The superconducting super collider's frontier outpost, 1983-1988

Minerva

Volumn 38, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 271-310

  Hoddeson, Lillian ^a   Kolb, Adrienne W ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA CHAMPAIGN   (United States)

^b FERMI NATIONAL ACCELERATOR LABORATORY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0039751890     PISSN: 00264695     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1026569616118     Document Type: Review

References (242)

1. L. Hoddeson, L. M. Brown, M. Riordan, and M. Dresden (eds.), The Rise of the Standard Model: Particle Physics in the 1960s and 1970s (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
2. Natalie Angier and J. Madeleine Nash, 'The Colossus of Colliders', Time (11 November 1985), 81;
3. M. Riordan, 'The Demise of the Superconducting Super Collider', Physics in Perspective (December, 2000).
4. Vannevar Bush, Science - The Endless Frontier. A Report to the President on a Program for Postwar Scientific Research (Washington, DC, July 1945), reprinted by the National Science Foundation (Washington, DC, July 1960).
5. See also N. Reingold, 'Vannevar Bush's New Deal for Research: Or the Triumph of the Old Order', Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, 17 (1987), 300-344;
6. and for a different perspective, David M. Hart, Forged Consensus: Science, Technology and Economic Policy in the United States, 1921-1953 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).
7. Fermilab History Collection (Batavia, Illinois), SSC Papers, afterwards FHC: 'The Superconducting Super Collider', pamphlet of the Central Design Group, published c.1988 by Universities Research Association, Washington, DC.
8. E.g. Patricia Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987);
9. Richard White, The Middle Ground (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991);
10. It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own: A New History of the American West (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1991).
11. This association derived in part from Reagan's career as host for the television program, 'Death Valley Days', and his appearance in numerous Western movies. One photograph on horseback appears on the cover of Bob Schieffer and Gary Paul Gates, The Acting President (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1989).
12. See also Reagan (Public Broadcasting System documentary, 1998).
13. There is an extensive bibliography on the frontier in American history. For a selected list, see Geoffrey C. Ward, The West: An Illustrated History (Boston: Little Brown, 1996), 435.
14. A few notable works are Ray Allen Billington, America's Frontier Heritage (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966);
15. William Cronon, 'Revisiting the Vanishing Frontier: The Legacy of Frederick Jackson Turner', in The Western Historical Quarterly, 18 (April 1987), 157-176;
16. Richard White, 'Frederick Jackson Turner', in John R. Wunder (ed.), Historians of the American Frontier (New York: Greenwood, 1988);
17. Richard Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America (New York: Harper Collins, 1992);
18. Frederick Jackson Turner, 'The Significance of the Frontier in American History', speech of 1893, reprinted in George Rogers Taylor (ed.), The Turner Thesis: Concerning the Role of the Frontier in American History (Boston: D. C. Heath and Co., 1956);
19. Richard White and Patricia Nelson Limerick, 'The Frontier in American Culture', in James R. Grossman (ed.), The Frontier in American Culture: An Exhibition at the Newberry Library, 26 August 1994-1997 January 1995 (Berkeley: University of California Press).
20. The few exceptions include William Coleman, 'Science and Symbol in the Turner Frontier Hypothesis', American Historical Review, 72 (1) (1966), 22-49
21. A. Hunter Dupree, Science in the Federal Government (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1986)
22. and Merrit Roe Smith, 'Frontiers of Change', STS News (September 1993; MIT Program in Science, Technology and Society), 1-2.
23. This point is discussed in Adrienne Kolb and Lillian Hoddeson, 'New Frontier in the Chicago Suburbs: Settling Fermilab, 1963-1972', Illinois Historical Journal, 88 (1), (Spring 1995), 2-18.
24. Sources on the 'frontier outpost' include Stephen Ambrose, Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996);
25. Mike Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (New York: Vintage, 1992);
26. Limerick, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles op. cit. note 5;
27. and White, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles op. cit. note 5.
28. Chris Quigg interview by Lillian Hoddeson and Adrienne Kolb, 5 May 1993. All interviews cited here are on deposit and available to scholars in the FHC.
29. J. E. Lighter (ed.), Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang (New York: Random House, 1994), vol. 1, 702;
30. Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English from the Fifteenth Century to the Present Day (New York: Macmillan, 1961), 256.
31. For examples of the use of the metaphor, see, e.g., James Michener, 'The Wagon and the Elephant', Centennial (New York: Random House, 1974), ch. 6, 243-349, esp. 295-296, 329, and 332-333;
32. and David G. Gutierrez, 'Seeing the Elephant: Myth and Myopia: Hispanic People and Western History', in Ward, Centennial op. cit. note 7, 118-171, esp. 125-126.
33. The Washington account of the SSC began more than a year earlier. George Keyworth interview by L. Hoddeson, 12 March 2000, and Douglas Pewitt interview by Michael Riordan, 3 May 1998. The Snowmass workshops were organized by the American Physical Society's Division of Particles and Fields to give its members a voice in the definition of new facilities.
