送信者: "kkaneko" <kkaneko@eagle.ocn.ne.jp>
件名 : EEE会議（名門ロスアラモス研究所の将来は？）
日時 : 2003年5月2日 9:13

各位殿

広島、長崎に投下された原子爆弾を製造した「マンハッタン計画」の中心地として有
名なニューメキシコ州のロスアラモス国立研究所がついに公開入札にかけられること
になった、と米国エネルギー省が発表したそうです。同研究所は過去６０年間カリ
フォルニア大学（バークレー本校）が経営してきましたが、昨年、職員による種々の
公金横領、不正事件（研究所のクレジットカードで自家用車を購入したり、３０万ド
ル相当の日用品を買ったり）が発覚して大騒ぎになったほか、数年前には中国系米人
Dr. Wen Ho Leeが同研究所の核兵器関係極秘データを中国に流したという事件もあ
り、以来大幅な人事刷新と経営方針の見直しが進んでいました。大学による閉鎖的な
研究所経営が槍玉に上がっていたわけですが、それにしても競争原理を導入するため
に公開入札で新しい経営者を求めるというのは随分思い切った措置のように思いま
す。日本でも目下核燃料サイクル開発機構（JNC）と日本原子力研究所（JAERI)の統
合など、各種研究機関の統廃合計画が進行中ですが、”他山の石”となりうるのかど
うか？　詳細は次のNYTimes記事でどうぞ。　因みに、先月小生も出席した「アトム
ズ・フォー・ピース」記念国際会議が行われた、もう１つの核兵器研究の名門、ロー
レンス・リバーモア国立研究所(LLNL)も同大学の経営ですが、こちらの方は安泰のよ
うです。
金子熊夫

*******************************************
Energy Department to Invite Bids to Manage Los Alamos Lab
By KENNETH CHANG


or the first time, the Energy Department will seek competing bids for
running Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, managed since it was
created in the Manhattan Project by the University of California.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced the change yesterday. Mr. Abraham
said the department, which administers Los Alamos and other national
laboratories, would not seek to end the current contract, which runs until
September 2005. He praised the scientific operations at the laboratory but
said "systematic failures" of management had led the department to consider
seeking other managers.

Last year, two investigators hired by Los Alamos said several employees had
abused their laboratory credit cards, including one effort to buy a $30,000
Ford Mustang. Two other employees doctored purchase orders to buy $300,000
worth of items for themselves.

When the investigators took the accusations to managers, the laboratory
fired them, a move that Mr. Abraham called incomprehensible.

The incident followed earlier problems, including the case of Dr. Wen Ho
Lee, who was imprisoned for nine months on suspicion of passing nuclear
secrets to China.

The laboratory's director and principal deputy director resigned in January,
and the investigators were rehired.

"The university bears responsibility for the systematic failures that came
to light in 2002," Mr. Abraham said in a statement yesterday. "Given that
responsibility and the widespread nature of the problems uncovered at Los
Alamos, I intend to open the management of Los Alamos to full competition
when the current contract expires."

The secretary said he had based his decisions on recommendations by Kyle
McSlarrow, deputy secretary at the department, and Linton F. Brooks, acting
administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. Mr. McSlarrow
and Mr. Brooks urged that the university compete for the next contract,
although they suggested that it consider pairing up with another
organization with experience in business and project management.

The report does not criticize the scientific work at Los Alamos. Indeed, it
notes: "The Los Alamos culture exalted science and devalued business
practice. Changing this culture will be the most difficult long-term
challenge facing the laboratory no matter who manages it."

For 60 years, the University of California has had exclusive custodianship
of the nation's nuclear weapons programs. Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, a
physics professor at the university, was named director of Los Alamos when
it was founded in the middle of a desert in World War II to build the first
atomic bombs.

The university also runs the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in
Northern California, the United States' other major nuclear weapons research
site, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a nonweapons research
center.

Energy Department officials said they did not plan to open the Lawrence
Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley contracts to competition.

University of California officials have previously said they will not
compete for a Los Alamos contract. But its president, Dr. Richard C.
Atkinson, recently said he would consider submitting a bid.

In a statement yesterday, Dr. Atkinson said, "My instinct continues to be to
compete ・and to compete hard ・in order to continue the university's
stewardship of excellence in science and innovation."

But, he added, the university might not want to devote the resources to
assembling a proposal, a project that could cost millions of dollars.

Laboratory employees said they worried what effects a change in management
could have on their work. Dr. Geoff Reeves, a space scientist at Los Alamos,
said in an interview yesterday that the university tie was crucial to
scientific integrity and the image of the laboratory.

"It's key," Dr. Reeves said, "to how we see ourselves, see ourselves as
different from some of the production parts of the nuclear weapons complex."

The academic connection, he added, gives scientists at Los Alamos the
freedom to speculate with bright peers who react vigorously in a type of
creative friction that helps good science.

"It's that free flow of ideas," Dr. Reeves said, "that emerges from that
kind of peer review and gives our work a scientific credibility that's of
value to the country."