Bush Chooses Yale Physicist as Science Aide

President Bush has selected a nationally renowned nuclear physicist from Yale University, D. Allan Bromley, as White House science adviser, senior Administration officials said Wednesday.

“This is a great appointment,” said Leon Lederman, director of the Fermilab accelerator near Chicago and a Nobel laureate who has known Bromley for decades. “He has the respect of the scientific community. He is vigorous and lively and he will be a wise voice on difficult issues. Of course, a lot depends upon the chemistry between him and the President.”

Prominence Promised

Bush has repeatedly asserted that the position of science adviser, now called director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, would hold great prominence in his Administration. Bromley, who has been active in federal science policy issues for years, almost certainly would command more respect in the scientific community than any other adviser since the Jimmy Carter Administration.

Bromley is a past president of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science and director of the A. W. Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory at Yale.

He is considered one of the world’s leading nuclear physicists, having carried out pioneering studies on the structure and dynamics of atomic nuclei. He also has played major roles in the development of accelerators, of the detection systems they use and in computer-based data and analysis systems.