In 1977 I was working  in Washington, D.C. at several law firms, and had just finished a 8 part series for the Federal Times Newspaper under a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism. The series was regarding the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and their questionable practices. Didn’t get thrown into the lion’s den and good came out of it to benefit the animals. I used the Freedom of Information Act extensively to obtain information from the Smithsonian, and some of the doctors and employees at the National Zoo gave me details. Then I left Washington.

I am a vegetarian, met my vegetarian mate, Allan, who worked with horses, and left Washington, D.C. to live in the wilds of Wisconsin on a Lake with this 6’4’ Polish beauty, 12 years younger than me. Allan had majored in theatre and had a background in physics.

I had been told that Chicago/Wisconsin was cold and snowy (sort of like Alaska), by my Mother I believe, but who listens to your Mother? Camp Lake, Wisconsin had about four feet of snow when we arrived. The lake, the pier, what pier?

Snow is a paradise if you don’t have to get out in it much. Stayed at home with our dogs Don Quixote and Dulcimer, and my four cats. In that land of snow of the great snowfall of 1978-79, cabin fever takes over for about 9 months out of the year -- but then when spring sets in, nature outperforms itself. The people in Chicago have summer homes around Wisconsin , and they are proud of their land.

In one of my flights between D.C. and Chicago to visit Allan before moving out there, I met my dearest and most interesting friend Dr. Ronald Martin of Argonne National Laboratory. He was sitting next to me going back to D.C., and I asked him where he worked, and why he was going to D.C.?

In a very short time, Dr. Martin had convinced me that he had the answer to the world’s energy problems through his program heavy ion fusion. He had the twinkle in his eye of a elf when he told the scientific story in terms you could understand.

Tritium and deuterium are "really mean stuff". That is what the pellets (size of Bb’s) that make up the fuel to feed the fusion reaction

Ronald was going to the Energy Department to plead his case for more funds for his Heavy Ion Fusion Program. Ronald and I became fast friends and he invited me to Argonne National Laboratory which is about 25 miles southwest of Chicago in Argonne, Ill. Dr. Ronald Martin had been a protégé of Enrich Fermi, who had split the world’s first atom and won the Noble Prize. Ronald was now Director of the Accelerator Division, the largest division of Argonne National Laboratory. Argonne National and Fermi National Laboratory are adjacent to one another on 1,700 acres of plains inhabited by herds of Deer and Buffalo. These are laboratories of "pure-science" rather than every application made specifically to making weapons.

I found scientists to be the most gentle of men. There were no women scientists in that group, other than Ronald’s wife, Margaret, and she had been a student of Ronald’s at the University of Chicago.

All of this "atom" business started in Chicago in the basement of a building at the University of Chicago .

Ronald Martin had invented the "world’s second laser" and the reason he got into science was that he was a soldier on a ship ready to invade Japan before the Americans’ dropped the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and ended the war and saved his life. It was all pretty simple.

Ronald is like a kid in the candy store with his great exotic scientific tools, and his students and co-workers worshipped him. His enthusiasm about all things was contagious and made everything exciting not disastrous.

Ronald’s division had their regular Thursday night get together usually at the Lounge at Argonne. There were always scientists from all over the world . Ronald said some rules of etiquette were to never talk about science or politics or religion. These three subjects were mandatory at these Thursday night gatherings. Ronald always talked about himself and everybody listened, too.

One Thursday night Ronald introduced me to Dr. Ahmad Ali Golestaneh from Iran..

This was at the height of the Iranian crisis. The Iranian revolutionaries lead by Ayatollah Khomeine had kicked out the Americans and taken back their country from the Shah and his American counterparts. Dr. Golestaneh had been in the Mozedah revolution of 1952, which tried the same thing, but the Mozedah group got overthrown and outsmarted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

This was second time around for Ahmad and this time he was in one of America’s top laboratories with top security clearance and duel citizenship. Plus his middle name was Ali, and he could trace his family back 37 generations to Ali. (Ali, back then in Biblical times, was killed in Iraq .)

Ahmad was a short, stocky man with broad shoulders and a huge head. He spoke six or seven languages, and spoke English with an elegance only a foreigner could know. He had a double doctorate in physics and philosophy from Cambridge in England.