34. L. M. Lederman, 'Fermilab and the Future of HEP', in R. Donaldson, R. Gustafson, and F. Paige (eds.), Proceedings of the 1982 DPF Summer Study on Elementary Particle Physics and Future Facilities (DPF/APS), 125-127, esp. 126.
35. Hoddeson et al., Proceedings of the 1982 DPF Summer Study on Elementary Particle Physics and Future Facilities op. cit. note 1.
36. Adrienne Kolb and Lillian Hoddeson, 'The Mirage of the World Accelerator for World Peace and the Origins of the SSC', Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, 24 (1), (1993), 101-124.
37. FHC: 'Report of the 20 TeV Hadron Collider Technical Workshop', Cornell University, 1983. The recent achievement of the first beam in Fermilab's new superconducting accelerator boosted confidence in the feasibility of building high-energy superconducting-magnet accelerators.
38. FHC: Herman Grunder, et al. to Lab Directors, 13 November 1983, reprinted in Appendix B, Report of the DOE Review Committee on the Reference Designs Study, 18 May 1984.
39. SSC Newsletters (published by the APS/DPF), 15 February 1984 and 15 March 1984. The Texas Accelerator Center (TAC) was a recent entrepreneurial creation of Houston industrialist George Mitchell and high-energy physicist Peter McIntyre. Mitchell created the Houston Area Research Center and McIntyre began the TAC under its aegis. McIntyre gained the reputation among physicists of rogue inventor. Before Carlo Rubbia ultimately convinced CERN to build its proton-antiproton collider, he and McIntyre had proposed constructing such a collider at Fermilab, a proposal that Fermilab Director Robert Wilson rejected in 1976 in favour of completing the laboratory's Energy Doubler.
40. FHC: Reference Designs Study for U.S. Department of Energy: Superconducting Super Collider (8 May 1984), draft II, p. iii.
41. FHC: Memo from Laboratory Directors to Grunder, et al. (14 December 1983).
42. Kolb and Hoddeson, 'Mirage', Reference Designs Study for U.S. Department of Energy: Superconducting Super Collider op. cit. note 15. A similar situation scuttled the design of an international accelerator proposed in 1975 by the International Committee on Future Accelerators (ICFA).
43. For example, in 1980 he chaired a DOE HEPAP Subpanel on Accelerator Research and Development, which analysed and recommended innovations in accelerators. Physics Today, 33 (2), (February 1980), 92.
44. They met at Fermilab through the fall of 1983, at Brookhaven and at a Texas site (The Woodlands) in the winter, and in the spring of 1984 at SLAC, concluding their work in April back at Fermilab.
45. FHC: PSSC records, Bruce Winstein Collection. PSSC: Physics at the Superconducting Super Collider Summary Report (Batavia: Fermilab, June, 1984), esp. V.
46. Starting in January 1984, the 'Task Coordinators Group' of the RDS dissected technical problems.
47. FHC: 'Executive Summary', Superconducting Super Collider: Reference Designs Study for U.S. Department of Energy (8 May 1984), p. iii.
48. 'Phase 1 Program Milestones', Tigner Files, Central Design Group.
49. FHC: 'Report of the DOE Review Committee on the Reference Designs Study' (18 May 1984)
50. see 'Executive Summary'. The overall budget later increased when it became possible to estimate the cost of these essential aspects.
51. 'Executive Summary' Ibid.
52. Gloria Lubkin, 'R&D Funding for the Super Collider', Physics Today, 37 (October 1984), 21.
53. Paul Manisch, 'Spirit of Snowmass Spreads Across Land', Ferminews (14 June 1984), 2-3. Mantsch recalls that after Lederman presented the idea for the SSC at Snowmass, 'Everyone forgot what else he was doing'.
54. Personal communication: P. Mantsch to authors, 11 March 1998.
55. While members of the 'project', or 'operations' staff of DOE provided day-to-day administrative support, the 'program' staff provided long-range management and direction for scientific programs. Leiss oversaw programs in high-energy and nuclear physics.
56. Gloria B. Lubkin, 'SSC Design Goes to DOE: ICFA discusses CERN Hadron Collider', Physics Today, 37 (June 1984), 17-19;
57. Irwin Goodwin, 'Tigner Named to Direct R&D Program for SSC', Physics Today, 37 (August 1984), 69.
58. FHC: URA Collection, James Leiss to Guy Stever, 1 March 1984.
59. Alvin V. Trivelpiece interview by Steve Weiss, 6 November 1996.
60. Prior to this point, Fermilab was overseen by the URA Board of Trustees. From this time on both labs had their own Board of Overseers (BOO) reporting to the URA President and Trustees.
61. Kolb and Hoddeson, 'Mirage', Physics Today op. cit. note 15, see 107-121.
62. M. Mitchell Waldrop, 'The Supercollider, 1 Year Later', Science, 225 (4661), (3 August 1984), 490-491. The sensitive efforts of CDG physicist Murdock 'Gil' Gilchriese, on behalf of international collaboration, won back preliminary Japanese industrial and research interest. However these efforts were largely unrecognized in cabinet-level dialogues.
