Harriers
finish
fourth
See Page 10
Oregon daily
emerald
Tuesday, November 20, 1984
Eugene, Oregon
Volume 86, Number 58
President Olum reflects on arms race
By Michael Doke
Of the Emerald
The United States was at war 39 years
ago and was in a race against time and
other nations to be the first to possess an
atomic weapon.
Los Alamos, N.M., became the base for
such research and employed the efforts
of the best scientists in the country —
Robert J. Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi,
Niels Bohr and Edward Teller.
Success came on July 16, 1945, just
outside of Alamogordo, N.M., where the
first atomic device was exploded.
On Aug. 6, Hiroshima, Japan, was at
tacked with the new, devastating
weapon, causing about 130,000
casualties. Three days later, Nagasaki,
Japan, became the second target of the
U.S. bomb and 40,000 more people died.
Now in a world changed by the two at
tacks and the arms race that followed,
University President Paul Olum takes
time out to reflect on his role in creating
the weapon.
"People had a real sense of achieve
ment. The one thing we were working on
actually worked and did what it was sup
pose to do — end the war.
"But then there was a sense of horror.
We knew it was the beginning of a
change, the beginning of something
terrible.
"All of us had a double-take,” says
Olum, who spent three years at Los
Alamos. Arriving there in early 1942,
Olum was one of a handful of scientist’s
originally involved in the Manhattan
Project, the code name for the coor
dinated team of researchers who
developed the atomic bomb.
Now Olum, 62, as with many of the
scientists involved in the project, is
speaking out against the nuclear arms
race.
And Olum, who will speak on the
history of the Manhattan Project tonight
at the Eugene Community Conference
Center, 7th Avenue and Oak Street, is be
ing heard.
One week ago, he was a guest on the
nationally syndicated Donahue show
speaking on nuclear arms issues with
Peter Wyden, father of Rep. Ron Wyden
and author of a new book about the pro
ject called “Day One,” and Herbert
York, a physicist who once served on the
U.S. Arms Control Commission.
Olum plays a part at the end of
Wyden’s book for circulating a petition
calling for nuclear disarmament during
the 40th anniversary of Manhattan Pro
ject scientists last year.
Olum says the Phil Donahue audience,
usually heatedly involved with issues
discussed on the show, was subduded
during the taping.
“The thing that makes the Donahue
show interesting is the audience,” he
says. "But this subject seemed to keep
them quiet.”
Olum did manage to get his point
across, however, when two final ques
tions, one concerning knowledge of the
nuclear arms build-up and the other con
cerning a defense against the weapons,
were asked at the conclusion of the
taping.
“There are 484 active warheads on
two nuclear submarines.” Olum says he
told the audience. “They could destroy
every city in Russia if they were aimed at
them. This is just on two submarines.
“So what does it matter who's a little
bit ahead of the other” in nuclear
stockpiles, he went on to say. “We’re not
playing checkers or horseshoes here. We
can destroy the whole world.”
The creation of the bomb stemmed
from experiments with nuclear fission
conducted in 1939, Olum says.
In that same year, physicist Albert
Einstein wrote to President Franklin
Roosevelt warning him of the possibility
of Germany developing the bomb, pro
mpting the development of the Manhat
Photo by Michael Clapp
University President Paul Olum will discuss the history of the development of
the atomic bomb tonight at 8 at the Eugene Community Conference Center.
tan Project.
“The Nazi’s provided. . .a real reason
to build the bomb,” he says.
The notion that the Germans had a
nuclear bomb and could deliver it drove
the United States’ nuclear effort. Olum
says. “They could have conceivably
taken over Britain and the whole
world,” he says.
Olum. a Harvard graduate, left
Princeton University in 1942, where he
was a graduate student in physics and
mathematics working on uranium
research, to work at Los Alamos.
“1 wish I kept a diary there so I could
sense how I thought back then,” Olum
says. “It was an extraordinary place.”
Olum says the hunger and drive to
develop the bomb overshadowed feel
ings of its eventual destructive
consequence.
