Feld, Bernard Taub, 1919-
Bernard Feld papers, 1943-1990.
Most of the collection documents Feld's interest in arms control. Correspondence and meeting minutes and agendas document his 25-year affiliation with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, including his activities as vice president and a member of the Academy's Council. Drafts and reprints of his articles, and correspondence about financial problems from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists are included, as are correspondence and publications from the Council for a Livable World. There are also council and executive committee minutes from the Federation of American Scientists, and a small amount of material from the Union of Concerned Scientists. Correspondence, memoranda, conference proceedings, meeting minutes and agendas, reports, and photographs document Feld's involvement with the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, particularly his activities on the International Continuing Committee. A small amount of material documents Feld's teaching activities at MIT. Correspondence with MIT President Jerome Wiesner and others reflect Feld's role in the establishment of the interdepartmental Undergraduate Policy Seminars. There are course materials from several classes he taught, including an Arms Control Seminar (8.19). Reprints of Feld's articles on both technical and politcal subjects are included, as are drafts of his unpublished autobiography, written in the 1980s, in which he discussed his childhood, education, and career. Among the correspondents represented are: Ruth Adams, I.I. Rabi, Eugene Rabinowitch, Joseph Rotblat, Gertrud Weiss Szilard, Leo Szilard, Jerome Wiesner.
Bernard Taub Feld, 1919-1993, B.S. 1939, City College of New York; Ph.D. 1945, Columbia University, interrupted his graduate study to work with Leo Szilard and Enrico Fermi at the University of Chicago on the Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb; in 1943 he worked at Oak Ridge, Tenn., on the design and construction of experimental atomic pile and separation facilities; and from 1944 to 1946 he was assistant group leader of critical assemblies at the Los Alamos Laboratory of the University of California, where he contributed to the development of the experimental plutonium bomb that was later detonated at Alamogordo, N.M. After receiving his doctorate, he was appointed instructor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1948, associate professor in 1952, and professor in 1955. He was acting director of the MIT Laboratory for Nuclear Science from 1961 to 1962 and a member of the Steering Committee, 1975-1982. He helped develop the Cambridge Electron Accelerator, dedicated September 1962, which was jointly owned and operated by MIT and Harvard. He was head of the physics department's Division of Nuclear and High-Energy Physics from 1975 to 1980. He was a consultant for government and industrial agencies and served on several national scientific committees, including the Committee on High Energy Physics of the National Science Foundation, 1956-1960.
In 1945 he joined other Manhattan Project scientists opposed to military control over nuclear research and weapons development to form the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), which lobbied successfully for passage of the bill that established the Atomic Energy Commission. He contributed numerous articles to the FAS's journal, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; he was elected to the Board of Directors in 1968 and became editor-in-chief in 1976.
He was also a leader of the Pugwash Movement, founded in 1957 as a forum for scientists to alert the world to the danger of nuclear war. He was also involved in the administration of the Washington-based Council for a Livable World, founded by Leo Szilard to support U.S. senatorial candidates who were committed to nuclear arms control; he served as president, 1962-1973, and co-chairman, 1973-1978. Other groups with which he was affiliated include the Task Force for the Nuclear Test Ban and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Feld's research focused on experimental and theoretical research in high-energy nuclear physics, particularly theoretical interactions between fundamental particles. His publications include the books Neutron Physics (1954) and Models of Elementary Particles (1969) and numerous articles in professional journals. He also wrote extensively on arms limitation and edited two books on disarmament: Impact of New Technologies on the Arms Race (with T. Greenwood, G.W. Rathjens, and S. Weinberg, 1971) and The Future of the Sea-Based Deterrent (with K. Tsipis and A.H. Cahn, 1973); A Voice Crying in the Wilderness: Essays on Science and World Affairs (1979) is a collection of his essays on the peace movement.
Adams, Ruth, 1923-2005
Fermi, Enrico, 1901-1954
Rabi, I. I. (Isidor Isaac), 1898-1988
Rabinowitch, Eugene, 1901-1973
Rotblat, Joseph, 1908-2005
Szilard, Gertrud Weiss.
Szilard, Leo
Wiesner, Jerome B. (Jerome Bert), 1915-1994
Albert Einstein Peace Prize Foundation.
American Academy of Arts and Sciences.).
American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Committee on Technical Problems of Arms Limitation.
Cambridge Electron Accelerator.
Council for a Livable World -- History.
European Organization for Nuclear Research.
Federation of American Scientists -- History.
Ford Foundation
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Defense and Arms Control Studies Program.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology -- Faculty -- Personal and professional papers.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology -- Dept. of Physics.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laboratory for Nuclear Science.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Undergraduate Policy Seminars.
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Union of Concerned Scientists.
Bulletin of the atomic scientists -- History.
Arms control -- History -- 20th century.
Nuclear disarmament -- History.
Particles (Nuclear physics) -- Research. aip
Physics -- Study and teaching.
Scientists -- Political activity.
Autobiographies. aat aat
Physicists -- Archives.
Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs
AIP-ICOS
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute Archives and Special Collections. M.I.T. Libraries, Rm. 14N-118, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA