Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) exists to assure, through science and technology, the national security of the United States. To accomplish this purpose, LANL must produce high-quality, multidisciplinary, classified and unclassified scientific research and development for solving complex problems of national importance. In the past, the LANL Fellows* have strongly supported the Department of Energy's (DOE) selection of the University of California (UC) as the LANL contractor.¹ At this critical time in LANL's history, the LANL Fellows wish to reaffirm their support for UC’s continued scientific management of the Laboratory and for the importance of its nurturing environment for scientific excellence.

LANL has missions in the areas of nuclear stockpile stewardship, threat reduction, and strategic and supporting research. To fulfill these missions, LANL must have world-class competency in a number of diverse scientific disciplines. LANL must bring together the best people and finest equipment in an interactive research environment focused on finding solutions to these national challenges. The continuous association with UC has enabled LANL to achieve both goals: to be a world leader in diversified sciences and to be able to recognize, meet, and solve relevant national challenges, ranging from small, specialized problems to large-scale interdisciplinary projects. (The first such large-scale interdisciplinary project was the Manhattan Project.)

LANL's mission and programs require great science, and the quality of its science depends directly on the quality of its people. For over 50 years, LANL has benefited from having world-renowned scientists on its staff (see the Appendix). In many cases, these scientists chose to work at Los Alamos because of the prestigious employment with UC, the nation's largest and most acclaimed public research institution. The UC employee benefits package is another important element when attempting to hire the best and brightest in a highly competitive marketplace. LANL attracts, hires, and retains superior scientific staff for three major reasons: LANL's excellent reputation as a place where one can do cutting-edge science, the strategic national importance of our work, and the prestige and integrity of the University of California. These UC advantages are vitally important today and will remain so in the future.

Scientific excellence and integrity require an interactive workplace and collegial atmosphere to allow creative thought and free-flowing exchange of new, sometimes controversial, ideas. LANL staff must be able to interact with colleagues worldwide at conferences and through journal publications that provide important peer reviews and stimulate new concepts in our unclassified science (that often later finds application to our classified work). Consistent with requirements of security, similar exchange of ideas and peer review are no less important to the creativity of the community of weapons scientists at the national laboratories. UC has always demanded scientific integrity, which is absolutely crucial for LANL to be successful in its national security missions. UC has supported the Laboratory's efforts to strive for the ultimate science-based workplace. Under UC leadership, LANL has thrived for over 50 years.

Recognized worldwide for its excellence in scientific research, UC also has extensive experience overseeing large laboratories including Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories. For more than half a century, UC has worked intensively with Los Alamos and understands the scope and special nature of our work. UC performs its oversight of LANL as a public service, helping the Laboratory provide science while protecting the information it applies to our nation’s security. UC has worked with LANL to improve operations and ensure a safe and secure workplace, and it has been responsive to DOE's changing requirements. UC uses results of performance-based, peer-reviewed science management in its oversight of LANL.

UC influences science and operations at LANL in the following important ways. The LANL Director is an officer of UC, similar to the Chancellor of a UC campus, and reports to the UC President. At five-year intervals, a board appointed by the UC President reviews the performance of the Laboratory Director. The UC President's Council on the National Laboratories has been established by UC to advise the president on all aspects of UC's management responsibilities. UC faculty is represented on external committees appointed by the Laboratory Director to review the technical divisions at LANL at least annually. The President's Council provides an overall assessment of LANL's performance based on the reviews of the technical divisions. In addition, the council's National Security Panel visits LANL and Livermore annually to review the work supported by DOE defense programs and the non-proliferation and national security programs. Some of the fee paid to UC to manage LANL is returned to LANL and used, at the discretion of the Laboratory Director, to support joint research between LANL staff and faculty at the UC campuses and the four New Mexico research universities. The strong science-in-national-service focus of UC has enabled LANL to develop the multidisciplinary science base needed to carry out its missions.

As our contractor, UC has demanded all the requirements for great science: excellent staff, collegial work atmosphere, essential equipment, and experienced peer review. Consequently, LANL is one of the most highly acclaimed scientific organizations in the world. As an indicator of our scientific excellence, peer review, and dissemination of unclassified information, LANL has more journal publications since 1977 than any other national laboratory.² These publications report important scientific developments in the areas of national security, energy technology, high-speed computing, and fundamental physics, chemistry, and life sciences. Some of these accomplishments are listed in the Appendix.

LANL's mission in weapons science is to certify indefinitely the performance, reliability, and safety of the enduring nuclear weapons stockpile without nuclear testing. This mission requires the development of new analytical and experimental techniques and the training of a new cadre of scientists, engineers, and technicians. In addition to this challenge, LANL provides technological solutions to a wide range of equally daunting international issues such as non-proliferation, counter-terrorism, bio-remediation and mitigation, energy, and environmental security. To fulfill these defense and societal roles, LANL must continue to be a multidisciplinary laboratory at the forefront of science. The solutions to these national problems, which may have political implications, absolutely require the highest standards of scientific integrity. To date, LANL has accomplished these missions by virtue of its strong relationship with UC.

