X Division at Los Alamos

Yesterday I attended an overview talk for postdocs on the X Division at Los Alamos. Popular Science describes the X Division as, "... Los Alamos National Laboratory's highly prestigious and supersecret X  Division, where some of the world's biggest eggheads handle the applied physics of our nuke stockpile....". The division leader -- whose name I probably shouldn't divulge as who knows what trouble I might get into :-) -- was quite earnest about the significance of the work being done there both from national security and "interesting physics" point of view. It was morbidly fascinating to hear about the different groups working there: the Primary Design Group which works on fisson based stuff and the Secondary Design Group which works on fusion based stuff and so on.

This overview was done from a recruitment point of view so that lab postdocs would consider working X Division as possible career. There was only a handful of postdocs which attended this (of which atleast some, like me just came for the morbid curiousity). This is not surprising because the Popular Science magazine just featured X Division in the 10 worst jobs in science, below jobs like Orang-Utan Pee Collector! Here is the excerpt from that article (for full article go to Popular Science Magazine Website):

 

5.Nuclear-Weapons Scientist

They've mastered fusion. Next up: Filing

This job hasn't been any fun since the disastrous espionage trial against Wen Ho Lee in 1999. Now it's gotten worse. Lee was a naturalized citizen who had worked for 20 years at Los Alamos National Laboratory's highly prestigious and supersecret X Division, where some of the world's biggest eggheads handle the applied physics of our nuke stockpile. The FBI suspected him of selling secrets to the Chinese.

After some seriously abusive jailhouse tactics, for which an appalled federal judge apologized, Lee pled guilty to one, almost trifling, count of mishandling classified data and was immediately released (the judge sentenced him to the 278 days of solitary he had already served). Nevertheless, the X Division's sterling reputation had been badly tarnished.

Not long after, more classified data-storage tapes went missing and then showed up behind a copy machine, and the FBI returned for more interrogations . . . er, interviews.

Then, in 2004, came an eye-burning laser accident with an intern, and yet another case of missing data tapes. In a lab-wide lecture, the since-retired director called his scientists "buttheads" and "cowboys" (never good for morale) and ordered a costly months-long lab shutdown so that the scientists could learn to file paper like pro bureaucrats, not absent-minded professors.

But wait, those last missing tapes? An FBI investigation concluded that they probably never existed in the first place; it was all a clerical error. But the damage had been done. For the first time since Oppenheimer, the federal government put Los Alamos's management up for industry bid, offering an annual $79-million contract nearly 10 times as much as the University of California is now paid to run the lab and fed-up scientists are retiring in droves.

As for the younger brainiacs, surely they can find a job in academia, right? Not exactly, lamented one X Division scientist, who declined to be quoted for fear of retribution. Since most of their work is classified, there's often no record of having ever published anything.

Of course I am sure that it isn't quite as bad as that. X Division folks reading this might want to comment.

Comments

[Geoffrey Alan Cope]

Actually, it's much, much, much (did I mention much?) worse. A relativistic relative of mine has his retirement tied to the UC system and will lose all of it if the contract goes to someone else. Perhaps the government could recruit physicists from the SSC which is being built in Europe instead of Texas. This would save on expensive recruiting trips because the succesor to GPS is also being built by the Europeans and it's reasonable to assume there will be more trained scientists and engineers in Europe. But hey, we've got the human genome project, right? Right? Or perhaps they could just read Pages 97-111 of "Triumphs and Tragedies of the Modern Presidency" edited by David Abshire (ISBN 0-275-97351-4). Funny how those "lessons learned" appear AFTER the section on pardoning Nixon!

It should be much easier to have the biologists learn theoretical and experimental physics than to have the physicists learn biology (Discovering DNA was the exception to the Rule).

Good luck with that recruiting!

[Geoffrey Alan Cope]

Concerning the book "Triumphs and Tragedies of the Modern Presidency" edited by David Abshire:

Page 205 reads:

"Bloody terrorist attacks on the U.S. embassy (in April 1983) and on the Marine barracks (in October) finally shattered domestic support. Reagan withdrew the U.S. forces in February 1994 as the Gemayel government was engulfed."

You read it here first. Reagan pulled the troops out in 1994 (not a typo).

Revisionist historians or morons who can't proofread their own work? Perhaps they don't understand that a misplaced semicolon, dash, or dot ruins projects that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Perhaps they don't understand that converting from the MKS system to the British system and back might (just might!) save expensive satellites.

You can write David M. Abshire at:

center@thepresidency.org

I did, and I haven't heard anything back. More good luck with that recruiting!