Citizen Scientist: Frank Von Hippel’s Adventures in Nuclear Arms Control PART 5. Working in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

Abstract

Von Hippel describes his introduction to the ways of the government bureaucracy as an assistant director in the White House Office of Science and Technology (OSTP). He describes providing White House support to the lab-to-lab program through which the US helped Russia strengthen the security of its nuclear materials and his visits to the Kurchatov Institute and Russia’s first plutonium city to discuss such upgrades, and also the false starts that delayed the replacement of the heat and electricity generated by Russia’s last three operating plutonium-production reactors so that they could be shut down. He also describes some the other efforts in which he became consequentially involved: ending HEU use in research-reactor fuel, opening up the issue of converting US naval reactors to low-enriched uranium, shutting down Experimental Breeder Reactor II, raising safety issues with NASA’s plutonium-heat-powered Cassini mission to Saturn, and a failed attempt to intervene in the UK’s decision to launch its new THORP reprocessing plant into operation. Finally, he explains why he left OSTP eight months before his originally planned return to Princeton. He also discusses his failed nongovernmental initiative to promote an end to the production of fissile materials for weapons in South Asia and the Clinton Administration’s half-hearted efforts to negotiate warhead arms control with Russia. Finally, he discusses highlights of his life in Washington, DC and the lessons he learned about working in the government.