True Genius: The Life and Science of John Bardeen: The Only Winner of Two Nobel Prizes in Physics (2002)

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14 Citizen of Science B ardeen tried to meet the social obligations that arose from his scientific stature. One of the more fulfilling ones was to serve from 1959 through 1962 on the President’s Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), first under President Dwight D. Eisenhower and then under John F. Kennedy. In May 1960 he spoke about this experience to an audience of students when he was delivering the honors convocation to new Phi Beta Kappa graduates at Illinois State Normal University. Bardeen told his audience that at the root of many social diffi- culties is “the fact that there are all too few people with a broad understanding of the problems of contemporary life.” He urged them to consider jobs in government service or teaching. He went on to explain how PSAC tried to help by analyzing government expenditures on research projects and by recommending how gov- ernment funds should be distributed among different areas or projects, such as space exploration, missile development, or science education. The committee, he told them, “is doing a very effective job.” The origins of PSAC are tied to Russia’s launching of Sputnik in October 1957, the first artificial satellite. That Russia had beaten the United States into space stunned Americans. The following month Eisenhower created PSAC in an effort to bring his science advisors closer to the Office of the President. He appointed James 254 

Citizen of Science 255 Killian, the president of MIT, to act as the committee’s chair, his “special assistant” for science and technology, who represented PSAC in cabinet meetings and in meetings of the National Security Council. Killian in turn invited eighteen eminent scientists to work on the new committee charged with strengthening American science and bringing it to bear in policymaking. “They looked for general- ists,” explained Charles Slichter, who served on PSAC in the mid- 1960s, “with the idea that for each panel you would put together people with a specific experience and expertise in the area. The idea was to have a broad look and an absolutely fresh look.” Later, during Bardeen’s first year on PSAC, the eminent chemist, George Kistiakowsky took over Killian’s role as chair. One of the most important duties of PSAC members was to consult with scientific organizations and committees and report back on their findings. PSAC scientists would sit down with groups of experts and ask “all sorts of questions which might open things up in enormously different directions.” Bardeen explained that “most of the real work” on PSAC is done by panels composed of two or three members and a few outside experts. The panels pre- pared reports on a range of important subjects—defense strategy, missiles, nuclear testing, computers, space science, and science and engineering education. The reports were then reviewed by the entire committee, which met twice a month to discuss these reports in the Executive Office Building next to the White House. “I can assure you that there is often heated discussion of various questions at these meetings.” Once approved, the report was submitted to the president, then circulated among the appropriate government agencies. Bardeen applied some of the same skills that he used in solving physics problems to the work of analyzing the government’s role in science. For example, in his capacity as PSAC liaison for the atmo- spheric science panel of the National Academy of Sciences, he sug- gested that in long-range planning of interagency programs “it might be best to divide up the field into a number of problem areas, and to set up committees of active government and non-govern- ment scientists to make projections for each area.” The next step might be to put all the pieces back together by having the commit- tees’ work “reviewed by ICAS [Interdepartmental Committee for Atmospheric Sciences] as a whole.” He told Jerome Wiesner, Presi- 

256 TRUE GENIUS dent Kennedy’s science advisor, that “the problems of ICAS are, it seems to me, in large part common to all efforts to get effective interdepartmental planning in science.” “What is needed,” he had told Kistiakowsky ten months earlier, “is an organization at the policy making level to coordinate the work of the various government agencies engaged in science to review missions and suggest new programs, to review and give support to budgets, and so forth.” Bardeen also spoke about the country’s science budget: “There was a time not long ago when science was so starved for funds that one could say almost any increase was desirable, but this is no longer true. We shall have to review our science budgets with par- ticular care to [maintaining] a healthy rate of growth on a broad base and not see our efforts diverted into unprofitable channels.” Bardeen believed that the government should not cover the full cost of research projects and programs. “I feel strongly that [the] costs of basic research should be shared by the institution receiving support.” He gave the following reasons for his opinion: a) Less strict accounting should be necessary if costs are shared. b) If full costs are paid, including research time of senior faculty, there is no limit to the expansion of large centers. The top few will grow at the expense of less prominent institutions. c) Encouragement should be given to tapping other sources of revenue. d) If costs are shared, and there are other sources of revenue, there is less dependence on and thus less danger of control by the federal government. e) Research is a recognized function of any university involved in graduate education and it should be an obligation of the univer- sity to help support it. Those who served with Bardeen on PSAC included Emmanuel R. Piore, Cyril Stanley Smith, Britton Chance, and Glenn Seaborg. “We thought it was pretty important,” said Seaborg, “and we had a very good relationship with President Eisenhower. We met with him and he took us seriously.” Slichter, who served on PSAC after Bardeen and Seaborg had left, agreed. “Everyone who was on it was enthusiastic about it, and everyone worked very hard.” Although the schedule was grueling, Bardeen found it exhilarating to work on a committee devoted to important social problems and com- posed of such distinguished members. When President Eisenhower 

Citizen of Science 257 left office, Bardeen wrote “to express my deep gratitude for the op- portunity to serve under your leadership.” The work of PSAC enhanced Bardeen’s awareness of important issues in science policy, such as arms control, space science, engi- neering and science education, foreign policy, and atmospheric test- ing of nuclear weapons. He was encouraged by Eisenhower’s and Kennedy’s appreciation for the important national role science could play and by their willingness to listen to the advice of top scientists. Eventually, PSAC’s accomplishments included laying the groundwork for the National Aeronautics and Space Adminis- tration (NASA), encouraging a nuclear test ban treaty (which came to fruition during Kennedy’s administration), and strengthening American science education. Bardeen wrote to President Kennedy early in 1963 that “the committee as a whole under Wiesner’s out- standing leadership has been a very effective instrument for bring- ing expert knowledge and wisdom from all parts of the country to bear on these problems.” A memo from PSAC member Harvey Brooks titled “Issues on Research and Development in the Federal Government” elicited from Bardeen a series of handwritten notes that provide insight into his concept of the ideal interplay between government and science. Next to the question, “How should the government attempt to measure the quality and effectiveness of the research performance both of specific agencies and in specific areas and of the government-supported effort as a whole?” Bardeen scribbled a single word: “Experts.” The progressive notion of experts as the arbiters of social good was deeply embedded in Bardeen’s family history and scientific training. Although he was aware that new ideas for social progress often come from younger members of society, he was convinced that performance is best measured by people with top-notch training and long experience. Bardeen’s position was more democratic in responding to the question “How should the Federal Government decide the magni- tude of effort that should be devoted to specific major categories of basic and applied science . . . ?” He wrote: “Role of Congress.” It was a given for Bardeen that Congress was entrusted with the re- sponsibility of representing the best interests of citizens when cre- ating and approving budget appropriations. Beside another question about aligning federally supported projects and problems with “the processes and institutions of 

