Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–135
candidates came and gave talks. He came and gave a talk. I don’t know what happened on the
committee. But he ended up being the candidate. He was not a successful president. He was
smart enough to be.
ASPATURIAN: Were you, as a physicist, pleased initially to have this physics individual—?
TOMBRELLO: I was worried.
ASPATURIAN: You were.
TOMBRELLO: I was worried about this one. There wasn’t enough of a track record of having run
anything. DuBridge had run something. Millikan could run anything. And Brown, of course,
had run a bunch of things. You knew the track record. You knew how successful he’d been at it.
The question with Brown was, was he enough of a scientist? The question with Murph was, was
he serious? And the answer was, I don’t think he was serious. He was a great amateur president.
A gifted amateur is the way I’d characterize him. He had political skills that were unexpected
and were good. He was bright, obviously; he’s a very fine scientist. He had operated in
Washington. He’d been a founder of JASON. So he did have Washington connections. I don’t
think he understood that this is a full-time job. I think he and Mildred [Mrs. Goldberger] were
rude to people. The trustees did not like it. He had Christy for a while and then picked Jack
[John D.] Roberts [Institute Professor of Chemistry, emeritus] to be the next provost. Roberts is
a great man. He was not necessarily a great provost, but—it can be a hard role to define yourself
in.
I tell this story about provosts. A friend of mine, John Deutch, was dean of science at
MIT. He had been in Washington as undersecretary of energy. Rice was looking for a new
president, and I had arranged for Rice to take a look at him. They ended up offering the job to
Deutch. And MIT, to keep him, made him provost. I remember that not long afterward we were
both at a Schlumberger party, and I said, “Boy, you really put your foot in it, John!” He laughs
and says, “No, it’s a promotion.” I said, “No, it’s not.” The person who had recently been the
president of MIT—Jerome Wiesner—was standing there, because he was on the Schlumberger
board, and he starts laughing. I think he’s figured out what’s happening. I said, “John, this is not
the job for you.” He says, “Why not? It’s a bigger job than being dean.” I said, “No. You’re
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