63. FHC: Proceedings of the 1984 ICFA Seminar on 'Future Perspectives in High Energy Physics, May 14-20, 1984, KEK, Report 84-14, September 1984.
64. FHC: Hodel to Trivelpiece, August 16, 1984; Gloria Lubkin, 'R&D Funding for the Supercollider', Physics Today, 37 (October 1984), 21;
65. David Dickson, 'A New Push for European Science Cooperation', Science, 220 (4602), (10 June 1983), 1134-1136.
66. Reagan's unprecedented spending on national defence and provocative rhetoric did not win partners for the SSC. Because of the goal of reducing the lingering deficit, the administration in the 1980s could not make a consistent argument for offering jobs to foreign partners. Supporters in Congress expected to win contracts for jobs in their districts, not for work abroad, even if the work was supported by foreign contributions.
67. The Doubler achieved its first 512 GeV beam in July 1983, then its first 800 GeV beam in February 1984. L. Hoddeson, 'The First Large-Scale Application of Superconductivity: The Fermilab Energy Doubler, 1972-1983', Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, 18 (1), (1987), 25-54.
68. Also, John Peoples, Jr., 'Introduction', in Rene Donaldson and Jorge G. Morfin (eds.), Proceedings of the 1984 Summer Study on the Design and Utilization of the Superconducting Super Collider, DPF, APS, DOE, NSF, URA, p. 5.
69. Physics Today, 37 (August 1984), 17;
70. see also John Krige (ed.), History of CERN: Vol. III (Amsterdam: Elsevier North Holland, 1996).
71. FHC: Cornell Laboratory of Nuclear Studies personnel were notified in a memo from Boyce McDaniel, 22 June 1984. 'CDG information', 1984-1988.
72. Irwin Goodwin, 'CDG information', op. cit. note 32.
73. FHC: 'Phase 1 Program Milestones', Tigner Files, Central Design Group.
74. Irwin Goodwin, 'Tigner named to direct R&D program for SSC', Physics Today, 37 (August 1984), 69.
75. FHC: Memorandum of Understanding', Appendix E, revised unsolicited proposal of 22 February 1988 arguing for URA as contractor for the construction and operation of the Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory, draft of 9 November 1983.
76. DOE frowned on labs holding funds in reserve for emergencies or incentives since leftover monies were in danger of being reclaimed by congressional appropriators.
77. FHC: M. Tigner to L. Hoddeson, 10 February 1999.
78. Chris Quigg interview Physics Today op. cit. note 10; J. David Jackson interview by A. Kolb and L. Hoddeson, 3 May 1996.
79. FHC: Notes from Rene Donaldson conversation with Michael Riordan, 24 August 1998.
80. FHC: A. Chao to L. Hoddeson, 29 December 1999.
81. FHC: A. Chao to L. Hoddeson, 29 December 1999, Alex Chao papers (Berkeley). Chao sites the reports SSC-3 (1984), SSC-TR-2002 (1984), and SSC-SR-2020 (1986) (the CDG Conceptual Design Report).
82. Chao personal papers (Berkeley): Tigner to Samios, 10 September 1984, and Tigner to Richter, 15 October 1984.
83. Chao papers: SSC-TR-2001, November 1984. A. Chao to L. Hoddeson, 29 December 1999.
84. M. Mitchell Waldrop, 'Magnets Chosen for Supercollider', Science, 230 (4 October 1985), 50; Bruce Chrisman interview by L. Hoddeson and A. Kolb, March 1993.
85. In July, Brookhaven had successfully tested a 4.5-meter demonstration magnet. 'Supercollider: Magnet Decision', CERN Courier (November 1985), 383-384;
86. Waldrop, 'Magnets Chosen for Supcollider', CERN Courier op. cit. note 56; FHC: J. D. Jackson Notebook B4.
87. William J. Broad, 'Supermagnet Design Chosen For a 60-Mile Atom Smasher', The New York Times (19 September 1985), 1, 17.
88. M. Mitchell Waldrop, 'Congress Questions SSC Cost', Science, 230 (4727), (15 November 1985), 785.
89. FHC: Trivelpiece to White, 30 November 1984.
90. Kim McDonald, 'Gigantic Particle Accelerator Will Have No Modern Rival - If It's Built', The Chronicle of Higher Education, XXXI (7), (16 October 1985), 1, 10-11.
91. 'DOE offers SSC site document, but sidesteps its endorsement', Physics Today 38 (September 1985), 53.
92. Edward Knapp interview by Lillian Hoddeson, 14 July 1997.
93. Ferminews, VIII (15), (8 August 1985), 1-3.
94. Knapp interview, Ferminews, op. cit. note 63.
95. SSC Conceptual Design Report, March 1986, SSC-SR-2020.
96. J. David Jackson interview, Ferminews op. cit. note 50.
97. FHC: Chao to Hoddeson, and Report of the DOE Review Committee on the Conceptual Design of the Superconducting Super Collider (Washington, DC: US Department of Energy, May 1986), DOE/ER-0267.