My first impression of him was "looking into the eyes of the Orient" with those beautiful Persian eyes. His piercing eyes were equal to his piercing mind. It was most interesting to learn his interpretation of the revolution in his homeland, and Ahmad loved to talk.

During 1979, Allan and I went to Argonne just about every Thursday night to visit with the boys Drs. Martin and Golestaneh and talk about fusion and oil , hostages and politics, and religion and philosophy. Ronald kept trying to get more funding for his heavy ion fusion program ; however, in 1979 the still secret "Foster Committee Report" was never released by the Department of Energy. Such report said Heavy Ion Fusion  was the most likely "candidate" for fusion. There was also the Tokomak (Russian program, Americans copying) and the laser programs. Dr. Martin invented the world’s second laser and thus knows the power of the laser.

Fusion was the biggest story I had ever met.

And still is.  Read most important documents below:

1. Argonne National Laboratory 1979 Memo re Dr. Martin's HIF Program

2.  Article 1979 Nature Magazine re HIF and Military

Nature Magazine article entitled "Military in Clash over US nuclear fusion research" and  states:  "United States physicists claim that the use of heavy ion beams is now a leading contender from commercial fusion technology - but that research efforts are being hampered by the aspirations of the military establishment."

When I was living at Camp Lake, Wisconsin I received a phone call from an attorney I used to work with in D.C., and who had worked in the White House under the Republicans. The attorney Jim Falk was doing some work for the Virginia Thoroughbred Association, and they needed a horse sculpture to be the centerpiece of their Virginia Equine Hall of Fame. I said "Jim, that’s great. I’ll have to beg, borrow or steal to get enough money to buy enough time to sculpt the horse and get the money for casting the horse into bronze." But I must get some money out of it. I’m not poor little rich girl who can give her time and skills to perhaps the richest group in the country. He said yeah, yeah, those guys know how to take care of people.

I finished the 13" horse, and took it to NYC to have it cast into plaster. Flew back to NYC picked it up and took it to D.C. where I gave it to Jim Falk to give to the VTA people.

The black-tie dinner was scheduled for January 13, 1979 at the Commonwealth Club in Richmond, Virginia. This group liked to tempt fate by scheduling events for the 13th.

I didn’t have anything appropriate to wear (like a dress as opposed to a pants suit), so Falk’s wife Bobbie brought me a couple formal dresses. Wouldn’t have made any difference what I would have brought because our luggage was lost in transit to Richmond from Chicago. Allan rented a much better looking tuxedo at a Richmond store.

Falk’s wife Bobbie commented when we first sat down at one of the front - off center tables "this is wonderful, this is just like a White House dinner." It was bigger. These are the people who buy the Presidents.

The only politician, I recognized was Chuck Robb, LBJ's son-in-law, who was Virginia Attorney General, and subsequently went on to the Governorship and the U.S. Senate.  Robb was friendly.  I remember him saying "I like your horse", and I said "I like you being Attorney General."

A very personable man with twinkle eyes sat down next to me, introduced himself (don't remember his name), and he pointed to this man sitting on the dais and said "that is Paul Mellon, and I haven't spoken with him for 20 years."

I didn't know if I should congratulate him or not . . . ?

I thought it was pretty weird that this complete stranger, rich man was telling me this story.  But I did want to meet Paul Mellon, the then - most rich, most secretive, man on earth.

Paul Mellon looked just like the Shah of Iran.  Mellon called the Shah "a poor imitation of himself."

My time came for the horse unveiling, Allan went with me, took the cloth cover off the plaster horse sculpture and someone from the audience yelled "who is the horse?"  And I said "isn't Secretariat everybody's ideal?"

There was some applause.  Penny Tweety, the great horse Secretariat's owner, was in the audience.

(I saw Secretariat four times in real life and went to Canada to see his last race.  He was a beauty, and probably the only inspiration of that time.)

After the dinner, I saw Paul Mellon down about 30 feet from me talking with that very same guy who had sat beside me at the dinner and said he had not spoken with Mellon in 20 years.