258 TRUE GENIUS formal education,” Bardeen wrote: “post-doctoral.” He never stopped emphasizing the importance of education. He told Kistiakowsky in 1959 that graduate education in the sciences “is a topic in which I am very much interested,” and he saw postdoctoral fellowships as an important way to develop the training of young scientists. Another question on Brooks’s memo asked, “In the support of basic research, how is the government to keep a proper balance between direction from above and initiative from below?” Bardeen wrote: “Multiple sources of support important.” He felt that scien- tists needed the freedom to pursue their research interests, even when those interests might not be compatible with the immediate goals of a particular funding institution, such as the Department of Defense. Although mission-oriented agencies should have their goals and interests taken into consideration by scientists who ben- efited from their funding, the scientists also had the right and the social obligation to pursue basic research wherever it led them. With multiple sources of funding, one could balance those some- times competing interests. In 1969 Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield pushed through an amendment to a military authorization bill that prohibited the Defense Department from supporting research not directly related to a military purpose. Strongly opposed to the Mansfield amend- ment, Bardeen wrote in March 1970 to U.S. Representative Emilio Daddario that it could “in the long run make it impossible for the Defense Department to support basic scientific research in the universities.” The consequence would be “drastic cutbacks” in high-quality programs, which, Bardeen judged, could “only be disastrous.” He emphasized that military-sponsored research was helping to keep the American economy strong, and develop tech- nology for consumers, both at home and abroad. “Once technologi- cal leadership is lost, it would be very hard to regain.” He suggested that “the Mansfield amendment should either be deleted in the 1971 budget or reworded” to permit scientific research in areas, such as solid state physics, which are clearly relevant to the military. Despite Bardeen’s belief in government’s responsibility for funding science education, he realized that certain types of pro- grams were politically not feasible. Seaborg had chaired a PSAC panel on basic research and graduate education. One theme of the resulting paper, known as the “Seaborg report,” was that basic 

Citizen of Science 259 research and graduate education “should be closely coupled.” In the committee discussion of the report on April 18, 1960, Bardeen pointed out that however desirable it might be from a science edu- cation point of view, the time was probably not right “for direct government support for tenured appointments in universities” and that “there might be political problems involved in direct grants to universities.” Instead, he suggested that “research scientists, that is, those without teaching responsibilities at universities, be con- fined to temporary postdoctoral appointments.” In another note scribbled on a PSAC document, Bardeen again emphasized the importance of having first-rate scientists in many fields. In considering “factors determining the desirable rate of growth in special disciplines,” he added “manpower available” to the list of considerations that included “scientific promise, secu- rity gains, civilian gains, prestige gains.” Given the large federal investment in scientific research, Bardeen thought it would be necessary to devise criteria for evaluating which areas of research to fund and to what extent. “My own feeling,” he wrote to I. I. Rabi in 1960, “is that at any given time there is an optimum level of support at which research can be carried out most effectively in the sense of getting maximum productivity per dollar spent. Increasing support beyond this level may be desirable to get results faster, but diminishing returns [set] in very rapidly.” Bardeen consulted for other government agencies before and after his PSAC years. World War II had set a pattern in which scien- tists routinely entered into agreements with government agencies. Like most American scientists who had worked on defense projects during World War II, Bardeen had maintained ties with the govern- ment, serving in various capacities over the years. For instance, in the spring of 1951 he had accepted an advisory post with the Office of Naval Research (ONR) under a personal services contract in which he agreed to consult without compensation. He was part of the Panel on Solid State Physics chaired by Fred Seitz. During the Cold War such contracts required the preparation of both a Report of Loyalty Data and an affidavit that the scientist was “not a Communist or a Fascist,” nor planned to engage in “any strike against the Government of the United States.” Despite Bardeen’s personal distaste for Red Scare fanaticism, he had no reason not to take loyalty oaths such as the one required for his ONR personal services contract. Similarly, in 1952, when the two- 

260 TRUE GENIUS year-old National Science Foundation (NSF) asked Bardeen to serve for a year on an advisory committee in its Division of Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences, a security investigation was needed to assure the government that giving him access to techni- cal information would not “endanger the common defense and security.” Before his appointment was confirmed, he was again required to sign the affidavit swearing that he was neither a Com- munist nor a fascist and had no intention of participating in any subversive activities. Bardeen subsequently served on various other NSF committees, such as the Special Commission on Weather Modification. In 1965 Bardeen was appointed to the President’s Commission on the Patent System, the only scientist among the commission’s fourteen inventors, businessmen, and patent attorneys. He served on this commission for two years. Bardeen wrote to Alfred Marmor (another committee member) in the summer of 1966, “I feel strongly that rapid and free exchange of technical information is one of the main bases for the strength of our economy, and that we differ from Europe in this respect.” He felt that the patent system was “a major factor” in America’s strong economic position, in part by making that kind of free exchange possible. Not everyone felt that a grace period was necessary, but Bardeen pointed out that “the grace period is valuable in that it allows rapid publication of scientific and technical publications and market test of patentable products prior to application for a U.S. patent.” In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson honored Bardeen with the National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest award for scientific achievement. The first medal had been awarded three years earlier to Theodore Von Kármán. The medal recognized both the present implications and the (probable) future influence of a scientist’s accumulated work. Bardeen’s likeness was also inscribed on a medallion as part of the Franklin Mint’s “Medallic History of Science,” a series of “100 sterling silver medals recognizing the greatest events in the history of science.” The collection included commemoratives for Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Curie, and Einstein. Bardeen played golf whenever possible on his many travels. One of his favorite courses was the ancient and challenging one in the 

Citizen of Science 261 charming town of St. Andrews, Scotland, which dates back to the Middle Ages. The university at St. Andrews is more than 400 years old; its Royal Golf Club is well over 200 years old. All are situated on a peninsula that juts out into the sea, providing spectacular views all the way around. The town is saturated with golf lore and with shops specializing in golf paraphernalia. Jack Allen, a discoverer of the superfluidity of liquid 4He and a close friend of Bardeen’s, was based at St. Andrews University. Bardeen tried to visit Allen whenever he was in Europe, both to talk physics and to play golf. When John and Jane visited Allen in 1967, they stayed in an old inn overlooking the beach at a point where the shoreline gives way to jagged rocks. On a Sunday morning, while Jack and John were off playing golf, Jane decided to take a long walk by herself along the shore. Clambering over some boulders, she slipped on seaweed and slammed into the rocks below. Someone on the beach helped her get to the nearest clinic. John rushed to her side when he got the news. A fractured vertebra in Jane’s neck required transporting her to the university hospital at Dundee. According to the orthopedic spe- cialist, she was lucky not to have been killed or paralyzed. “There was hardly any pain,” Jane wrote to her sister. “Most of my dis- comfort was due to getting used to this one position and the trac- tion.” The treatment involved wearing a neck brace, and she was confined to bed for six weeks. Bardeen had to cancel a meeting with John Dessauer at Xerox because of the extended stay in Scotland. As soon as Dessauer heard the news about Jane, he contacted the company’s London branch, which “lost no time in locating a projector” to help Jane read while lying flat on her back. But the orthopedist had a better idea. He rigged up a pair of glasses with mirrors at a right angle to the lens, and with this simple arrangement Jane could read with the book propped on her chest. “John was a bit chagrined” when he had to send the Xerox mercy van back to London with its cargo unused. During the anxious six weeks following Jane’s accident, Bardeen stayed in St. Andrews, hitting the links in the morning and visiting Jane in the afternoon. He calculated that buying a set of golf clubs to use during the extended period in St. Andrews would be cheaper than renting. When they went home, the “Bardeen clubs” remained with the St. Andrews physics depart- 

