Kistiakowsky: From White Army to White House

THE CHEMISTRY department pleasantly surprised George B. Kistiakowsky, Lawrence Professor of Chemistry, by announcing to him last week the establishment of a Kistiakowsky Fund.

Kistiakowsky, generally considered one of Harvard's all time greats, turned 70 last November. Although the Corporation did not make him retire at age 66, University statutes dictate that this 40-year member of the Faculty must become Emeritus on July 1.

Over a steak dinner and champagne at the Faculty Club, the department told "Kisty" that the Fund, with an initial target of $20,000, would hopefully support an annual lecture series each Fall. The department invited him to be the first speaker for the Lecture Series.

Kistiakowsky, who seems no older than 55, is a vigorous man known for his fiery Russian temper, his large part in the Manhattan Project, and his still current enjoyment of skiing and sailing. His office has a mantelpiece covered with Presidential medals and other mementees which he will talk about unabashedly. His friends say that a characteristic storminess follows Kisty wherever he goes, no matter what he does. In the lab, he's known as the victim of many accidental explosions; socially, Kisty has married three times, with his first two marriages ending in divorce.

The Journal of Physical Chemistry dedicated its May, 1971 issue to Kistiakowsky. E. Bright Wilson, Richards Professor of Chemistry, wrote in the opening article: "I have seen him steadfast and imperturbable with shells exploding around him (a ship chose the field in which he was setting up tests for its target during gunnery practice). I have also seen him steadfast when figurative bombshells were bursting about him after he had refused to consult further with the military, on account of his opposition to the Vietnam war."

When asked why he never received the Nobel Prize, Kistiakowsky replied, "I'm not a top scientist. That's a figment of somebody's imagination. I'm faithful, hardworking, intelligent, but that's about it. I know of nothing I've done to justify the Nobel Prize."

At the age of 17, Kistiakowsky enlisted in the Czarist White Army. He served in Kiev, his home town, in addition to Odessa and in Crimea. Analyzing his teenage actions last week, he said, "Historically, it clearly was a mistake. It turned out that the White Army represented only a very special minority in Russia, such as the landed gentry." Kistiakowsky explained that "a great many young people like myself joined because they were influenced by the argument that the Bolshevik Party was selling Russia to the Germans." After two years in the White Army. Kistiakowsky said he "spent a year bumming in the Balkans." He had various odd jobs and in Belgrade, he got hired to replace broken windows and learned how to cut plate glass skillfully. (Years later, this knack with glass became useful when Kistiakowsky did spectroscopic research. He even taught a course in lab techniques which included lessons in glass-blowing.)

ALTHOUGH his father was a professor in international law and his uncle was a distinguished chemist, Kistiakowsky was just a high school dropout who never even started his senior year. He enrolled in the University of Berlin, and in the confusion of post-war university regulations, he was able to complete both college and graduate work in three and one-half years. So he ended up with his Ph. D. at the age of 24.

A Rockefeller Fellowship then lured Kistiakowsky to Princeton, where he said he spent five years in which he learned most of his chemistry. In 1930, James Bryant Conant was chairman of the Chemistry department and personally persuaded Kistiakowsky to switch to Harvard as an assistant professor. His friends say that Kistiakowsky came only under the condition that he would be told after a set number of years whether he would get promoted-a system which did not become standard University practice until Conant became President. Kistiakowsky himself refuses to elaborate on why he came to Harvard, except to say that Conant made him a very attractive offer.

Kistiakowsky's wartime career is noteworthy and somewhat frightening because he designed the triggering mechanism for the atomic bomb. He describes his involvement in explosives research as "a matter of pure luck." Kistiakowsky said he "expected like other chemists to become involved in chemical warfare." He offered his services in June 1940 to the National Defense Research Committee. "Conant told me, 'Get involved in explosives research,' which I thought was like being sent to Siberia." Kistiakowsky said he spent the summer of 1940 in libraries and "discovered that explosives were a very unexplored matter."

His first wartime breakthrough was the invention of RDX (research department explosives) which was much more effective than TNT. After three years of conventional explosives research. Kistiakowsky began his two years of research on the atomic bomb. Next, he said, "we finally understood how to control detonation of explosives as a precision instrument-using very high pressure very suddenly."

WHEN HE TALKS about the Manhattan Project and all his wartime research, Kistiakowsky repeatedly states that he alone is not responsible for the breakthroughs. He says always, "Me and a great many other people ..." In fact, he established and ran the conventional Explosives Research Laboratory in Bruceton, Pa. And in 1944, he became chief of the explosives division of the Manhattan Project. "In retrospect," Kistiakowsky said. "I saw myself as a technician who tried to carry out the policies of 'statesman', never challenging them. That is the spirit in which I worked during the war."

Kistiakowsky's post-war research assisted the military in developing the Polaris submarine and various missiles, including the Atlas, Minuteman, and ICBM. "Until I actually became involved in the activities of the White House office, in 1957, I saw my role as that of a technician." Kistiakowsky became a full-time assistant to President Eisenhower in December 1'58. "These years were the eye-opener," he said. "I realized I'm no stupider than the policy makers. I realized how military policies are themselves stimulant to the arms race. The air of innocence with which our political leaders represented our position-I saw this as not corresponding to facts. And I grew more skeptical of military policies."

He continued serving as a member of the President's Science Advisory Committee under Kennedy and Johnson. But in early 1965, Kistiakowsky said later, "I became very much troubled by President Johnson's policies of sending the military to Vietnam." In what he called a "tactless letter" in early 1968, Kistiakowsky, "completely disgusted," resigned from the Presidential committee and severed all connections with the Defense Department.

What should younger scientists do to avoid supporting an immoral military machine? Certainly they should not push aside science altogether. Kistiakowsky said that students should still continue research in science because "to reject the acquisition of knowledge is a totally anti-intellectual process. The trouble arises when knowledge has been misused-and it has been terribly misused since World War II. We became stooges of unwise leaders." From now on, he said, "we must scrutinize very much more carefully the purposes of new applications of scientific knowledge. We must ask if it's socially useful."