Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–141
opposite sides. But he would listen to me. I said, “You know, you have to listen to Drever,
because there is a story there—”
ASPATURIAN: That would be Ron Drever.
TOMBRELLO: Robbie just got frustrated with Drever and found that, you know, he just couldn’t
deal with him. The institute really didn’t know how to handle it. They wanted to support
Robbie. They brought in Lew Allen, who’d stepped down—finished his term—as head of JPL,
to head up the LIGO committee. Interesting man. I can remember when it all came unwound.
We’d gone to Washington, middle of a snowstorm, ice storm. Someone whose name has now
slipped my mind, but he was there as kind of an advisor, asked me if I was thinking of running. I
said, “Oh, no. I think Barry Barish is the obvious choice. The SSC [Superconducting Super
Collider] has just been shot down. He’s clearly capable of it. Technically sound. He doesn’t
have to prove that he can run it. He can run it.” We just sort of decided that while looking at our
plane being unstuck from the ice in Washington. They had found this LIGO advisory
committee. I got put on it. A story of that was interesting. That must have happened in the fall
of ’92, maybe.
ASPATURIAN: I’m trying to remember what you said in your LIGO oral history. That sounds
about right.
TOMBRELLO: And I may have told this story. Stephanie is back East, because her mother has
cancer and probably does not have long to live. I can’t remember the exact time scale, but it was
short. I was here, and I went to the president’s Christmas party. I was met at the door by Lew
Allen, grinning at me—Lew didn’t grin in general—and he said, “We have plans for you.” I
said, “Oh, my.” That’s when we decided this LIGO oversight committee was clearly an
important thing to have. That was also an interesting story, because, after I got away from him, I
went in the kitchen to get a drink and there was Christy. I had just read a book and I can’t
remember the exact title, but it was something like how Stalin got the bomb. Because a lot of
files had gotten opened up right after the Soviet Union came apart.
ASPATURIAN: Yes, that’s right.
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