Interview with Fred T. Haddock

Fred T. Haddock, 1919-2009. Interviewed 23 January and 27 January 1984 by telephone from Seattle to Michigan, only notes of interview.

Papers of Woodruff T. Sullivan III

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Oral History

Sullivan, Woodruff T., III

Haddock, Fred T.

Paper document

1984-01-23

1984-01-27

WWII-1956 at Naval Research Laboratory on solar eclipses, development of microwave techniques, 50 foot dish plans, shake-down and observation, cm-λ H II regions and other radio sources; 1956-63 at Michigan with solar dynamic spectrograph (28 foot dish) and then 85 foot dish and maser, low frequency rocket radio astronomy (1962); personality clashes galore, information on U.S. politicking regarding Hagen, set up of NRAO, Goldberg, etc.

Sullivan's interview note: Original recording (2.5 hours) had tremendous "buzz" - erased after extensive notes taken. A pdf of Sullivans notes is provided, as well as a transcription of the handwritten notes (see below).

Working Files Series

Individuals Unit

Sullivan Haddock interview, 23 and 27 January 1984

Sullivan interviewed Fred T. Haddock by phone from Seattle to Michigan on 23 and 27 January 1984.  Sullivan’s interview note says, “Original recording (2.5 hours) had tremendous ‘buzz’ - erased after extensive notes taken.”  Following is a transcription of Sullivan’s handwritten notes.  In the transcription, Sullivan’s abbreviations (e.g. H., calc., pz) have been written out in full (e.g. Haddock, calculations, polarization).  Sullivan indicated his uncertainties about names or wording with (?), included in the transcription.   Explanatory notes or questions about interpretation of the notes added during the 2024 transcription are in brackets.

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Notes of telephone interview with Fred Haddock – 23 and 27 January 1984, ~110 minutes.  Based on original tapes, which had terrible hum and have now been over-recorded; only these notes and some notes on my copy of Haddock’s 5/83 Green Bank talk now exist.  [2024 note:  Haddock, F.T.  U.S. Radio Astronomy Following World War II.”  In:  Serendipitous Discoveries in Radio Astronomy, ed. K.I. Kellermann and B. Sheets (Green Bank: AUI/NRAO, 1984), 115.]

• Took Army ROTC at MIT, but did not go into military due to taking job as research physicist at NRL
• In Hagen’s group then were Dr. Ryan (?) and Harold Herman
• During the War, NRL’s group frequently consulted with Rad Lab [Radiation Laboratory at MIT], e.g. he and McClain travelled there to consult. [Robert] Pound re mixers.
• Ed Dyke (?), on E.E., worked for Haddock during the War
• Dyke and Haddock did work on whether a horn, a mattress array, or dish was better for cm λ radar
• Near end of War, Haddock learned of a “tool crib” (?) man, who was real bright, had a B.S. in physics, and was extremely self-effacing – Sloanaker
• For ~2 years, Sloanaker worked for Haddock doing calculations on effects of rain drops on cm λ radar (full Mie theory for abs. and scattering), goal was to find an optimum λ (calculations for 0.1 to 10 cm were done) and avoid the K-band bad choice of λ
• During War, !1944, the submarine people wanted a radar on their periscopes
• Hagen pushed for a dish, but Haddock pushed for a slotted waveguide
• Haddock and Page (later Director of NRL) went up to Canada and learned slotted waveguide technique from Watson
• Haddock and Mayer led a group of ~10 which developed these 3 cm λ (“ST” ?) radars for the Mark IV periscope (~100-200 were made); Haddock’s design was selected over Al Beck’s poly-rod one at BTL [Bell Telephone Labs]
• 2 one-inch waveguides, each 6 inches long, side-by-side, and with 6 slots each
• During the War, Lewis Strauss (of later AEC fame) had son named Lew Strauss Jr.
• Lewis Strauss Sr was an aide to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lewis Strauss Jr was “youngest Ensign in Navy”
• Lewis Strauss Jr worked in Haddock’s group on the sub radar and the connection gave the project a “lot of visibility” and top priority
• “The idea was floating around NRL during the War that we should build a big radar and get a reflection from the Moon,” and that one could also do surveillance on distant places on earth this way [Sullivan uses an unknown symbol which we have interpreted to mean “places on earth.”]
• Trexler and counter-measures people were in this from the start and it eventually led to the Sugar Grove 600 foot; later Trexler always wanted to control the project, but they wanted the radio astronomy as window-dressing; Hagen and Haddock were thus ~ “fronts”
• Haddock during War really grabbed the moon radar idea and made extensive calculations, modeling the surface as small facets (Haddock always liked optics), etc.
• Haddock calculated σ_D and at λ 10 cm calculated that a 30 foot dish would be needed (very big for that day)
• Lewis Strauss Jr took the idea to his father and Lewis Strauss Sr was very enthusiastic
• So Lewis Strauss Sr invited Hagen and Haddock and wives to his very rich digs in Washington and they were super-impressed with meal and ambience
• Lewis Strauss Sr checked them out and Hagen sold him on the idea and it looked like they should get big $ for a large dish, but end of War ended that [there is a marginal note by this point bracketing this and the next 2 points that says, “need to get rest of story from Haddock”]
• Proposal for and building of dish and why the long delay
• Did DeWitt’s success play a role?

