Honors & Honorariums

"For contributions to nuclear and theoretical physics, to peaceful uses of atomic energy, and to the security of the U.S.," the Atomic Energy Commission last week gave its Enrico Fermi Award (gold medal and $50,000) to Physicist Hans Albrecht Bethe of Cornell. Both the honor and the honorarium were deserved; seldom has an immigrant done more for his adopted country.

Part of Nazi Germany's precious, albeit unintentional, scientific legacy to the U.S., Hans Bethe was born in 1906 in Alsace and educated in German universities. When Hitler came to power in 1933, he was dismissed from his post as assistant professor of physics at the University of Tubingen (his mother was Jewish) and went to England. In 1935 he came to Cornell, where he has been a full professor since 1937.

Before the start of World War II, Bethe was one of the few men in the U.S., or anywhere else, who understood the infinite implications of nuclear physics. His interests ranged from the creation of matter out of gamma rays to an explanation of the thermonuclear reactions from which the sun and the stars get their energy. When war started, he was soon in the thick of the scientific battle. He served first at M.I.T.'s Radiation Laboratory, then went to Los Alamos to head the theoretical physics division of the atom bomb project. Had Hitler's empire lasted a little longer, the bomb that Bethe helped build at Los Alamos might well have blown his homeland apart.

Since the war, Bethe has had little time for his work at Cornell. Trusted by Presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to Jack Kennedy for his dispassionate scientific judgment, he is constantly called on for advice on everything from missile nose cones to nuclear testing. He is no propagandist, nor does he see nuclear-age problems in black and white. He is deeply worried about the doomsday peril of nuclear warfare, but he does not let this emotion-charged subject, about which many scientists are bitterly partisan, drive him to stubborn extremes. In judging nuclear test ban treaties, he recognizes the difficulty of detecting clandestine tests, but he still hopes that the nuclear nations can come to agreement before it is too late. Far more than the award citation could spell out, Hans Bethe continues to contribute "to the security of the U.S."

Award giving and getting is of swiftly increasing importance in U.S. science. Until a decade ago, the Swedish Nobel Prizes (1960 value: $43,627) were almost alone in their class. They still have the most prestige, but other prizes are richer. The Ford Atoms for Peace Award brings $75,000 (latest winner Sir John Cockcroft). Next comes the $50,000 Enrico Fermi Award. And to raise the ante, all bona fide prize money, except when given by a company to an employee, is tax free.

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