Editor's Page
George Kistiakowsky 1900-82 This reporter never knew George Kistiakowsky well enough to call him "Kisty," as his friends did. We really met only once. That was in his office at the Harvard chemistry department one cold afternoon in January 1981 to talk at length about his efforts to lessen the danger of nuclear war. He was the kind of man you only had to meet once to appreciate his incredible intellect, sparkle, and wit. Now he is dead at 82. But the struggle for rational arms policies goes on. Ironically, he died the day the House of Representatives voted to delete initial funds for deploying 100 MX intercontinental ballistic missiles. This vote may not represent Congress' final disposition of this matter. But it is the first time since World War II that either house has voted to deny a President a major new arms program. Very few scientists, and no other chemists, were better qualified than Kistiakowsky to speak out on nuclear arms. His outstanding 47-year career in basic chemical research, much of it related to explosives, was interlaced with involvement in the Manhattan Project, and with advisory roles to the federal government—including science adviser to President Eisenhower. For his government service he was honored with medals by three Presidents—Truman, Eisenhower, and Johnson. His enormous scientific contributions were recognized by a host of awards, including ACS's highest honor, the Priestley Medal. As he said that January afternoon, his life was divided into four equal parts (C&EN, Feb. 2, 1981, page 20). The first involved growing up in prerevolutionary Russia and experiencing war first hand. The second was all chemistry—a Ph.D. at the University of Berlin before moving on to Princeton and then Harvard. The next 20 years were half chemistry and half weapons building. And, as he put it, 'The last 20 years I have been trying mostly to undo the nuclear weapons—and this has been my least successful [period]." His disillusionment with U.S. arms and defense policies came slowly. He said he "began to see all the lies, such as the so-called missile gap." By then, in his position as President Eisenhower's science adviser, he knew there was no such gap. As he explained, "I began to realize that policy was being formed in a way that was really quite questionable." Finally, in January 1968, he resigned from his government advisory positions as a protest against the Vietnam war. After retiring from active research in 1971 he devoted all his vast energies to the prevention of nuclear war. In recent years he served as chairman of the Council for a Livable World, a group founded in 1962 by nuclear physicist Leo Szilard to strengthen security through arms control. Kistiakowsky will be sorely missed in the rising national debate over nuclear arms policies—a debate that cries out for clear, totally honest, and scientifically trained minds such as his. But his efforts over the past decade or so have helped lay a foundation for rational debate. He and others of like mind are not calling for unilateral U.S. disarmament, as some suggest they are. They realize a deterrent force is necessary. They are not working against U.S. security and to the advantage of the Soviet Union, as those in the highest places have charged. All they are saying—and all a growing portion of the public is saying—is that the superpowers must find ways other than a headlong race to ever more sophisticated nuclear weapons to handle their differences and so assure the security of all mankind. Michael Heylin Editor
Views expressed on this page are those of the author only and not necessarily those of ACS
Dec. 13, 1982C&EN
5
