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Richard L. Garwin, a key figure in the development of America’s hydrogen bomb, whose insights influenced postwar defense strategies and contributed to advancements in understanding the universe, medicine, and computer technology, passed away on Tuesday at his residence in Scarsdale, N.Y. He was 97.
His son, Thomas, verified his death.
A multifaceted physicist and geopolitical strategist, Dr. Garwin was instrumental in constructing the worldâs initial fusion bomb at the young age of 23. Subsequently, he served as a scientific advisor to numerous presidents, conceived weapons and satellite surveillance systems for the Pentagon, advocated for a balanced Soviet-American nuclear deterrent as the optimal approach to enduring the Cold War, and championed verifiable nuclear arms control accords.
Although Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi, his mentor, regarded him as “the only true genius I have ever met,” Dr. Garwin was not the primary originator of the hydrogen bomb. The Hungarian-born physicist Edward Teller and the Polish mathematician Stanislaw Ulam, who formulated theories for such a weapon, might hold greater claim to that distinction.
Nevertheless, in 1951-52, Dr. Garwin, then an instructor at the University of Chicago and a summer consultant at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, engineered the actual bomb based on the Teller-Ulam principles. Designated Ivy Mike, the experimental device was transported to the Western Pacific and tested on an atoll within the Marshall Islands.
Designed purely to validate the fusion concept, the contraption bore little resemblance to an actual weapon. It weighed 82 tons, precluding aerial deployment, and resembled a massive thermos. Soviet scientists, who did not test a similar device until 1955, disparagingly referred to it as a thermonuclear installation.
However, at the Enewetak Atoll on Nov. 1, 1952, its power was undeniable: An immense fusion of atoms unleashed a blinding flash of light, inaudible to distant observers, and a two-mile-wide fireball generating a force 700 times greater than the atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima in 1945. Its mushroom cloud ascended 25 miles and broadened to span 100 miles.
Due to the secrecy surrounding the development of America’s thermonuclear weapons programs, Dr. Garwin’s contribution to the creation of the first hydrogen bomb was largely unacknowledged for decades beyond a limited circle of governmental defense and intelligence personnel. It was Dr. Teller, long linked to the bomb, who initially publicly recognized his work.
“The shot was fired almost precisely according to Garwin’s design,” Dr. Teller stated in 1981, acknowledging the pivotal role of the young scientist. Yet, this belated acknowledgment received scant attention, and Dr. Garwin remained largely anonymous to the broader public.
Dr. Garwin’s bomb was rudimentary compared to later thermonuclear weapons. Nonetheless, its sheer destructive force echoed films of the initial atomic bomb test in New Mexico in 1945 and the dismayed reaction of its creator, J. Robert Oppenheimer, as he reflected upon the sacred Hindu text of the Bhagavan-Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
For Dr. Garwin, it evoked a different perspective.
“I never felt that building the hydrogen bomb was the most important thing in the world, or even in my life at the time,” he expressed to Esquire magazine in 1984. In response to concerns of guilt, he stated, “I think it would be a better world if the hydrogen bomb had never existed. But I knew the bombs would be used for deterrence.”
Transition to IBM
Despite conceiving the first hydrogen bomb, Dr. Garwin did not witness its detonation at Enewetak. “I’ve never seen a nuclear explosion,” he stated during a 2018 interview. “I didn’t want to take the time.”
Dr. Garwin recounted that he faced a critical decision point in 1952, subsequent to his success with the hydrogen bomb project. He could return to the University of Chicago, where he obtained his doctorate under Fermi and served as an assistant professor, with the promise of a prominent position at a leading academic institution.
Alternatively, he could accept a more flexible position at the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). This included a faculty appointment and access to the Thomas J. Watson Laboratory at Columbia University, accompanied by substantial freedom to explore his research interests. It also allowed him to continue his government consulting work at Los Alamos and in Washington.
He chose the IBM opportunity, which spanned four decades until his retirement.
At IBM, Dr. Garwin engaged in a wide range of pure and applied research projects, resulting in an impressive number of patents, scientific publications, and technological advancements in computing, communications, and medicine. His contributions were essential to the development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), high-speed laser printers, and later, touch-screen monitors.
As a dedicated innovator, Dr. Garwin dedicated several decades to furthering the search for gravitational wavesâdistortions in space-time predicted by Einstein. In 2015, the expensive detectors he supported successfully detected these waves, opening a new perspective on the universe.
Concurrently, Dr. Garwin continued his governmental work, advising on national defense matters. As an expert in weapons of mass destruction, he contributed to the selection of high-priority Soviet targets and directed research on land, sea, and air warfare involving nuclear-equipped submarines, military and civilian aircraft, and satellite surveillance and communication systems. Much of his work was classified, and he remained largely unknown to the broader public.