98. At this time the SSC's estimated cost was $3.01 billion in FY86 dollars, including $529 million in contingency. This figure excluded the additional later costs for essential R&D, site acquisition, commissioning, computing, and detectors. Report of the DOE Review Committee on the Conceptual Design of the Superconducting Super Collider (Washington, DC: US Department of Energy, May 1986), DOE/ER-0267, pp. i, ii, 7-8 and 9-2. The 1990 Temple Review of the SSC's cost and schedule later became widely known as 'the Temple Report on the SSC'.
99. Quigg Interview, Report of the DOE Review Committee on the Conceptual Design of the Superconducting Super Collider op. cit. note 10; FHC: J. D. to A. Kolb and L. Hoddeson, 2 April 1999. Jackson Papers (Berkeley): J. D. Jackson notebook B6, pp. 82-9, 104-108.
100. Bertram Schwarzschild, 'Panel Reaffirms High-Field Magnet Choice for Supercollider', Physics Today, 39 (July 1986), 21-23.
101. FHC: 'Report of the HEPAP Subpanel to Review Recent Information on Superferric Magnets', DOE/ER-0272, May 1986. The grumbling from Texas continued through the first half of 1988.
102. In May 1988 Huson and McIntyre sent a letter to Physics Today claiming that the SSC's 17-meter dipole magnets would not achieve design performance and would have little involvement by US industry.
103. Tigner responded, 'a full-length SSC dipole has now operated at 7.6 tesla, 1 tesla above the nominal SSC operating point', Physics Today, 41 (August 1988), 13-15.
104. The Scientist, 1 (7), (23 February 1987), 1, 8; J. D. Papers: Notebooks B7: pp. 100, 07.29; p. 104.07.31; pp. 106, 112. 113, and B8: pp. 5, 08.19; pp. 10, 08.22; pp. 29, 09.11, p. 30.
105. Congress and the President had imposed The Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act, also known as Gramm-Rudman-Hollings (GRH), in December 1985, in an attempt to reduce the budget deficit by 1991. See Irwin Goodwin, 'R&D Budget for Fiscal 1987: Life at the Threshold of Pain', Physics Today, 39 (5), (May 1986), 55-60.
106. Indeed, by the end of 1989 cuts from GRH were imposed on all federally funded programs, including the DOE Laboratories. David Ritson, 'Demise of the Texas Supercollider', Nature, 366 (16 December 1993), 607-610.
107. FHC: Leon Lederman, unpublished letter to the editor of The New York Times (10 March 1986).
108. FHC: 1986 Tigner correspondence with Lederman, Lederman Collection.
109. Plysics Today, 39 (July 1986), 23.
110. Also see FHC: Lederman Archives, Barish Comm.
111. Mark Crawford, 'Accelerator Labs Face Austere Year', Science, 234 (4781), (5 December 1986), 1195;
112. Quigg interview, Science, op. cit. note 10.
113. Physics Today, 39 (May 1986), 58-59. Although DOE was aware that the delay in construction would raise the overall cost of the project (due to inflation), DOE did not expect Congress to fund construction until a site had been chosen. Tigner had scheduled site selection for December 1986, but reviews and time-consuming political processes had stalled the schedule.
114. In June 1986, Reagan nominated William R. Graham as Keyworth's successor, but Graham was not confirmed until that October. Not well known in the scientific community, Graham rose to this position from acting Administrator of NASA, where his principal achievement had been trouble-shooting in the wake of the Challenger disaster of January 1986. Physics Today, 39 (November 1986), 57-58;
115. Alun Anderson and Joseph Palca, 'White House science advisor takes the reigns after slow start', Nature, 329 (6139), (8-14 October 1987), 476.
116. Wallenmeyer was a strong proponent of the 'three-laboratory system' in which three labs, Brookhaven, Fermilab, and SLAC would share the maintenance of basic research at the cutting edge of the national programme.
117. J. D. Jackson papers (Berkeley): J. D. Jackson Notebook B9, pp. 26-28, 33.
118. The fact that in this month Fermilab reached 1.8 TeV in its Tevatron undoubtedly boosted Trivelpiece's confidence. The Chronicle of Higher Education (11 February 1987), 7, 9.
119. See The New York Times (2 February 1987), 1, 5;
120. The Wall Street Journal (2 February 1987), 1;
121. The New York Times (3 February 1987), 15-16;
122. Mark Crawford, 'Reagan Okays the Supercollider', Science, 235 (4789), (6 February 1987), 625;
123. Irwin Goodwin, 'Reagan Endorses the SSC, a Colossus Among Colliders', Physics Today, 40 (March 1987), 47-49. Reagan's popular association with football derived from his role as George Gipp in the 1940 film, 'Knute Rockne - All American'.
