporation, but better known as an outstanding theoretical physicist and coauthor with G. A.

Shortley of the definitive monograph The Theory of Atomic Spectra, was appointed director by President

Truman. Three years later, on March 21, 1948, at the age of 48, Diamond, the driving, energetic radio

engineer and inventor with whom Astin had been

associated since the radiosonde days, and who was then

Astin's immediate superior and close personal friend, died. Astin became Chief of the Ordnance Development Division, soon to become the Electronics and

Ordnance Division. Astin was now a fiill fledged in- dependent line manager.

Where Briggs was rather retiring, content to let things go along peacefully and quietly, with everybody

doing his own thing, Condon was the supreme activist and extrovert. Concerned that the Bureau had not

kept up with the new science developed during the

1930's and the war, he began actively to emphasize

basic research—particularly in physics—and to de- emphasize many of the important but relatively routine

testing activities being carried on. Feeling that the Bureau's management system was old and antiquated,

he brought in a team of bright young people—"whiz

kids" they were called by the older members of the

staff—to streamline the management system. At the in- sistence of Congress he instituted a project accounting

system, and, at least fiscally, the firee and easy days of

the Briggs years were gone forever. He astounded Congress by asking for an increase in appropriation from $5

million to $25 million, but his request was denied. In- deed, during Condon's years as director, direct Bureau

appropriations grew hardly at all, while transferred funds fi-om the military and the AEC mushroomed.

But he was able to instill in the staff a great desire to do

basic research. He preached that while the important

applied research on rubber, textiles, coatings, alloys, and

electronic devices should continue, those projects

should not "interfere with the Bureau's work on fun- damental problems of physics and chemistry, and on

methods of measurements and the standards and in- struments which provide the basis for measurements of

every kind." So strongly did he feel about this that he

set out to have Congress revise the Bureau's enabling

legislation, which had not been changed since 1901. In

1950, as a result of his activities, Congress passed an amendment to the Organic Act of 1950, which, while not changing the Bureau's responsibilities significantly,

did make them clearer and more explicit.

From the beginning, Astin and Condon got along

very well. The two men, so different in temperament

and appearance, had the same basic aims of making the

Bureau a distinguished laboratory that would be attrac- tive to good scientists and where they could be productive. Condon had enormous respect for Astin. While

the Ordnance Division was the largest in the Bureau,

with a staff of 400 in the early 1950's, and was working

totally on transferred funds, Astin had not lost touch

with the rest of the Bureau, nor lost sight of the Bureau's main mission in measurements and standards. Indeed, in some ways that division led the way in new

technologies. Thus, for example, a large part of the divi- sion was concerned with electronics. It developed an

electronics standards laboratory. Special equipment for measuring the characteristics of vacuum tubes was

designed, and the principles by which their life might

be extended were developed. The first Bureau work on

germanium and silicon, which in a few years were to revolutionize electronics, was done there. Abo\'e all,

11
the division was deeply involved in computers. Under

the leadership of C. H. Page and S. Alexander in Astin's division, the SEAC (Standards Eastern Automatic Computer) was completed in 1949 and

dedicated on June 20, 1950. This was the first truly

automatic electronic computer. Indeed, as a harbinger

of the fiiture, it even utilized germanium diodes in all the switching and computing elements. It operated for 4,000 hours in its first 9 months of operation without a malfunction, and, among other things, carried out

calculations on optical lenses, supersonic nozzle design,

and the penetration of x rays. Obviously impressed with Astin's leadership capabilities, Condon appointed Astin senior associate director in charge of all other agency activities.

electricity, and atomic physics.

On August 10, 1951, having been under intermit- tent but invalid attack from the House Committee on

Un-Arherican activities for 4 years, and concerned that the attacks on him would harm the Bureau despite

their lack of validity, Condon resigned as director effec- tive September 30. Astin was appointed acting director on October 1, and director on June 12, 1952. It was the

most trying time in the whole history of the Bureau. It was the height of the AD-X2 affair, and the story begins

with George W. Vinal and the Bureau's activities on

battery testing.!

'Much of the following account largely follows that given by S. A.

Lawrence, "The Battery Additive Controversy," Inter-University Case Program No. 68., Bobs-Merrill Co. Inc., 1962.

AFFAIR

George W. Vinal, Chief of the Electrochemistry Sec- tion of the Electricity Division, was an eminent scientist who had written an authoritative text on lead-acid storage batteries. Since World War I, the Bureau had

done a significant amount of battery testing, and also had tested a large number of battery additives, collo- quially referred to as "battery dopes." Much of this testing had been done for the Post Office Department

and for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which was concerned with protecting the consumer against

fraudulent advertising claims. None of these additives was found to be beneficial. Many were simple mixtures

of magnesium and sodium sulfates (Epsom and Glauber's salts, respectively), and were uniformly found to be without merit. Others contained iron salts or halogen compounds, and were actually harmful. In- deed, in 1931, the Bureau had published Letter Circular

302, Battery Compounds and Solutions, laying out its find- ings and warning the public against the use of battery

additives. This letter circular was one of a series of pamphlets published occasionally by the Bureau when the

results of its work were deemed to be of interest and

help to the consumer. These pamphlets were used by

better business bureaus throughout the Nation to carry out their intent of protecting the consumer and pro- moting good, reputable business practices. The National Better Business Bureau (NBBB) in New York had

used LC302 in preparing its own publication Facts About Battery Dopes condemning battery additives. In late April of 1948, while Astin was still Assis- tant Chief of the Ordnance Division, Vinal received a

letter from Merle Randall, professor emeritus at the

University of California, and a distinguished name in chemistry, having coauthored with G. N. Lewis in 1923

the definitive text on chemical thermodynamics. Ther- modynamics and the Free Energy of Chemical Substances. He was now serving as a technical consultant to an

Oakland, CA, company called Pioneers, Inc., the presi12 >
dent of which was an entrepreneur named Jess M.

Ritchie. Pioneers had developed a battery additive then

called "Protecto Charge," but subsequently to be called "AD'X2." Randall wrote,

The Protecto Charge process involves the addition

of a powder mixture of anhydrous sodium sulfate and a slightly basic, nearly anhydrous, magnesium

sulfate to the water while it is filled with standard

sulfuric acid electrolyte. Curiously, the result is quite different from that when equivalent amounts

of sodium sulfate and Epsom salts are added. . . . Actual large scale fleet operational tests ... as well

as my own observations, indicate a remarkable improvement in the service of both new batteries and

those discarded as sulfated in use or on the

shelf. . . . Impressed with the stature of the writer, but having

heard the same thing many times, Vinal put the letter aside. With this letter began a chain of events that was

to last more than 5 years; make newspaper headlines

throughout the country; cause in 1953 the dismissal,

temporary rehiring, and eventual reinstatement of

Astin, who was by then director of the Bureau; prompt

4 days of Senate hearings; lead to the resignation of an

Assistant Secretary of Commerce; and cause two committees of the National Academy of Sciences to in- vestigate the Bureau. A number of important issues were explored, among them science policy, the politicization of science, the hindrance of small business by

Government regulations, and the objectivity and impartiality of the Bureau. In brief, the story unfolded as follows.In 1947 Ritchie bought partnership in a firm making the battery additive called Protecto Charge, which

he found to be harmful. He then hired Randall, and

together they developed the material about which Randall wrote to Vinal. He subsequently bought out the

other partners in the firm and began marketing the new additive under the name "battery AD-X2." He

never patented the product, preferring to protect

himself by keeping details about it secret.

Ritchie was an aggressive entrepreneur, with a great persuasive ability. At the beginning, Ritchie's strategy clearly was to gain exception for his product

fi-om the National Better Business Bureau's general con- demnation of battery additives, and to get the National

Bureau of Standards to test it. His advertising claimed

that his product should be excepted because the Bureau

had not tested it and because LC302, on which the

NBBB publication was based, was then very old. Moreover, he had the support of his local better business bureau—the Oakland Better Business Bureau

(OBBB)—since apparently his customers in the area were satisfied. It is important to note that the instruc- tions given to customers with the purchase of AD-X2

cleansing of terminals and slow charging—were ex- cellent and would improve batteries without the use of

AD-X2.

Thus, for the remainder of 1948, a series of pres- sures were put on Vinal. Under pressure fi^om Ritchie

to make an exception for AD-X2, the NBBB wanted

Vinal to issue an up-to-date revision of LC302,

something which Vinal had wanted to do anyway. The

OBBB put pressure on Vinal to test AD-X2. Finally,

late in the year. Senator Knowland, whose home was

in Oakland, also requested tests. Vinal did not bow because these pressures conflicted with two fundamental Bureau policies: it did not make commercial tests of materials unless requested by

another agency of the Government, and it never en- dorsed, or even mentioned, commercial products in its publications. However, Vinal, on his own initiative, did carry out a limited test of AD-X2 along with other

tests he performed for the FTC. The results were as ex- pected; AD-X2 was a simple mixture of sodium and

magnesium sulfate, and it showed no beneficial effect. Importantly, the Bureau did not then or at any other

time, carry out field tests. Vinal did not disclose these

results.Early in 1949, five military installations tested AD-X2. Three found it without merit, but two, using

methods that Vinal considered inadequate, reported

positive results. The military suspended purchases of

^

13
AD'X2. The positive military results heightened the concerns of the NBBB about the validity of its battery

additive publication, and it further pressed Vinal for a revision of LC302. Recognizing that a thorough revi- sion would take some time, and in view of the pressing

interest in AD-X2 and other additives, the Bureau re- issued LC302 with a letter signed by Condon which

summarized its contents. Neither AD-X2 nor any other

additive was mentioned by name. From the Bureau's

position, this quieted matters. But the situation was to get more serious. Having

the public statements from the Bureau, the NBBB

asked the FTC to take action against Pioneers on the

grounds that its advertising claims for AD-X2 were

false, and notified Vinal that it was doing so. The FTC

sent an examiner to Oakland, who found generally

wide satisfaction among AD-X2 users, including

technical personnel at military installations. A feud

broke out between the OBBB and the NBBB, the

former contending that the latter had no business

"preventing a man from carrying out free enterprise. . . unless there is a reasonable basis for such action." Sales of AD-X2 increased, and Ritchie expanded his business

by collecting and rebuilding junked batteries. The San Francisco office of the FTC suggested to Washington that new tests be conducted on AD-X2,

and on March 22, 1950, the FTC made a formal re- quest for such tests to NBS. Tests were made, results of

the previous tests Vinal had made were incorporated,

and Vinal reported to the FTC on May 11 that these

tests had failed to demonstrate any significant beneficial

effect. Ritchie had continued his advertising claims that the NBBB and Bureau statements did not apply to AD-X2 because it had not been tested, and then he

played a trump card. He began collecting material to bring suit against the NBBB, whereupon it brought

strong pressure on Vinal to identify AD-X2 by name as the only way of resolving the issue. Vinal and the Bureau management were in a quandary. In order to resolve the matter they would

either have to abandon a fundamental Bureau policy

or remain silent and thereby give tacit approval to AD-X2. Moreover, the cherished impartiality and objectivity of the Bureau were being called into question.

