UC Votes to Continue Ties to Nuclear Labs : Regents to Seek Another Five-Year Contract; Will Study Charges of Pro-Weapons Lobbying

The regents of the University of California voted Friday to seek another five-year contract to run the nation’s only two nuclear weapons laboratories, calling the university’s role “an important public service.”

After a surprisingly low-key debate, only seven of the 26 regents meeting at UCLA voted to sever the university’s ties with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory at Livermore, Calif., and the Los Alamos National Laboratory at Los Alamos, N. M.

However, the board agreed to take a further look at charges by some critics that the lab directors are lobbying in Washington for further weapons research.

First Atomic Bomb

The university’s management of the labs dates back to World War II, when Berkeley scientists led the effort to build the first atomic bomb at Los Alamos. Since then, despite strong opposition from anti-nuclear forces, the UC regents have agreed to extend their management contract.

UC President David Gardner said he and the regents had looked at alternatives to having the university operate the controversial labs, which over the years have created the hydrogen bomb, the neutron bomb and the MX warhead and are now at work on President Reagan’s plan to design lasers that would shoot down incoming Soviet missiles.

The alternatives most often suggested are to have a private corporation or a government agency run the nuclear research centers under contract with the U.S. Department of Energy.

But Gardner said he believes the research is of a higher quality and the scientists have more independence because the labs are under university management.

Over the next two years, UC officials will negotiate details of a new contract with the energy department.

Gardner told the board that he would encourage more collaboration between the UC campuses and the weapons labs in the years ahead and would also begin a university effort--which was left undefined--in the area of “arms control, disarmament and peace.”

At public hearings held earlier by the regents, critics of the labs charged that their officials were lobbying in Washington in favor of new weapons research and against arms control.

Janice Eberly, a student regent, said Friday that lab officials “go representing the University of California” and present a “largely monolithic view” in favor of further weapons research.

However, several regents argued strongly that the university does not seek to regulate what faculty members say, and that lab directors speak for the labs.

Referred to Committee

In the end, the board referred the issue for study by its oversight committee on the weapons labs.

The board also took no action on a request by Mary Lawrence, wife of the late Berkeley physicist Ernest Lawrence, to remove his name from the Lawrence Livermore Lab. Gardner said after the meeting that John Lawrence, the physicist’s brother, disagrees with the request, and added that the decision actually rests with Congress, which named the national labs.

Gov. George Deukmejian voted with the majority to renew the contract, saying afterward that “it is in the best interest of the people to have this work carried out by an educational institution, rather than having it done by the private sector or an agency of the federal government.”

Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy and Assembly Speaker Willie Brown voted “no,” with McCarthy saying simply that “it is inappropriate for the University of California to engage in nuclear weapons research.”

Apartheid Protest

The meeting drew about 100 demonstrators to the Westwood campus, but most wore anti-apartheid buttons and urged the regents to “divest now.”

The board briefly revisited the South Africa issue when Brown sought another vote on whether to sell all shares of stock in U.S. firms that do business there.

Since June, when the regents rejected divestiture, South Africa has been beset by racial strife and its economy has been staggered, Brown said.

But UC Treasurer Herbert Gordon told the board that even if the entire South African economy were to collapse, the impact on the UC stock fund would be “minimal.” An estimated 99.7% of the firms whose stock is owned by UC “have no relationship to South Africa whatsoever,” he said.

Since the typical U.S. corporation has less than 1% of its operation in South Africa, “a total write-off of South African operations . . . would result in a loss of only 3/4 cents in per share earnings,” Gordon said.

In response, Brown said he would study the treasurer’s report and bring up the issue at a later meeting.