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News :: Elections & Legislation : Environment : Government Secrecy : Health : International Relations : Nukes |
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Nukes and the '64 Election: Scientists on the Stump |
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by Peter J. Kuznick
(No verified email address) |
03 Oct 2004
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Scientists who have grumbled about George W. Bush's unilateral, bellicose, and preemptive foreign policies and dangerous embrace of nuclear weapons but have not worked actively for his defeat might learn a valuable lesson from the forces behind Lyndon Johnson's lopsided victory over Barry Goldwater in 1964. Although that election has become part of American political folklore, its uncanny resemblance to and striking differences with the 2004 election have gone largely unnoticed. Unlike in 1964, when Democrats and allied scientists made the nuclear threat the centerpiece of the campaign, they have, this time, remained almost silent about the president's systematic lowering of the nuclear threshold, his blurring the distinction between nuclear and conventional weapons, and his destabilizing pursuit of a new generation of nuclear weapons.
Forty years later, we either seem to have forgotten our history -- or never learned anything from it in the first place. |
Scientists who have grumbled about George W. Bush's unilateral, bellicose, and preemptive foreign policies and dangerous embrace of nuclear weapons but have not worked actively for his defeat might learn a valuable lesson from the forces behind Lyndon Johnson's lopsided victory over Barry Goldwater in 1964. Although that election has become part of American political folklore, its uncanny resemblance to and striking differences with the 2004 election have gone largely unnoticed. Unlike in 1964, when Democrats and allied scientists made the nuclear threat the centerpiece of the campaign, they have, this time, remained almost silent about the president's systematic lowering of the nuclear threshold, his blurring the distinction between nuclear and conventional weapons, and his destabilizing pursuit of a new generation of nuclear weapons.
For many, the enduring symbol of the 1964 campaign was a Johnson ad in which a scene of a young girl plucking petals off a daisy dissolves into a nuclear explosion. Few, however, remember American scientists' extraordinary contribution to defining the campaign's issues and mobilizing the public against what they saw as Goldwater's foreign policy extremism and nuclear recklessness. Throwing themselves into the campaign with unprecedented unanimity and resolve, scientists helped convince a wary public that Goldwater's slogan "In Your Heart You Know He's Right" should be transformed to "In Your Heart You Know He Might."
As Theodore White noted in The Making of the President, 1964, "The campaign of 1964 was that rare thing in American political history, a campaign based on issues." And Goldwater's nuclear policies topped the list.
Goldwater's troubles began with an October 1963 press conference at which he said that NATO's six divisions could "probably" be cut by one-third or more if NATO commanders had the power to decide to use tactical nuclear weapons. His repeated attempts to clarify his position, such as introducing the term "conventional nuclear weapons," only muddied it more. Goldwater had already appeared to support battlefield use of nuclear weapons in his 1960 book The Conscience of a Conservative, in which he urged the United States to "perfect a variety of small, clean nuclear weapons."
Goldwater repudiated disarmament efforts, contending instead that a buildup was necessary, and opposed the nuclear test ban treaty, the Washington-Moscow "hot line," and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. He threatened the use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam and expressed contempt for those who questioned American unilateralism. And he made matters worse for himself by harping on the nuclear issue, mentioning nuclear weapons and wartime devastation 26 times in one 30-minute speech. [1]
After Goldwater won the Republican nomination, scientists began to hammer his nuclear stance. Physical chemist Donald MacArthur set the scientists' anti-Goldwater campaign in motion. Married to Lady Bird Johnson's niece, MacArthur took advantage of his social ties and political connections to launch Scientists and Engineers for Johnson, which later became Scientists and Engineers for Johnson-Humphrey (SEJH). He enlisted three of the scientific community's chief luminaries: Jerome Wiesner, dean of science at MIT and White House science adviser under John F. Kennedy and Johnson; George Kistiakowsky, the Russian-born Harvard chemist who played a prominent role in developing the plutonium bomb and was science adviser to Dwight Eisenhower; and Detlev Bronk, president of the Rockefeller Institute, chairman of the National Science Board, and former president of the National Academies of Science (NAS), who began recruiting prominent colleagues to form a national organizing committee.