262 TRUE GENIUS ment, Bardeen’s gift to his colleagues at one of his favorite places. Jane told Allen that John had “had the best holiday for years, since he was normally a workaholic.” Allen also shared some of Bardeen’s other interests. In a con- versation at the 1958 Low Temperature Conference (LT6), held that year in Leiden, Bardeen, Allen, Jan de Boer of Amsterdam, and Sam Collins of MIT discussed the reckless waste of helium in the world. They developed a scheme for separating helium from the natural gas being extracted from the ground in Amarillo, Texas, and then pumping it back into empty wells to await use. The low-temperature physicists believed that “longer range technological developments” could be brought up short if there were not enough helium to keep them going. “An example,” Bardeen wrote, “is the use of super- conductors in the electric power industry for both generation and transmission. If widely adopted, large amounts of helium would be required.” Bardeen and the others contacted some members of Congress, and the idea was put into operation via agreements with private producers. The contracts were cancelled in 1971, when the Nixon admin- istration abandoned the program. Bardeen wrote to Allen “express- ing sorrow and anger that Congress had stopped the process because gas wells in Arizona and Colorado were selling helium and under- cutting the Amarillo prices.” Trying to save the program, Bardeen wrote to Dr. Hugh Odishaw at the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. “The original basis for the con- servation program, that it will pay off economically in a reasonable time, is no longer valid. There is no reason to expect that helium demand will exceed supply in the foreseeable future (say 20 years) even if commercial production no longer goes into storage.” Support for the program would thus have to be based on a conservation argu- ment, that of “conserving a unique, irreplaceable resource for future generations.” He suggested that perhaps other countries might be willing to help underwrite the cost of the conservation program. “If the program cannot be sustained, future applications of low temperature technology will be greatly hampered.” Although they could not save the U.S. helium conservation program, Bardeen and Allen estimated that their plan, while it lasted, had saved about thirty billion cubic feet of helium. For Bardeen the helium conservation program and its demise symbolized a larger potential problem. He wrote to a colleague in 

Citizen of Science 263 1974 that “it seems impossible with our political system to do any real long range planning.” Furthermore, helium conservation “is just a small part of the overall problem of conserving our resources for future generations.” Less than a year earlier, he had told a radio journalist that “the energy crisis has been known to scientists and other people in the field for many years. It should have been planned for.” He understood that the measures required to protect the natu- ral basis of the human economy would not be politically popular, but he insisted that it would be necessary. “Our laws are designed to exploit our natural resources. It will have to change. This may mean a complete restructuring of the tax structure, for one thing.” A decade and a half later he had little reason for optimism. “My greatest concern is the environment,” he said. “We have to learn to live differently, using less energy and creating far less pollution. I think people will depend more and more on communi- cation in their homes, rather than physically going from place to place.” He couldn’t guess whether the human species would suc- cessfully learn to curb its use of resources but, he said, “we’ve got to take more responsibility for our actions.” Bardeen also supported such groups as the Population Crisis Committee, a national organization dedicated to stabilizing global population growth. Long before the environmental movement popularized the problem, he joined forty-seven other Nobel laureates in petitioning President Kennedy and United Nations Secretary General U. Thant to make a serious effort to decelerate world population growth. Foreign aid and birth control, Bardeen suggested, were possible means to that end. Closer to home, he supported Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club. Several of Bardeen’s efforts to offer social service backfired. The honor of being elected president of the American Physical Society (APS) in 1968 turned into an unforeseen burden. The APS had already committed itself to holding its 1970 annual meeting at the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago when violence erupted there on the night of the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Vivid images of police brutality appeared on national television. Journal- ists filmed police indiscriminately clubbing protestors as they tried to push back thousands of demonstrators outside the Hilton. A number of professional societies had cancelled their Chicago meetings to protest the police actions and Chicago Mayor Daley’s support of them. Many members of the APS wanted their Chicago 

264 TRUE GENIUS convention cancelled too, or moved to another location. Other members objected to making any political stand as an organiza- tion. Conyers Herring was among those who believed that cancel- ing or relocating the meeting “involves using the APS organization as a weapon on issues that, however important they may be otherwise, do not directly concern the objectives for which APS was set up.” As the new president of the society Bardeen found himself in the unenviable position of mediator. Physicists wrote to him from all over the country, some of them stridently. He took a position of neutrality. Even if the APS council had wanted to move the confer- ence, the logistics would have been nightmarish. No other convention facility capable of handling nearly 10,000 attendees was available at that late date. On November 10, 1968, Bardeen wrote to William C. H. Joiner, an APS member who had wanted to relo- cate the meeting, to explain why it would be held as originally planned: If we were scheduling a meeting from scratch we should certainly take into consideration the feelings of even a minority of members. However, we have a contract with the hotels to meet in Chicago in 1970 and it would be very difficult to find an alternative location at this late date. . . . Holding a meeting because of a prior legal commit- ment to do so does not argue one way or the other in regard to any political viewpoint. Bardeen was greatly relieved when his term as APS president ended. The Chicago turmoil had posed such demands on his time that “my physics has been neglected.” Years later he just shook his head whenever he heard that someone had agreed to run for the APS presidency. Bardeen also had the misfortune of chairing the Very Low Tem- perature Commission of the International Union of Pure and Ap- plied Physics (IUPAP) in 1970. Protests threatened to disrupt the IUPAP’s Twelfth International Conference on Low Temperature Physics (LT12) in Kyoto, a meeting for which Bardeen was respon- sible. The president of the Japanese Physical Society (JPS), Todashi Sugawara, informed Bardeen that some members of the JPS had threatened to make trouble if any physicists associated with the military attended. Bardeen, however, found it unacceptable that a physicist should be excluded from a professional conference for po- litical reasons. 

Citizen of Science 265 It was in part a question of defining military research. Many American physicists, including Bardeen, were being funded by the military but were not involved in weapons research. He wrote to Sugawara in March that “I regret very much that you have found it necessary to ask representatives of military organizations to with- draw their papers on their own initiative in order to avoid possible trouble at LT12.” After meeting early in June with researchers from military labo- ratories, both in the United States and Canada, Bardeen wrote again to Sugawara. “Since none of these groups have the remotest con- nection with weapons research, it does not seem fair to exclude them.” He also pointed out that “so few cases are involved, it is hard to see how a big issue can be made. I am sympathetic to the desire for peace and to decrease the power of military institutions, but [the demonstrators] should be able to find much more relevant cases to protest against.” Troubled by the issue, Bardeen contacted Jack Allen in Scot- land. Allen, who had preceded Bardeen as chair of the committee, thought that a firm stance might be more palatable if it came from someone other than an American. Allen knew that the IUPAP had already committed itself to a policy of allowing all qualified scien- tists to attend its conferences, no matter who their sponsors were. The rule had been established by the IUPAP General Assembly in 1957 after the West German contingent tried unsuccessfully to deny access to East German scientists at their Rome meeting. Af- ter receiving approval from the IUPAP’s president, Allen contacted Sugawara and told him that if anyone from any country was barred from attendance because of their affiliations, the conference would be shut down immediately. Although he was still worried, Sugawara was pleased to have the support of the IUPAP and agreed not to try to screen attendees. Bardeen had to have emergency prostate surgery that summer, causing him to miss part of the conference. He wrote to Allen to ask whether he would say a few words to open the conference, a ritual that Bardeen normally would have performed as chair. Allen agreed. Despite all the maneuvering, the conference ran without a hitch. Another incident underscored Bardeen’s aversion to political agendas that interfered with the free practice of science. In 1976 when it appeared that two Israeli scientists were being excluded 

