Established in 1952, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a US federal research organization sponsored by the US Department of Energy and administered as a government-owned, contractor-operated facility. It was assigned national laboratory status in 1979. In writing this history, the author aims to capture LLNL's contribution to ‘the astonishing evolution of the scientific–military landscape’ (p. vii) during the second half of the twentieth century, stemming from its primary focus during the Cold War on developing nuclear weapons systems. He also sets out to present the laboratory's adjustment to the end of Cold War hostilities by becoming a world leader in fields such as supercomputing, laser science and the stewardship of stockpiled nuclear weapons.
As a theoretical physicist who joined Livermore in the 1960s, rising to become director from 1994 to 2002, Tarter was well suited to tackle a project which needs to navigate the boundaries of classified and unclassified sources. He shows how the well-known story of the creation of the world's first atomic bomb at Los Alamos during the Second World War was an early chapter in a much longer and broader narrative of nuclear weapons research. His detailed account of Livermore's highly sophisticated research programmes and the development of unique facilities demonstrates the evolution of an institution that was part of a vast enterprise on which the balance of the world order pivoted.
Tarter divides the post-war evolution of LLNL into three eras, 1952–71, 1971–88 and 1988–2008. The first section of the book begins with the immediate aftermath of the Second World War when the newly created Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) assumed responsibility for wartime atomic energy facilities such as Los Alamos. It covers how leading US physicists Edward Teller and Ernest Lawrence lobbied for the establishment of a second laboratory dedicated to nuclear weapons research, and the organizational arrangements and people that steered the laboratory in its early years. This is the section where the story of Livermore's Cold War science is told, a story of technical innovation in designing nuclear weapons that were added to the stockpile, of thermonuclear tests and the development of warheads for Polaris, the submarine-launched ballistic missile.
The middle part of the book deals with a changing environment in which nuclear weapons research began to be limited by reduced defence budgets and test ban treaties. Fortunately for Livermore, the AEC supported a new line of research into laser science. Advances in laser technology, along with involvement in magnetic fusion energy research, the Strategic Defense Initiative and changes to internal organization, are the main developments covered here.
The final section is concerned with the readjustments necessitated by the end of Cold War hostilities, told largely through Tarter's recollections of how Livermore colleagues reacted to the federal imperative to develop new missions and take advantage of the peace dividend. It tracks the development of LLNL as a steward of the nuclear weapons stockpile, the construction of major new experimental facilities and Livermore's lead in the development of parallel computing, while also covering the security breaches that tarnished the federal laboratories’ reputations. This period is defined by reviews of activities at Department of Energy laboratories, while the experiences at LLNL reflect the wider management trends of the 1990s with requirements for more stringent health and safety protocols, the development of quality processes and improved accounting systems.
The book's strengths lie with Tarter's insider knowledge, enabling him to provide such detail about Livermore's key personnel, scientific research trajectories and unique facilities. Some of the most interesting passages come from descriptions of interactions between politicians, public servants and scientists, for example over proposed nuclear test bans. His account of the disappointment experienced when Los Alamos was awarded new research programmes is one of many sections that reveal the underlying competition between Livermore and Los Alamos for federal funding and status. There are also fascinating anecdotes about engagement with Russian scientists and visiting Russian scientific establishments.
However, it is also because Tarter writes as an insider and a scientist that the book has shortcomings. At times there is an assumption of familiarity with the history of nuclear test programmes, the landscape of federally funded research and the US system of government, while the strictly chronological approach and ambitious scope make the reader work hard to keep track of all the detail; some organizational charts and a list of named scientists as appendices would have helped. While Tarter explains his decision not to include footnotes, this is a negative for historians and I was also disappointed in his approach to using oral histories, incorporating very few direct quotations and no discussion of his engagement with the methodology both as an interviewer and as a researcher.
Even more frustrating is that his focus on documenting the names of individuals who played a prominent part in driving these endeavours has resulted in an overwhelmingly one-dimensional account of men who occupied senior scientific, administrative and political positions. There is no room allowed to showcase the diversity of people, skills and interactions which made up the laboratory's inner workings and forged the workplace culture.
Primarily the book will appeal to readers with an interest in twentieth-century advances in physics and the intricacies of the nuclear complex. The book also offers insights for readers interested in scientists’ behaviours, such as attitudes to management, resistance to unionization and maintaining neutrality in public debate. For historians on the lookout for examples of the changing organization of government-funded research, there are descriptions of reviews and new management practices, yet the practicalities of an adjustment to what Tarter refers to as ‘compliance with orders’ remain obscure, while passing references to privatization are left hanging. As Tarter himself hopes, his study paves the way for further research in telling the story of the laboratory as it negotiated organizational change and adding alternative perspectives on the culture and experiences of working life inside Livermore.