[Note at top of page 3 saying “50 foot dish (σ/D=0.5)

• Axis converter was not operational at the start and wasn’t too great anyway
• Alignment of all the axes, etc. and pointing were a real problem
• They put a small transmitter at top of Washington Monument to measure beam pattern
• Used Sun to measure pointing connections
• Azimuth scale was in units like “996704”; their technique was to be constantly doing trigonometry to calculate next source position and then put dish there and let source drift through
• “Hagen hoarded the 50-foot and was very incompetent (good project salesman but no scientific insight)”
• 1947 (Brazil), 1950 (Attu), and 1952 (Khartoum) eclipse expeditions and methodology of analysis plus “rain calculations” (with Sloanaker) occupied all of Haddock’s time and kept him away from the 50 foot, where he wanted to work
• He even did the 1954 eclipse analysis of Mayer’s data – Mayer was only interested in developing first-rate receivers, which he did, and he produced beautiful data, but had little interest in the Sun
• “Hagen became obsessed with the 50-foot dish and getting it going and just wouldn’t let us use it; finally he gave us 2 weeks on it at end of ’53 (ApJ ’54) and we immediately were able to calibrate it, observe Sun, moon, Cyg A, Tau A, and Cas A”
• “After that, I just took the Messier list of objects and went down it – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… and picked up H II regions M8, M20, M16, M17, etc.”
• Back in ’47 Observatory review, Greenstein had suggested Orion A as a thermal source and they were getting other H II regions, so they went for Orion and it came in quite strong
• ~1948-1949 Haddock wrote the justification for the 50-foot dish – not only lunar radar, but also Cyg A and Cas A and planet’s thermal emission
• Hagen was smart, could raise lots of money, etc., but his dealing with people was terrible; he never gave praise and often criticized and took too much credit for things he shouldn’t have. Sullivan’s note in brackets: Haddock is quite bitter re Hagen and how he handled the group
• 50-foot cost ~$100,000
  
