Notebook

SLAC Management? Willenbrock Bids NSF Adieu? Then Try, Try Again NRC Report Criticized Massey Fills Two Posts?

Nobelist Burton Richter, director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is angry over allegations by a former employee who claimed he was ordered to inflate estimates of damages caused by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake so that Richter's lab could receive more money from the Department of Energy. The charges were raised earlier this year, as part of a personnel grievance, by Tim Axe. Richter refutes Axe's claim that SLAC was given more than it needed for repairs. Indeed, says Richter, in order to repair the facilities, "we spent more than [the government] gave us." Fearing adverse publicity, Stanford University last month made public the results of an internal audit that concludes there is "no reason to believe that any fraudulent act took place." But a congressional committee is looking into the matter....