266 TRUE GENIUS from a conference in Hungary for political reasons, Bardeen wrote to the conference organizer expressing his “grave reservations about attending an international meeting that is not open to all.” He felt “strongly that attendance at an international conference should be governed by scientific competence. No one should be excluded because of his country of origin.” Bardeen’s ideas about international scientific exchange were similarly liberal. In 1959 he had written to Senator Thomas Hennings, Jr., about the consequences of restricting free exchange of scientific information. He stressed that in the field of solid-state physics “there have to date been few restrictions imposed by other countries, so that the rapid progress made in this field in recent years has been international in scope. In particular, Russian scien- tists, who have been quite active in the physics of solids, publish their results and give reports of their work at international confer- ences.” For the United States to remain at the front lines in research, Bardeen wrote, American scientists had to be able to “gain from free exchange of scientific information.” Twenty-three years later, Bardeen enclosed a copy of that letter in a note to Thomas H. Johnson of the White House Science Council. “I don’t remember the reason for writing the letter at that time,” he confessed, “but I think the comments are still relevant.” Bardeen’s extensive scientific advising over and above his teaching, research, and industrial consulting taxed him physically. In March 1974 Jane wrote to her sister that John was again having trouble with hypertension. It had seemed to be getting better, “but he pushes himself too hard.” She worried that he would be “off again tomorrow to D.C., for a meeting with [Senator] Daddario on Science and Government.” Just a year earlier Bardeen had collapsed in Washington, D.C., while on a consulting trip for the National Bureau of Standards. John Hoffman, director of the bureau’s Insti- tute for Materials Research, sent someone to accompany Bardeen back to Champaign to make sure that he made it home all right. Afterwards, Bardeen wrote to Hoffman to thank him and to let him know that after nearly a week in the hospital for tests, “they were unable to find a specific cause [for the hypertension] but were able to treat it with pills.” PSAC was dismantled in 1973, in a time of rising inflation, the war in Vietnam, a growing deficit in the federal budget, and inten- sifying political and social conflicts. Policymakers and the public 

Citizen of Science 267 were questioning the role of science in promoting or subverting national values. President Lyndon B. Johnson let PSAC languish. Some members of the committee had become disheartened because of Johnson’s policy on Vietnam. Richard Nixon finally abolished PSAC altogether in 1973. The historian Bruce Smith has divided post-World War II American science policy into three phases: 1945–1966, 1967–1978, and from 1979 on. The first, which began immediately following World War II and lasted through 1966, was an era of hope and confi- dence that science could exert “a liberating influence on human affairs.” That era gave way to one of distrust between scientists and policymakers through the 1970s. It was followed by a rising public skepticism after 1979 about whether science had the power to improve the world. The establishment of PSAC and Bardeen’s PSAC work fell within the optimistic first period. The disman- tling of PSAC occurred during the antiscience trend of the second period. The antiscience began to reverse during the third phase, even before Reagan moved into the White House in 1981. Viewing science as a panacea for American weakness in the world’s eco- nomic and military arenas, Reagan chose a strong science advo- cate, George Keyworth, as his science advisor. Together Reagan and Keyworth assembled a panel of leading scientists reminiscent of PSAC. Bardeen was invited to serve on the new presidential sci- ence committee, called the White House Science Council (WHSC). The WHSC would, however, be nothing like its predecessor. When Keyworth phoned Bardeen early in 1982 to invite him to serve on the new panel, Bardeen replied, “You don’t want me. . . . I am useless in a group larger than two. In a group of two I can hold my own, but otherwise I can’t.” Bardeen’s reticent manner and muffled speech probably did impede his effectiveness in a larger group, but he was hesitant to serve on the new WHSC for other reasons as well. He considered Reagan’s policies militaristic and irre- sponsible. Even so, his colleague Charles Slichter urged Bardeen to join the council “because I felt that they needed really good people with courage and strength.” Bardeen accepted the position, “but his heart wasn’t in it.” He had, according to Slichter, “absolute contempt for Reagan.” In spite of his reservations Bardeen gave the same serious attention to the White House Science Council that he had given to 

268 TRUE GENIUS PSAC twenty years earlier. One of the council’s projects that he supported was the creation of multidisciplinary research centers funded by the government. The idea reminded Bardeen of the highly productive groups he had encountered at Bell Labs. Problems could be studied collaboratively by individuals and groups having differ- ent sets of skills and knowledge. According to Keyworth, “John was very, very useful in the formation of that.” But the White House was less than enthusiastic about the proposal. Another council project evaluated federal laboratories and sug- gested ways to improve their effectiveness. Bardeen’s long experi- ence with industrial and academic research formed the basis of his strong opinions about America’s place in the global scientific and economic community. He was concerned that “while this country is the leader in pure scientific research, it is falling behind in apply- ing science to broaden the technology base for products of the fu- ture.” The “biggest weakness in this country,” he felt, was “in the development of the technology base required for leadership in the period ten or fifteen years out.” Long-range planning “should be done by industry in its own self-interest,” but he worried that “the pressures for short-term profits and emphasis on return on invest- ment with high interest rates gives priority to near-term product development.” Somehow, he believed, government should encour- age a long view. “Only a few companies (Bell Labs, IBM, Hewlett- Packard, etc.) have the resources and enlightened management to do the required long-term basic research and technology develop- ment. The Federal Labs and to some extent universities help fill in the gap, but there is a weakness in coupling with industry.” Had the White House Science Council confined its attention to issues such as these, Bardeen might have been happy to serve. But less than a year after he joined, Keyworth and Reagan committed the United States to a space-based missile defense program offi- cially called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) and popularly known as “Star Wars.” Bardeen strongly opposed the initiative. When the council, chaired by Seitz, met in mid-March of 1983, Keyworth had not raised the issue of SDI for discussion. The com- mittee members were therefore incredulous when on March 23, 1983, Reagan made his famous speech, edited by Keyworth, to the National Association of Evangelicals. Reagan publicly called the Soviet Union an “evil empire” against which the United States would develop an “impenetrable shield.” The committee had heard 