124. Physics Today, 40 (August 1987), 47-52.
125. To avoid a conflict of interest, he resigned from the URA Board of Trustees to become an employee half time for CDG and half time directly for URA. It was agreed that half of his time would be devoted to writing the proposal and the rest to 'odd jobs.' Edwin Goldwasser interview by A. Kolb and L. Hoddeson, 8 May 1993.
126. FHC: DOE Press release, 30 January 1987.
127. 'Siting the Superconducting Super Collider', National Academy Press, 1988, p. 3;
128. Science and Government Report, XVII (15), (1 October 1987), 1-34;
129. Physics Today, 40 (August 1987), 52.
130. See Glenn Sandiford's critical account of the site selection process, 'Reason and Rationality', in M. Riordan, L. Hoddeson, A. Kolb, R. Jacobs, and S. Weiss, Tunnel Visions: The Rise and Fall of the Superconducting Super Collidor (in preparation).
131. FHC: 'Proposal to Serve as Contractor for the Construction and Operation of the "Superconducting Super Collider" Laboratory', submitted by Universities Research Association, Inc., 2 March 1987. URA Collection.
132. FHC: D. Pewitt, Red Team Briefing Document, 30 September 1988.
133. Goldwasser interview Proposal to Serve As Contractor for the Construction and Operation of the "Superconducting Super Collider" Laboratory op. cit. note 86. Goldwasser recalled that Trivelpiece told him of this incident.
134. Goldwasser interview, Proposal to Serve As Contractor for the Construction and Operation of the "Superconducting Super Collider" Laboratory op. cit. note 86
135. and Trivelpiece interview, Proposal to Serve As Contractor for the Construction and Operation of the "Superconducting Super Collider" Laboratory op. cit. note 34.
136. Mark Crawford, 'Science Community Okays Supercollider', Science, 238 (4826), (23 October 1987), 477.
137. Knapp interview, Science, op. cit. note 63.
138. While the bureaucratic mechanism for issuing RFPs and letting procurement contracts was by no means new in government funding, and was well known to DOD contractors, it had not yet affected the budgets and procedures of high-energy physicists. Knapp interview, Science, op. cit. note 63.
139. He became Executive Director of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on 27 April 1987. Science, 236 (4800), (24 April 1987), 377. There was speculation that Trivelpiece was a candidate for SSC director and that he left the DOE to avoid a conflict of interest. A memo from W. J. H. Panofsky spelled out the conflict of interest provision according to which former employees of the DOE were prevented from taking a job that involved DOE contracts for the first year and for the second year from taking a job where there would had been substantial policy involvement in the past.
140. FHC: Panofsky to BOO Files, 'Information from Lloyd Sides' (SLAC legal counsel), 26 August 1988, copied from Panofsky files, SLAC Archives.
141. Ritson, SLAC Archives. op. cit. note 74.
142. It was sponsored by the Division of Particles and Fields of the American Physical Society and hosted by the state of Colorado and a group of Colorado universities and industries. The proceedings, 'SSC Status Report to the Nation', reprinted numerous talks by physicists, politicians, and administrators expressing their views of the wide-ranging benefits of building the SSC.
143. Irwin Goodwin, 'After a Wait, Hunter Joins DOE, Keyworth, Bernthal to New Jobs', Physics Today, 41 (November 1988), 52.
144. In the same speech, Keyworth recognized and encouraged the growing trend towards interdisciplinary research and partnerships between universities and industry. FHC: George W. Morgenthaler and Uriel Nauenberg (eds.), Draft of Proceedings: SSC Status Report to the Nation: A National Symposium on the Superconducting Super Collider (University of Colorado, 24 October 1988).
145. The seven remaining sites would continue to be reviewed for geological and environmental conditions until the final choice, deferred until after the Presidential election in November. Sandiford, 'Reason and Rationality', in Tunnel Visions, op. cit. note 88.
146. Mark Crawford, 'CBO Cautions Congress on SSC', Science, 242 (4876), (14 October 1988), 186;
147. Crawford, 'SSC Report Attacked', Science, 242 (4882), (25 November 1988), 1243.
148. The Scientist (18 May 1987), 6.
149. Elliot Marshall, 'Big Versus Little Science in the Federal Budget', Science, 236 (4799), (17 April 1987), 249.
150. When CERN director Schopper advised the House Science and Technology Committee in spring budget hearings in 1987, this time asking the US to contribute to CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), rather than build the SSC, he claimed the SSC was unlikely to become an international collaboration. Lederman had been warning the US high-energy physics community about this possibility since he stated at Snowmass in 1982, 'by the early 1990s there will be a European capability to pave the LEP (Large Electron Positron) tunnel with superconducting magnets', unless the US acted immediately to do something more dramatic and exciting than ISABELLE, which was already obsolete. L. Lederman, 'Fermilab and the Future of HEP', Proceedings of the 1982 DPF Summer Study on Elementary Particle Physics and Future Facilities (Division of Particles and Fields, American Physics Society, 1982), 125-127;
151. Therese Lloyd, 'Europe Balks At Support For Collider', The Scientist, 1 (12), (4 May 1987), 1-2;
152. Irwin Goodwin, 'Race for the Ring: DOE Reacts to Congress's Anxieties on SSC', Physics Today, 40 (8), (August 1987), 47-50.
