Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–91
side, with totally irascible behavior—I believe it then became a risk-avoidance issue for the
trustees. That’s when Robbie was fired as provost [1987]. It all happened very fast. What the
administration and the trustees did then was absolutely brilliant. They brought in somebody who
was so identified with Caltech, and his wife was so identified with Caltech: Barclay and Linda
Kamb. [Linda Kamb is Linus Pauling’s daughter.—ed.] He just calmed everything down.
I remember there were a bunch of events on campus the night after his appointment. We
were at one of them. Barclay and Linda made sure they hit every event. I remember that as they
came past us Stephanie said, “Linda and Barclay, what do you think this is? Camelot?” But it
was. This golden couple who are so identified with Caltech that the reaction just was,
“Everything’s going to be all right.” They did something absolutely brilliant to put Barclay and
Linda in.
ASPATURIAN: Was there a precipitating incident with Dr. Vogt?
TOMBRELLO: Well, certainly, for all of us who had seen Robbie in his rug-chewing fits. Robbie
would get extremely angry. It was impossible to deal with him. I’d seen him do that with
Murph, who was president, and Murph stayed calm through it all. But it wasn’t, I think, until
Mettler saw Robbie like this that something was done. As I say, Robbie’s a genius. He’s
brilliant. He’s visionary, and he had some great ideas; but there was that 5 percent of the time.
You wonder if you could take the risk on something like that, and I believe the trustees—the
trustees were terribly divided. There were some people who wanted to keep Robbie and fire
Murph. I’m sure there was a spectrum of opinion.
Where should we go now? We’ve almost gotten to 1982, 1983, when my divorce from
Kellogg occurred and after that—after I was booted out—Koonin and Barnes took over.
ASPATURIAN: Under what circumstances were you, as you say, booted out?
TOMBRELLO: Well—
ASPATURIAN: If you want to talk about it.
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