Citizen of Science 269 nothing about the idea. “Such a far-reaching proposal,” Bardeen later wrote, “should have been reviewed by the Science Council at least, if not by a much wider group of experts.” Two weeks after Reagan’s incendiary speech, Bardeen resigned from the council. In a letter to Keyworth he said he needed more time for his own research. His friends and colleagues knew the real reason, that “there was no point in being on a committee which is supposed to give advice when such a truly major scientific and tech- nical decision is made without consulting the body.” Bardeen felt that “he was being used for his name,” which he didn’t want asso- ciated with any “committee that blessed the president’s program.” Bardeen told Keyworth, “I do not feel that the time I have spent on the WHSC has been as productive as I would like. The decision was triggered by two recent actions by the White House on impor- tant issues involving science and technology concerning which the WHSC and other parts of the technical community had very little opportunity for input.” One of the “recent actions” was SDI. The other action concerned a proposal to establish a National Center for Advanced Materials (NCAM) at Berkeley. The issues raised by this proposal related to solid-state physics. At the time Bardeen accepted his position on the council, he had “thought that I might be helpful in areas of my own expertise, particularly mate- rials science and electronics.” It was therefore a great frustration, he wrote to Keyworth, that “neither I nor other members of the WHSC were consulted in regard to the NCAM proposal until the November meeting when it was too late for the discussion to have any influence.” He added that in discussing the NCAM proposal “with many knowledgeable people from both universities and industry” and even attempting “to put the proposal in the best light possible,” he still did not find anyone who considered NCAM a good idea. Bardeen later explained that “when I resigned I was more concerned about the proposed Berkeley National Center for Advanced Materials than I was about Star Wars.” Because Con- gress received so many adverse comments on NCAM from scien- tists, the proposal was ultimately drastically scaled back. SDI continued to be a huge worry for many scientists, includ- ing Bardeen. The Reagan administration proposed spending billions of dollars on the program, with the aim of making strategic nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete.” The scientific community all but unanimously opposed pouring so much money into a project so 

270 TRUE GENIUS unlikely to succeed. As Bardeen saw it, the problem with SDI was much more than the wasted money and poor chance of success. The program would exacerbate the arms race and drain scientific talent away from more socially productive work. He worked closely with some of his Urbana colleagues on a petition opposing Star Wars. Michael Wortis and David Lazarus drew up the proposal; Bardeen carefully reviewed it. He took an active role in “pushing this petition, which was eventually signed by many of the physi- cists of the world,” according to Lazarus. “He was one of the first ones to sign it.” The Strategic Defense Initiative so worried Bardeen that he took the step, unprecedented for him, of writing several short articles and editorials about its dangers. One editorial was sent to the New York Times, but he withdrew it when Hans Bethe and Kurt Gottfried asked him to cooperate with their efforts to call attention to the negative impacts that SDI would have on society. Bardeen wrote to Bethe to clarify his position: As noted in my letter to The New York Times, I am concerned about the effect of a massive build up of R&D for SDI on the consumer economy and on the progress of science and technology in general. The usual argument is about the small positive effect of spin-off rather than the massive negative effect of drawing off funds and talent from more productive areas. One indication of the distortion of priorities is that Keyworth has spent 50% of his time in the past two years on SDI and recently as much as 85%. It should be possible to make a more definitive study of the issue, perhaps with the Apollo program serving as a model. He reminded Bethe that PSAC’s review of the projected Apollo program had discouraged the project, citing “a $25 billion price tag over a ten-year period,” but the president and Congress went ahead anyway. “I think that the indirect cost of the programs in diversion of top talent from consumer industries was far greater than the out- of-pocket cost.” Bardeen and Bethe’s coauthored editorial opposing SDI was written largely by Gottfried and appeared in the New York Times on May 17, 1986. Bardeen approved the text and was happy to lend his name. The piece decried the SDI’s lack of scientific basis and pointed out the immense sums of money and scientific talent already pumped into the program, with embarrassingly few results. They argued that SDI would impair the nation’s ability to compete 

Citizen of Science 271 in international markets. The article also emphasized the need to reinstitute some sort of science advisory apparatus that would offer independent judgment on scientific matters for the chief execu- tive—even when that judgment was “politically unpalatable.” The organization they described resembled the defunct PSAC, on which both Bethe and Bardeen had served during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. That kind of committee, they argued, “even if composed largely of scientists from the weapons labs, would have made it perfectly clear to Mr. Reagan that his vision of defending cities against nuclear attack had no basis in scientific knowledge.” Bardeen blamed much of the downslide of the American economy on shortsighted research programs encouraged by a gov- ernment intent on escalating the arms race. He came to consider arms control as “the most important issue of our time,” one on which the “future of civilization is dependent.” In an editorial in Arms Control Today, Bardeen focused on problems he associated with SDI, deploring the “militarization of space” because of “stag- gering” dangers and costs, including the inevitable brain drain. “At a time when our civilian economy needs all the help it can get to remain competitive in world markets, the best scientific and tech- nical brains in the country may be drawn off to work on a project of dubious value.” Aside from his firm stance on arms control and the environ- ment, Bardeen was reluctant to use his position to expound on po- litical issues. Ned Goldwasser said that Bardeen “was very careful about what he endorsed and what he didn’t endorse” and generally handled the Nobel laureate’s dilemma of being asked to comment on a broad range of subjects by agreeing to speak “only on the things where he had some scientific or technical expertise, knowledge, understanding, that the general public did not have.” Bardeen was so cautious about proffering his opinions publicly that people who did not know him well sometimes got the impression that he was not interested in political or social issues. For example, when asked by the Peace Research Institute to support a statement calling for various measures to prevent escala- tion during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, he telegrammed a reply: In agreement with general principles and would be glad to endorse briefer statement concerning vital interests, extreme danger of col- 

272 TRUE GENIUS lision course, importance of cooling off period and need to look for alternative solutions, but unwilling to endorse entire paper since I have no expert knowledge, have had no part in its preparation and have objections to some statements therein. One of the “objections” he referred to concerned using the Pope as an intermediary. Bardeen scribbled an emphatic “NO!” in the mar- gin next to that suggestion. On another occasion, the European Committee on Crime Prob- lems asked Bardeen, as a Nobel laureate, to provide his opinion on whether “the death penalty has a place in contemporary society.” Bardeen responded, “I do not believe that my winning a Nobel Prize in Physics makes me particularly qualified to give an opinion on this topic. However, I am personally opposed to the death penalty, particularly in times of peace.” Likewise, to a request to support an archeological program, he responded, “I do not feel that I should lend my name to an organization unless I can take an active part.” Bardeen occasionally gave his thoughts away with some small gesture that his students or other close associates could easily read. When Jim Bray, who had an office near Bardeen’s, heard the news on the radio in 1972 that the segregationist governor of Alabama, George Wallace, had been shot, he rushed down the hall to tell Bardeen, who “didn’t say a word. The only thing that happened was he looked at me for about five seconds, and then cracked the smallest of smiles and turned his head back to his work. . . . That told me everything I wanted to know about his opinion of George Wallace.” Both John and Jane abhorred racism. Jane worked on the prob- lem, along with other social issues, through the local branch of the League of Women Voters. In the 1950s she found to her dismay that African Americans were not allowed to sit on the main floor of the local movie theaters, and “being of the mind of freedom for every- body, I got involved with the whole movement of racial matters.” She helped to organize a league committee consisting of four women, who coincidentally all had the same given name. Charged with combating racial discrimination in the Champaign-Urbana area, the “Committee of Janes” worked with sympathetic religious groups to urge local retailers to hire African American clerks. One merchant flatly refused. “I did it for the Jews, but I’m not going to do it for blacks.” It took years of prodding from the committee for the company to begin hiring a few African Americans. The “Janes” 