The Bureau unprecedentedly broke its long stand- ing policy. It permitted the NBBB to publish in August

of 1950 a leaflet entitled Battery Compounds and Solutions containing a long statement in which the Bureau re- ferred specifically to AD-X2. The crucial part is as follows: In view of the tests made here and in competent

laboratories elsewhere it is our belief that AD-X2 is not essentially different from other preparations

containing magnesium sulfate and sodium sulfate, and that as a class these materials are not

beneficial. The results of recent tests are being

prepared for issuance as a Bureau circular but in the meantime we see no reason to modify Letter Circular 302. We can only surmise now the agony of the deci- sion that led the management of the Bureau to break its tradition and allow the publication of this statement. We only know that a similar statement was never made

before, nor has it been since. In the same leaflet, Ritchie was permitted to rebut the Bureau's findings, and he

brought up field tests, which were to become a celebrated issue later:

It has been mentioned many times by both

Dr. Randall and ourselves that it is difficult to make

a really definitive laboratory test of Battery AD-X2

and that the only practical means of determining

the value of the product is through field test. The NBBB made wide distribution of its leaflet. The story was by now receiving the attention of the

press. While many accounts were critical of AD-X2, in December of 1950, 'Newsweek published an article reporting the favorable military results and the satisfac- tion of AD-X2 customers. Ritchie's sales mounted. The

FTC examiner in San Francisco, feeling the Bureau

report was not definitive because of the lack of field tests and because of the satisfactory experience of users in the area, recommended that the FTC drop its case against Pioneers. He was overruled by both the San

14
Francisco and Washington ofRces. At long last, on Janury 10, 1951, NBS issued its revision of LC302, now called Circular 504, and fol- lowed it by a series of news releases. It showed in considerable detail the results of new laboratory tests, with

the same conclusions as previously: no battery additive was found to be useful. None of the battery additives was identified by name. These findings were extensively

published in the trade press, which refused to publish

Ritchie's side of the story, and in many cases refused to accept his advertising. His sales plummeted.

Ritchie began to attack the Bureau. In August

1951, just as Condon was submitting his resignation,

and less than 2 months before Astin was to become act- ing director, he urged his distributors to write to Congress, with the avowed aim of causing a congressional

investigation of the Bureau. His position was that he, a small businessman, was being unfairly harassed and

persecuted by an agency of the Government. Congress was flooded by mail. Senators and Congressman wrote

to the Bureau, many several times. The volume of cor- respondence became so great in the fall of 1951 that the

Bureau issued a mimeographed leaflet which stated that the results in Circular 504 were unambiguous: battery

additives were worthless. Astin, as acting director, was thrust into this highly charged political arena. He was immediately in- volved with the AD-X2 problem and attempted to bring it under control. He entered into correspondence

with Ritchie, but it took him some time to become fully

acquainted with the voluminous file, and the momen- tum of events could not be reduced. Ritchie went to the

Senate Select Committee on Small Business, where he

found a sympathetic reception —particularly from one

of its staff members, Blake O'Connor. He also retained

as consultant Keith Laidler, an expert on chemical

kinetics fi-om Catholic University, and found sympathetic support fi-om Harold C. Weber, professor of

chemical engineering at MIT. In February of 1952, the

FTC, responding to pressure from Ritchie and from the

Senate, and feeling that it needed more tests to uphold

its position against Pioneers, Inc., asked the Bureau to

conduct more tests. In early March, the Post Office

Department notified Ritchie that it was accusing him of

"conducting an unlawful enterprise through the mails"

and scheduled a hearing for April 26, which it subse- quently delayed to await the results of the Bureau tests. The tests were quite extensive, and as expected they

also showed AD-X2 to be without merit. But they were

immediately attacked by Ritchie as being technically

flawed because the charging procedure was inappropriate, despite the fact that it was the same one used by

Randall.

Astin decided to resolve the situation by performing a public test using a procedure that would be agreed

to by all parties. By conference and by mail between

Astin and the other Bureau people on the one hand,

and Ritchie and his consultants on the other, a pro- cedure was agreed upon in writing, except for one point on which there was only oral agreement, and which

turned out to be crucial. This concerned the specific

gravity of the electrolyte. Ritchie had wanted to add

water if, during charging, the specific gravity rose above

1.280; the Bureau did not want to add water at all. Astin finally thought he had a compromise in which

the specific gravity would not be allowed to rise above

1.325, and the tests were performed in June 1952. Astin was now fully and directly in charge. Some

of the battery cells were to be treated and some were to be controls. But which cells were which was not to be

known to the personnel conducting the tests; only

Astin was to have the key. The Bureau statisticians developed a random sampling scheme, and on the

morning on which the tests were to begin, Astin and a technician assistant went alone into the laboratory.

Consulting a chart prepared by the statisticians, Astin

told the technician which cells were to have AD-X2

added and which were not. When this was done, he asked

the technician to leave the room, and he personally af- fixed numbers to all the cells. Only he knew which

numbers corresponded to treated cells. The tests were then run by the laboratory personnel over the next few- weeks.

On July 15, 1952, the Bureau reported its results.

15
They were predictable: AD-XZ showed no beneficial effects. Ritchie's behavior was equally predictable: the

tests were not properly done; he had never agreed to the permitted increase in specific gravity; and the tests were flawed in ten other ways. Astin's hopes of a conclusive test were dashed.

It was now clear, certainly to Astin, who firmly

believed that he had obtained Ritchie's agreement on

the conduct of the tests, that no test conducted by the

Bureau would be acceptable to Ritchie. Moreover, the

Senate Small Business Committee took Ritchie's side on the validity of the tests. On September 29, at a meeting in Astin's office involving Ritchie, O'Connor

of the committee, and Bureau personnel, it was agreed

that further tests were necessary, but no decision was made about who was to conduct the tests. Subsequently, O'Connor, acting unilaterally, asked MIT to carry out these tests, and MIT, contrary to their usual

policy, agreed to do so. These tests were started by

Weber in mid-October. In what in retrospect may have

been an error, Astin decided that because of Ritchie's attitude toward the Bureau it would be better if MIT

carried out their tests independently; the Bureau did

not participate in the tests. On December 17, 1952, the results of the MIT

tests were delivered to the committee. The report did

find differences attributable to the introduction of

AD-X2, but qualified the differences and very carefully

refi^ained from concluding whether such differences were of any practical consequence. In fact, it was to turn out later that these differences were only observable when using electrolyte that was so dilute that it bore no relationship to actual use conditions. Astin

went to MIT to discuss this, but nothing came of the

discussions. The committee ignored the qualifications

and issued a press release stating that the MIT results completely supported the manufacturer's claims. The

release included a statement by Laidler, who was now

acting as a consultant to the committee, which stated in part, "The MIT tests ... constitute by far the most

thorough scientific tests of the effectiveness of AD-X2.

They demonstrate without reasonable doubt that this

material is in fact valuable, and give complete support

to the claims of the manufacturer." In view of the MIT

qualifications, this was a remarkable statement. The

release ended with a statement attributed to Laidler but

subsequently denied by him, that implied that Bureau

scientists could only make "such grave errors" because

they were associated with battery manufacturers.

The release v/as widely reported by radio and in the press. The Bureau and MIT—indeed the whole

scientific community —were in a quandary. Two of the

Nation's most highly respected laboratories had ap- parently arrived at conflicting conclusions on what ap- peared to be a simple problem. The scientific method

itself was being called into question, as were the motivations and objectivity of Bureau scientists. The Bureau was at the lowest point in its history. The staff felt under personal attack and was in a state of agitation,

although firmly united in support of the institution and

its director. The Bureau and Astin's woes were to mount, for Astin had a new boss. After the 1952 presidential elec- tion, a new administration came into office vowing to "clean up the mess in Washington." Sinclair Weeks, a businessman fi-om Boston, was appointed Secretary of

Commerce and promised to "cut out the dead wood."

His mail was flooded by letters fi-om Ritchie and his supporters claiming that Pioneers, Inc., was being unfairly persecuted by an antagonistic bureaucracy. Weeks

was sympathetic to his case, which seemed tailor-made

for the new administration. Ritchie's case was

strengthened when in February 24, 1953, the Post Office, notwithstanding the MIT tests, halted Ritchie's mail because of fraudulent advertising. Political pressure on the Post Office Department from the Senate Small

Business Committee caused suspension of the order a few days later. Weeks ordered his assistant secretary

Craig R. Sheaffer to investigate the AD-X2 affair. Sheaffer was former president of the Sheaffer Pen Company, and no lover of the Washington bureaucracy, his company having come under investigation firom the

FTC because of the advertising of its "lifetime" pen. In his direct way, Astin tried to see Weeks. In

16
January of 1953 he wrote a memorandum to Weeks

containing a proposal that was to prove crucial for the

future of the Bureau. He proposed that the National

Academy of Sciences be enlisted to evaluate the Bureau

with respect to both the AD-X2 case and all its other

operations. For the moment, nothing came of this. Astin never saw Weeks; Weeks had placed the whole

matter in the hands of Sheaffer. Astin later tried again

to see Weeks, with the same result. As a result of his in- vestigations, Sheaffer came to the conclusion that there were sufficient grounds to question the reliability of the

NBS tests, and, with the concurrence of Weeks, on March 24, 1953, he asked Astin to resign. Although the

Director of the National Bureau of Standards serves at the pleasure of the President, it is a post in which the in- cumbent is traditionally not replaced at the change of

administration, but Astin, apparently feeling that this action was part of Weeks' general housecleaning and

not personal, resigned. On March 31, 1953, his letter of

resignation was at the White House.

On that day, two events occurred that were to cause a nationwide furor. The morning papers carried a column by Drew Pearson which read in part:

Last week Dr. Astin was summoned to the Commerce Department by Assistant Secretary Craig

Sheaffer. . .and was fired. He also was lectured regarding the National Bureau of Standards

diagnosis of battery additives . . . and [Sheaffer] told Dr. Astin the Bureau of Standards in the future was to be run on a businessman's basis. On the afternoon of the same day. Weeks testified at a hearing on AD-X2 before the Senate- Small

Business Committee at which he was the sole witness. He was sharply critical of the Bureau and very sup- portive of Ritchie. He made the now well-known state- ment:

I am not a man of science and I do not wish to enter into a technical discussion or be accused of

overruling the findings of any laboratory. But as the practical man, I think the National Bureau of

Standards has not been sufficiently objective.

because they discount entirely the play of the

market place. . . . On a more positive note he promised he would have

the Bureau evaluated by the "best brains I can find,"

and have more tests made of AD-X2 by impartial scientists. In this ironic and bizarre way did Astin's own proposals begin to be implemented.