He served as an advisor to Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton. He also became a vocal critic of President Ronald Reagan’s proposals for a space-based missile defense system, commonly referred to as Star Wars, designed to protect the nation from nuclear attacks. The system was never implemented.
One of Dr. Garwin’s well-known confrontations was unrelated to national defense. In 1970, as a member of Nixonâs science advisory board, he opposed the presidentâs support for developing the supersonic transport (SST) plane. He argued that the SST would be costly, noisy, environmentally damaging, and commercially unviable. Congress subsequently withdrew its funding. Although Britain and France subsidized the development of their own SST, the Concorde, Dr. Garwinâs predictions proved largely accurate, and interest waned.
Conflicts with the Military
Dr. Garwin, a small, academic figure with thinning hair and a soft voice more fitting for university lectures than congressional hearings, became a celebrated figure within defense circles. He frequently delivered speeches, authored articles, and testified before lawmakers regarding what he perceived as misguided choices within the Pentagon.
Some of his disagreements with the military were intense and protracted, including disputes over the B-1 bomber, the Trident nuclear submarine, and the MX missile systemâa network of mobile, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles considered one of the most lethal weapons ever created. All of these eventually became part of Americaâs extensive military arsenal.
Despite his frustration with these setbacks, Dr. Garwin persisted. His core argument was that America should maintain a strategic balance of nuclear power with the Soviet Union. He opposed any weapon or policy that threatened this balance, believing it kept the Russians in check. He often stated that Moscow was more interested in live Russians than dead Americans.
Dr. Garwin advocated for reductions in nuclear arsenals, including the 1979 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II), negotiated by President Carter and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev. He stressed that mutually assured destruction was vital to maintaining peace.
In 2021, alongside 700 scientists and engineers, including 21 Nobel laureates, he cosigned an appeal urging President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to commit the United States to never initiating the use of nuclear weapons in a conflict. Their letter also called for ending the American practice of granting the president sole authority to order the use of nuclear weapons; they argued that limiting this authority would serve as an essential safeguard against a potentially unstable future president ordering a reckless attack.
These ideas were politically sensitive, and Mr. Biden made no such commitment.
Dr. Garwin told Quest magazine in 1981, “The only thing nuclear weapons are good for, and have ever been good for, is massive destruction, and by that threat deterring nuclear attack: If you slap me, Iâll clobber you.”
Child Prodigy
Richard Lawrence Garwin was born in Cleveland on April 19, 1928, the elder of two sons of Robert and Leona (Schwartz) Garwin. His father taught electronics at a technical high school during the day and worked as a projectionist in a movie theater at night. His mother was a legal secretary. From a young age, Richard, known as Dick, displayed exceptional intelligence and technical skills. By age five, he was repairing household appliances.
He and his brother, Edward, attended public schools in Cleveland. At 16, Dick graduated from Cleveland Heights High School in 1944 and earned a bachelorâs degree in physics in 1947 from what is now Case Western Reserve University.
In 1947, he married Lois Levy, who passed away in 2018. In addition to his son Thomas, he is survived by another son, Jeffrey; a daughter, Laura; five grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.
Under Fermi’s guidance at the University of Chicago, Dr. Garwin earned a master’s degree in 1948 and a doctorate in 1949, achieving the highest scores on doctoral exams ever recorded by the university. He then joined the faculty, but at Fermiâs suggestion, spent his summers at the Los Alamos lab, where he engaged in H-bomb development.
After retiring in 1993, Dr. Garwin headed the State Departmentâs Arms Control and Nonproliferation Advisory Board until 2001. In 1998, he served on the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States.
Dr. Garwinâs residence in Scarsdale is near his longstanding base at the IBM Watson Labs, which relocated from Columbia University to Yorktown Heights, in Westchester County, in 1970.
He held faculty positions at Harvard and Cornell, as well as Columbia. He held 47 patents, authored around 500 scientific research papers, and wrote several books, including âNuclear Weapons and World Politicsâ (1977, with David C. Gompert and Michael Mandelbaum), and âMegawatts and Megatons: A Turning Point in the Nuclear Age?â (2001, with Georges Charpak).
He was the focus of a biography, âTrue Genius: The Life and Work of Richard Garwin, the Most Influential Scientist Youâve Never Heard Ofâ (2017), by Joel N. Shurkin.
Among his numerous accolades were the 2002 National Medal of Science, the nationâs highest distinction for science and engineering, awarded by President George W. Bush, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nationâs highest civilian honor, presented by President Barack Obama in 2016.
“Ever since he was a Cleveland kid tinkering with his fatherâs movie projectors, heâs never met a problem he didnât want to solve,” remarked Mr. Obama during a lighthearted introduction at the White House. “Reconnaissance satellites, the MRI, GPS technology, the touch-screenâall bear his fingerprints. He even patented a mussel washer for shellfishâthat I havenât used. The other stuff I have.”