I went up to Mellon, just as "little twinkle eyes" slithers away.

I said something to Mellon about a Vietnam Memorial.  He gave me a dirty look.

I stared him down, and walked away.  He did, though, make me "shake in my boots".

Allan and I then left the dinner and went back to the Hotel.  We were flying back to Chicago early the next morning.

The great snowstorm of 1979 had taken over the Midwest, and Chicago O'Hare Airport would be down to airline traffic for close to a week.  Allan and I flew to D.C. and stayed with a girlfriend of mine, and waited for the Chicago Airport to open up.  After several days, we are then scheduled for the first flight into Chicago, with the possibility the plane may land anywhere in the Midwest.

There were only about 8 or 10 passengers awaiting this first flight, and one of them, along with some of his colleagues, was Dr. Ronald Martin of Argonne National Laboratory.  I told him all about the Richmond dinner and Mellon, and Dr. Martin told me all about his Washington, D.C. visit  to the Department of Energy regarding his proposed Heavy Ion Fusion program.

We spoke about the Iranian revolution, which had just occurred, and Dr. Martin said, with a sparkle in his eye "hey, Vivian, I have this Iranian physicist I want you to meet".  How exciting this place called Argonne National Laboratory.

Society calls the high level men and women of science "the high priests".  I found these guys at Argonne National Laboratory, who knew so much, to be just like kids playing in a candy store with their toys.

Discovery is fun.

There is a sign prominently displayed in some big time attorneys' offices which reads: "He who dies with the most toys, wins."

October 8,2001 Update:  The story as best told by the man himself, Dr. Ronald Martin in 1979. . . . ". . . entertaining  Doctor Edward Teller . . . trying to convince the Foster Committee . . . seeking cooperation with Livermore . . ."

11/26/01 The New York Times Richard Rhodes  reviews Edward Teller's latest memoir entitled "Memoirs: A 20th Century Journey in Science and Politics", Peruses Publishing, Cambridge, Mass.  Rhodes' article entitled "How Edward Teller Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" states:  "Distrusting arms control, he (Teller) began promoting missile defense in 1946, and was a major player behind the scenes in Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative.  It remains to be determined how much responsibility the missile defense mandarins bear for the nation's lack of protection against terrorist attacks, how much their glamorous and expensive high-tech visions distracted our leaders from practical home defenses."

The book "The Seven Sisters" probably goes on to explain American foreign policy better than any other manual; that is: - the world runs on oil - get oil anyway possible - sell oil high - get richer.

Allan Jaworski and I wrote a book called "Fusion 2000", which attempted to show the relationship between economic forces and how the introduction of fusion power was necessary to save the planet, i.e. global warming, nuclear proliferation, reusable fuels, no waste, etc. The Fusion 2000 book was finished in late 1980, and our letter writing campaign with approximately 150 copies were mailed throughout the world from January through August 1981. Dr. Martin and Dr. Golestaneh, read it, said it was okay. Hard to understand, but how many people want to read a 500 page book on physics, economics and politics? However, most or some part of all this information and emphasis came from their scientific perspective. Allan and I were just trying to express the urgency and necessity.

Fusion 2000 is listed as Library of Congress, Catalogue Card No. 82-90734. The process is Inertial Confinement Fusion by High Energy Heavy Ions. The Chicago Sun Times, May 25, 1979, published a story on Dr. Martin’s program.

Paul Mellon was a small frail man, when he wanted to act that way. Presence is half the game, and if you are born big time, you spend your life proving you are. Paul Mellon was the only son of A.W. Mellon, who was Secretary of the Treasury during three Presidents, culminating in the Great Depression with Hoover. The Mellon family was as low profile as one could get hiring P.R. firms to represent them that they don’t exist, publicly. Paul Mellon was also head of Mellon Bank and Gulf Oil and about 300+ operations around the world.

At that black-tie horse event in Richmond, Virginia of January 13, 1979, photos were taken of Allan and me in front of the dais. The photographer said none of the photos came out. None from the whole dinner, at least for me. However, SPUR Magazine (The Spur, Inc., Delaplane, Va. 22025), Vol. XIV. No. 4, March-April, 1979 issue carried a story on the event entitled "Virginia Breeders Receive Awards."             

