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An APS President Reflects on His Two‐Year Term

DEC 01, 1989
Reflections on a two‐year term as APS president include on appraisal of the society’s study on directed‐energy weapons, remarks on the importance of good technical advice in forming national policy and a few thoughts on challenges facing the physics community.
Val L. Fitch

When Robert Oppenheimer was president of the APS, just 40 years ago, he observed that, fortunately for the society, it was impossible for a president to do any great damage in a one‐year term. We now have to reassess this observation. Because of the untimely death of my intended successor, George Vineyard, I have had two years to inflict havoc and chaos. Happily, the more permanent staff of the society—Bill Havens, Harry Lustig, Miriam Forman and Bob Park—are all deft at damage‐limiting techniques, and the society has survived, rather well I think, even two years of a transient president.

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Val L. Fitch, Princeton University.

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This Content Appeared In
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Volume 42, Number 12

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