At first, the attention of the press was limited to mere reporting of Week's statements but as the story

developed. Weeks became enveloped in a veritable ex- plosion of criticism. Except for a very few newspapers, the press was uniformly against Astin's summary

dismissal. The scientific community rose up in support

of Astin, and vehemently denounced Weeks for what it perceived as a blatant attempt to have scientists arrive only at politically acceptable results. Many Congressmen supported Astin, and the Senate Small Business

Committee promised hearings. Political cartoonists had

a field day at the expense of Weeks and Sheaffer. The

Bureau staff solidified behind their director, and 400

(mostly engaged in military research, which caused considerable consternation at the Pentagon) threatened to

resign, a fact which was proclaimed in banner headlines

in the Washington Evening Star. By law, the Bureau is required to have a Visiting

Committee of five men appointed by the Secretary of

Commerce, who are to "visit the Bureau at least once a

year, and report to the Secretary . . . upon the efficiency

of its scientific work and on the condition of its equipment." From the beginning, this committee has been

made up of the most distinguished scientists and

scientist-administrators from the Nation's universities and industrial laboratories. These elder statesmen of

science began to work quietly and effectively. Detlev

Bronk, chairman of the committee. President of Johns

Hopkins University, and President of the National

Academy of Sciences, and Mervin Kelly, President of

Bell Telephone Laboratories and a member of the

Visiting Committee, met with Weeks at his request.

The whole question of the Bureau involvement with

AD-X2 and the dismissal of Astin was explored. Wrecks,

of course was anxious to implement the promise he had

17 ^
made to the Senate Small Business Committee to have an independent evaluation of the Bureau, and the

Academy was the obvious organization to carry this out. Shortly thereafter, at a meeting between Weeks

and the full Visiting Committee, Bronk informed

Weeks that he could not in fairness recommend to the

Academy that it carry out such an evaluation unless the dismissal order of Astin were at least temporarily

rescinded. Weeks capitulated. Three days later, on

April 17, the day that Astin's resignation was to take

place. Weeks made an announcement. The Academy

would form two committees: one under Zay Jeffries, retired vice president of the General Electric Company,

to evaluate the Bureau's work on AD-XZ, and another,

to be chaired by Kelly, to evaluate the general condition of the Bureau. Weeks temporarily rescinded

Astin's dismissal, and stated that while there was no

question involved of Astin's permanent retention, he

had not meant to cast doubt on the integrity of either the Bureau or Astin. Astin agreed to stay on at least until the reports of the Academy were received. A

relatively stable situation had been achieved.

How much Astin directly had to do with these actions of the Visiting Committee can only be sur- mised. A model of executive behavior, he had acted

throughout the whole affair with his customary calm

dignity; if he had been upset by the events he did not show it. That he had discussed the AD-X2 matter with

the Visiting Committee is clear, for the committee met

twice in 1952 and met early in 1953. Thus it is safe to assume that they were well informed about Astin's ac- tions, and particularly his memos to Weeks asking for Academy evaluation. It would have been at a minimum

discourteous and totally out of keeping with Astin's

completely frank and open way of dealing not to have

informed the committee of his actions. Moreover, in 1952, the committee had already recommended to the

Secretary (not Weeks at that time) that a study of the

Bureau be carried out by an ad hoc committee, and

they would not have done this without Astin's

knowledge. Thus it is certain that the committee knew

of Astin's wishes when they spoke with Weeks. By

working quietly and calmly within the system, Astin

got what he wanted: an objective, dispassionate evalua- tion of the Bureau. He never had any fear of an objective evaluation; in Astin's mind such an evaluation

could only lead to the truth, and the truth was never to be feared. Before the AD-X2 drama was to come to an end, one last act had to be played. The Senate Small

Business Committee scheduled hearings on AD-X2 for June 22, and Ritchie and Astin were to testify. Astin

would be at center stage, and the whole Nation would

be his audience. It was not a position he relished. Ritchie testified first, and in a long, rambling

testimony repeated his position that he had a good

product and was being unfairly treated by the Bureau. He was followed by Astin, who had many issues to ad- dress in his testimony. He had to defend the Bureau's handling of the AD-X2 affair; he had to address both

the technical accuracy and the validity of the Bureau's

results; he had to explain how there could be so many

satisfied users when the Bureau tests were uniformly

negative; and he had to confront the MIT results. In addition to these relatively narrow issues, his testimony was concerned with the broader issue of the use of

scientific results in public policy. In his prepared testimony, Astin first gave a

description and analysis of the Bureau's functions and

its responsibilities and discussed how it came to be in- volved in product testing. His principal theme here was one that was to occupy him for the remainder of his career. Since measurements and the standards based on

them are all pervasive, the Bureau is inevitably led to have close contact with all of science and industry. The

main function of the Bureau is the continued development of measurement methods, but its abilities are also put to specific Government use. Hence the principal

functions of the Bureau, Astin stated, were "to serve the Government as a scientific laboratory, and to serve the Nation's science and industry by establishing and

maintaining the fundamental standards of science,

[and] related instrumentation and measurement

methods . . .

. " One of its fianctions as a Government

18
scientific laboratory is product testing for other agencies

of the Government. He pointed out that this function,

important as it was, amounted to 1 percent of the total Bureau effort, and that portion that was done for regulatory agencies was only 0.05 percent. This was how the Bureau came to be involved in the testing of

batteries and battery additives. The reports of such tests are the property of the other agencies, and the content and dissemination of the information in them is their responsibility. However, as a result of this activity the

Bureau occasionally amassed an amount of knowledge

that it felt could be useful and of interest to the general

public. In that case, in view of the statement in its enabling legislation of 1950 for "the compilation and

publication of general scientific and technical

data. . .when such data are of importance ... to the

general public . .

. ," the Bureau publishes these results. Complete impartiality is obtained, Astin stated "... by

confining the reports to straightforward presentations

of scientific and technical data on the properties of the

materials and devices used." Trade names are not used,

and the name of the Bureau in advertising is not

permitted.

He then had to confront the issue of why the

Bureau, in the AD-X2 case, had permitted the use of its name and the name of the product by the NBBB. To

him the issue was very clear and very simple:

This deviation from the usual practice was at the

request of the NBBB in order to reply to statements made by the proponents of AD-X2 that the generalizations made in prior bulletins did not apply to that product and that it had not been tested by the

Bureau. . . .Every action which the Bureau has

taken with respect to the testing of AD'X2 and the

dissemination of information with respect thereto

has been brought about as a direct consequence of

the representations and the pressures of the pro- ponents of AD-X2.

Sometimes, Astin seemed to be saying to the committee, the simple and obvious answer is the correct one. The Bureau had acted objectively and impartially; it broke its long-standing policies only because it was

forced to. With respect to the question of field tests versus laboratory tests, Astin was on familiar grounds. He

had, after all, been engaged in field testing throughout

most of his career. His statement was again clear and

unequivocal. Without ever mentioning himself per- sonally, he reminded the committee of the Bureau ex- perience in field testing of ordnance devices. He

continued.

In the development of a new ordnance device the

field test is the final stage of evaluation and ap- proval. The field test, however, is not resorted to

until some improvement or effect is developed in the laboratory which would then make the field

tests worthwhile. . . .The Bureau has not resorted to field tests with battery additives, because it has

not been possible to find in the laboratory any effect which is related to the normal use of lead-acid

batteries .... Since no worthwhile effect has been

found ... it has been concluded that the field tests would serve no useful purpose.

It is pointless, Astin was saying, to carry out field tests when no effect was found in the laboratory.

The issue of customer satisfaction had two sides. The first and relatively simple one was the question of

how customers could be satisfied while the laboratory

tests showed no beneficial effects. The second broader

question was the use of customer satisfaction in assess- ing the validity of products. The first question Astin

answered by explaining the results of the final tests the

Bureau had run on AD-X2—those that had been

agreed to by Ritchie and in which Astin had personally

participated. He pointed out that in these tests half the

batteries had been treated and half had not, and that

only he knew which was which. No difference was found among the batteries—they all took the same charge—and neither the Bureau people nor Ritchie and

his supporters could distinguish between the treated and untreated batteries. It was then clear that if a per- son had treated a battery with AD-X2, and not used an

untreated battery as a control, he would have been

satisfied, but would never have known that he could

19
have achieved the same result with proper handling but

without AD-X2. The battery handling instructions pro- vided with AD-X2 were in fact excellent. Astin replied,

when confronted with the experience of satisfied customers, "You should ask them if they have any control so that they have a base with which to compare

their measurements."

On the broader issue of using customer experi- ence and testimonials, Astin took a very firm position:

. . .there are generally no adequate measures in- cluded in a testimonial, no rigorous specifications of

the operating conditions under which the

measurements were taken, and usually no controls

whatever are used —for those reasons we cannot ac- cept testimonials as scientific evidence.

Finally, with respect to the differences between

the Bureau and MIT results, Astin told the committee

that the Bureau had reproduced the MIT results, but

that they occurred only with dilute acid concentration,

"so dilute, in fact that it appears to be of no significance

whatever in normal storage-battery operation."

However, the whole matter was being evaluated by a committee of the National Academy of Sciences and he

welcomed their scrutiny and results. Weber, who

testified after Astin, was essentially to end the matter when he stated, "I cannot say that this effect is cor- related with a beneficial action from the standpoint of

the normal use of such a battery."

So much for the specific issues concerning ADX2. On the broader issues of the relationship of science to politics and public policy, Astin's position was clear and firm. Concerning the issue of the dissemination of

scientific data when it might adversely affect some

business interests, he took the hypothetical case of data on aluminum:

A laboratory study on the properties of aluminum

under a particular set of environmental conditions

might disclose characteristics for aluminum

superior to those of steel .... The publication of

such data would not be considered as prejudicial to those promoting the use of steel; rather the

withholding of such data would be considered as

prejudicial to the interests of the general public and

those interested in promotion of the use of

aluminum. In science and technology a specific, reproducible observation is a fact that knows no

favorites. (Emphasis added).

Again on the same point, "would we withhold the

dissemination of that data because the steel people

would not like it? It is a cold, hard scientific fact. To

withhold the dissemination of scientific information I think is the most prejudicial action."