153. The revision consisted essentially of establishing a separate Board of Overseers for Fermilab, an effort to place more distance between Fermilab and URA and to minimize any perception of favouritism for Illinois at a point when site selection was in full swing.
154. Quigg interview, Physics Today op. cit. note 10.
155. Early in 1989, Secretary of Energy James Watkins under President George Bush further weakened SSC foundations when direction of the SSC left the Office of Energy Research and was placed under the Office of the SSC (OSSC) overseen by Deputy Secretary of Energy, W. Henson Moore, a former Louisiana Congressman. FHC: Timothy Toohig manuscript 'SSC: the Anatomy of a Failure: a Case Study of Institutional Amnesia', 3 November 1996.
156. Quigg interview, 'SSC: the Anatomy of a Failure: a Case Study of Institutional Amnesia', op. cit. note 10.
157. Broad, 'SSC: the Anatomy of a Failure: a Case Study of Institutional Amnesia' op. cit. note 58.
158. FHC: W.K.H. Panofsky to William Wallenmeyer, 22 January 1987, from Panofsky Papers, SLAC.
159. FHC: M. Tigner to L. Hoddeson, 9 February 1999; Also Goldwasser interview 'SSC: the Anatomy of a Failure: a Case Study of Institutional Amnesia' op. cit. note 86;
160. and The New York Times (13 December 1987)
161. Section Y, Science Times, 23, 28.
162. FHC: Tigner to Hoddeson, 9 Feburary 1999. This method had proved successful in the building of Fermilab's Main Ring as well as its superconducting accelerator, the Energy Doubler. C. Westfall and L. Hoddeson, 'Thinking Small in Big Science', Technology and Culture, 37 (3), (July 1996), 457-492.
163. Hoddeson, 'The First Large-Scale Application of Superconductivity', Technology and Culture, op. cit. note 41. Under Tigner, CDG pursued the same approach to make available 'a significantly improved technological capability as cost effective as possible'. The results of CDG's programme increased the capability of the superconducting cable available industrially by 50% over what had existed five years earlier when the Doubler was being built.
164. FHC: W. K. H. Panofsky to William Wallenmeyer, 22 January 1987, from Panofsky Papers, SLAC.
165. There was enormous pressure to solve these problems in time to meet goals set for the industrial manufacturers who agreed to begin magnet production once the site was ready.
166. Hoddeson, 'The First Large-Scale Application of Superconductivity', Technology and Culture op. cit. note 41.
167. Goldwasser interview, Technology and Culture op. cit. note 86;
168. FHC: Victor Karpenko to M. Tigner, 7 December 1987, and SuperCollider Newsletter, put out by APS/DPF, 15 March 1984, 15 February 1984. Quigg interview.
169. Goldwasser interview, SuperCollider Newsletter, op. cit. note 86; Peter Limon interview by L. Hoddeson and A. Kolb, 5 May 1993.
170. L. Hoddeson, P. Henriksen, R. Meade and C. Westfall, Critical Assembly: A History of Los Alamos during the Oppenheimer Years, 1943-1945 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
171. Goldwasser interview, Critical Assembly: A History of Los Alamos during the Oppenheimer Years, 1943-1945 op. cit. note 86.
172. Ritson, 'Demise of the Texas Supercollider', Critical Assembly: A History of Los Alamos during the Oppenheimer Years, 1943-1945 op. cit. note 74.
173. John Peoples interview by L. Hoddeson and A. Kolb, 23 October 1993.
174. Goldwasser interview, Critical Assembly: A History of Los Alamos during the Oppenheimer Years, 1943-1945 op. cit. note 86.
175. The magnet development programme was also the context in which the vast new capacity of computer modeling first made substantial impact on the SSC. Peoples interview, Critical Assembly: A History of Los Alamos during the Oppenheimer Years, 1943-1945 op. cit. note 120.
176. The Livermore engineer had earlier been project manager of the Magnetic Fusion Test Facility (part of the nuclear underground testing project).
177. FHC: Tigner to Hoddeson, 9 February 1999.
178. Peoples interview, Critical Assembly: A History of Los Alamos during the Oppenheimer Years, 1943-1945 op. cit. note 120. Peoples noted that an accident at Fermilab worked in his favour. Within a week of starting his new CDG assignment, a superconducting magnet had failed in a spectacular fashion: a segment of the coil evaporated, a design glitch capable of destroying the entire magnet. The ensuing investigation led to a much deeper understanding of the magnet's physics.
179. FHC: Tigner to Hoddeson, 9 February 1999.
180. FHC: 'Remarks by the President in Meeting with Supporters of the Superconducting Super Collider Program', 30 March 1988, The Rose Garden.
181. Quigg interview, 'Remarks by the President in Meeting with Supporters of the Superconducting Super Collider Program', op. cit. note 10.
