A Biography of Dr. John M. Googin - Y-12 National Security ...

FYI
On the first day, the LPC’s gurus apparently made a snap judgement of John, found him not worthy of their attention,
and in fact were quite rude to him (this was pre-orthodonture and before his reputation had spread enough to give him
the “aura” that he had later). Taking umbrage at this cavalier treatment, he prepared himself, and the next day cut them
off at the knees, chewed them up and spit them out before they knew what hit them. This was unusual for him, however.
He would criticize technological error, and was also ready to criticize programmatic inertia, but it was almost invariably
done in a constructive way.
The late ’60s saw Y-12’s involvement in fabricating equipment to collect samples from the Earth’s moon. There were
several engineering considerations, especially lightness and inertness, involved in the design and choice of materials. Both
the tools for collecting specimens and the vacuum-sealed box for returning them from the moon had to be free of living
organisms and as free of organic material as possible, in order to answer the question about life on the moon. John was
deeply involved in defining the problem, the criteria that cleaning had to meet, and the methods used to clean the things.
The (in)famous Roger Liddle had the job to set up the cleaning facility (using a laminar-flow clean room, the ruin of
which is still in the center of Rm. 270). This required working with other organizations in the Plant, and at one point one
of the key individuals in one of those organizations was being obstinate about doing things “right”. At a meeting between
Googin, Liddle and this person, it became clear that no budging was going to happen. John then got the attention of the
Division Director’s secretary, Betty Whitehorn as I remember, and said, “Betty, get me the President.” Betty asked, “You
mean Roger Hibbs?” John answered, “No, I mean President Nixon”, and continued with some statement about the moon
mission not going forward without doing things right. The other person in the room became very cooperative.
I remember the early ’70s era of public debate about ABM’s - whether they would be effective, and their legality in light of
existing treaties. One such debate occurred in Oak Ridge, with hundreds in attendance. I don’t remember who the principals
were, but the moderator was John Googin. The main thing that stays with me is the irony that the moderator could probably
have replaced both principals - he could have debated himself - and probably more light could have been shed.
Shortly after the shooting down of the Korean Airliner, John and I were both at the library. I noticed that he was looking at a
map of the Soviet Union, and asked him if he was looking for where the incident took place. He said, “No, I’m looking at where
the orders came from (around Moscow).” I didn’t know if that was for his own curiosity, or if he was doing his intelligence
analysis thing.
John was very involved in all issues of security, and was a part of the Y-12 Emergency Operations Center (EOC) team. Years
ago, one of the pilot uses of artificial intelligence technology was to try to capture his expertise in this area, creating the Emergency
Response Advisor, or ERAD. I quote from a previous issue of FYI:
One may wonder about the regard in which ERAD is held by those familiar with the effort. Sentiments regarding ERAD are
expressed most prevalently by two fears: 1) that the resulting system will not reflect adequately the inferential processes that
Dr. Googin employs, and 2) that the resulting system will reflect too adequately the inferential processes that Dr. Googin
employs.
FYI 8