  ~1954
  
  
• Graham Smith at DTM and Joe Pawsey’s attitude (as they looked at this huge white elephant): “The most expensive dish in the world and all it can see is the Sun and Moon”
• Cambridge and CSIRO were never sympathetic to the US cm λ efforts, “but that’s natural – they worked with their expertise and we with ours – we simply sat down with our equipment and asked ‘Now what will this do?’”
• The available equipment and one’s expertise in techniques dictated the programs in all countries – this was also true outside of radio astronomy – look at [unclear word] beams, NMR [nuclear magnetic resonance], etc. of Rabi, Purcell, Townes, Dicke, etc.
• ~1946-1947 Haddock discussed Mie theory, etc. with Van de Hulst during his U.S. post-doc and Van de Hulst told him about 21 centimeter line, but he didn’t know whether in emission or absorption.
• Haddock was so frustrated because he was the initiator of the 50 foot dish but then couldn’t get his hands on it
• Ewen made his first 21 cm receivers for Tuve, Bok, and Haddock, but even though Haddock initiated the whole idea of 21 cm at NRL, Hagen pushed him out of it and put McClain on it
• George Field wrote Hagen and asked for 50 foot time to look for H I absorption in front of strong radio sources; and then McClain did it
• 1947 eclipse – Haddock didn’t go, but he analyzed the data
• 1954 eclipse – Haddock didn’t go since he wanted to do first λ 3 cm work on the 50 foot dish and indeed he and McCullogh built a receiver and got many sources (Hagen and Mayer went to Sweden and Haddock showed them his neat new detection when they returned)

 

 

Four NRL eclipses – main scientific result was good evidence for limb brightening and electron density and temperature as a function of distance from the center
    - role of spicules and mechanism of coronal heating were much debated then
    - “E.O. Hurlburt was damned good, craftsman-type scientist who liked to do experiments in the Cavendish tradition” (he was head of Atomic Sciences Division) and encouraged eclipse work and got Friedman into x-ray astronomy, [unclear word]
     - Eclipse expedition requirements meant that the NRL group developed excellent techniques for achieving stability and sensitivity in the face of adverse conditions.
     - This served the group well later on with 50-foot and 84-foot work

H II region work – one of the first radio astronomy results which was immediately integrated into optical astronomy

January 1954 Washington conference – set up and run by Hagen and Tuve
     - Aller was there and was very excited about the new H II radio results and had his student Boggess work on it
     - Bok had a real love of astronomy, but didn’t have the physical insight of someone like Menzel; he and Hagen hit it off (e.g. for founding of NRAO), perhaps because of this common shallowness

Continuing on 27 January 1984

• He agrees that lack of NRL (open literature) articles approximately 1951 was due to their different orientation – to research and development rather than open science
• One wrote reports, etc., rather than Astrophysical Journal articles; there was not the scientific leadership there to change that
• Haddock was a real “literature buff” and kept a ~100% complete collection of radio astronomy reprints, including a lot of NRL translations of Soviet literature, etc.
• 1945-55 European meeting – discussion on polarization of gal [galaxy?] by rad [radio?] and/or on Crab optical polarization and Haddock went back to NRL with the idea that NRL should measure polarization in radio sources
• He initiated for this the rotating feed system; he was working on the radiometer, etc. for this when in March 1955 he got offer from Goldberg to go to Michigan – accepted in August 1985 and went February 1956
• So Haddock walked away from both this polarimeter and from planet work (which he could see coming and wanted to do) and Mayer took them over
• Mayer developed finite receivers, but at first it was too variable with ambient temperature, so he went back to Haddock’s design
• Mayer did not acknowledge Haddock in his first paper, but did in a later paper on polarization
• Mayer did not have the scientific insight, but could do the observations well and build well
• Haddock did not want to leave NRL, but Goldberg gave him much inducement
• After the January 1954 conference, Goldberg wanted to get into radio astronomy and Helen Dodson also was enthusiastic about solar radio astronomy
  