Citizen of Science 273 also designed and executed a campaign that in 1961 succeeded in attracting a chapter of the Urban League—an organization dedi- cated to the achievement of social and economic equality for African Americans—to Champaign County. Jane believed that “once you break the door open a little, it comes open all the way.” Although John shared Jane’s convictions about civil and human rights, he was uncomfortable with political activism. He supported her activities from the sidelines, often with his checkbook. John and Jane were appalled by Bill Shockley’s efforts during the 1960s and 1970s to prove “scientifically” that people of color were genetically less intelligent than whites and that the high rates of reproduction of African Americans were causing a decline in the average intelligence of Americans. Bardeen did not publicly denounce his former friend and boss, but he occasionally made comments that revealed his aversion to Shockley’s genetic theories. “You can’t measure intelligence by IQ or any other single number,” he said. “There are many different kinds of intelligence.” Bardeen occasionally participated in political action on behalf of a particular candidate or cause. He served on a local steering committee composed of a group of scientists, both Democrats and Republicans, who united in opposition to Barry Goldwater’s ex- treme conservatism during the 1964 presidential election. The group supported Lyndon B. Johnson and opposed Goldwater for many of the same reasons Bardeen would so adamantly oppose Reagan nearly twenty years later. While they acknowledged the need for military strength, they argued that government was equally responsible for taking the initiative to “eradicate poverty; attack the clusters of urban problems; overcome water and air pol- lution; upgrade inadequate transportation; promote the prevention of illness; and make the great advances in medicine, hospital de- sign, and health care available to all, regardless of ability to pay.” The committee advocated education as the best defense against mediocrity and closed its “Statement of Principles” with an admonition against intolerance. “In this and all other areas we reject discrimination based on race, creed, or sex as immoral, undemocratic, and savagely wasteful of the nation’s human resources.” During the campaign, Bardeen participated in the devel- opment of advertisements to encourage local citizens to vote for the Johnson-Humphrey ticket. Bardeen strongly believed that high-quality public education is 

274 TRUE GENIUS crucial to the nation’s well-being. In 1981 it seemed as if budget cuts would necessitate closing the University of Illinois’s Labora- tory High School. As an experimental school, Uni High was then an auxiliary project of the College of Education. To protect the college from a major budget cut, Uni was singled out as a project that could be discontinued. Theoretical physicist Shau-Jin Chang in the Department of Physics recalled that both his children, Iris and Michael, who were attending Uni that year, “were really heart- broken when they heard the news. Many of their classmates were crying at school.” After the announcement several physics faculty members had lunch with Bardeen and discussed the closing of Uni High, which all three of Bardeen’s children had attended. John told how in 1951, when he was considering whether to accept Illinois’s offer, he had spoken about Uni with Philip Anderson at Bell Labs. Anderson, a graduate of Uni High, had told Bardeen that Urbana-Champaign was a great place to raise a family and that Uni High was an out- standing school. That conversation had figured into Bardeen’s deci- sion to accept the Illinois offer. He agreed to write a letter to support the effort to save the school. Writing to Goldwasser, then vice- chancellor of the University of Illinois, Bardeen testified that the presence of Uni High had “played an important role in our decision to come to Illinois.” The administration kept Uni High as a unit of the university, reporting directly to the chancellor. Bardeen worried about many educational issues, including how state budget cuts might affect both the quality of education at the University of Illinois and the number of students who would have access to it. “You can’t cut back continually and expect to have a first class institution.” Recalling that as a college student he had enjoyed a great deal of freedom to study whatever he found inter- esting and noting that this policy had paid off in his case, Bardeen argued for proposed curriculum changes that would allow students more freedom to follow their own interests. He tried to follow that philosophy in guiding his own graduate students, giving them much leeway. It seemed to Bardeen that an intermediate advanced degree between the master’s and the doctorate might be desirable. He felt that it would benefit “people who do well in course work and have a good understanding of the subject matter but are not the creative sort of person required for a research career.” Those people might 

Citizen of Science 275 make outstanding college-level teachers, but their inability to com- plete a thesis held them back. It would work best, he thought, if it “would not be a consolation degree but an intermediate degree representing a certain level of training and accomplishment.” Bardeen was convinced that the key to increasing popular appreciation of science was “better science education for a larger fraction of the people.” Goldwasser recalls that Bardeen was “very supportive of the idea that we have to get more science teaching, better science teaching into the schools as well as the universi- ties.” He was proud of the work that his daughter-in-law, Marge Bardeen, Bill’s wife, was doing toward that end at Fermilab (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory). She created programs in which teachers and students could develop a deeper understanding of mathematics and science. She also was active in national attempts to improve science education, working with the U.S. Departments of Education and Energy and undertaking education research of her own with the support of NSF grants. In 1958 Bardeen participated in a panel at Uni High on educa- tion in the natural sciences. He and the other panel members, all University of Illinois professors, had children in Uni High. The group included Seitz, Heinz von Foerster, Frederick Will, and Chalmers Sherwin. They concluded that all students ought to receive a broad education, including English, math, languages, and sciences. Especially talented youth, they thought, should have opportunities for individual development, but not at the expense of learning the fundamentals. “Natural scientists are not all geniuses,” their report said. “They are all kinds of people. For every genius there are hundreds less spectacular but still very important. While many show scientific interest at an early age, not all do.” In general the group agreed that “up-grading teaching for all will help future scientists, and that high school training in science should be broad.” Bardeen argued that we should “develop fundamental thinking instead of memory work,” because “fundamental things will stick.” Bardeen’s own education had followed this model, and he tried to follow a similar philosophy with his students at Illinois. Scientists in other countries also considered Bardeen a role model. He took his responsibility as scientific ambassador seri- ously. He was among the American scientists to be invited to visit the Soviet Union in 1960 as part of an exchange program set up by the National Academy of Sciences. Because he was a member of 