Since the Laboratory's inception during the Manhattan Project, UC has managed the Laboratory as a public service. UC's values, reputation, infrastructure, and experience have served the nation and LANL well. UC has fostered a professional atmosphere at LANL and nurtured an environment that is essential for innovation and productivity in both research and development. We believe that the level of excellence, integrity, and respect brought to LANL by our UC association could not be matched by any other potential contractor. If the UC contract were to be terminated, it would diminish the quality of the LANL R&D efforts to the detriment of our national missions. It would lead to both a short and long term attrition of our laboratory scientists and engineers and greatly impede our ability to attract the best and brightest of future generations.

We can continue to satisfy LANL's evolving missions only if we maintain and develop our world-class science capability in many disciplines. We must have the best people, equipment, and workplace atmosphere to continue our scientific and technological accomplishments. The association with UC has been and continues to be critical for the success of LANL's scientific endeavors. In our opinion, there exists no institution better qualified to oversee LANL's scientific activities than the University of California.

Our Laboratory Director Dr. John Browne has said, "The challenge today and in the coming decade to ensure the safety and reliability of the US nuclear deterrent without nuclear testing is as great as any faced in our history. The University's role is as important now as ever."** The Fellows of the Los Alamos National Laboratory concur.

**Testimony by LANL Director Dr. John Browne to the House Oversight and investigations Subcommittee of the Committee of Commerce on 7/11/00.

Nuclear Weapons: LANL has designed, tested, and certified the majority of weapons in the nation's nuclear stockpile since 1945. LANL developed the first nuclear weapons (1945); demonstrated the ignition of thermonuclear fuel (1951); tested the first thermonuclear weapon (1952); developed VELA satellite verification of atmospheric test-ban treaty (1963); designed PHERMEX (1963) and DARHT (1999) x-ray radiography facilities and proton radiography (1995) for the study of the dynamics of dense matter; used the high-intensity LAMPF proton accelerator for nuclear weapons studies (1972); developed insensitive high explosives (1974); and developed CORRTEX to verify underground yields (1985).

Science and Engineering: LANL constructed the world's third nuclear reactor (1944) and the first plutonium reactor (1946); produced the first liquefied helium-3 (1948); developed the Monte-Carlo (1947) and Sn discrete ordinates method (1953) for solving radiation transport computations; created the Metropolis Monte Carlo algorithm (1953); built and tested nuclear powered rockets (1955); detected the neutrino (1956); demonstrated the first thermonuclear plasma in laboratory fusion studies (1958); used plutonium-238 as a space-power source (1959); developed the Stretch computer in collaboration with IBM (1961); invented heat pipe technology (1963); produced direct conversion of nuclear to electrical power by high-temperature thermionic conversion (1967); built the ultra-high temperature nuclear reactor (1969); used the high-intensity LAMPF proton accelerator for nuclear studies (1972); began hot dry rock program (1978); discovered the universality of chaos in deterministic systems (1979); began the operation the national database GenBank for nucleic-acid (1982); discovered heavy-fermion superconductors (1982); invented thermoacoustic heat engines and refrigerators (1983); published the first edition of nucleotide-sequence data for HIV samples (1987); created a neutral particle beam in space (1989); produced the first widely-used electronic e-print archive (1991); manufactured high-temperature superconducting wire (1995); demonstrated quantum cryptography through 40 km of fiber optic cable for the first time (1997); and demonstrated the feasibility of sending a quantum cryptography key pad to an earth-orbiting satellite (1999).

These accomplishments have been possible at LANL only because we have had a long and illustrious history of having outstanding scientific personnel. Seven Nobel Laureates have been technically associated with the Laboratory. In the combined National Academies of Sciences and Engineering, we have a total of 11 members - more than any other national laboratory. Many Los Alamos scientists have been honored by selection as Fellows of their scientific and professional societies including American Physical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Geophysical Union, American Nuclear Society, the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, etc. In addition, numerous LANL scientists have been recipients of prestigious awards for outstanding achievement as presented by major national and international scientific and professional societies. This includes more national R&D 100 winners (63) in the last twelve years than any other institution.⁵ This legacy of scientific excellence is the backbone of LANL and provides the bridge to the future that will enable us to solve the emerging technological problems of our society.

1. "The University of California as the Contractor of Los Alamos National Laboratory: An Indispensable Relationship for the Laboratory, New Mexico, and the United States," Woody Woodruff, Louis Rosen, Terry Mitchell, Jill Trewhella, and Jeffrey Hay on behalf of the Fellows of Los Alamos National Laboratory, December 19, 1995.

2. William H. Woodruff, data from SciSearch Institute for Scientific Information, licensed to the Los Alamos National Laboratory Research Library, 2000.

3. Los Alamos Science, "40," Number 7, Winter/Spring 1983.

4. Los Alamos Science, "The Laboratory's 50th Anniversary," Number 21, 1993.

5. "Los Alamos National Laboratory Science and Technology Assessment," STB-UC-99-106, August, 1999.