About a dozen members of the organizing committee met to strategize from August 10 to 11, 1964. They decided to form bipartisan, grassroots activist organizations in every state to push Johnson's candidacy. On August 13, they unveiled the 42-member committee, which included Luis Alvarez, Michael DeBakey, Richard Buckminster Fuller, Polykarp Kusch, and Harold Urey, among others. The committee members extolled the contributions of science and technology to the nation's security, health, and economic strength; disavowed "extremist" solutions; and commended the Kennedy administration on the Limited Test Ban Treaty. They were dedicated to international disarmament and offered "unqualified support for the time-tested policy of exclusive presidential determination of the use of nuclear arms, whether strategic or tactical." They warned that "those whose will-to-victory is not tempered by a will-to-understand the nature of modern security, could not lead this nation safely." Prominent figures such as Benjamin Spock, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, and Julius Stratton quickly joined SEJH.
Nuclear worries unite scientists
Colleagues clamored to sign up, including some with no previous record of political involvement. On August 12, Francis Bittner, just back from Los Alamos and apparently unaware of what was in the offing, wrote a letter to Wiesner asking, "Can you suggest something useful for me to do, and someone to write to, about helping defeat Goldwater and his supporters in the coming election? I'd be glad to do anything--lick postage stamps, phone people, etc. Bear in mind that I am politically an ignoramus." Others, like Warren Weaver, were lifelong Republicans who were aghast at Goldwater's politics. As Weaver wrote in a September 1964 letter, "The idea of Goldwater being president of our country simply appalls me." [2]
Bittner and Weaver were part of a large groundswell. By early October, Science magazine reported 20,000 SEJH members in 32 states; more than 1,000 people were signing up each day. [3] Connecticut co-chair Arthur Galston, a Yale plant physiologist, acknowledged being "overwhelmed with the eagerness of people to help." [4] The November 1, 1964 Bridgeport Sunday Herald reported "more political activity on the Yale campus this year than ever before," due in substantial measure to the SEJH effort. "By the hundreds, faculty and students have been contributing funds and putting in volunteer man-hours." In offices across the country, Nobel laureates and young industrial researchers worked together around the clock, stuffing flyers into thousands of envelopes. By the time of the election, membership surpassed 100,000.
Scientists' sense of urgency derived from a palpable and oft-expressed fear that a Goldwater victory would heighten the threat of nuclear annihilation. Helen Taussig, of Johns Hopkins Medical School, wrote, "If a quick-tempered person has the power to press the button for nuclear war, it may well occur. Indeed if the [Soviet Union] seriously thinks we may do it, they may do it first. If half a dozen people in the United States have that right, the chances of escaping a thermonuclear war are indeed small." Only an overwhelming Goldwater defeat would reassure the world that the American people desired peace, Taussig said. [5]
Others traced the danger to Goldwater's intellectual limitations. Roger Revelle, director of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, felt Goldwater had poor judgment, saying, "With his lack of education, his know-nothingism, and his nostalgia for a past that never was, he might irretrievably damage our country and foreclose the future for all of us." [6]
SEJH activists seized opportunities to shape the public discourse. Kistiakowsky, Emanuel Piore, and DeBakey testified before the Democratic Platform Committee. In the October 16, 1964 issue of Science, Kistiakowsky debated Edward Teller, decrying Goldwater's statement that "a general war is probable." And Wiesner and Herbert York, chief Pentagon scientist during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, told Scientific American readers that "steadily increasing military power" was producing "steadily decreasing national security," a view endorsed by both the Washington Post and Des Moines Register editorial pages. [7]
Scientists traveled far and wide to press their point. Wiesner logged the most miles, crisscrossing the country to address SEJH events. Many others pitched in. MIT chemist John Sheehan told a meeting of Delaware Scientists, Engineers, and Physicians for Johnson and Humphrey that the "paramount issue in this election is the threat of nuclear war," which he described as unthinkable for most--but not for Goldwater. "Most scientists I've talked to aren't only against him as being trigger-happy with nuclear weapons, but because of his general concept of the use of force in all parts of the world to settle our problems," he said. Although scientists often ignored politics, "This time many of us feel we have no choice." [8]
Nobel laureate and Manhattan Project veteran Urey combined a lecture in Madison, Wisconsin, on "The Moon and the Planets" with an SEJH press conference, at which he observed, "Goldwater seems to have the idea that we can have our way in the modern world if we only stand up militarily. This is incorrect. We cannot tell the rest of the world what to do." [9]
More than 4,000 people attended an October 11 SEJH "citizens' rally" in Washington, D.C., including celebrities Carol Channing, Frederic March, Tony Bennett, and Louis Armstrong. The band played a special "Johnson March" composed by Szent-Gyorgyi. On stage sat 20 leading scientists, among them national co-chairman Bronk, who told the crowd that scientists "deplore neurotic nostalgia for an outworn past." Hubert Humphrey was more forceful, calling Goldwater's desire to give control of nuclear weapons to battlefield commanders a "policy of twentieth century disaster." He added, "You know the power of nuclear weapons, the horrors of radioactive extermination. I say Americans know these dangers and repudiate any candidate for high public office who seems not to sense these dangers."