276 TRUE GENIUS the President’s Science Advisory Committee, he would need spe- cial clearances in order to go. The clearances proved no problem, but a glitch on the Soviet side caused his trip to be cancelled. While in Europe at another conference that summer, he discussed the impasse with Russian physicists A. F. Ioffe and V. M. Vul. With their intervention, the necessary clearances suddenly came through for his Russian visa, and he left Prague on September 7 for the Hotel Ukraine in Moscow. The first few days moved “slowly here as far as professional contacts are concerned,” John wrote to Jane, but the pace soon picked up. He found himself giving one talk after another about superconductivity or semiconductors. He met numerous scientists whose work he knew well but whom he had never met before be- cause of Cold War restrictions. Among them were Peter Kapitza, Isaac Khalatnikov, Lev Gor’kov, Igor Tamm, Leonid Keldysh, Vitaly Ginzburg, Abram Ioffé, and Vasilii Peshkov. Bardeen had particu- larly fruitful interactions with the members of Lev Landau’s group at the Institute of Physical Problems, some of whom left within the decade to help found the Institute for Theoretical Physics. Al- though he did not get to meet Landau or E. M. Lifshitz, who were away, he did meet some of their students and colleagues. Young Alexei Alexeivitch Abrikosov, a student of Landau’s, came to con- sider Bardeen a second mentor. Three years later Bardeen again visited the Soviet Union for a large conference in Moscow and visits to research centers there. David Pines and Leo Kadanoff came along. Bardeen began the first talk at the conference by saying that “we are familiar with the very outstanding work done in solid state physics in the Soviet Union, and know the names of many of your scientists who have contrib- uted so much to our knowledge, but we seldom have a chance to meet with them in person.” He called the conference a “welcome opportunity to make new friends and to discuss with them the latest developments in solid state theory.” Everyone was “very friendly,” he wrote to Jane. Bardeen found the Landau group impressive. Landau himself had been incapacitated by an accident two years earlier and remained in the hospital. Each of Landau’s colleagues, all of whom had previously been Landau’s students, was “a distinguished theo- rist in his own right.” Speaking of the group led by Khalatnikov, Bardeen and Pines reported, “Not only are they bright and versa- 

Citizen of Science 277 tile, they are as well both charming and sophisticated, with a well- developed sense of humor, and a rather broad knowledge of Ameri- can life and literature.” In subsequent years Bardeen saw Russian scientists such as Gor’kov and Abrikosov regularly. “We know the result now,” Gor’kov wrote in 1991, of “the cooperation for more than thirty years between two schools which became the base for the wide and fruitful cooperation between physicists of our two countries, in spite of difficult times we have had from time to time.” Gor’kov thought that “the giant figure of John was that cor- nerstone which kept firm the whole construction.” During his last visit to the Soviet Union in 1988, the Soviet Academy of Sciences presented Bardeen with the prestigious Lomonosov Award, the country’s highest scientific honor. He called it “one of the greatest distinctions I have received during my career.” Previously, in 1982, the academy had honored him with a rare foreign membership. Bardeen and some of his scientific colleagues were in 1975 among the first to venture into the People’s Republic of China in cultural exchange. Bardeen accompanied a group led by Slichter. John wrote Jane from Peking that the team was “going into some real depth in trying to understand [China’s] educational and scien- tific research programs.” Most of the Americans became ill at one time or another during their month in China; Bardeen felt lucky to be “one of the few of our group that has managed to stay healthy throughout the trip.” Samuel Chu, a historian who went along to help with cultural and practical questions, returned with a strong impression of Bardeen’s character. “I’m certain much of the warmth and comradery of the entire delegation had to do with the presence of John Bardeen. . . . In Xian, where the political types (CCP Party cadres) seemed especially intimidating to their own Chinese physi- cists, John made sure the latter were treated as intellectual equals to the American physicists, and thereby emboldened them in their research and teaching. . . . John included me as his personal ‘China expert.’” Although Bardeen disapproved of the strictly regimented social structure there, he wished that Jane could have been there to “enjoy some of the beauties of China.” He thought that she would “find it a fascinating country full of contradictions.” She missed him, too. “It will be so good to have you home again. This house needs you to make it home.” 

278 TRUE GENIUS In 1980 Jane came along on John’s second trip to the People’s Republic of China. They were “given VIP treatment everywhere.” Bardeen’s meeting with Vice-Premier Fang Yi at the Great Hall of the People was nationally televised. As a result, over 500 people attended Bardeen’s lecture at the University of Nanking, despite scant publicity. Bardeen’s birthday, May 23, fell on the same day as the anniversary of the creation of Nanking University, and officials arranged a great celebration to honor both occasions, complete with birthday cake, gifts, and singing students. Bardeen considered it one of the highlights of his trip. In the same spirit in which Bardeen helped industrial firms determine their future directions, he tried to do his part to help developing nations enhance their programs in science. For example, he suggested that China and the United States establish an exchange program that would “introduce Chinese physicists to a broad range of problems and thus help them achieve a better bal- ance in their own research programs.” On a trip to India in 1977, Bardeen shared with his Indian hosts some of his views on the role of science in society. “Science should set an example of international cooperation rather than competi- tion.” Moreover, it should be pursued in the service of improving the quality of life for people of all nations, not just a few of the most wealthy. “My country,” he told them, “with a population only one-third of India’s was using a large proportion of the world’s resources.” He hoped that India would, instead of blindly borrow- ing American technology, develop or adapt technologies that might better “suit Indian conditions.” Bardeen occasionally contributed to projects that had nothing to do with government or industry. In the early 1980s he served on the advisory committee for the International Project on the His- tory of Solid State Physics, which initiated historical study of this major field and yielded the book, Out of the Crystal Maze. He helped organize the research and wrote to associates in industry, such as Bob Noyce of Intel, to solicit support. When drafts became available, he critiqued them and offered suggestions to improve the resulting book. Around the same time he agreed to be a science advisor for Elizabeth Ante’bi’s Editions Hologramme in France, a project on the history of technology. Sometimes he contributed more than just time. At the end of 1972 he donated 100 shares of Xerox Corporation common stock as 

Citizen of Science 279 seed money to establish a Fritz London Endowment Fund at Duke University. London had taught at Duke from 1939 until his death in 1954. Bardeen eventually contributed to the fund a total of $32,000. “This fund is being established to perpetuate the memory of the late Fritz London,” he wrote to the director of development at Duke. “The income is to be used to help support the Fritz London Award for distinguished work in low temperature physics.” The fund also supported the Fritz London Memorial Lecture Series at Duke. Bardeen wrote of London, “More than anyone else he pointed out the path that eventually led to the theory of superconductivity for which Leon N. Cooper, J. Robert Schrieffer, and I were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1972. We are all very grateful to him for the deep insight that helped light the way to understanding.” In April 1973 Edith London, Fritz’s widow, wrote a moving letter of thanks to Bardeen. She enclosed a card that London’s teacher Arnold Sommerfeld had written to Fritz in 1935 to express his support for his ideas about superconductivity. “Fritz was so happy about this card,” Edith London wrote. It was among the first reactions to the Londons’ theory published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. Bardeen wrote back that he had always felt indebted to London “for the basic ideas which led to the theory of superconductivity and also had very high respect for him as a person and as a friend.” He added, “I especially appreciate your very generous gift of the card from Sommerfeld who immediately recognized the great insight into superconductivity Fritz and Heinz showed in their 1935 paper.” He recalled that he had met Sommerfeld when he was a guest lecturer at the University of Wisconsin in the 1920s. Sommerfeld, “like your husband, had a penetrating mind that could go directly to the heart of a difficult problem. The card is a great treasure to have and I will be sure that it finds its proper place in the history of physics.” In the mid-1980s Goldwasser, who had spent a decade as the associate director of Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, called on Bardeen for a favor. Goldwasser was gathering support for the planned Super- conducting Super Collider, the highest energy particle accelerator project ever attempted (discontinued in 1993 by the Clinton administration). He needed distinguished colleagues to write letters on behalf of the project. Bardeen was “more than willing to provide whatever it was that was needed,” for he believed that both large- 

