Table Of ContentCREATING
Creating the Cold War University
Creating the Cold
War University
The Transformation of Stanford
Rebecca S. Lowen
University of California Press
Berkeley / Los Angeles / London
This book is a print-on-demand volume. It is manufactured
using toner in place of ink. Type and images may be less
sharp than the same material seen in traditionally printed
University of California Press editions.
University of California Press
US’
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
7
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
V 1997 by Rebecca S. Lowen
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lowen, Rebecca S., 1959-
Creating the Cold War university : die transformation of Stanford /
Rebecca S. Lowen.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-520-20541-3 (alk. paper)
1. Stanford University—History—20th century. 2. Universities
and colleges—California—Sociological aspects—Case studies.
3. Universities and colleges —Research —Political aspects—
California—Case studies. 4. Universities and colleges—Research—
Economic aspects—California—Case studies. I. Title.
LDzozo.L68 1997
378.794'73—dcao 96-5022
CIP
Manufactured in the United States of America
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992(R
1997)(Permanence of Paper)
In memory of my mother, Joan Koi berg Lowen,
and for my father, Robert W Lowen
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
Introduction I
i
The Thirties 17
2
Stanford Goes to War 43
Z
Eroding Departmental Autonomy 67
4
“Exploiting a Wonderful Opportunity” 95
5
A “Win-Win-Win” Relationship 120
6
Building Steeples of Excellence 147
7
Private Foundations and the “Behavioral Revolution” 191
8
The Undergraduates 224
ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES 2ZY
NOTES 241
BIBLIOGRAPHY 291
INDEX ZOZ
Acknowledgments
One of the satisfactions in coming to the end of a project
is the opportunity to acknowledge the many people, institutions, and
organizations that made its completion possible.
For their financial support, I thank the Center for International Secu
rity and Arms Control at Stanford University for a MacArthur fellow
ship in Peace and Security Studies; the National Science Foundation for
a Science, Technology and Society fellowship; the Smithsonian Institu
tion’s National Air and Space Museum for a Guggenheim fellowship;
and the Center for the History of Physics of the American Institute
of Physics for a travel grant. To the administrators and staff of these
organizations, I extend my gratitude.
I should also like to thank the historians, students, and staffs of those
institutions where, first as a graduate student and then as a postdoctoral
scholar, I did most of the work on this book: the history department at
Stanford University, the history of science department at Johns Hop
kins University, and the National Air and Space Museum’s Division of
Space History. A number of people deserve special mention. I had the
good fortune to have as a graduate advisor a gifted and dedicated
teacher and scholar, Barton Bernstein. I thank him for teaching me the
historian’s craft, for his dependable interest in this project, and espe
cially for his steady faith in my abilities. I should also like to thank
Gregg Herkcn and Robert Smith of the Air and Space Museum for
ensuring that I had access to a computer and a place to work and for
creating, along with the other members of the space history division, a
wonderfully congenial environment in which to think and write. I am
especially grateful to Allan Needcll for the opportunity to present a
ix
X ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
portion of this work in the Museum’s history of science seminar, and
to Sharon Kingsland of the Johns Hopkins history of science depart
ment for inviting me to present my work in the department’s seminar.
I also offer my special thanks to those members of the Johns Hopkins
community who welcomed this native Californian into their midst and
helped me to make the adjustment to life in the Baltimore-Washington,
D.C. area.
A host of archivists and their staffs made possible the research on
which this book is based. I am indebted to the extraordinarily capable,
dedicated, and friendly staff of the Stanford University Archives, where
I conducted the major portion of my research. I thank Archivist Rox
anne Nilan for providing access to all relevant archival collections and
for accommodating my work schedule; Hilary Shore and Robin Chan
dler for responding patiently to my countless paging requests; and
Linda Long for expertly answering my many questions and sharing her
vast knowledge of the Stanford collections. I should also like to thank
Margaret Kimball, Karen McAdams, Steven Mandeville-Gamble, Mark
Dimunation, and Henry Lowood, Stanford’s physics librarian and an
historian of science, for their assistance.
Thanks are also due the archivists and staffs of the Hoover Institu
tion, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, the Niels Bohr Library of
the American Institute of Physics, the Carnegie Institute of Washing
ton, the National Archives, the Library of Congress, and the several
university archives that I visited in the course of my research. I should
like especially to thank Roger Anders of the Department of Energy for
facilitating access to material related to the funding and construction of
the Stanford Linear Accelerator; Allan Divack of the Ford Foundation
for his cordial assistance with the foundation’s collections; and David
Van Kcuren for mediating between me and the less-than-welcoming
staff of the Office of Naval Research's Naval Research Advisory Com
mittee.
I am also very grateful to all those current and former members of
the Stanford community who kindly agreed to my requests to interview
them. I should particularly like to acknowledge the late Philip Rhine
lander, who, although gravely ill, encouraged my visits and my ques
tions. I also extend my very sincere thanks to the Termans—Lewis, Ter
ence, Frederick, Jr., and his wife, Bobbie—who set aside an entire
morning to answer my questions and share with me their memories of
their father and grandfather and never once asked about, or attempted
to control, the content of this project.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi
Many people kindly read and commented on this book during its
various stages of revision. Barton Bernstein, Gordon Chang, Peter Gali-
son, Karl Hufbauer, Robert Kargon, Otis Pease, and David Tyack read
the entire manuscript in its earliest incarnation, providing encourage
ment and many helpful suggestions. I owe special thanks to Bruce
Hcvly, who took time away from his own work to introduce me to the
literature in the history of science and to read carefully every draft of
this work that I shared with him.
I also benefited from the comments of those who read the revised
manuscript, in part or in its entirety: Brian Balogh, David DcVorkin,
Carol Gruber, Christophe Lecuycr, Allan Needed, Larry Owens, Ed
ward Shils, Spencer Wcart, and an anonymous reviewer for the Univer
sity of California Press. I should like especially to thank Michael Bern
stein for a helpful reading of the manuscript; Sigmund Diamond for
his early endorsement of this project and for sharing with me a useful
source; and Peggy Pascoe for her incisive reading of the introduction
and her wise counsel over the years. I also owe many thanks to my
superlative editor, Elizabeth Knoll (now with W. H. Freeman), for her
enthusiasm for this book, for much sensible advice, and for her forbear
ance in the face of many missed deadlines. This book is the better for
the advice and criticisms I received; any remaining inadequacies are the
responsibility of the author.
My family and friends assisted me, in ways both concrete and intan
gible, over the course of research and writing, and I am deeply grateful
to them. In those instances when my pursuit of archival material took
me away from the comforts of home, I was fortunate to be offered a
place to stay and many wonderful meals by Ed and Rhoda Rossinow. I
was also hosted innumerable times by Sara Lowen and Tom Omcstad,
who provided excellent company, moral support, and, when needed,
enjoyable diversions from the tasks of research and writing. For their
steady support, I also thank: Todd Benson, Gloria Byrnes, Gertrude
Kolberg, the late Marillyn Johnson, Chris and Samara Lowen, and Di
ane Vik. During the writing of this book, I was indulged and cared for
by my husband, Douglas Rossinow; I could not have completed this
book without him. I thank him for listening, for his many thoughtful
comments, for buoying me during low moments, for his fabulous sense
of humor, and, not least of all, for doing all the cooking.
Finally, I should like to acknowledge my parents, who had perhaps
the greatest, if least easily articulated, influence on this work. Midwest
erners by birth, children of the Great Depression, they participated in