The Massachusetts chapter of SEHJ, more than 3,000 strong, may have been the most active. All 25 members of Kistiakowsky's Harvard chemistry department, despite a wide range of political leanings, signed a letter declaring their unanimous commitment to Goldwater's defeat, urging colleagues throughout the nation to join SEJH and set up state chapters. [10]
The Massachusetts branch organized an impressive symposium entitled "The Presidency in the Atomic Age." Speakers included Kistiakowsky, Wiesner, MIT provost and physics professor Charles Townes, MIT arms control expert Lincoln Bloomfield, and Harvard professor Stanley Hoffmann, who derided "Goldwater's mixture of the big stick, the large mouth, and the small brain." [11]
The Georgia chapter of SEJH embarked on what its executive committee described as "a forced-pace effort, which at times has verged on the feverish." During the final week of the campaign, leaders urged members to redouble their efforts through accelerated fundraising, recruiting, and writing letters to the editor. The executive committee recommended emphasizing the prominence of local and national members ("point out that 75 percent of American Nobel laureates are members of our organization") and stressing the bipartisan nature of the scientists' support. They advised members to focus on the nuclear threat and educational policy, exhorting, "Above all, BE ACTIVE during these final days of the campaign. The few hundreds or thousands of votes which we can swing may very well be crucial to the way Georgia goes in this election." [12]
Their final blitz included an address by Wiesner, newspaper ads, and one-minute spots on local radio. Addressing an audience at Emory University, Wiesner criticized past government experts who overestimated Soviet military strength and had "probably misinterpreted their intentions as well." As a result, he contended, weapons production had exceeded all reasonable bounds. "We already have more power than we know how to use--enough to destroy most of the world and contaminate the entire world at the same time," Wiesner said. [13]
The Georgia scientists' message hit home. Atlanta Constitution political editor Reg Murphy reported that women throughout the South were voting against Goldwater because they feared his nuclear policies. In an October 26 article called "Goldwater and the A-Bomb Scaring Off Women," Murphy wrote, "Women have been convinced, in many cases, that the bomb and strontium 90 and fallout are what this campaign is all about." A sentiment Murphy said he heard repeatedly from women was, "Goldwater scares me to death. I don't know what he would do with the bomb." A Gallup poll found the same attitude among women across the nation.
On the eve of the election, Atlanta Constitution editors weighed in on Goldwater's nuclear policies, warning on October 31: "Against a backdrop of the hydrogen fireball and the mushroom cloud, mistakes of judgment look fatal." "Goldwater's policies would make accidental nuclear war not possible, but probable," the editors said, alluding to a remark made by Sen. William Fulbright. Georgia's Nashville Herald ran a piece, titled "Nuclear Issue Is Most Decisive," that argued cogently that all other issues pale beside "the ultimate survival of all the people of this nation." [14]
In mid-October, 33 of America's 40 Nobel Prize winners, all but one of whom were scientists, publicly endorsed Johnson. "The great issue of the impending election is the issue of war and peace," they declared, insisting that the next president understand "the nature of a nuclear age."
Ganging up against Goldwater
The scientists' campaign had the desired effect. Oak Ridge nuclear experts' concerns led the Nashville Tennessean to condemn the "hideous dangers" resulting from Goldwater's nuclear policies in an October 3 editorial called "Why Scientists Shudder." On October 7, nationally syndicated columnist Marquis Childs wrote that Republican candidates across the nation had become "acutely aware that the nuclear issue--the 'trigger-happy' charge--is Sen. Barry Goldwater's greatest handicap as the campaign moves into the final phase."
