George Kistiakowsky George Bogdanovich Kistiakowsky ( November 18 , 1900 – December 7 , 1982 ) ( ) was a Ukrainian - American physical chemistry professor at Harvard who participated in the Manhattan Project and later served as President Dwight D . Eisenhower ' s Science Advisor . Born in Kiev in the old Russian Empire , Kistiakowsky fled Russia during the Russian Civil War . He made his way to Germany , where he earned his PhD in physical chemistry under the supervision of Max Bodenstein at the University of Berlin . He emigrated to the United States in 1926 , where he joined the faculty of Harvard University in 1930 , and became a citizen in 1933 . During World War II , he was the head of the National Defense Research Committee ( NDRC ) section responsible for the development of explosives , and the technical director of the Explosives Research Laboratory ( ERL ) , where he oversaw the development of new explosives , including RDX and HMX . He was involved in research into the hydrodynamic theory of explosions , and the development of shaped charge s . In October 1943 , he was brought into the Manhattan Project as a consultant . He was soon placed in charge of X Division , which was responsible for the development of the explosive lens es necessary for an implosion - type nuclear weapon . He watched an implosion weapon that was detonated in the Trinity test in July 1945 . A few weeks later a Fat Man implosion weapon was dropped on Nagasaki . From 1962 to 1965 , he chaired the National Academy of Sciences ' s Committee on Science , Engineering , and Public Policy ( COSEPUP ) , and was its vice president from 1965 to 1973 . He severed his connections with the government in protest against the war in Vietnam , and became active in an antiwar organization , the Council for a Livable World , becoming its chairman in 1977 . Early life . George Bogdanovich Kistiakowsky was born in Kiev , in the Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire ( in present day Ukraine ) , on November 18 , 1900 . George ' s grandfather Oleksandr Fedorovych Kistiakovsky was a professor of law and an attorney of the Russian Empire who specialized in the criminal law . His father Bogdan Kistiakovsky was the Professor of Legal Philosophy at the University of Kiev , who was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in 1919 . Kistiakowsky ' s mother was Maria Berendshtam , and he had a brother , Alexander . George ' s uncle Ihor Kistiakovsky was the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian State . Kistiakowsky attended private schools in Kiev and Moscow until the Russian Revolution broke out in 1917 . He then joined the anti - Communist White Army . In 1920 he escaped from Russia in a commandeered French ship . After spending time in Turkey and Yugoslavia , he made his way to Germany , where he enrolled at the University of Berlin later that year . In 1925 , he earned his PhD in physical chemistry under the supervision of Max Bodenstein , writing his thesis on the photochemical decomposition of chlorine monoxide and ozone . He then became Brodenstein ' s graduate assistant . His first two published papers were elaborations of his thesis , co - written with Brodenstein . Kistiakowsky came to the United States in 1926 as an International Education Board Fellow . Hugh Stott Taylor , a fellow student of Brodenstein , accepted Bodenstein ' s assessment of Kistiakowsky , and gave him a place at Princeton University . That year , Kistiakowsky married a Swedish woman , Hildegard Moebius . They had a daughter , Vera , in 1928 , who later became a Professor Emerita of Physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology . When Kistiakowsky ' s two - year fellowship ran out in 1927 , he received a Research Associate and DuPont Fellowship . On 25 October 1928 , he became an associate professor at Princeton . Taylor and Kistiakowsky published a series of papers together , Encouraged by Taylor , he published a American Chemical Society monograph on photochemical processes . In 1930 , Kistiakowsky joined the faculty of Harvard University , an affiliation that continued through his career . At Harvard , his research interests were in thermodynamics , spectroscopy , and chemical kinetics . He became increasingly involved in consulting to the government and industry . He became an associate professor again , this time at Harvard in 1933 . That year he also became an American citizen . In 1938 , he became the Abbott and James Lawrence Professor of Chemistry . World War II . National Defense Research Committee . Foreseeing an expanded role for science in World War II , which the United States had not yet joined , President Franklin D . Roosevelt created the National Defense Research Committee ( NDRC ) on June 27 , 1940 , with Vannevar Bush as its chairman . James B . Conant , the President of Harvard , was appointed head of Division B , which was responsible for bombs , fuels , gases and chemicals . He appointed Kistiakowsky to head its Section A - 1 , which was concerned with explosives . In June 1941 , the NDRC was absorbed into the Office of Scientific Research and Development ( OSRD ) . Bush became Chairman of the OSRD , Conant succeed him as Chairman of the NDRC , and Kistiakowsky became head of Section B . In a reorganization in December 1942 , Division B was broken up , and he became head of Division 8 , which was responsible for explosives and propellants , remaining in this position until February 1944 . Kistiakowsky was unhappy with the state of American knowledge of explosives and propellants . To remedy this , Conant established the Explosives Research Laboratory ( ERL ) near the laboratories of the Bureau of Mines in Bruceton , Pennsylvania . Kistiakowsky initially supervised the activities of the ERL , before Conant appointed him as its Technical Director in the spring of 1941 . The ERL reached a peak of 162 full - time staff in 1945 . An important field of research was RDX . This powerful explosive had been developed by the British before the war . The challenge was to develop an industrial process that could produce it on a large scale . RDX was also mixed with TNT to produce Composition B , which was widely used in various munitions , and torpex , which was used in torpedoes and depth charges . Pilot plants were in operation by May 1942 , followed by large - scale production in 1943 . A special request was for an explosive that could be smuggled through Japanese checkpoints by Chinese guerrillas . Kistakowsky mixed HMX , a non - toxic explosive that was produced as a by - product of the RDX process , with flour so as to create what was called Aunt Jemima , after a brand of pancake flour . The result was an edible explosive , which could pass for regular flour , and even be used in cooking . In addition to the research into synthetic explosives like RDX and HMX , the ERL investigated the properties of detonation s and shock waves . This was initiated as a pure research project , without obvious or immediate applications . Kistiakowsky visited England in 1941 and again in 1942 , where he met with British experts , including William Penney and Geoffrey Taylor . When Kistiakowsky and Edgar Bright Wilson , Jr . , surveyed the existing state of knowledge , they found a number of areas that warranted further investigation . Kistiakowsky began to look into the Chapman – Jouguet model , which describes the way the shock wave created by a detonation propagates . At this time , the efficacy of the Chapman – Jouguet mode was still in doubt , and it was the subject of studies by John von Neumann at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study . Kistiakowsky realized that the deviations from hydrodynamic theory were the result of the speed of the chemical reactions themselves . In order to control the reaction , calculations needed to be made down to the microsecond level . Section 8 was drawn into the investigation of shaped charge s , whose mechanism was explained by Taylor and James L . Tuck in 1943 . Manhattan Project . At the Manhattan Project ' s Los Alamos Laboratory , research into implosion had been going on under Seth Neddermeyer , but his division had worked with cylindrical objects and small charges , and had only produced objects that looked like rocks . Their research was accorded a low priority , because the there was confidence that a gun - type nuclear weapon design would work for both uranium - 235 and plutonium , and implosion technology would not be required . In September 1943 , the Los Alamos Laboratory ' s director , Robert Oppenheimer , arranged for von Neumann to visit Los Alamos and look at implosion with a fresh set of eyes . After reviewing Neddermeyer ' s studies , and discussing the matter with Edward Teller , von Neumann suggested the use of high explosive in shaped charge s to implode a sphere , which he showed could not only result in a faster assembly of fissile material than was possible with the gun method , but which could greatly reduce the amount of material required . The prospect of more efficient nuclear weapons impressed Oppenheimer , Teller and Hans Bethe , but they decided that an expert on explosives would be required . Kistiakowsky ' s name was immediately suggested , and Kistiakowsky was brought into the project as a consultant in October 1943 . Kistaiakowsky was initially reluctant to come , " partly because " , he later explained , " I didn ' t think the bomb would be ready in time and I was interested in helping to win the war " . At Los Alamos , he began reorganizing the implosion effort . He introduced techniques such as using photography and X - Rays to study the behavior of shaped charges . The former had been extensively employed by the ERL , while the latter had been described in papers by Tuck , who also suggested the use of three dimensional explosive lens es . As with other aspects of the Manhattan Project , research into explosive lenses followed multiple lines of inquiry simultaneously , because , as Kistiakowsky noted it was " impossible to predict which of these basic techniques will be the more successful . " Kistiakowsky brought with him to Los Alamos a detailed knowledge of all the studies into shaped charges that had been carried out at the ERL in 1942 and 1943 , of the research there into explosives like Composition B , and of the procedures used at the ERL . Increasingly , the ERL itself would be drawn into the implosion effort , with its deputy director Duncan MacDougall also becoming the head of the Manhattan Project ' s Project Q . Kistiakowsky replaced Neddermeyer as head of E ( for explosives ) Division in February 1944 . The implosion program acquired an new urgency after Emilio Segrè ' s group at Los Alamos verified that plutonium produced in the nuclear reactors contained plutonium - 240 , which made it unsuitable for use in a gun - type weapon . A series of crisis meetings in July 1944 concluded that the only prospect for a working plutonium weapon was implosion . In August , Oppenheimer reorganized the entire laboratory to concentrate on it . A new explosives division , X Division was created under Kistiakowsky to develop the lenses . Under Kistiakowsky ' s leadership , X - Division designed the complex explosive lenses needed to compress the fissile plutonium pit . Work on molding the explosives into the right shape continued into 1945 . The lenses needed to be flawless , and techniques for casting Composition B and Baratol had to developed . Fortunately , the ERL managed to devise a procedure for preparing Baratol in a form