280 TRUE GENIUS scale and small-scale science were important. Both needed more support than they were getting. “It wasn’t a political gesture,” said Goldwasser. “It was a pure belief on his part that that’s what was right.” In 1987 Bardeen and Bob Schrieffer wrote a joint letter in response to an editorial that had appeared in the New York Times under the title, “Super Hasty on the Super Collider.” The article suggested delaying the collider while physicists explored whether the recently discovered phenomenon of high-temperature super- conductivity might drastically reduce its cost. Bardeen and Schrieffer argued against the delay, pointing out that many ques- tions about high-temperature superconductivity remained and that waiting until answers were found could derail the project. “The Super Collider should proceed on its own merits with the option to switch to the new superconductors if they can be developed in time.” Bardeen also worried about the waste of talented people whose experience in designing previous accelerators could not be reproduced in decades hence. They stressed that “long-term com- mitment for increased support of science is needed across the board. It is needed for ‘small science’ projects such as those that led to the transistor, the laser and high-temperature superconductors as well as for the costly ‘large-scale’ projects, like the Super Collider, that promise rich dividends in increased understanding of our universe.” Bardeen’s extensive travels sometimes offered opportunities to renew old friendships or to see family. At a 1958 conference in Brussels, he met Brattain’s new wife Emma Jane. “She is very nice,” he reported to Jane on a postcard. “Walter made a good pick.” Sometimes Bardeen would become frazzled from all the traveling and lose track of family events. He typically relied on Jane to keep track of them. On the way to the same conference in Brussels where he saw Brattain, he started to worry about missing Bill’s graduation from college. He sent a letter from Idlewild (now John F. Kennedy) Airport to Jane asking her to “please send the date of Bill’s commencement so I can send him a message.” Bardeen missed the birth of Betsy’s first child in Boston when he spent the fall of 1978 visiting the Institut für Theorie der Kondensierten Materie at the University of Karlsruhe. There he was consoled by the presence of his son Bill; John wrote Jane that 

Citizen of Science 281 “it has been nice to have his company.” Bill was now a high-energy physics theorist who, John reported to Jane, was doing “good work.” Bardeen also tried to connect with more distant family members. During a break between several 1958 conferences, he spent some time touring England, taking long strolls and doing “a little research” on family history. Barden Tower, he discovered, “was named from the district (or chase, as it is called there).” He found no sign of any illustrious Bardens in York, “but there was a John de Barden who paid 3s.4d. for fishing rights on part of the moat in York in 1376.” He concluded that “our ancestors must have been just ordinary folk.” Once, while in California, Bardeen convinced his friend and colleague Douglas Scalapino to drive with him to see his relative Douglas Harmer in Santa Barbara. “It was like going back into the early years of Santa Barbara as we sat in the Harmer home and saw the paintings.” Harmer’s father, an artist, had traveled west as a youth to make his fortune. He was a relative of John’s mother Althea (probably her uncle) and had been an inspiration to her. Bardeen appreciated his family’s artistic heritage; he had paintings at home that had been part of Althea’s collection of Japanese art. Scalapino noted, “John seemed to enjoy all this history immensely, as did we, and I wondered what his relatives thought of the man in their midst who had won two Nobel Prizes in Physics.” John liked traveling best when Jane came along with him, but until the children were grown and off to college she usually pre- ferred to stay home. When he went to China in 1975 he wrote a little mournfully to Jane from his stopover in Tokyo, “It is going to be a long time away from home and I am going to miss you.” In later years Jane nearly always accompanied him. They often split up during the day—he played golf and went to meetings while she went shopping, hiking, or sightseeing—then came together in the evenings for dinner and socializing. When he traveled without Jane, he would miss her efforts to keep him organized. In 1960 he left his raincoat behind at Idlewild Airport in New York and had to buy an expensive replacement in Paris. On the trip to China he forgot his traveler’s checks. “Fortu- nately,” he wrote, “I was able to get $500 more checks on a per- sonal check from American Express.” On a short trip in January 1978, the Bardeens had a different kind of ordeal. John and Jane drove from Champaign to Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, where Bill was employed. It was about a three- 

282 TRUE GENIUS hour drive. John gave a talk at the laboratory. Then he and Jane had dinner with Bill and his family. Afterwards, checking the weather report, they learned that a snow storm was predicted in Ohio and the northwest, but the storm was not expected to move into central Illinois very soon. Around 8:00 P.M. they headed south on Inter- state 57. Just past Kankakee, nearly an hour from home, they began to feel the effects of the wind. Whiteouts caused by blowing snow soon made driving nearly impossible. John tried to follow the trucks, but even the huge 18-wheelers were getting bogged down in the drifting snow. Finally, they were forced to concede defeat when their car got stuck in a snow drift. All they could do was wait for help. Periodically John cranked up the engine of their seven-year- old Oldsmobile Cutlass so they could run its heater. Even that small luxury was denied them after about 3:00 A.M. when the car could no longer be coaxed to start. Pulling a few extra items of clothing and a rug from the trunk, which had very nearly frozen shut, they did exercises to try to maintain their body heat. “The only thing that got really cold was my feet,” John recalled. “I think if I hadn’t sat on them they might have been frostbitten.” At dawn a snowplow and rescue team arrived to pick up travel- ers who had been trapped on the highway. John and Jane were taken to the Gilman Community High School, where they spent two days and a night. The high school gym and cafeteria had been converted into temporary lodgings for stranded motorists. By the second day Bardeen was back at work, doing some writing in the teacher’s lounge. He later told reporters, “I was pretty sure they’d come along and pick us up in the morning.” All the same, he added matches and candles to the emergency equipment in the car. Tributes and recognitions multiplied for Bardeen throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In 1974 he, Brattain, and Shockley were in- ducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, along with Alexander Graham Bell and Eli Whitney. In 1975 he received the prestigious Franklin Medal. He was named the 1976 Scientist of the Year by the international publication Industrial Research. In 1977 President Gerald Ford awarded Bardeen the Medal of Free- dom, the nation’s highest civilian award. His fellow honorees in- cluded, among others, the composer Irving Berlin, General Omar Bradley, baseball’s Joe DiMaggio, artists Georgia O’Keefe and Norman Rockwell, and former first lady Lady Bird Johnson. 

Citizen of Science 283 Around the same time, the city of Champaign awarded Bardeen the key to the city, an honor no other University of Illinois faculty member had yet received. By then the Bardeens had been residents for thirty-eight years. Mayor Dannel McCollum stated, “Dr. Bardeen is contributing to the city just with his presence.” Bardeen was recognized as a good citizen who voted, served jury duty, and supported local organizations. He set a standard of community in- volvement that the city fathers wished to acknowledge. He fre- quented the local country club, supported excellence in the schools, and attended sports events any time his schedule allowed. Bardeen appreciated the honor, for “there is nothing more gratifying than being recognized by your friends and neighbors.”