"For this reason," Childs explained, "the battle of the scientists takes on special meaning. In unprecedented numbers, including many who ignored politics in the past, they are signing up under the banner of Scientists and Engineers for Johnson and Humphrey." [15]
Johnson agreed. "About the best supporters I have are the scientists and engineers," he said in late October, on the campaign trail in Albuquerque, as he pointed to a sign that read "New Mexico Scientists and Engineers Welcome LBJ." [16]
Humphrey and Johnson emphasized the nuclear angle in the final days of their campaign, subordinating everything--even the Great Society--to the topic of war and peace in the atomic age. On October 26, Humphrey told Chicago listeners, "It's dangerous enough to have the Chinese Communists with the atomic bomb. But it's unbelievably dangerous to have the Chinese Communists with an atomic bomb and have Senator Goldwater with his finger on the nuclear trigger. This we can't take."
Johnson sounded the same warnings that day in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, condemning Goldwater's nuclear brinksmanship. "He urges that we consider using atomic weapons in Vietnam, even in Eastern Europe if there should be an uprising," Johnson charged. The stakes in the 1964 election, he continued, were "the highest ever presented to any generation of Americans." No less than "the peace of the world and the survival of the nation" were at risk. [17]
"The entire world is waiting to see whose thumb you want on the nuclear button, who you want to answer that hot line from Moscow," Johnson told a huge crowd in Macon, Georgia, according to the October 27 Augusta Chronicle. "The only real issue in this campaign," Johnson told Los Angeles listeners on October 28, "is who can best keep the peace? In the nuclear age the president doesn't get a second chance to make a second guess. If he mashes that button--that is it."
The next day, at an airport rally in Detroit, Johnson contended that by voting for him, "the world you save will be your own."
"For 20 years now a mushroom cloud has shadowed our lives," he said, warning that a Goldwater presidency might bring the ultimate nightmare. "One reckless impulsive move of a single finger could incinerate our civilization." [18]
The scientists' campaign pulled out all the stops, airing a half-hour prime-time television broadcast two days before the election. Henry Fonda introduced the show, telling viewers, "Now you are going to meet six of the most brilliant and able men this country has produced"--Spock, York, Wiesner, Kistiakowsky, Urey, and Adm. William F. Raborn, the "father" of the Polaris submarine.
York told viewers that scientists, physicians, and engineers didn't usually play active political roles, but that the 1964 election was different. "National security in every sense is our deepest concern," York said. All the men except for Spock, York pointed out, "have spent much of our professional careers helping to develop either the nuclear weapons themselves or the means of delivering them, or both." Yet he found Goldwater's notion of treating nuclear weapons as conventional "personally horrifiying." York was also appalled that Goldwater "could be so wrong on the basic facts of our weaponry."
The other speakers continued to hammer Goldwater on his nuclear policies. Spock criticized Goldwater's opposition to the nuclear test ban; Urey feared that Goldwater would frighten both European allies and Soviet foes, thereby strengthening the "aggressive group" in the Soviet Union.
Wiesner, who had spent years working on nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles, predicted that more nations would acquire nuclear weapons. "The world must work for effective and safe disarmament," Wiesner explained. "But Senator Goldwater has ridiculed these efforts, and he's even said that he expects that there will be a nuclear war." Kistiakowsky added that, in light of major international developments--the ouster of Nikita Khrushchev in the Soviet Union and China's nuclear test--an abrupt break with U.S. arms control policy would be especially ill-advised. Scientists weren't surprised by the Chinese test, Urey said, but feared that other nations--Italy, Germany, even Egypt--could soon do the same.
"The basic question--the most important question--is how can we prevent this proliferation of weapons all over the world," Urey maintained. York ended by reiterating the message: "Sorry, Senator Goldwater, the country just can't risk it. The country just can't risk your election." [19] A series of radio ads recorded by the participants were broadcast throughout the country 3,000 times. In one, Urey charged, "Many Goldwater statements regarding the use of nuclear weapons are shockingly irresponsible." [20]
The president and Lady Bird Johnson telegrammed Kistiakowsky, applauding the television show, convinced that it would "do much good for our cause." [21] Reportedly, Johnson had recommended the scientists' election-eve broadcast and radio ads to further drive home the nuclear threat. A "high Democratic party leader" told Science's Dan Greenberg, "The president saw that it was the nuclear issue that was killing Goldwater, and he decided that the best way to hit Barry on the bomb was with the scientists who made the bomb." [22]
A sort-of success
As the campaign wound down, many wondered if the scientists' foray into electoral politics--based more on opposition to Goldwater than support for Johnson--would evaporate after the election. Greenberg reported that younger scientists, especially in California and Massachusetts, hoped SEJH would continue to function as a political action organization. "More than 50,000 scientists, engineers, and physicians have just passed through an exciting and successful political baptism," Greenberg commented. "It is not likely that they are going to consider that experience to be irrelevant to their future professional and political concerns." Or, as one scientist put it, "Having tasted political blood, we'll never be the same." [23]
Some, like American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) President Alan Waterman, felt that scientists' disappearance from the political arena was unlikely for other reasons--such as their sense of accountability. "I suppose it is fair to say that scientists as a class have deeper concern about the present state of the world than most groups," Waterman wrote in the January 1, 1965 issue of Science. "[Their concern] undoubtedly had its origin in World War II in such dramatic developments as the atomic bomb and biological warfare, which disclosed new and awesome possibilities of man's destroying himself through the findings of scientific research."
