My life negotiating science and policy

An excerpt from W. K. H. Panofsky's forthcoming autobiography, Panofsky on Physics, Politics, and Peace: Pief Remembers, is presented. Panofsky retired as lab director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in 1984 and became emeritus professor in 1989. The end of SLAC responsibility led him to the concentration of his work fairly heavily on nuclear weapons arms control. He objected to the use of the weapons of mass destruction terminology because of the fact that the military characteristics of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons are highly similar.