Astin and the committee were dealing here—for the first time, it appears—with the proper place of scientific data in politics and public policy. In later years, this issue was to be debated extensively with respect principally to regulatory questions in public health and

safety and environmental problems. To Astin the issue apparently had a clear resolution. He made a sharp and

clear distinction between science on the one hand and

politics and public policy on the other. Science deals with the discovery and quantification of physical facts and natural law; politics and public policy deal with the

use of those facts for social, economic, and other purposes. But the facts exist independent of their use, and

their dissemination should not —indeed, cannot —be

suppressed or withheld.

Astin's testimony began on the afternoon of June

23 and ended in the late afternoon of June 24. Throughout all of the questioning—which was mentally and physically exhausting and not invariably

friendly— he showed only composure and dignity, and

firmness but courtesy, and, as the following exchange

near the end of his testimony shows, he never lost his sense of humor or his acuity. Earlier in his testimony,

the ratio of the selling price of AD-X2 to the price of the raw materials had been compared to the same ratio for aspirin. The first questioner was the sympathetic

Senator Smathers.

Sen. Smathers —Now, just one last question .... About the relative worth of the product

aspirin as compared to the relative worth of ADX2, in your offhand opinion, do you think the

value of aspirin has been proved or established

20
more so than the value of AD-X2?

Dr. Astin —I buy aspirin. Sen. Smathers—No further questions.

Sen. Sparkman—ln considerable quantity?

Sen. Hunt—Lately?

The Chairman (Senator Thye)—Doctor, I hope we

weren't the cause of you buying any. Dr. Astin—I have got a great big 85-grain tablet that I keep in my desk. It is National Bureau of

Standards size. (Eighty-five grains is 5,500 milligrams. The normal

aspirin tablet is 500 milligrams.)

Astin had won the day; the AD-X2 affair was

ending. He was reinstated permanently as director on

August 21. Sheafifer resigned, and Astin thenceforth

reported to James C. Worthy, Assistant Secretary of

Commerce for Administration. Worthy had recom- mended Astin's reinstatement to Weeks, who in turn became a strong supporter of Astin and the Bureau.

Ritchie continued marketing AD-X2, went into

politics, and sued the Government by means of a private bill introduced by his Congressman, but the

suit was dismissed "with prejudice." When the Jeffries Committee reported in October 1953 that the Bureau's work had been of high quality and that AD-X2 was of no value, the Bureau's involvement in the AD-X2 affair ended. The Bureau had been exonerated. Astin and

the Bureau staff had brought it through its hardest

days.

That the AD-X2 affair caused Astin to think very deeply about his beliefs in scientific research as a part of

intellectual and emotional life, and about the place of

the Bureau in science and industry is shown best by an

address he gave to the American Physical Society on May 1, 1953, during its annual Washington meeting.

Better than anything else in existence, this remarkable

document gives a clear, but passionate and almost emotional statement of Astin's scientific beliefs. (It is reproduced in the Appendix.) From the sentence near

the beginning, "The Bureau staff believes first of all in the importance of scientific research as a means of in- tellectual and spiritual achievement . .

. ," to the closing

statement, "... we know that the opportunity to assist in attaining [the Bureau's goals] affords a high degree of

intellectual, moral, and spiritual satisfaction," the intensity of thought and feeling that pervade the document

attest to the depth of the emotion he experienced during those trying days. His declaration of the "spiritual"

and "moral" values of scientific research shows that his regard for science transcended the utilitarian and ap- proached the artistic, mystical, and almost religious. He

says the document "represents some of the traditions

and creeds of the staff of the National Bureau of Standards," but it is clear that the statement is Astin's own.

It deserves to be called "Astin's credo."

The most important positive outcome of the

AD-X2 affair was the report of the Kelly Committee,

made on October 15, 1953. Its principal findings were

that the Bureau was a respected and competent

organization which was of vital importance and whose

importance would increase with the increasing

technological sophistication of the Nation. However,

the Bureau's basic programs had not kept pace with the

increase of science and technology, and the amount of

weapons work had become too great. It made a total of

ten recommendations, the most significant of which

were:

• A higher level of activity in the basic programs

• Modernization of facilities and increased space for basic programs

• Transfer of weapons projects to the Department of

Defense

• Improvement of the organization at the associate director level • The formation of advisory groups to the director. All these were recommendations that Astin wel- comed. They would form the basis for his agenda during the remainder of his term as director.

4 21
ARS

At the time when Astin became director of the

Bureau, the United States was in the midst of a new

and trying period—the Cold War. In 1948 the

U.S.S.R. instituted a blockade of Berlin, necessitating a year-long U.S. airlift. The Nation had been shocked

when late in 1949 President Truman announced that

Russia had exploded an atomic bomb. A national

debate on the production of a hydrogen bomb had

taken place, with the decision to proceed. A hydrogen

weapon had been exploded on November 1, 1952, and

was followed 9 months later by the explosion of a Russian hydrogen bomb. On June 25, 1950, North Korea

attacked South Korea, and thus began the U.S. in- volvement in another war that was to last until July

27, 1953 —3 days after Astin had ended his testimony

in the AD-X2 case. The McCarthy hearings with their accusations of communists in Government made daily

headlines. The race to develop an intercontinental

ballistic missile was in full force, with separate pro- grams by each of the armed services. Finally, on October 4, 1957, Russia launched a 180-pound beeping

object named Sputnik I into orbit, to be followed 33

days later by Sputnik II, weighing 1,120 pounds and

containing a dog. Initial U.S. attempts to launch a

satellite ended in failure. The Nation was in the midst

of an arms race which it felt it was losing. It was a ner- vous and uneasy time.

The involvement of the Government in science

increased greatly. With the formation in 1946 of the

Atomic Energy Commission, new national laboratories were organized at Oak Ridge, TN, Argonne, IL, Brookhaven on Long Island, and Livermore, CA. The

Office of Naval Research, a landmark institution for the funding of research, was formed the same year as the AEC. After one unsuccessful attempt in 1947, the

National Science Foundation was formed in 1950. Early in 1958, the Defense Department, recognizing

that it needed more advanced research, formed the

Advanced Research Projects Agency. Finally, in response to the Sputniks, in October 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) was formed from the old National Advisory Committee

for Aeronautics (which had been in existence since 1915 and with which the Bureau had always worked

closely) with responsibilities for all civilian space activities. It was a decade of growth in Federal science. Of more specific importance to Astin, the White

House recognized that science was now a crucial part of

policy decisions, and both Truman and Eisenhower

established advisory structures. In 1947 Truman

formed the Interdepartmental Committee for Scientific Research to coordinate research among the various

agencies of the Government and to aid in solving com- mon administrative problems. In 1951 he formed a Science Advisory Committee of 11 of the Nation's top

scientists to advise him on scientific matters relating to

defense. President Eisenhower revised this organization,

first forming the post of Science Advisor in his Executive Office one month after Sputnik, and shortly

thereafter forming the President's Science Advisory

Committee from Truman's Science Advisory Committee. Finally, in 1959, he formed the Federal Council for Science and Technology from Truman's Interdepartmental Committee. In 1962, the Office of Science and

Technology in the Executive Office of the President was

formed. This, along with the Bureau of the Budget, was

the almost unbelievably complex scientific management

structure that Astin had to work with throughout his term as director. Astin was well suited to work within this struc- ture. He had known many of the people who worked

within this intricate interconnecting network of coor- dinators and advisors from his work during the war and from the visiting committees of the Bureau. As

22
director of the Bureau, he automatically became a member of Truman's Interdepartmental Committee

and its successor, the Federal Council for Science and

Technology. Indeed he chaired the former in 1954, and

served as chairman of the Subcommittee on Federal

Laboratories of the latter from 1962 until his retirement

in 1969. Because of his experience in defense-related work he served on the Advisory Committee for Naval

Research from 1952 to 1959, and on the Defense

Science Board, which advised the director of the Office

of Defense Research and Engineering in the Pentagon.

He was thus fully in contact with all that was going on

in research management and research policy formulation in the Federal Government, and in all of these posts he was held in the highest respect because of his complete, unequivocal honesty, his mature, objective

judgement, and his self-effacing, quiet, and courteous manner. No one ever had the fear of being misled by

Allen Astin. In this atmosphere and with these connections,

Astin set about remaking the Bureau. He had to re- build its civilian scientific base, which had deteriorated

during the war years, and to carry out the other recom- mendations of the Kelly Committee. But he had his own agenda and goals as well. When asked 30 years

later what these goals were when he became director he

replied,

I guess my primary goal was similar to both Condon's and Briggs'. I think above all else I wanted to make the Bureau an attractive place for scientists to work. That, more than anything else, dominated

my goals and decisions. More specifically, I wanted

to develop a sense of mission and define a mission.

Another [goal] was to reduce the dependence of the

Bureau on transferred fijnds and to make the

primary source of financing the Bureau's own ap- propriation [and] at a sufficient level to carry out

the Bureau's mission. I would say these were the

main objectives.

He was to realize them during his tenure. Two of the recommendations of the Kelly

Committee—reduction of weapons work and the formation of advisory committees for the Bureau direc- tor—were easily implemented. In September of 1953,

having seen a preliminary copy of the Kelly Committee

report. Secretary Weeks signed an agreement with the

Department of Defense to transfer to it the proximity

fuze and guided missile work. The laboratories and people working on the proximity fijze remained at the Van

Ness site, but were renamed the Diamond Ordnance

Fuze Laboratories and transferred to Army Ordnance.

The division at the Corona Laboratories was trans- ferred to the Navy, and when a year later the Institute for Numerical Analysis, which had been operated by

the Bureau for the Department of Defense since 1947 at UCLA, was transferred to the university, the largest

portion of the transfer was complete. The Bureau had

lost 2,000 of its staff of 4,800.

Equally swift was the implementation of the

recommendation for the establishment of advisory

committees. In accordance with the recommendations

of the Kelly Committee, nine scientific societies and the

National Conference on Weights and Measures were

asked to form such committees, and by June 1954 ten committees consisting of 60 of the most distinguished

academic and industrial scientists were in existence. Each of the committees investigated the Bureau yearly

and advised Astin in its particular field of expertise.

This method of operation continued until 1957, when

the formation and operation of the advisory committees (subsequently called advisory panels) were taken over by the National Research Council. At that time a panel was appointed for each division of the Bureau,

and a variant of this system still exists today.

The strengthening of the Bureau's basic research

effort was to prove much more difficult. Science was

entering a period of unparalleled growth, and new

demands for services from the Bureau were increasing

dramatically. To increase the level of activities in basic science and to expand into new areas, along with the

implementation of Astin's own objectives to make

the Bureau an "attractive place to work" where the at- mosphere was "free, very free" as in Briggs' day, three things were needed: people, equipment, and space.

