Atomic Boss

At the first session of the plane geometry class at Pomona (Calif.) High School, the teacher, "Old Man Bartlett," drew an intricate problem on the blackboard. "This problem," he announced, "contains all the geometric theorems I am going to teach you in this course. If any of you can solve it before the end of the semester, he will automatically get an A."

Most of the class looked at the problem with dejection, but the tall, skinny boy with unruly blond hair started scratching on a piece of paper. In five minutes he had the correct answer. This week the smart boy, now 34-year-old Professor Kenneth S. Pitzer of the University of California, will step into what is now the most important scientific job in the world, replacing Harvard's Dr. James Fisk as director of research of the Atomic Energy Commission.

Problems of Management. Under Dr. Pitzer's control will come the chain of laboratories which the AEC is building throughout the country. Much of his work will be top-secret, concerned with atom bombs and other nuclear weapons. An even greater responsibility of Pitzer's will be to make the atom serve--as well as threaten--civilization.

One of Pitzer's most difficult problems will be to persuade the best U.S. scientists to work for the AEC or in cooperation with it. Many of them dislike the thought of Government work, with its reputation for unimaginative plodding. Others refuse to get mixed up with the development of military weapons in peacetime.

Over the whole program hangs the shadow of military security. Can Pitzer protect his men from the threat of attack (without hearing or recourse) on charges of disloyalty?* Unless he can reassure his colleagues on such points, AEC may have to get along with the skim milk of U.S. scientific talent.

Problems of Chemistry. Dr. Pitzer's youth is no handicap in the still-young world of atomic energy, but the fact that he is a chemist rather than a physicist may surprise a good many scientists. The AEC's official explanation is that the work of the commission's laboratories is tending more & more toward chemistry. One of the urgent tasks is getting uranium out of low-grade ores. Another: chemical separation of the dangerous radioactive byproducts of plutonium manufacture. Says Dr. Pitzer: "The problems holding up the Atomic Energy Commission are chiefly chemical ones. The problems of physics were handled first, and they are far better in hand than the problems of chemistry."

The son of a wealthy California citrus grower and real estate man, Pitzer graduated with top honors from CalTech, did important war work whose nature is still a secret, and became an instructor in chemistry at the University of California when only 23. As head of AEC research, the bright geometry student will have to solve problems that no teacher has ever figured out.

* For news of one such case, see NATIONAL AFFAIRS.

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