Research Funds at Universities

In a Campus Correspondence column (Opinion, Jan. 10), Stanford senior Heather Willens discusses the excessive fraction of the nation’s research and development budget that is spent for defense-related research. While I agree that this fraction is indeed too high, I must correct her misapprehension about the nature of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. I, and many others on the staff, would not choose to work here if indeed it were a laboratory devoted to defense-oriented nuclear research.

SLAC is a laboratory devoted entirely to basic research; our principal area of study is the fundamental structure of matter. There has never been any classified work done at this laboratory; rather, it is a place of international cooperation that has always welcomed and worked with scientists from all over the world. The funding for this basic research does indeed come from the U.S. government, through the Energy Research Division of the Department of Energy. However, it is not in any way a military-related research institution.

The only “military-related” activity that I have seen at this laboratory has been the leading role in the active advocacy of arms control agreements played by our former director, Prof. W. K. H. Panofsky, and our deputy director, Prof. Sidney Drell. Both these men are highly respected as well-informed and important advocates for reductions in military spending and reductions in nuclear weapons arsenals, who have worked for the cause of peace over the past 20 years that I have known them.

HELEN QUINN

Physicist, Stanford