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