that was easy to cast . In March 1945 , Kistiakowsky became part of the Cowpuncher Committee , so - called because it rode herd on the implosion effort . On July 16 , 1945 , Kistiakowsky watched as the first device was detonated in the Trinity test . A few weeks later a Fat Man implosion - type nuclear weapon was dropped on Nagasaki . In addition to the work on implosion , he contributed to skiing in Los Alamos by using rings of explosives to fell trees for a ski slope - leading to the establishment of Sawyer ' s Hill Ski Tow Association . He divorced Hildegard in 1942 and married Irma E . Shuler in 1945 . They were divorced in 1962 , and he married Elaine Mahoney . White House Service . During the Eisenhower Administration Kistiakowsky was appointed to the President ' s Science Advisory Committee in 1957 , and succeeded James R . Killian as it chairman in 1959 . He directed the Office of Science and Technology Policy from 1959 to 1961 , when he was succeeded by Jerome B . Wiesner . In 1958 , Kistiakowsky suggested to President Eisenhower that inspection of foreign military facilities was not sufficient to control their nuclear weapons . He cited the difficulty in monitoring missile submarines , and proposed that the arms control strategy focus on disarmament rather than inspections . Subsequently as part of arms control planning and negotiation , he suggested , in January 1960 , the " threshold concept " . Under this proposal , all nuclear tests above the level of seismic detection technology would be forbidden . After that agreement , the US and USSR would work jointly to improve detection technology , revising the permissible test yield downward as techniques improved . This example of the " national means of technical verification " , a euphemism for sensitive intelligence collection used in arms control , would provide safeguards , without raising the on - site inspection requirement to a level unacceptable to the Soviets . The US introduced the threshold concept to the Soviets at the Geneva arms control conference in January 1960 , and the Soviets , in March , responded favorably , suggesting a threshold of a given seismic magnitude . Talks broke down as a result of the U - 2 Crisis of 1960 in May . At the same time as the early nuclear arms control work , the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , General Nathan F . Twining , sent a memorandum , in August 1959 , to the Secretary of Defense , Neil McElroy , which suggested that the Strategic Air Command ( SAC ) formally be assigned responsibility to prepare the national nuclear target list , and a single plan for nuclear operations . Up to that point , the Army , Navy , and Air Force had done their own target planning . That had led to individual targets being multiple targeted by the different services . The separate service plans were not mutually supporting , as , for example , by the Navy destroying an air defense facility on the route of an Air Force bomber going to a deeper target . While Twining had sent the memo to McElroy , the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff disagreed on the policy during early 1960 . Thomas Gates , who succeeded McElroy , asked President Dwight D . Eisenhower to decide the policy . Eisenhower said he would not " leave his successor with the monstrosity " of the uncoordinated and un - integrated forces that then existed . In early November 1960 , he sent Kistiakowsky to the SAC Headquarters in Omaha to evaluate the SAC war plans . Initially , Kistiakowsky was not given access , and Eisenhower sent him back , with a much stronger set of orders that told SAC officers to cooperate with Kistiakowsky . Kistiaknowsky ' s report , presented on November 29 , described uncoordinated plans with huge numbers of targets , many of which would be attacked by multiple forces , resulting in overkill . Eisenhower was shocked by the plans , and focused not just on the creation of the Single Integrated Operational Plan ( SIOP ) , but on the entire process of picking targets , generating requirements , and planning for nuclear war operations . Later life . After the Manhattan Project , and then after his White House service , he was a professor of physical chemistry at Harvard . When asked to teach a freshmen class in 1957 , he turned to Hubert Alyea , whose lecture style had impressed him . Alyea sent him some 700 index card s containing details of lecture demonstrations . Aside from the cards , he never prepared the demonstrations . He later recalled : He retired from Harvard as professor emeritus in 1972 . From 1962 to 1965 , he chaired the National Academy of Science ' s Committee on Science , Engineering , and Public Policy ( COSEPUP ) , and was its vice president from 1965 to 1973 . He received a number of awards over the years , including the Department of the Air Force Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service in 1957 . He was awarded the Medal for Merit by President Truman , Medal of Freedom by President Eisenhower in 1961 , and the National Medal of Science by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967 . He was also a recipient of the Priestley Medal from the American Chemical Society and the Franklin Medal from Harvard . In later years he was active in an antiwar organization , the Council for a Livable World . Kistiakowsky severed his connections with the government in protest against the US involvement in the war in Vietnam . In 1977 , he assumed the chairmanship of the Council for Livable World , campaigning against nuclear proliferation . He died of cancer in Cambridge , Massachusetts , on December 17 , 1982 . His body was cremated , and his ashes were scattered near his summer home on Cape Cod , Massachusetts . His papers are in the Harvard University archives .