Herbert Frank York, a nuclear physicist who helped create the first atomic and hydrogen bombs, and then contributed diplomatically to their deterrence, died last week in San Diego’s Thornton Hospital. He was 87.
Recruited as one of the original scientists in the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb in World War II, York later became the first director of California’s Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, where he oversaw research that led to the hydrogen bomb.
Proud of his work on the A-bomb and its use in ending the war, in 1983 he told the Los Angeles Times, paradoxically, “There is no such thing as a good nuclear weapons system. There is no way to achieve, in the sound sense, national security through nuclear weapons.”
The same year, he started the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at the University of California, San Diego, where he served as founding chancellor from 1961-64 and interim chancellor from 1970-72.
York went on to serve as U.S. ambassador to the comprehensive test ban treaty negotiations with the Soviet Union in Geneva, Switzerland, from 1979-81; as a board member of the non-partisan Council for a Livable World, a Washington, D.C. arms-control policy group; and was honored by President Bill Clinton in 2000 with the Enrico Fermi Award for his contributions to nuclear arms control.
Survivors include his wife, Sybil, two daughters and a son.
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