23 >^
These had one common ingredient: money. Astin had

to find a way to increase the appropriation for the Bureau's basic program.

Money meant Congress, for it held the purse

strings. But before the Congress could be approached,

any increases in appropriation asked for by Astin had

to be agreed to by the Secretary of Commerce and the

Bureau of the Budget. After the AD-X2 affair, Weeks,

who had come to have great respect for Astin, became

a supporter of the Bureau, and the Bureau of the

Budget was also supportive. Thus, for the first few years of his tenure as director, Astin was permitted to ask for increases ranging from 11 percent to 35 percent. But

Congress was economy minded and did not understand the role of other agency projects at the Bureau,

feeling it had no control over this peculiar agency that could go to other agencies for funds, so that it didn't

much matter what Congress did. Its puzzlement was ex- pressed by Representative Preston of Georgia:

If we were to try some economies . . . there would be

nothing in the world to prevent the Bureau of

Standards fi-om doing a little staff negotiation with

Navy, or somebody, 'Look, fellows, come to our

rescue. . .

. ' The Navy would say, 'AH right, we will give you a project.' They would be going to some

other source to get the money we denied. I do not know what the answer is. As a result, the basic Bureau appropriation for research

dropped from $6.9 million in the 1952 fiscal year, while

Astin was still acting director, to $4.93 million in fiscal year 1954 and $5.29 million in fiscal year 1955 —2 years

after the AD-X2 affair. As a result of these cuts, and

because a great deal of Defense Department work was

still done at the Bureau, the percentage of other agency

work in 1955 was still 68 percent, despite the loss of the

ordnance and missile divisions. Astin began to educate the Congress. At appropriations committee hearings before the House and the

Senate, he explained patiently and courteously, but

with dogged persistence and tenacity, that the Bureau

needed funds to do its work, not that of other agencies.

Every year he pointed out to the Congress that the

rapidly increasing scientific activities of the Nation were

greatly escalating demands for Bureau measurement

services. After Sputnik, he pointed out to the Congress

that Russia was investing far miore money in measure- ment and standards research than the United States. Over and over he reiterated the theme that measure- ments were pervasive throughout all of science and in- dustry, and hence the Bureau had to keep up with all the new and important developments. Astin did not

enjoy the stylized verbal ballet of the appropriations

hearings where he was a supplicant, and always in an

inferior position. Moreover, despite the fact that he was

held in enormous respect by members of the committee, he was not always treated gently by some of them.

Nevertheless, he pressed his case; the unpleasantness came with the job.

Slowly Congress became more supportive. In

fiscal year 1956, Congress granted a budget increase of

39 percent. Two years later. Sputnik gave all research budgets a boost. By 1962, the Bureau research ap- propriation was $23.8 million, having risen from $6.9

million in 1952. In those 10 years, the percentage of

other agency work had decreased from 85 percent to 32

percent, and, firom its low point of 2,800 in 1954, the

size of the staff had risen to 4,000. Fiscally, and with

respect to the distribution of work, Astin had the

Bureau he wanted.

As important as money was, it was not the only

thing necessary to make the Bureau "an attractive place

for scientists to work." The Bureau had to be able to pay scientists wages that were competitive with

organizations outside the Federal Civil Service. This was a well recognized problem. Civil service rules restricted the level a person without administrative

responsibility could achieve. These and other civil ser- vice rules were one of the principal reasons the AEC

national laboratories were formed outside the civil ser- vice, and the reason that shortly after the end of the war Congress passed a law (Public Law 313) exempting

a number of positions from civil service requirements.

Designed especially for the Defense Department and

the newly formed National Institutes of Health, very

24
few of these positions were available to other scientific agencies. Astin, along with the directors of other

Federal laboratories who worked with him on first the

Interdepartmental Committee for Scientific Research

and later on the Committee for Federal Laboratories,

set out to revise civil service rules to permit individual

scientists to achieve the highest levels available. These

activities were to change dramatically the positions of

scientists in the whole Federal Civil Service and hence

went far beyond the Bureau alone. In these activities, Astin showed his mastery of the bureaucracy, and

demonstrated how important advances can be made by

working quietly but persistently within the system.

First, at the entrance level for Ph.D.'s, the Bureau

acted independently of any outside committee activities. In the fall of 1952 two staff members, D. E. Mann and J. Hilsenrath, conceived the idea of having

postdoctoral research fellows at the Bureau. Their concept was that the program be administered by the

National Research Council (NRC) in the same way

that it administered the prestigious Rockefeller

Fellowships. They did not know that this was similar to the mechanism by which Astin had been supported as a Research Associate by Insull's Commission. Approaches to the NRC found a sympathetic response, for the Rockefeller Foundation was phasing out its pro- gram and the NRC had a plethora of worthy candi- dates that could not be supported. Approaches to the

Civil Service Commission were equally encouraging,

but it took 15 months of work before the Department

of Commerce made a formal request to the commission

for such positions, which were appointments outside

the competitive civil service. But the way had been well

cleared. In 1954 authority was given for a maximum of ten such positions (increased to 20 in 1959), the ap- pointments lasting one year, with the option of exten- ding them for one more year. Funds were first allocated by individual division chiefs, but in 1958 Astin made

the program a line item in his budget, in this Vv'ay in- creasing the breadth of the program. The program went

into effect at the Bureau in the fall of 1954. It was so successfijl that the Naval Research Laboratory followed

with its own program 2 years later, and now practically

all Federal laboratories have such a program. It has

been one of the principal means of attracting young,

talented scientists to the Federal Government

laboratories. Changes at the upper end of the grade scale were

to prove more difficult. The impetus for changes at this end came in the late I950's and early 1960's when, to keep up with escalating wages outside the Government,

grade compression occurred at the highest grade level then available —GS15. Early in the 1960's, the positions

of "supergrades" were formed—GS16 to GS18—with

higher pay and higher prestige. The problem with obtaining these grades for scientists was that of "position

descriptions." Within the civil service rules as they were

before they were changed by the activity of Astin's

committee, a position was rated at a certain grade, not a

person. Moreover, a laboratory director could not (and

still cannot) unilaterally promote a person to a super- grade position; the appointment has to be approved by

the Civil Service Commission. This was done on the

basis of "position descriptions" which defined (oft:en in agonizing soporific detail) the tasks and skills that the

position required. The Civil Service Commission could

not understand how a research scientist who worked

alone merited the same pay as a person filling a position

that supervised 50 people.

Astin recognized that the flaw in this structure was the position description. Such a description cannot

be written for a senior level research scientist, for the

scientist defines the job, not some other person. The

position does not exist independent of the scientist. With this idea, the Committee on Federal

Laboratories, which Astin chaired, developed the concept of the man-in-the-job—the concept that the man

defines the job, not some other person. This was a difficult point for the bureaucratic mind to appreciate, but

with patience and persistence it was sold to the Ci\al

Service Commission, and fi^om then on scientists could

be appointed to the highest civil service levels e\'en

without administrative responsibility'. This is the situa- tion still in existence today, although the concept has

-V 25
to be resold periodically, and grade compression at the

upper civil service levels is again a serious problem.

In the early 1950's, with decreasing appropriations

threatening reduction in force, and changing research

directions causing anxiety, staff morale was low, but

later, increasing appropriations eased fears. An ag- gressive hiring program was instituted, and new and

talented people were recruited, two of whom—Lewis

M. Branscomb, atomic physicist from Harvard, and

Ernest Ambler, low temperature physicist from Oxford—were to become directors of the Bureau. New

directions were given to old areas of work, and new

areas were opened. The Heat and Power Division

became the Heat Division, with new emphasis on

critical phenomena and low temperature physics. The

Chemistry Division spawned a new Physical Chemistry

Division, with emphasis on absolute reaction rates in gas phase reactions, and became the Analytical and In- organic Chemistry Division. The Atomic and Radiation Physics Division split into the Radiation Physics

Division and the Atomic Physics Division, attesting to the increasing importance of these two fields in modern

science and industry. The Division of Organic and

Fibrous Materials metamorphosed into the Polymers

Division, emphasizing the rapidly growing field of

polymer science. The Metallurgy Division did not change its name, but shifted in orientation toward

metal physics. Attesting to the increased emphasis on

science, the Building Technology Division became the

Building Research Division. By the early 1960's, the

divisions and sections of the Bureau were under the

leadership of staff recruited during the Condon and

Astin years. The Bureau's interaction with the outside

world of science and industry was now primarily con- cerned with the basic research activity of the Nation's

laboratories in universities, industry, and Government.

In the early 1960's, an important new function was undertaken. The post-war explosion of scientific ac- tivity and the exponential growth of publications

threatened to inundate the scientific worker with

masses of scientific data which he found increasingly

difficult to locate in the literature, and, more importantly, whose validity he could not assess. The International Critical Tables, sponsored by the National

Academy of Sciences (NAS), had not been systematically updated since 1938. The NAS-NRC had, since 1955, encouraged the formation of groups for the

critical evaluation of scientific data and the publication

of data compilations and had formed an Office of

Critical Tables. Recognizing that this passive effort was

not sufficient, Astin formed a committee of Bureau staff members to determine what an active effort sufficient for the task might be. The work of this committee was

picked up by the Federal Council for Science and

Technology, and on June 7, 1963, the President's Science Advisor announced the formation of the National Standard Reference Data System, with responsibility for its operation given to the Bureau. Data

centers, with the responsibility for the collection,

critical evaluation, and dissemination of quantitative

chemical and physical (not biological) data on properties of definable substances or systems, were established

and funded both within and outside the Bureau, and

the efforts of non-participating data centers were coor- dinated. In 1968 Astin requested and received congressional authorization for the system, which is now a

flourishing effort. But these changes and new activities did not oc- cur at the expense of more direct Bureau services. Calibration activities proceeded apace, and became more sophisticated, using statistical analysis techniques

so that direct Bureau calibrations were minimized while

still providing the required services. Testing of Government purchases was still carried on, and assistance to other Government agencies in determining the cause of

failures of structures and equipment continued. The

standard samples program was given added status and

importance by being formally organized into the Office

of Standard Reference Materials. The Bureau had

become a modern scientific laboratory, but had not reduced its more routine but vitally important services.