The Persians have a saying (Omar Kayam) "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." The saying among scientists seemed to be "you become your friend." That is, you make these friends because you are all interested in the same thing - the great mother mystery of them all science..

The 1979 Iranian revolution continued with the Americans and Russians paying and supplying Sadam Hussein of Iraq to continue slaughtering the Iranians who kept trying to come over the border these many years. Iraq started the war with Iran.  The Iranians kept on having babies to provide fodder for the war offensive, and the country kept itself isolated under the veil of religion to teach the masses, for several generations, how to defend their country this time. Iran is surrounded by all these enemies. These are the lands where the descendants have been there for thousands of years, and thus they are all good at hating.

After the Iran-Contra scandal, the Iranians stopped their war with Iraq, and the Americans turned around and said to Sadam Hussein "Okay, you’ve done our dirty work for us, now it’s time to pay us back for all those arms we gave you, etc."  I can imagine Sadam Hussein responded by "I’ll just take Kuwait". 

Kuwait is owned by Gulf Oil and British Petroleum. A.W. Mellon made that arrangement when he was Ambassador to England. We all saw the great Operation Desert Storm on TV, which did cause a storm with the resulting prolonged oil well burnings which covered the globe and could have triggered our recent unusual weather patterns (The planet has heated up every year since we started using fossil fuels (oil) .

Paul Mellon died a few months back (1999). I first heard of it on the Bloomberg Morning News (Bloomberg Money, 5:00 a.m. on public television), but nothing was reported on network news that night. Finally, his death at 91 was reported on Network News the next night.

In 1990 Doctor Ahmad Ali Golestaneh was killed by two Pepsi trucks when leaving a Thursday night Argonne National Laboratory gathering.  This was seven days after the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq.

October 2001 Update:  I had an extensive conversation with Dr. Martin last month, and I recently recovered some HIF related documents (included within these pages) from my Mother's basement in Arkansas.

Dr. Martin said:  1.  His third  generation reactor would be a "Fusion/Fission Hybrid"; (2)  Germany is doing important work on some aspects of   HIF; (3)  I asked Martin if they (the scientists)  could recycle the present  nuclear weapons  (USA approx 6,000; Russia approx. 6,000; China approx 2 dozen) in a fusion reactor?  Dr. Martin said "yes"; and  that would be called fourth generation.  Doctor Martin said they once calculated how long it would take to "burn up" (recycle) those bombs, and  estimated  it  would take 30 years. 

Important Correspondence and Information re above story:

6.  Chicago Sun Times Newspaper Article re HIF (1979)

7.  HIF 1977 Martin 

8.  Westerman CIA-FOIA Appeal (1999)

9.  3/20/01(Rec'd 4/2/01) Letter from Senator John Breaux (D-La) in response to my February e-mails

10.  Senator John Breaux July 200l Letter re Bush Energy Plan/Nuclear Waste

11.  Argonne National Laboratory Memo dated 6/29/79 re Dr. Martin devoting his full energies to the HIF program  

12.  Nature Magazine, Vol. 281 10/11/79 entitled "Military in clash over US nuclear fusion research"  The story is "US physicists claim that the use of heavy ion beams is now a leading contender for commercial fusion technology - but that research efforts are being hampered by the aspirations of the military establishment."

13.  Senator John Breaux (D-La) 11/13/01 re "reducing harmful emissions from power plants" referring to Senator  James Jeffords's (I-Vermont) proposed legislation entitled Clean Power Act, introduced on March 15, 2001.  In June 2001 Senator Jeffords, a Republican, became an Independent, changing the balance of power within the Senate.

Visit Iran at http://www.iranvatan.com.    http://www.golestaneh.com    http://www.badjens.com  

 Home Page   Book to Read    Vietnam Memorial    Political Cartoons    Sculpture Portraits     Contact

Vivian Westerman Artist Gallery

1611 Patterson Street

New Orleans, La. 70114-1327

504-366-5784 vwesterman@cartoons-tomorrow.com

BY APPOINTMENT ONLY

WestermanGalleryDirectionsMap

 Privacy Notice