Science: Fallout Over Seaborg

• Share

No scientist could have more imposing credentials: Nobel laureate in chemistry, co-discoverer of plutonium and eight other synthetic elements, former chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley and longtime associate director of its famed Lawrence Radiation Laboratory. Yet Glenn Seaborg is currently the center of a bitter controversy that has sharply divided the nation's largest and most powerful private scientific organization. At issue is whether the three-term chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission should also serve as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which has 130,000 members. If a scientist works for the U.S. Government, can he honestly speak for science as a whole without a conflict of interest?

32,000 Deaths. The row is no ordinary academic tempest. For many members of the A.A.A.S., Seaborg's recent selection by an inner circle of 530 special electors raises extremely serious questions about the organization's very future. Should it continue its above-the-battle posture? Or should it begin taking strong stands on social and moral issues involving science, such as the use of herbicides by the U.S. in Viet Nam? With Seaborg or any other Government official as president, these activists fear that criticism of Government policies by the A.A.A.S. would be extremely difficult, if not impossible. They may well voice their fears in an impromptu floor debate at the association's annual meeting in Chicago this week.

Seaborg's election is also being attacked for less ideological reasons. Earlier this year, two investigators stunned the scientific community by asserting that there would be an extra 32,000 cancer deaths a year if Americans were exposed to the maximum dosages of radiation permitted under the AEC's existing safety standards for nuclear power plants. Ironically, the scientists, Arthur R. Tamplin and John W. Gofman, who have just amplified their case in a book sardonically titled 'Population Control' Through Nuclear Pollution, did their work at Seaborg's old scientific haunt, the Lawrence Radiation Lab, which is entirely supported by AEC funds. The AEC vigorously denied their charges, but Senator Edmund Muskie, chairman of the Senate's Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution, found them serious enough to ask for an independent investigation by the A.A.A.S. In particular, Muskie wants to know if the AEC harassed Tamplin and Gofman, as they claim it did.

Oblivious to the furor, the A.A.A.S.'s nominating committee picked Seaborg as one of its presidential candidates last June. The organization's board of directors immediately raised the conflict-of-interest question. At least eleven of the 13 board members—including Environmentalist Barry Commoner (TIME cover, Feb. 2)—questioned the choice of Seaborg, whose election they felt was certain because the other nominee was a relatively unknown acoustical expert, Richard H. Bolt. Furthermore, even though the A.A.A.S. had not yet acted on Muskie's request, the board members pointed out that one of the organization's committees was already planning to study the environmental effects of power plants, a subject that could easily put the group at odds with the AEC—and thus with its own incoming president.