26
By the early 1960's, the Van Ness site was bursting at the seams. The Diamond Ordnance Fuze Laboratories

still occupied space on the site, and the expansion of

staff had brought the total occupancy of the Van Ness

site to the point it was at the time of the Kelly Committee report, leading to their recommendation that

facilities be modernized and increased space be pro- vided for basic programs. In 1961 , indeed, the Van Ness

site contained 138 buildings, ranging from the original

South building, built in 1905, that housed the Bureau

Administration, to a gas cylinder storage building built in 1961. One hundred and eighteen of these buildings

had been built prior to 1951. The Bureau had grown

like the proverbial Topsy; its buildings were connected

by a rabbit-warren maze of tunnels and a tangled

labyrinth of wires and pipes. Importantly, proximity to the city caused a variety of mechanical, electrical, and

atmospheric interferences with delicate scientific measurements. It was evident even during Condon's

tenure as director that new facilities were mandatory.

In the early 1950's, at the depth of the Cold War,

serious attention was given to the possible effects of a nuclear explosion over the center of Washington,

DC—the location occupied by the White House. Blast and destruction radii were reported in the newspapers. The Federal Government qiuetly began the dispersion

of facilities which it was not essential to have close to the center of the city. Thus, in 1955, James Worthy,

who was Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Administration, and through whom Astin reported to Weeks, approached Astin and informed him that the

Bureau of the Budget had suggested NBS as a possible

agency for relocation. Would the Bureau be interested? Astin, doubtless recognizing that in the Federal bureaucracy doors to opportunity open only for a short

time, to be closed almost indefinitely thereafter, said,

"Yes, we would," and walked through the door. He was

given only a few weeks to come up with an estimate of

the cost.

The Bureau then made an error that it was to pay

for in constant headaches and heartaches for the next

12 years. It went to the General Services Administration (GSA) for the estimate. The Bureau informed the

Public Building Service (PBS) of the GSA that it re- quired one million square feet of laboratory and ofiice space. The PBS made an estimate on the assumption

that the space was to be contained in a cube—a very in- expensive but highly inappropriate concept for a specialized national laboratory. But, in all fairness,

there was time to do little else; the door of opportunity was open for only a short time. In this way, an estimate

of $58 million was arrived at, including land, building,

and planning and architects' fees. For the 1957 fiscal year budget, the Bureau was permitted to present to the

Congress an estimate of $40 million for the building

and to ask for $2.75 million for land acquisition and

planning and architects' fees. Congress was supportive

but concerned about the magnitude of the request and

wary about its accuracy. Representative Preston, chair- man of the House Committee remarked, "Naturally, our first reaction would be we feel it is a matter of national pride in having a splendid scientific laboratory

set up for the National Bureau of Standards, but at the same time $50 million is a large sum," and Representative Thomas interjected, "It will probably be $85

million to $100 million before you get through." His

words were prophetic. Congress did not appropriate

money for buildings, but did for land acquisition and

preliminary planning. The relocation of the Bureau had

begun.

Astin gave the responsibility for guiding the Bureau's move to Robert S. Walleigh, his Associate

Director for Administration and close friend. Walleigh was to handle all the administrative details involved in the move. The first was, which way to go? In typical

scientific fashion, the center of gravity of the Bureau

staff residences was determined and found to be at Chevy Chase circle, about 2 miles northwest of the

27
Van Ness site. Clearly, minimum staff relocation would

occur in a move to the northwest of Washington.

Twenty miles from the White House was the minimum

distance security required, and Walleigh began survey- ing possible sites. After many attempts, he found one to

his satisfaction a few miles west of the small town of

Gaithersburg, MD, just 20 miles from the White

House, 3 miles below the site chosen by the AEC for relocation, and adjacent to the then planned interstate 70S, which later became 1270. It was a farm of 555 acres and to Walleigh it seemed ideal. In the early spring of

1956 he brought Astin to see it. Leaning on the post of

a barbed wire fence, Astin looked over the site and

characteristically made a quick decision. He approved

of Walleigh's selection and told him to proceed. The

decision about what to pay was put into the courts and

the Government eventually paid $458,000 for the land. Further progress was slow, however. The firm of

Smith, Haines, Lundberg and Waehler, which had had

extensive experience in the design of scientific laboratories, was chosen for the design and engineering

of the laboratories. It became immediately apparent

that the estimate of $40 million was woefully low. In the next appropriation request, the Bureau asked for $85

million, coincidentally just the amount Representative

Thomas had mentioned. Congress was horrified; after endless inquiry it gave Astin a tongue lashing and sent him back to do his homework, but did appropriate

fiinds for detailed planning in fiscal year 1959. By the

end of that year many of the Gaithersburg buildings were in the final stages of detailed design. Working from

general criteria for general purpose laboratories

established by a committee drawn from the Bureau

scientific staff and the unique requirements of the more

specialized activities (such as engineering mechanics

and the linear accelerator), the original cube envisioned

by the GSA had grown to 20 buildings at a cost now

estimated to be $95 million. There were to be a power

plant; specialized laboratories for engineering

mechanics, radiation physics, fluid mechanics,

magnetic studies, sound, hazardous investigations, in- dustrial activities such as a paper mill and large-scale

specimen preparation; seven general purpose laboratories; a central complex which included an 11-story ad- ministration building with the library, a cafeteria,

splendid meeting facilities, and instrument shops; and a

service building. A gatehouse was built, and a nuclear

reactor added to the original plan which necessitated

the purchase of ten more acres to provide the required

distance from the site boundary. The subsequent addi- tion of the original farmstead and the construction of

three more buildings completed the present inventory.

Grudgingly and complaining at every step, Congress appropriated the funds piecemeal. Astin was given

continuous tongue lashings. Representative Rooney of

New York constantly accused him of having known

from the beginning what the final cost was to be, and

that the low original estimate was only designed to set Congress on a course from which it could then not

veer. Astin took the abuse with his usual stoicism; it came with the job, and the cause was worth it. The in- dignity of the abuse would pass; the Bureau's Gaithersburg facility would last indefinitely.

Ground was broken on June 14, 1961, with the

large Engineering Mechanics Building being the first constructed. On March 3, 1966, the flag in front of the

Administration Building was raised for the first time,

and dedication took place on November 15, 1966. The move of the staff and equipment from the

Van Ness site, itself an operation of immense proportions, took place in stages as the buildings were completed. The major move was that into the Administration Building and the general purpose laboratories. For this move, with a detail befitting the Nation's central measurement laboratory, every desk, every chair, every bookcase, every item of laboratory equipment

had its location marked on the floor plan of buildings, was labelled accordingly, and delivered to its assigned

location. The move began in 1966 and extended into

1967. The Gaithersburg site was famous before its completion. Delegations from other laboratories in the

United States and foreign countries came to discuss the

design and the logistics of the design, the construction,

28 #
and the move. This was, after all, the movement of a basic standards laboratory, with its specialized problems, as well as one of the few moves of a major,

laboratory of any kind. After completion, the site became renowned for the excellence of its facilities and

the beauty of the grounds. More than 3,000 trees and

shrubs were planted, two ponds with a total area of

about seven acres were constructed for hydrologic control, and two plots of woods were kept from the original

farm. Astin had made a new home for the Bureau, and

had taken it there.

With the move to Gaithersburg, Astin had carried out

all of the major recommendations of the Kelly Committee save one: reorganization of the Bureau's management structure. This structure had not changed since the founding of the Bureau. The technical work was

carried out in divisions, the number, name, and func- tion of which varied as the organization grew and

developed. The chiefs of these divisions reported di- rectly to the director. In addition to this simple "line" organization, there were three associate directors,

whose titles also changed from time to time, but whose

areas of responsibility covered the frill scope of all Bureau technical activities. These associate directors did not, however, have "line" responsibility for the divi- sions under their cognizance; they served, in the words

of the Kelly report, as "programmatic aides to the

Director in the areas that correspond to their titles." In addition to these associate directors, there was an assis- tant director for administration (a title that was later changed to associate director shortly after Walleigh was named to the position) who had responsibility for car- rying out all the administrative activities of the Bureau,

thereby relieving the technical division chiefs of this

task. In 1955 there was added another post, associate director for planning, with obvious duties. The Kelly Committee felt that this organization

"ties the Director too closely to division supervision and

places an unnecessary limit on the full use of the

Associate Directors." Paraphrased, the committee felt the director had too many people reporting to him (at the time there were 15 divisions and 2 offices). The

committee recommended that the associate directors be

given "full line responsibility for their areas of

responsibility."

This recommended reorganization added a layer

of management. Greater freedom for the director would

be bought at the price of reduced access to him by the

division chiefs. Astin did not act for almost 10 years, although the organization continued to evolve. Thus,

in 1959 a new post of deputy director was formed, with

Huntoon its first occupant. In 1962, on the initiative of

Branscomb, then Chief of the Atomic Physics Division,

and with the complete support of Astin, a new type of

cooperative institution was formed that was to prove a model for many subsequent institutions. This was a

research laboratory jointly operated by the Bureau and

the University of Colorado for the study of the atomic

physics and radiation theory underlying the science of

astrophysics —the Joint Institute for Laboratory

Astrophysics, or JILA for short. Central to this concept was the idea that the Bureau staff at JILA would have

adjunct professorships at the university, and the

associated university staff would participate in the

research activities of the institute. A key ingredient was

provision of ten positions for visiting fellows on oneyear appointments, the funds for which Astin was able
to obtain by a budget increase. Important as these and other new organizational moves were, they fell short of the reorganization en- visaged by the Kelly Committee. When Astin acted on

the reorganization issue, he was to propose a far grander scheme. In 1962 he wrote to the Secretary of

Commerce, who at that time was Luther H. Hodges, a proposal for the formation of a National Institutes for Science and Technology within the Commerce Department. In Astin's words, this was

... to do for the Nation's industrial economy what

the National Institutes of Health do for the

Nation's public health. I actually made the analogy

there. I also made the analogy with agriculture, the

fact that we had far and away the most efficient agricultural system in the world. [This] was largely

through the operation of a strong agricultural

research program. . .with central laboratories. . . branch laboratories . . . and field stations. Essentially, the Bureau would have been part of this. His scheme may have been too grand for implementation in any case, but it fell afoul of J. Herbert

Holloman, who occupied the newly created position of

Assistant Secretary for Science and Technology, and to whom Astin reported. Holloman, trained as a metallurgist at MIT, had been general manager of the

engineering laboratory at the General Electric Research

Laboratory before coming to the Commerce Department. He was a strong willed man of action, and it is

fair to say that his personality did not mesh well with

Astin's. He vetoed Astin's concept. What eventually

resulted from their interaction was a much more

limited restructuring of the Bureau, but one that was

very much in keeping with the recommendations of the

Kelly Committee. In 1964 the Bureau was reorganized.

