Student Unrest at Stanford

Subsequent to the completion of SLAC and before the research program had acquired much momentum, a period of student unrest had a large impact on Stanford University, including SLAC. I was drawn into these conflicts in a number of ways. We adopted a liberal policy in letting protesters conduct meetings in the SLAC auditorium. Some of the resulting discussions, which were—amazingly enough—conducted in a civilized manner, turned out to be constructive and useful in relaxing some of the tensions. Nevertheless, I was called to account by members of the Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy asking me to explain why government property, meaning the SLAC auditorium, was used by the student agitators. I explained the situation as being consistent with university policy and as being constructive in purpose; I’m happy to say that particularly Congressman Holifield and others were satisfied with that explanation.