182. Remarks by the President in Meeting with Supporters of the Superconducting Super Collider Program Ibid.
183. Michener, 'Remarks by the President in Meeting with Supporters of the Superconducting Super Collider Program', op. cit. note 11, pp. 329. 332-333, ch. 6.
184. The announcement of the RFP was made in Commerce Business Daily (3 August 1988). The RFP itself was issued on 19 August 1988.
185. Bruce Chrisman interview by Kolb, Hoddeson, and Weiss, 14 January 1998. Other physicists felt, as Richard Lundy, that to comply with the requirements of the RFP would be a Faustian bargain, and that 'we're getting in bed with the devil'. Attributed to Lundy in Chrisman interview.
186. FHC: Panofsky to BOO Files, 1 August 1988, from Panofsky Papers, SLAC.
187. Knapp interview, Commerce Business Daily op. cit. note 63. Universities Research Association, Inc. submitted the sole response to the RFP on 4 November 1988, and the final contract between DOE and URA was signed on 16 January 1989.
188. See also Appendix E, 'Key Personnel', Request for Proposals. Number DE-RP02-88ER40486. For the Selection of a Management and Operating Contractor for the Establishment, Management, and Initial Operation of the Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory (Chicago Operations Office, U.S. Department of Energy), Closing Date: 4 November 1988. The CDG did not expect to build the SSC without external industrial support. In fact, in the March 1986 Conceptual Design Report, the DOE-Chicago Operations Office had awarded a contract to RTK, a joint venture of three engineering companies to handle the architecture and engineering designs, for the period 24 June 1985 through 30 September 1987. However, such earlier subcontracting with industry, which was standard practice in the building of accelerators, did not elevate the subcontractors to equal partners, which was how Knapp and Pewitt came to interpret DOE's requirement in its RFP.
189. Knapp interview, Request for Proposals. Number DE-RP02-88ER40486. For the Selection of a Management and Operating Contractor for the Establishment, Management, and Initial Operation of the Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory op. cit. note 63.
190. Request for Proposals. Number DE-RP02-88ER40486. For the Selection of a Management and Operating Contractor for the Establishment, Management, and Initial Operation of the Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory Ibid.
191. Request for Proposals. Number DE-RP02-88ER40486. For the Selection of a Management and Operating Contractor for the Establishment, Management, and Initial Operation of the Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory Ibid.
192. FHC: The argument for teaming with industrial partners is made in a document written on 7 October 1988 by D. Pewitt and R. Schwitters, 'Rationale for Teaming', FHC.
193. Many physicists remember Pewitt as difficult to work with as he criticized their ability to manage big projects. Knapp interview, 'Rationale for Teaming', op. cit. note 63; Bruce Chrisman interview by Adrienne Kolb, December 1997.
194. FHC: Ezra Heitowit to David J. Norton, 8 September 1988.
195. The agreement with Sverdrup was signed by its Vice President James C. Uselton on 22 September 1988. Knapp recalls that many felt resistant to the change, even DOE's Ed Temple, who felt the old way worked well, Knapp interview, 'Rationale for Teaming' op. cit. note 63. As of 26 August the organizations that informally had expressed interest in teaming at the SSC were: EG&G, IIT, Martin Marietta, Parson Brinkerhoff, The Ralph K. Parsons Company, SAIC, Stone & Webster Engineering, Corp., and Sverdrup Corporation, document in Panofsky papers (26 August 1988).
196. FHC: The memo of 24 August 1988 was circulated to the URA in Washington, DC, to Wojcicki at CDG, to Jim Finks at Fermilab, and to the members of the SSC BOO Proposal Oversight Subcommittee (M. Blume, R. Frosch, R. Schwitters, W. Panofsky, and B. McDaniel, ex officio), calling for 'input from everyone by COB [close of business] Wednesday, 31 August', so they could 'begin soliciting Red Team reviewers'.
197. FHC: D. Pewitt to E. Knapp, 24 August 1988, on 'Significant Policy-Sensitive Matters on SSC O&M Proposal', sent to James Finks at Fermilab from Ken Shirley at URA. SSC Historical Collection, FHC.
198. FHC: Meeting notice of 14 September 1988, Berkeley.
199. According to Pewitt, CDG did not want to cooperate. Pewitt interview, ex officio op. cit. note 12. However, according to Tigner, Pewitt never discussed the matter with him. Tigner to Hoddeson, 9 February 1999.
200. Chrisman interviews, ex officio op. cit. notes 131 and 136.
201. Among those from CDG who came for short advisory visits were: Tim Toohig, advising on conventional construction, Tom Kirk on magnets, and Tom Elioff on cost and schedules. Chrisman interviews, ex officio op. cit. notes 131 and 136.
202. The SSC Board of Overseers reviewed the proposal, but the urgent deadline and the complexity of the proposal gave Pewitt and Allhoff significant power.
