Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–226
intended. It was doing things that nobody had intended. Things went wrong, and they worked
around them. It was a strong team, led by a brilliant scientist. I’ve already declared my absolute
admiration for Ed Stone, so anything I say next is not meant to detract from that, but is meant to
make him into a human being who had other characteristics too.
He became PMA division chair [1983-88] after Robbie Vogt. That was not easy for him.
Robbie had been senior to him in the cosmic-ray group and probably had something to do with
recruiting Ed onto the team. I think it always bothered Robbie that with Voyager Ed was now
advancing beyond where Robbie had been. Now he was Ed’s boss, as provost, and as I
mentioned earlier about Carl Anderson and Bob Bacher, this was another case where the provost
was still trying to be PMA chairman too. Stone managed to work around it. But one thing I’ve
learned about Ed is that as a manager Ed always sails before the wind. Not in equipment design.
Not in mission design. But in decisions in the division about whether to keep somebody or let
them go, to give them tenure or not—Ed always took the easy way. He compromised. Was he a
successful division chair? Yes, he was. But there was always this question when push came to
shove: Would Ed take the easy way out? And he did, any number of times. But, as I said earlier
[Session 2], he was also the one who gave me the chance to organize the physics staffing
committee. He backed it. So am I going to complain about it? No, not really. But Ed is not
perfect. He is nearly perfect. [Laughter]
Then he went to JPL as director [1991], and this taking the easy way is a bad
characteristic to have as director. He got led astray by the head of NASA, Dan Goldin. Dan is
an interesting story in his own right. In 1992, I was on the Space Policy Advisory Board, a large,
powerful group. It had Edward Teller on it, and sometime toward the end of 1992 Edward
managed to get to the person we reported to, [Vice President] Dan Quayle, and sell him this story
that Admiral [Richard] Truly—who was the NASA administrator—was doing a bad job and
should be replaced. This story came to me from Allan Bromley, who was presidential science
advisor at that point to Bush 41 [President George H. W. Bush]. Truly was brought in to talk to
the president. Bush has to explain that Truly is being fired. Truly says, “Mr. President, can you
give me a reason?” Bush says, “Frankly, I can’t.” [Laughter] It was Lowell Wood and Edward
Teller—Lowell was the evil little person who was a protégé of Teller’s, and not one of his
successful ones. Well, successful in some ways; he was one of the architects of Star Wars, a lot
of it fraudulent, that Livermore did. So Goldin got in because Teller and Wood thought that they
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