The existing divisions were grouped into three institutes and one laboratory. The institutes were the Institute for Basic Standards, which provided "the basis. . .for a complete and consistent system of physical measure- ment"; the Institute for Materials Research, with the

objective "to make possible a better understanding of

the basic properties and behavior of materials, and to

make available reliable quantitative data on their per- formance"; and the Institute for Applied Technology,

to "foster and stimulate the application of technology to national needs." The laboratory was the Central Radio

Propagation Laboratory, which had evolved from war- time activities that provided information on radio pro- pagation and radio weather predictions for military purposes. After the war, it had become the central agency for the collection, analysis, and dissemination of

information on the propagation of radio waves. In October 1965, it was transferred to the newly formed Environmental Science Services Administration within

the Department of Commerce, and the Bureau lost the

last of its wartime entities. Astin took some criticism from the Bureau staff on this reorganization. Many felt that this addition of

another layer of management reduced contact with the

laboratory levels, hindered communication, and made

cooperation among the Bureau staff more difficult. What was essentially a collegial organization had

become a hierarchical one. Astin was concerned about

this, but the grouping into institutes followed the

development of a Bureau mission, and the sense of mission, that were important aims of his as director. In September 1960, after many years of thought and staff work, he had announced the mission to the staff. It was: (1) the provision of a central basis within the

United States of a complete and consistent system of

physical measurement, and coordination of that system

with the measurement systems of other nations; (2) provision of essential services leading to accurate and

uniform physical measurements throughout the Nation's science, industry, and commerce, and consonant

with their advancing requirements; and (3) provision of

data on the properties of matter and materials which

are of importance to science, industry, and commerce,

and which are not available of sufficient accuracy

elsewhere. That the functions of the new institutes followed

quite naturally from this mission statement is clear. Many years later Astin was to say. The institutes essentially coincided, in my judge-

^^ 30
ment, with the mission development. That is, the

Basic Standards Institute being essentially responsi- ble for the measurement system—that is, the

general framework of the system and its extension;

the Materials Research Institute being that which. . .supplements the measurement system

through standard reference materials . .

. ; and the

Institute for Applied Technology is ... to serve industry directly in areas mainly related to the mission through engineering standards and measure- ment techniques. Of course, the major drawback of

the institutes was the fact that [they] imposed

another layer, which I did not like. But I felt it was an important adjunct to keeping the Bureau's activities focussed on a central mission. It doesn't have to dominate every decision that's made, but

the fact that you're carrying out activities in a group called the Institute for Basic Standards

defines a certain framework in which you operate,

and the same for materials research. And I don't

see why it has to be a barrier to cooperation.

It is not clear that the reorganization was done totally

at his initiative, but it is clear that Astin was not unhappy with the results. The reduction in contact was

a price he was willing to pay for organizing the Bureau

along the main lines of its mission.

Indeed, the development of a mission was Astin's

personal intellectual challenge. Many scientists turned

executives continue to carry out personal research, particularly if they are theorists and hence do not require a laboratory. Astin's personal research was the mission

development. For this it was necessary to place the

functions of the Bureau into the whole structure of

science, technology, and industry and their historical development, particularly during the industrial revolution. For this, Astin became a scholar of the measure- ment systems of the United States and of the other

industrial nations. His thoughts may be paraphrased as follows: In science and technology, knowledge means

quantification. Ideas are expressed by equations whose

validity is determined by experiment, which requires

quantitative measurement of physical phenomena. In

Lord Kelvin's well known words, "... when you can- not measure [what you are speaking about], when you

cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind . . . . " Astin, indeed,

traced this whole concept back to Plato. In The

Republic, Socrates is quoted

We are exposed to many delusions. But reason thus

confiised by false appearances is beautifully restored by measuring, numbering and weighing .... By

this is eliminated the rule of the senses over us. We

disregard non-sensual impression of magnitude, of

number and weight of the objects, but calculate, measure and weigh them. And it is this part, which

relies upon measuring and calculation, which is the

better part of the soul.

If scientific knowledge requires quantification and

measurement, then communication of scientific knowledge requires units, and units require standards, so that everyone may speak the same quantitative

language. Moreover, as nations become, industrialized,

communication in science, technology, and industry

becomes nationwide and worldwide, and the standards

upon which measurement and communication are based must be common. Meters and amperes have to be the same in San Francisco as they are in Paris, or Rome, or Cairo. As science, technology, and industry

develop, new standards must be developed and old

standards expressed ever more accurately. Hence nations need central standards laboratories whose

primary function is the development of standards and

the associated measurements. And since measurements

are ubiquitous throughout all of science and industry

and need to be traceable back to the fiandamental stan- dards of physics, these laboratories will be concerned

with all of science and industry. The management ques- tion is not one of rationale, but one of size and areas of

effort.Astin developed and expanded these ideas in a

series of several dozen lectures and papers before such

diverse groups as Utility Commission Engineers, Official Agricultural Chemists, and the Institute of Radio

Engineers (now incorporated into the IEEE). He traced # 31
the erratic course of standards development in the

United States, the more systematic development of the

metric system in France, the adoption of the meter in 1866 as a legal basis for measurements in the United

States, and finally the treaty of the meter in 1875. He

showed how the inexorable course of industralization

forced the formation of national standards laboratories

at the turn of the century —the Physikalische

Technische Reichsanstalt in Germany in 1877, the National Physical Laboratory in England in 1899, and the

National Bureau of Standards in 1901. Over and over

again he expounded the same theme he had before

Congress: measurements are ubiquitous, hence the Bureau's work is all pervasive, and since science and

technology are constantly developing, the Bureau must

remain at their leading edge, or it will not be fulfilling

its obligation. That Astin deeply believed in this mission, that his attachment to precision measurement

had an almost mystical and religious quality is shown

by his lecture before the American Physical Society.

Commitment to excellence and self-expression arose from Astin's personal philosophy which he ex- pressed as, "everything we do should be done better." This led him to a unique definition of basic research. In

his view, this is "characterized. . .only by the intensity or depth of inquiry" rather than by subject matter, and

the investigator is "encouraged to pursue a level of in- quiry to the outer edge of knowledge." Since the

Bureau must be working at the "outer edge of

knowledge" in measurement science, it perforce must be

doing basic research in Astin's definition. Moreover, in

this pursuit, the investigator not only explores nature,

he also explores himself, and thus research becomes a means of spiritual and intellectual fulfillment. Although most consider the move to Gaithersburg as the most important heritage Astin left the

Bureau, in Astin's mind the mission statement and the

concomitant sense of mission were more important.

The mission was to have its fullest expression in the

development, principally at the hands of Huntoon, of

the National Measurement System, which traces in

detail all the various measurements made throughout

the Nation and their relationships to the fundamental

units of physics. Astin considered this the full expres- sion of the Bureau's measurement mission and role. His scholarly work on the mission was not Astin's

only outside activity. He was a member of many ad- visory councils, boards of scientific societies, and committees, some of which have already been mentioned.

Of particular importance were his activities concerned

with international aspects of standardization and scientific exchange and cooperation. As director of the

Bureau, he automatically became the U.S. member of

the International Committee on Weights and Measures

which coordinates the international development of

basic standards. During his tenure, important changes were made in the basic standards for length and time

(frequency). In 1960 the wavelength of the orange-red

line of krypton 86 was adopted as the international

standard of length, replacing the platinum-iridium bar

kept at the International Bureau of Weights and

Measures at Sevres, France. This replaced an artifact with a physical phenomenon, making possible the

realization of the standard in any good laboratory. In 1964 the frequency of a hyperfine transition of cesium

133 was adopted as the standard of frequency, replacing

the period of rotation of the earth. At one stroke this improved the accuracy of frequency measurements by a factor of 10,000. Also during his tenure, Astin was able to initiate an international program on measurements

in ionizing radiation, and, working with the Englishspeaking nations, arrived at a consensus definition of

the yard in relationship to the meter, a prc5blem that

had been standing since 1830. At the other end of the standards spectrum,

Astin recognized the need for international coordination of commercial and industrial standards for materials and products. He worked closely with

organizations in the U.S. voluntary standards system,

particularly ASTM and the American Standards

Association and its successors the United States of

America Standards Institute and finally the American

National Standards Institute (ANSI), which is authorized to represent the United States in the International

32
Standards Organization. So well was his work regarded

by ANSI that it instituted an award called the AstinPolk award in 1973. He and Louis F. Polk, chairman of

the National Metric Advisory Council to the Department of Commerce, were the first recipients.

His advice was eagerly sought by foreign nations on standards issues. As their guest, he traveled to Australia, Iran, and other countries to advise them on

standards laboratories. This advisory activity grew. At

the request of the Agency for International Development (AID), teams of advisors were sent on an ad hoc

basis to advise developing countries—Turkey, Korea,

Peru —on standards laboratory problems. This ad hoc

activity developed after Astin's retirement into a continuing program with AID for standards assistance to developing and "third world" nations.

Astin continued his international activities after his retirement. Beginning in 1969, he participated in the establishment of an intergovernmental agreement

to facilitate scientific cooperation between the United

States and France, and was designated as U.S. delegate

to the committee that guided the scientific exchanges

under this agreement, attending annual meetings of the

committee. His work was so well regarded that the

French Government awarded him the Legion of

Honor.

CONCLU

Astin's management style remained the same

throughout his career. Self-effacing, deliberate, reserved,

yet warm and friendly, he was tolerant to a fault, particularly of younger staff members. An inveterate pipe

smoker, Astin began meetings with individuals in his

office with small talk and the ritual of pipe stoking, putting his visitor at ease. When the time came to broach

the subject, and should it be a delicate one, he would

lean back in his chair, cross his lanky legs, and broach

it in such' a manner as not to give offense or to elicit anger. Yet his decisions were firm and decisive, but

could not be resented, for they were never based on

emotion, or anger, or personality. They were arrived at by deliberate, thoughtful consideration and careful reasoning. He always led people to arrive at the decision

he wanted; only rarely did he issue orders. In large

meetings at which he was a participant rather than a leader, he often would sit hunched down in his chair, his eyes closed with his ever present pipe cradled in his hands, seemingly dozing. But should the discussion

begin to ramble and a decision be difficult to reach, he

would open his eyes and make the incisive comment

that brought order and logic back to the proceeding.

As he demonstrated in the AD-X2 affair, Astin

could be adamant on matters of principle. At least one

time when asked by a superior to do something that

went contrary to what he considered a moral, if not a

legal, principle, he listened for a time and then said simply, "I won't do it," which ended the matter. It is tempting to say that his stature in the scientific community, particularly as a result of AD-X2, permitted

him to take such a stand with impunity, but that would

be misleading. Beneath the tolerant, understanding, courteous exterior lurked a steel will that would not bend when moral principles were involved.

