Compromise Sought on Weapons Labs : Research: Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy wants to find a way to sever nuclear work from other research at the UC-operated national weapons laboratories.

Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy, sensing that his fellow University of California regents will renew UC’s contract to manage two nuclear weapons labs, suggested Friday that they seek a way to end nuclear ties while continuing to manage non-nuclear research.

“The question should be, how do we retain these superb talent pools at Livermore lab and Los Alamos lab to do very significant research on health, energy and environmental subjects? And how do we separate that from weapons research?” McCarthy said.

McCarthy began pushing for compromise during a Board of Regents meeting on the UC San Diego campus.

In a 1 1/2-hour presentation and discussion, spokesmen for two university committees that have studied the contract issue took opposing sides.

The regents expect to vote in September on whether to seek renewal of the five-year contract, which expires in 1992. UC operates three U.S. Department of Energy laboratories: Los Alamos in New Mexico, and Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley in northern California.

Classified nuclear weapons work accounts for about a third of the research at Livermore and Los Alamos. Lawrence Berkeley, near the UC Berkeley campus, does only non-classified research.

The nuclear weapons work has been controversial for years, particularly five years ago when the last contract renewal discussion began. In 1987 the regents voted 17 to 3 to renew the contract.

This time, however, opponents are buttressed by a recent UC systemwide vote in which faculty members voted nearly 2 to 1 to recommend that UC sever its ties to the two weapons labs.

With a 43% return in the mail balloting, the vote was 3,089 for severing ties, and 1,702 against, reported Fred Spiess, a UC San Diego professor and representative of the Academic Senate.

Faculty members were voting on the report of an Academic Senate committee that has been studying the issue for 2 1/2 years. Representatives of that committee spoke to the regents Friday.

The regents also heard from the Scientific and Academic Advisory Committee, a group of UC faculty and outside experts who since 1971 have been charged with overseeing the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The panel is recommending that UC continue to operate the labs but with a greater emphasis on directing the type of non-nuclear research the labs do. This would give UC a role in shaping how the weapons labs evolve after the end of the Cold War, the report says.

Non-nuclear research areas in which Livermore and Los Alamos already play a key role include high-temperature superconductors and the genome project, which is attempting to map out the entire human genetic structure.

However, critics scoffed at the idea that the federal government would cede such authority to UC. They suggested that non-nuclear research would never get any of the money saved on defense research.

Even if the regents decide to sever ties to Livermore and Los Alamos, the committee report adds, a contract regarding Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories should be continued because of its close ties to UC Berkeley.