Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories
Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories
Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories
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<strong>Tombrello</strong>–132<br />
In those days, candidates for president were on public view. They came and gave talks to<br />
the faculty. I remember Harold Brown coming to talk to Kellogg. We were down in the tandem<br />
accelerator control room. And Willy [Fowler] proceeds to try to lecture this guy. Whereupon,<br />
Brown really took control of the meeting and told Willy the way it was going to be. Very<br />
impressive. Extremely impressive. This was during the Vietnam War. This was a secretary of<br />
the air force. He had been director of Livermore when he was in his thirties. In some sense, he<br />
was a protégé of Edward Teller. Oh, my! He was identified <strong>with</strong> the military, the government—<br />
and <strong>with</strong> Edward Teller! Even in those days, especially in those days, physics was very much<br />
influenced by the old Oppenheimer–Teller thing—which side are you on? Look, Brown had<br />
been too young to be involved in any of that. But this was Oppenheimer country, and he was<br />
clearly identified <strong>with</strong> Teller. He may not have won our hearts, but he won our votes. It was one<br />
of the last times presidential candidates came and talked and got questioned. Really questioned.<br />
So Brown was an interesting choice, and he came here.<br />
DuBridge, I thought, had been a wonderful president. But he’d been in a long time, and<br />
toward the end of his term the bureaucracy had gotten Byzantine. It was not effective. There<br />
was too much of it. Harold Brown almost immediately, using the Sylmar earthquake [1971] and<br />
the damage to Throop Hall as a bit of an excuse, trimmed it and made the place tighter, better<br />
run, more efficient. Was he a visionary? No. If I had to grade the <strong>Caltech</strong> presidents I’d<br />
known—I did that once as an exercise—both DuBridge and Brown get an A. DuBridge because<br />
of vision. Clear accomplishment. Respect of the faculty. Respect of everybody, including the<br />
government. Brown was different. He was not the scientists’ scientist. But he managed the<br />
place beautifully. He was easy to communicate <strong>with</strong>. DuBridge didn’t get around. Brown did.<br />
I can remember once—I was still a junior faculty member, an associate professor <strong>with</strong>out<br />
tenure—looking up from what I was doing and there standing in my office door—this was after<br />
Bacher had stepped down and Christy was provost—are Brown and Christy, who have pounced<br />
on me. They were pouncing on a lot of other people, I gather—just making these on-the-spot<br />
visits. Let’s go see what so-and-so is doing and talk to them. Question them. It was very<br />
interesting. As I think I’ve said, Brown could tell you yes or no, and if it was no, forget it. If it<br />
was yes, the check was in the mail. He was a very interesting man. In some ways, he was my<br />
president at <strong>Caltech</strong>. Did he and Christy make mistakes? Everybody makes mistakes. I think<br />
one of the things that was a mistake—because they didn’t think it out clearly—was the social<br />
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