He had a habit of visiting laboratories unan- nounced. He would show up at a laboratory or office and ask how the work was going, and he always knew

what the particular scientist was working on. To a

theorist he might ask if experiments were confirming

the theory, and to an experimentalist he might ask if the results were reproducible and consistent with

< 33 V
theory. The staff enjoyed these visits; it was not the

director who was visiting, it was another scientist, and

he knew the subject matter well. This implies that Astin prepared for these meetings, but it is not clear he

needed preparation. It was his Bureau and he knew

everything that went on. He had, after all, been there

his whole career. He knew all the closets, and all the

skeletons within them. At one time one of his managers

told him of his plans for one of the units under his jurisdiction. Astin listened as usual, and then remarked

"Fine, but I'm interested to see what you do v/ith Mr.

," and named a name. The manager went away

scratching his head, wondering what Mr. had

to do with it, but knowing he better look into it. Allen Astin was a sentimental man, aware that

science is not all cold, hard facts. At several places in England there exist apple trees authoritatively reported

to be direct descendants of the tree that perceptively

dropped the apple on Isaac Newton. Cuttings of a tree

at the East Mailing Research Station were brought to the United States, nurtured at the Beltsville experimental farms of the Department of Agriculture, and one of

them transplanted to the Van Ness site. Subsequently,

further cuttings were again nurtured, and one trans- planted to the Gaithersburg site. In season, Astin was

fond of presenting apples from these trees to visitors. Before each tree stands a plaque with the inscription.

"Science has its traditions as well as its frontiers." The

apple tree and the plaque still stand at the Van Ness

site, the only remnant of the old Bureau occupation.

At the time of his retirement in 1969, Allen Astin

could already look back on a ftjll career and life. He had

directed one of the world's most distinguished

laboratories through its most trying days, guided it to a new home, given it a new sense of direction, and left it better than he had found it. He had entered new

ground in the relationship between science and public

policy, and set the direction for much subsequent

development. He and his wife Margaret had been happily married for 42 years. They had reared two successful sons who had in turn gone on to have distinguished

careers, John to become a noted actor, director, and

writer, and Alexander a university professor, author,

and research administrator. At the base of the flagpole

that stands before the Administration Building at the

Gaithersburg site there is inscribed a quotation from

George Washington, "Let us raise a standard to which

the wise and honest can repair." Meant to apply to the

Bureau, it can equally apply to the career and life of its

fifth director.

Elio Passaglia, Physicist

National Bureau of Standards

November 1984
Reprinted from PHYSICS TODAY, Vol. 6, No. 6, 12-13, hne 1953 the

National Bureau of Standards

An invited address before the American Physical Society,

at the Shoreham Hotel, Washington, D. C, May 1, 1953 By A. V. Astin

SINCE THE TIME I was first asked to speak at

this meeting of the American Physical Society, events have occurred that are of appreciable importance to the National Bureau of Standards. These events have been sufficiently well publicized that there is no

need for me to specify them. Furthermore, committees

of specialists have been or are being set up to resolve

the basic issues of the controversy involving the Bureau and its directorship. Hence, I believe it to be in- appropriate for me on this occasion to discuss the case except to convey appreciation to the members of the American Physical Society, and others, for their ex- pressions of confidence and support. For these we are

sincerely grateful.

Tonight I plan to speak as the Director of the National Bureau of Standards and attempt to explain why

I and the other members of the organization believe in the Bureau and the importance of its operation to the national welfare and security.

The Bureau staff believes first of all in the importance of scientific research as a means of intellectual and spiritual advancement, as the foundation of our

technological economy and high standard of living, and

as the bulwark of our national security.

We believe in the teachings of Galileo that theory

and hypothesis must conform to the results of experimentation and observation. We believe in the philosophy of Lord Kelvin that basic understanding in science depends on measurement—the reduction of observation

to numbers. We believe further that the reduction of observation to meaningful numbers requires the de- velopment and maintenance of uniform standards for physical measurement, and that this need provides the

first and primary reason for the Bureau's existence. The development and maintenance of the standards

for physical measurement, with the associated cahbration procedures, are to us a challenging and dynamic activity. This standards work must not only keep abreast

of the expansion of the frontiers of science, but in the

older regions there is a continuing demand to increase

the precision and reliability of measurement. We believe that there is romance in precision measurement, and that ability to extend the absolute acAllen V. Astin was asked to give this address some months before

his emergence as a controversial figure in the national scene. He

spoke before an overflow audience at the banquet of the American

Physical Society during its Spring Meeting in Washington, and uoor

the completion of his talk he was given a standing ovation. For

the views of the APS, see p. 20.

curacy of measurement by one decimal place frequently

demands as much in ingenuity, perseverance, and analytical competence as does the discovery of a new principle or effect in science. We believe further that many

of the important advances in science are possible only

through the availability of instruments of high precision

which enable the measurement of small differences or minute effects. We stress reliability and accuracy in our operations

and in checking and rechecking our results. In fact, an

inadvertent error of 10 parts in a miUion (representing

a whole wave length of light) in a length calibration made some months ago was a cause of grave concern

to the Bureau's management, and there was no rest until the cause of the error was located and remedial

action was taken to prevent a recurrence. We stress objectivity and fairness in our operations

and attempt to insure them by a willingness to accept

the results of well-planned reproducible experiments

and the logical conclusions therefrom. We follow as far as possible the established or clearly defined observational techniques and analytical procedures of science but welcome the opportunity to evaluate and accept new ideas and techniques. We believe that scientific conclusions should be made only by following such procedures. We believe further that complete freedom of inquiry in scientific investigation is essential to insure not only the soundness of a particular set of results or conclusions but also the development and healthy progress of science itself. Related closely to this is our conviction that a substantial portion of the program of any sound scientific or technical laboratory should be devoted to funda- mental or nonprogrammatic research. Such provisions

afford an opportnuity for the more imaginative scientists to explore freely ideas of their own choosing and

help to provide vigor and strength to the entire laboratory. We believe that communication between scientists, through discussions, meetings, and visits between laboratories, is essential to the development and evaluation

of new ideas. For there is no ultimate authority or su- preme court in science except that resulting from general acceptance through free interchange. The resuUs of

a particular experiment are not considered established unless they can be reproduced by other observers, in other laboratories, and with different equipment. The
conclusions of a theory or hypothesis arc not considered

valid until they survive the scrutiny and criticism of other analysts and/or conform to the results of ex- perience.

Therefore, we believe that the broad dissemination and publication of the results of research investigations are essential to the healthy progress of science to be

limited only by strict considerations of national security. Because of the potential importance of the results of

scientific work to the general public, we believe that

scientists have a serious responsibility to interpret or

to translate their major findings into terms that can be

generally understood. In this connection, however, it is imperative that there be no compromise with accuracy

since altering or blurring the facts in the interest of popularization would probably be worse than no popularization at all. Hence, the Bureau, in rendering scientific and technical advisory services to other agencies of the govern- ment, particularly when the contacts in the other agencies are nontechnical people, has recognized its re- sponsibility for evaluating the results of its findings in objective and nonambiguous terms. In our advanced technological economy we believe that there are many ways in which a laboratory like the National Bureau of Standards can render valuable

services to other agencies of the government. For ex- ample, we believe that appreciable savings in govern- ment procurement operations are possible through the

intelligent use of technical purchase specifications and

acceptance testing based on carefully planned labora- tory investigations.

We believe that there are many areas in government

operations where the application of modern technology

can bring about substantial increases in operating effi- ciency. Electronic information processing machines af- ford a notable example.

We believe that the development of standard practices such as safety codes has resulted and will continue to result in substantial savings in human life, time, and money both within and out of the govern- ment. The development of such codes generally in- volves, however, extensive knowledge of the properties

of materials, devices, and structures under a variety of environmental conditions. We believe that in times of national emergency the

facilities and resources of the National Bureau of Standards should be as far as possible placed at the disposal

of those charged with the country's defense. This was

in fact done during the two world wars. Even during peace time or periods of limited emergency there is an

appreciable utilization of the Bureau's facilities by the defense agencies. Since World War II, and particularly

since the Korean episode, these activities have grown

substantially until now more than three-quarters of the Bureau's staff are working on problems for the Depart- ment of Defense. This means that the general character of the Bureau's work and the nature of its fiscal support are markedly different than they were 15 or 20 years ago. Whether or not this is a desirable

utilization of the National Bureau of Standards under

the present conditions is undoubtedly a question which

will be considered by one of the special study committees. We will welcome their recommendations and advice on this matter. We believe that in order for the National Bureau of Standards to carry out its various functions and activities we must have an alert and competent staff, suitable equipment and facilities, and an environment favorable

to scientific investigation and methodology. This envi- ronment or climate essentially means the provision of the opportunity to practice the beliefs I have been

stating.

We believe that there should be suitable recognition

and promotion of the more productive and creative sci- entists together with a careful weeding out of the nonproductive. We believe that the highest positions in the

civil service should be available to the most outstanding scientists and engineers, and that it should not be

necessary to encumber them with administrative re- sponsibilities in order to attain such positions. This

principle is fortunately recognized by the Civil Service Commission.

We believe that we should bring in new blood by the recruitment and training of young scientists and by pro- moting them to more senior positions as rapidly as they develop and opportunities open. We further believe that education should not cease when an individual

joins our staff, and we take pride in the graduate school

that has been conducted by and for our employees for more than forty years. We take pride in our many illustrious alumni now

serving in responsible positions in industry and else- where in government, and we have reason to believe

that they value the experience gained as members of the Bureau's staff. We take pride in the concept of service, in providing

assistance to science, to industry, and to government.

We believe in the dignity of the government service and further beheve that the primary incentives and re- wards of a civil service scientist are not financial but

rather stem from the pride in organization and its functions and from the sense of satisfaction which comes

from participating, even in small ways, in the solution

of problems of national importance.

We believe also that for federal employees loyalty to our country includes, in addition to the more com- monly accepted values, loyalty to the institution for which we work and for its traditions, and loyalty to the administration which shapes its policy.

These represent some of the tradition and creeds of the staff of the National Bureau of Standards. I hope

thereby to have given you some impression of why the

staff is so intensely loyal to the organization and our

Country, and why the staff is so interested in the Bureau's future. We know that the Bureau's work is criti- cal in the Nation's scientific and technological progress. Furthermore, we know that the opportunity to assist in attaining these goals affords a high degree of intellectual, moral, and spiritual satisfaction.
U.S. Department of Commerce

Malcolm Baldrige, Secretary

National Bureau of Standards

Ernest Ambler, Director

National Bureau of Standards

Gaithersburg, MD 20899

301/92 HOOO

National Bureau of Standards

Boulder, CO 80303

303/497-3000

January 1985

NBS Special Publication 690

Library of Congress

Catalog Card Number

84-601162

CODEN: XNBSAV