203. Knapp interview, ex officio op. cit. note 63. Jackson Papers (Berkeley): J. D. Jackson notebook B9, pp. 92-93.
204. Knapp interview, ex officio op. cit. note 63; Panofsky and McDaniel agreed on 2 September that Panofsky should inform Maury of that decision. He did so on Sunday, 4 September, the day before Labor Day. FHC: W. K. H. Panofsky to BOO Files, 6 September 1988, from SLAC Archives.
205. Personal communication, Tom Kirk to Michael Riordan, 17 June 1999.
206. Robert Diebold interview by Michael Riordan, 20 April 1995.
207. FHC: M. Riordan notes of a conversation with Panofsky, 19 June 1998.
208. Knapp interview, ex officio op. cit. note 63.
209. FHC: Panofsky to BOO Files, 1 August 1988, from Panofsky Papers, SLAC.
210. FHC: Panofsky, 'Talking Paper. Discussions with Trilling and McDaniel', 8 August 1988, from Panofsky Papers, SLAC.
211. FHC: 'Minutes of the Meeting of the SSC Board of Overseers', 19-20 August 1988.
212. Lloyd Sides, Staff Counsel to SLAC, was asked to investigate whether Trivelpiece might have a conflict of interest in serving as Director of the SSC, even though he left the office of Director of Energy Research more than a year earlier.
213. FHC: Panofsky to BOO Files, 'Search for Directorial Nominee by URA', 26 August 1998, from Panofsky Papers, SLAC.
214. Quigg interview, 'Search for Directorial Nominee by URA', op. cit. note 10.
215. Roy Schwitters interview by Michael Riordan, 22 March 1997.
216. Helen Edwards was listed as Director of Accelerator Systems; R. Robbins as Head of Conventional Construction; and Chrisman as Head of Laboratory Administrative Services.
217. Schwitters interview 'Search for Directorial Nominee by URA', op. cit. note 158.
218. S. J. Wojcicki interview by A. Kolb and G. Sandiford.
219. FHC: J.D. Jackson to Kolb and Hoddeson, 2 April 1999, p. 6.
220. Schwitters interview, 'Search for Directorial Nominee by URA', op. cit. note 158.
221. Schwitters interview, 'Search for Directorial Nominee by URA' op. cit. note 158.
222. Quigg interview 'Search for Directorial Nominee by URA' op. cit. note 10. The hymn comes from an abolitionist poem by James Russell Lowell.
223. Personal Communication: S. Wojcicki to M. Riordan, 1 September 1988; and Rene Donaldson to M. Riordon, 24 August 1998.
224. The loss of Texas Democrats, Jim Wright as Speaker of the House and Senator Lloyd Bentsen, weakened SSC support in Congress.
225. Those who did included Alex Chao, Tom Elioff, Jim Sanford, Tim Toohig, Tom Kirk, and Roger Coombs. Wojcicki and Jackson served later on the SSC's Program Advisory Committee.
226. FHC: Chao to Hoddeson, December 1999.
227. Pewitt interview, 'Search for Directorial Nominee by URA' op. cit. note 12.
228. Knapp interview, 'Search for Directorial Nominee by URA' op. cit. note 63.
229. James Michener, 'Search for Directorial Nominee by URA' op. cit. note 11, esp. 332-333.
230. Most of the relevant references on big science are in: Peter Galison, Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997);
231. Peter Galison and Bruce Hevly, Big Science: The Growth of Large-Scale Research (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992);
232. John Krige (ed.), History of CERN: Vol. III (Amsterdam: Elsevier North Holland, 1996;
233. Armin Herman, John Krige, Ulrike Mersits, and Dominique Pestre, History of CERN: Vols. I and II (New York: North Holland, 1987 and 1990).
234. FHC: Maury Tigner to Lillian Hoddeson, 9 February 1999.
235. J. L. Heilbron and Robert Seidel, Lawrence and his Laboratory: Nuclear Science at Berkeley, 1931-1961 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).
236. Chrisman interviews, Lawrence and His Laboratory: Nuclear Science at Berkeley, 1931-1961 op. cit. notes 131 and 136;
237. FHC: Manuscript by Tim Toohig, 'SSC: The Anatomy of a Failure: A Case Study of Institutional Amnesia', Dallas Morning News interview with Moore on 30 July 1993.
238. Ritson, 'Demise of the Texas Supercollider', SSC: The Anatomy of a Failure: A Case Study of Institutional Amnesia op. cit. note 74.
239. Remarks at international conference on the History of the Standard Model held at SLAC, June 1992.
240. Kim McDonald, 'Gigantic Particle Accelerator Will Have No Modem Rival - If It's Built', The Chronicle of Higher Education, 13 (7), (16 October 1985), 1, 10-11.
241. Doug Pewitt interview The Chronicle of Higher Education, op. cit. note 12.
242. Frederick Jackson Turner, 'The Significance of the Frontier in American History', speech delivered in 1983, copyright 1920, reprinted in George Rogers Taylor (ed.), The Turner Thesis: Concerning the Role of the Frontier in American History (Boston: D.C. Health and Co., 1956), 9-10.