On November 3, 1964, Johnson won the election, defeating Goldwater with more than 60 percent of the popular vote (the electoral vote count came in at 486 to 52 in favor of Johnson). Afterwards, his assistant wrote to Kistiakowsky on behalf of the new president, thanking him for the "tremendous support" from scientists, engineers, and physicians and expressing Johnson's hope "to continue to merit your confidence." [24]
But scientists' "confidence" in Johnson was stunningly short-lived. Within little more than a month of the election, leaders of the World Federation of Scientific Workers were writing to Johnson, expressing "great alarm" over U.S. plans to escalate military operations in Vietnam. They applauded Johnson's campaign statements about the constructive uses of U.S. power, but warned that, "The great achievements of American science would be seen by the many . . . not as an instrument for the improvement of the lot of the people, but as a terrible and hateful scourge." [25]
When the leaders of the World Federation wrote Kistiakowsky in March 1965, U.S. involvement in Vietnam had deepened. The scientists were again worried about "the risk of escalation into a full scale international conflict with incalculable consequences, including the possible use of nuclear weapons." [26]
Many American scientists felt as if they'd been stabbed in the back. The New York Times published a letter from Szent-Gyorgyi on March 31, 1965: "In the last election we scientists stood as one man behind President Johnson, being afraid of what Mr. Goldwater, as president, might do. Now President Johnson does in Vietnam what we feared. . . . I feel disappointed, alienated, if not betrayed. I am sure many of my fellow scientists feel as I do. We are deeply concerned because it was our work which opened the way both to a better future for mankind or its final catastrophe. We are going the wrong way, and it is time for scientists to get together once more, this time to sound a warning." [27]
Scientists heeded Szent-Gyorgyi's advice and, stating repeatedly that U.S. involvement in Vietnam made nuclear war more likely, opposed the war earlier and more forcefully than any other group in society. The AAAS went on record against the war before the end of 1965; no publication was more prescient in this regard than the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
By spring 1968, the breach between Johnson and the scientists was beyond healing. After Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection, scientists demonstrated their disgust with the administration's Vietnam policy by rejecting Humphrey and flocking to support antiwar candidate Eugene McCarthy. In May 1968, Scientists and Engineers for McCarthy announced its formation, with 5,000 dues-paying members, including more than 115 members of the NAS and 12 Nobel Prize winners. Frustrated Humphrey supporters confessed that they had abandoned attempts to organize a scientists' support group. As one top Humphrey adviser admitted, "Physical scientists for Humphrey are conspicuous by their absence." As to scientists who may have been on the Republican side, neither Richard Nixon nor Nelson Rockefeller had made any effort to recruit their support. [28]
Despite their subsequent frustration with Johnson's Vietnam policies, the scientists' extraordinary mobilization against Goldwater and forceful repudiation of his nuclear and foreign policy extremism offer a powerful demonstration of the political influence scientists can wield in American society. Those committed to defeating the latest expression of Republican extremism cannot take much comfort in scientists' relative quiescence in the 2004 elections. Perhaps we will see an upsurge in the final weeks of the campaign.
Peter J. Kuznick is an associate professor of history and director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University in Washington, D.C. Nickolas Roth provided research assistance for this article.
1. David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York: Random House, 1972), p. 515.
2. Warren Weaver to Carlyle F. Stout, September 3, 1964, Personal Papers of Diana T. MacArthur, Correspondence: National Organizing Committee, August-November 1964, box 1, Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) Library.