  ~1951-1952?
• At one stage, Haddock brought up to Michigan lots of his 3 cm λ solar data from NRL and he and Dodson and Muller looked for radio burst-optical flare correlations – there was a very tight correlation (c/m) and she was excited; Haddock suggested that Covington probably had lots more such data and that’s how Dodson-Covington collaboration began; Dodson never acknowledged this, but Haddock admits it’s also his fault for publishing so little
• Goldberg applied for $50,000 from Office of Naval Research (ONR) for a Wild-type dynamic spectrograph but couldn’t get the money since he had no radio astronomy staff
• Goldberg tried to get Wild himself, but then he and Attwood (Electrical Engineering Department) went after Haddock
• Haddock refused Goldberg’s first offer, saying he wasn’t an astronomer, didn’t have a PhD, wanted to work with the biggest dish, etc.
• But Goldberg was aggressive and within a few months responded to each of Haddock’s wants: little teaching, tenure, 60-foot dish, ability to do research on radio sources and planets very soon after initial solar radio astronomy
• Robertson, Chief Scientist at ONR), guaranteed that if Haddock came, ONR would fund dish
• So Haddock went to Michigan in February 1956 as Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering/Astronomy
• Goldberg arranged for Wild to be there in Spring 1956 and Wild gave Haddock the same advice he gave Alan Maxwell: get one of the A.I.L. swept-frequency receivers (for counter-measure military use) off the shelf
• So this was an easy way for Haddock to fill his obligation to set up a solar radio telescope and then get on to his real interests.
• Haddock says Maxwell over the years always berated Haddock over “nosing” into his field, yet Maxwell in fact copied most of Haddock’s set-up
  
  10/1957
• First dynamic 100-600MHz spectrum of a Type IV burst; Denisse was visiting Michigan and recognized it (Wild had never been able to record a Type IV burst and “didn’t believe in them”)
• 25-foot dish with a multiple feed for 100-600, and approximately 1000 to 4000 (2000?) MHz was used for solar dynamic spectra
• Haddock hired Takakura (from Hatanaka’s group) and Takakura delved into synchrotron theory
• Dodson was forbidden by McMath to look at the radio solar data or to have anything to do with Haddock
• McMath was a real prima donna and dictator, although charming
• McMath had good connections with Board of Regents at University of Michigan and had “gotten” Goldberg to be director (at young age)
• Goldberg was a flunky/chauffeur for McMath – always under his thumb
• ~1955 Goldberg finally got over some chronic health problems (“gout”) and only then did he “blossom” as chairman and McMath got angry and therefore kept Dodson away
• -his original 60 foot grew to 85 foot and he got the first Blaw-Knox 85 foot designed by Howard Tatel (Department of Terrestrial Magnetism)
• 1958 - $250,000 from ONR for 85 foot
• Goldberg was never very interested in the science or day-to-day operation of the radio observatory – he was just being a good chairman and having a diversified department
• 85 foot did polarization work and then first detection of Mercury
• Maser receivers were developed at Willow Run Research Lab, University of Michigan (an Electrical Engineering Department off-shoot) and such a receiver was used on 85 foot for Mercury; but Townes then beat them out with first radio astronomy maser receiver at NRL
• Haddock felt he wasted a whole year with the care and feeding of that first maser receiver – liquid helium had to be run 30 feet up to the feed and ran out quickly (open system)
• That receiver also allowed them to get first radio detection of a planetary nebula and of Saturn (despite Drake’s claim to Saturn in IRE February 1958)
• Mike Klein and Bob Hobbs were the grad students at Michigan
• Haddock first thought about low frequency radio astronomy from space in early Vanguard days; a McDonnell-Douglas group also wanted to do it and went to Newell at (new) NASA for it, but Newell favored the science being done in a university
• ~1961 – Michigan astronomy really suffered when Goldberg and Liller went to Harvard and Aller to UCLA
• Article in February 1958 Proceedings of the IRE which Haddock edited (but original idea was not his): “Radio astronomy was dragging astronomy around by the nose”
• Article was model for Cas A’s nonthermal spectrum – 3 Cambridge data points in spectrum did not line up with 3 NRL points – due to poor Cambridge calibration of noise diodes
• Haddock’s basic idea was for free-free absorption surrounding synchrotron source
  
  NRAO/AUI early days
  
  
• The great battle was Tuve (little science) vs Berkner, administrator of AUI (big science)
• Radio astronomers were generally cool towards idea of NRAO, but Goldberg and Bok and his students, e.g., liked it
• Bok’s students were a different breed from the old-time radio astronomers
• When money came from government, Berkner took over and put Emberson in charge, but Emberson was “too sweet” a man for the demanding task