“Once the first bomb fell on
Hiroshima, that should have been it,’’ he
says. “There was no reason to drop the
Nagaski bomb; that should have never
happened.
Olum’s speech, the second of the
University Forum lecture series this
academic year, will explore moral
aspects and responsibility in the nuclear
age. Rep. Jim Weaver will introduce the
program. The speech, scheduled for 8
p.m., is free to the public.
Olum’s appearance on Donahue will
air in Eugene three weeks from its
original broadcast in Chicago.
Discrimination case
reaches final stages
Lawyers will reveal their final arguments to
day in Portland in the landmark sex
descrimination trial between Oregon women col
lege professors and the State Board of Higher
Education.
The non-jury trial, Penk vs. State Board of
Higher Education, started Feb. 8 before U.S.
District fudge Helen Frye. The two parties failed to
come to an agreement in several settlement con
ferences before and during the trial, which came to
a close last Friday.
Anna Penk, an associate professor at Western
Oregon State College, is one of 22 named plantiffs
in the class action lawsuit. The plantiffs are seek
ing back pay and assurances that the state will im
prove its treatment of women faculty. The plain
tiffs contend that the state system has been
discriminating against them on the basis of sex in
regard to pay, promotion, tenure, professional
duties, sabbatical leaves, grant support, adjunct
appointments, advancement to administrative
posts and policy-making positions, and salary and
grievance mechanisms.
Frye eventually removed non-teaching faculty
women from the class, including librarians and
research assistants. This cut the class in half and
substantially reduced the financial ante.
Faculty Women for Equity will hold a panel
discussion of the Penk case on Dec. 5 in the EMU
Forum Room from 7 to 9 p.m.
Frye said she hopes to decide the case before
the end of the year.
Sheela: ‘Mom’ of Rajneesh family
By Jolayne Houtz
Of the Emerald
Editor’s note: This is the second of two stories ex
ploring the people and the way of life at
Rajneeshpuram.
After the Jonestown suicides and the jailing of Rev.
Sun Yung Moon for tax evasion, the legitimacy of the
3 V2-year-old Rajneeshpuram seems tarnished in the
eyes of many Americans.
And with the recent busing of 4,000 “street peo
ple” into the commune from 20 cities nationwide, the
followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh are experiencing
the antipathy of people who fear a Rajneeshee takeover
of Oregon.
But Ma Anand Sheela, personal secretary to the
52-year-old Indian guru, scoffs at the idea that the Ra
jneeshees bused in street people to raise the number of
eligible voters in an attempt to take over Wasco County.
“The only reason 1 remembered Election Day this
year is because the media tried to shove it down my
throat that ‘You are doing it for elections.’ And 1 said,
‘Sure. If you want me to say that, I’ll say it.’ They don’t
understand my sense of humor,” she says.
Ma Anand Sheela says the election results definite
ly will be contested, although she will have no part in
investigating the process.
“I’m not a voter, I don’t want to be a voter. Citizens
are talking about it, that they’re going to overturn the
election. I have nothing to do with this, but anybody
who needs support from me will get it,” Ma Anand
Sheela says.
For the most part, the program, which the com
mune leaders claimed was initiated to draw attention to
the plight of the street people, has been “a thousand
percent successful,” Ma Anand Sheela says,
i “The street people who came here and who stayed
Ma Anand Sheela
more than an hour with us experienced something dif
ferent. Even if they leave, we have planted a seed in
them, which is ‘You can have a dignified life,’ ” says
Ma Anand Sheela.
The entire issue of busing transients to the com
mune and the ensuing election controversy illustrate
the bigotry displayed toward the Rajneeshees by Orego
nians, Ma Anand Sheela says.
“I think we made fools out of them (during the elec
tions). We created a situation and exposed the bigotry,”
she says.
“I’ve been all over the world, and I haven’t seen the
grossness that I’ve seen here. I’ve seen mediocre,
average minds around the world, too, but I haven’t seen
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