3. D. S. Greenberg, "The Election: Partisan Activity of Scientists Unlikely to Sow Discord in Scientific Community," Science, vol. 146, no. 3,641 (October 9, 1964), p. 233.
4. "Two Scientists Direct Group Endorsing LBJ," Yale Daily News, October 5, 1964, p. 1.
5. Helen Taussig to Edgar, undated, copy in MacArthur Papers, Correspondence: National Organizing Committee, August-November 1964, box 1, LBJ Library.
6. Roger Revelle to Walter S. Mack, August 17, 1964, MacArthur Papers, Correspondence: National Organizing Committee, August-November 1964, box 1, LBJ Library.
7. Howard Simons, "Arms Race Called Road to Oblivion," Washington Post, September 24, 1964, pp. 1, 8.
8. Tom Malone, "Scientist for LBJ Cites Peace Issue," Wilmington Morning News, October 28, 1964.
9. Elliot Maraniss, "Urey Says Politics Must Solve Peace," Capital Times, October 14, 1964, p. 1.
10. J. D. Baldeschwieler et al., October 1, 1964, copy in George Kistiakowsky Papers, Harvard University Archives, HUGFP 94.8, box 36, Scientists and Engineers for LBJ folder.
11. Harrison Young, "Leading Scientists Support Johnson; Hoffmann Aims Barbs at Goldwater," Harvard Crimson, October 15, 1964, available online.
12. Executive Committee, Georgia Scientists, Engineers, and Physicians for Johnson-Humphrey, "Action to Date and in Final Weeks of Campaign," Wiesner Papers, MIT Archives, MC 420, box 90, L. B. Johnson Committee folder 1/2.
13. "Scientist Sees U.S. Creating Better World," Atlanta Times, October 27, 1964, p. 6; Marjory Rutherford, "Scientist Hails U.S. Might, Asks Push to a New World," Atlanta Constitution, October 27, 1964, p. 33.
14. "Press View: Nuclear Issue Is Most Decisive," reprinted from Nashville (Georgia) Herald, Atlanta Journal, October 26, 1964, p. 19.
15. Marquis Childs, "A Scientific View of the Campaign," Washington Post, October 7, 1964, p. 20.
16. D. S. Greenberg, "Ventures into Politics: Scientists and Engineers in the Election Campaign (I)," Science, vol. 146, no. 3,650 (December 11, 1964), pp. 1,440-44.
17. "President Charges Atom Recklessness," Atlanta Constitution, October 27, 1964, p. 2.
18. Theodore H. White, The Making of the President, 1964 (New York: Atheneum, 1965), p. 374; "Barry Hit on A-War by Johnson," Atlanta Times, October 30, 1964, p. 1.
19. News release, SEJH, October 29, 1964, Wiesner Papers, MC 420, box 90, L. B. Johnson Committee folder 2/2; transcript, television broadcast, October 18, 1964, SEJH, Kistiakowsky Papers, box 36, Scientists and Engineers for LBJ folder.
20. D. S. Greenberg, "Ventures into Politics: Scientists and Engineers in the Election Campaign (II)," Science, vol. 146, no. 3,651 (December 18, 1964), p. 1,563.
21. President and Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson to George Kistiakowsky, November 2, 1964, Kistiakowsky Papers, box 33, President Johnson folder.
22. Greenberg, "Ventures into Politics (II)," pp. 1,562-3.
23. Ibid., pp. 1,561-3; McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (New York: Random House, 1988), pp. 537-8.
24. Ivan Sinclair to George Kistiakowsky, November 27, 1964, Kistiakowsky Papers, box 33, President Johnson folder.
25. P. Biquard and C. F. Powell to Lyndon B. Johnson, December 10, 1964, copy in Kistiakowsky Papers, box 36, T-Z folder.
26. P. Biquard and C. F. Powell to George Kistiakowsky, March 20, 1965, copy in Kistiakowsky Papers, box 36, T-Z folder.
27. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, letter to the editor, New York Times, March 31, 1965, p. 38.
28. Philip M. Boffey, "McCarthy Takes Lead in Lining Up Support of Scientists," Science, vol. 160, no. 3,830 (May 24, 1968), p. 867. For more on the scientists' opposition to U.S. policy in Vietnam, see Peter J. Kuznick, "Creating a 'Science of Survival': The Early Years of the Scientists' Anti-Vietnam War Movement," presented to the History of Science Society, November 22, 2003.
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