PL
M & R Records Center
"635 Laboratory Program" Folders
On 8 Jan. 58, Bradbury sent a letter to Starbird expressing his feelings
about where the LASL has come to and where weapons development has come, partly
in light of the possibility of a moratorium on testing, and Bradbury is just
generally "worrying."
His thinking in this particular instance seems to be
driven by current questions about how a moratorium would affect LASL and
Bradbury refers to Starbird's "somewhat surprised reaction" to his recent
reply to Starbird's query along these lines.
Apparently due to the transition
of LASL from being a pretty freely operating, independent laboratory making good
progress for the money they were receiving, Bradbury generally feels that the
two weapons laboratories are now making very little progress per the dollar
invested and are much more prone to control from the bureaucracy, in particular
the military.
He feels that perhaps a moratorium would be a good thing in a
certain sense right now:
"If we had to sit down and think, if we had time to
sit down ard think, we might think of something.
It is very unlikely that with
the press of affairs as they are, and with the general attitude of the commission
what it is, and with our own response what it is that we will have the intellectual
fortitude to say ‘No!' to any proposal, nor will we, with the continual workload
thustare
(which we will partly bring upon ourselves) find the-édbestve 'new' idea if it
exists at all.
..
.
A moratorium followed by the possibility of further testing
would at least force us to take stock of our whole situation.
own impression that LASL has let itself
...
It is my
get slightly too bogged down in mass
production of weapon designs, and that we should try to take that aspect of our
life a little easier and work a little harder in general research - which is
thought to be good for the country too!
It is for reasons like this that the
thought of a moratorium, cast in the proper context, is not too painful."
One of the last paragraphs is particular significant to just give an insight to