Word: woodruff
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Tensions over the development of the X-ray laser might have remained behind closed doors if Woodruff had not been demoted by Livermore Director Roger Batzel in what Woodruff claims was retaliation for trying to put a lid on Teller. Prior to his transfer, Woodruff was responsible for proposed SDI weapons like the X-ray laser, a device that was supposed to channel the intense X rays from a nuclear bomb into a beam of radiation. In theory, the X rays would be capable of destroying enemy ICBMs in mid-flight. But tests showed that although such devices work...
...Woodruff questions whether Teller passed along such doubts to the President or his aides. In 1983, he points out, Teller sent a letter to then White House Science Adviser George Keyworth saying the laser was ready for "engineering phase" -- implying that only a few details remained to be worked out before the weapon could be built. And as late as 1987, Lowell Wood, a manager of weapons development at Livermore and Teller's protege, told a House subcommittee how "X-ray lasers can be used to destroy any type of platforms in space, including defensive platforms, so the counterdefensive role...
...Woodruff claims he confronted Lab Director Batzel several times, asking him to refute the claims made by Teller and Wood. Batzel allegedly refused. According to Woodruff, Batzel explained by saying "No one listens to Edward and Lowell." In fact, says Woodruff, at that time "Teller was the only guy in the lab who could go and see the President." Because of Teller's reputation for hyperbole, concedes Democratic Representative from California George Brown Jr., an SDI opponent and the member of the House intelligence committee who initiated a General Accounting Office probe, "Those in Congress and the scientific community tend...
...late 1985 Woodruff resigned to protest Batzel's inaction and asked for a transfer; he was demoted to a lower-level position and denied salary increases. After a two-year investigation, the University of California ruled in December that Woodruff had been unfairly reassigned. He was promptly named head of Livermore's verification program, which advises the Defense Department on technical issues concerning compliance with arms-control treaties...
Teller and Wood, for their part, refuse to comment directly on Woodruff's charges. Even so, Teller told TIME last week, "I'm most unhappy to see a great scientific discovery, the X-ray laser, is reported not for its merits or its possible use for defense, but as an object of controversy." Contends Livermore Physicist Hugh DeWitt: "Woodruff did a damn good job of blowing the whistle on the extravagant claims of those two men." And while Woodruff's employment status has been resolved, the issues have not. The conclusions of the GAO investigation are expected by June...