The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett III: Multiple Universes, Mutual Assured Destruction, and the Meltdown of a Nuclear Family

by Peter Byrne

  A few years later, Everett started up a consulting firm based on an uncopy-righted optimizing algorithm, the one he had been thinking about for the fallout project, and later invented. Known in operations research circles as the “Everett Algorithm,” it made both men a lot of money.

  Although they were devotees of game theory in their professional lives, Everett and Pugh did not agree about its relevance to real life. Everett thought that game theory was a reliable guide to making real world decisions, and that Pugh was “soft-headed” for believing that human beings are driven by emotions—fear, anger, hatred, love—and not purely by decisional logic. These arguments so negatively affected Pugh that, years later, he wrote and published a study on the biological origins of human values that elaborated his belief that emotions and moral values are genetically encoded in humans. He posited that decisions are based on a mixture of computation, self-preservation, and social altruism.15

  From the point of view of social engineering, Pugh thought that unless science could offer a better alternative, it was best not to tinker with religious faith, which served to comfort and anchor people in their daily lives. Everett disagreed, calling organized religion “a fraud on the people perpetrated to garner resources for the religious professionals.”16 He loved to argue.

  BOOK 6

  CROSSROADS

  23 A Bell Jar World

  We are not in danger of becoming slaves any more, but of becoming robots.

  Adlai Stevenson, 19541

  July 1957 was a red letter month for the Everetts. They settled into a small house in Alexandria, recently purchased. The relative states theory was published in Reviews of Modern Physics. The paper on recursive games was published in Annals of Mathematics Studies. And daughter Elizabeth Ann was born. Everett was charmed by baby Liz, but, consumed by his career and the pursuit of leisure, he left the nurturing to Nancy. If she wanted to raise children, that was between her and Dr. Spock.

  Like millions of middle-class white women in Cold War America, Nancy’s psyche was pummeled by the culture of conspicuous consumption. Relieved by machinery from many household drudgeries, the housewife-as-consumer was an advertising target for thousands of frivolous household products and handy-dandy appliances. Radio and television shows, films, books, popular songs, and romance novels celebrated the removal of women from intellectual life, glorifying some as sexual objects worthy of capture, while denigrating those who were not. On television, Jack Benny, Jack Parr, Jackie Gleason, Ricky Ricardo, Henny Youngman, and Johnny Carson regularly insulted an entire gender: endlessly cracking bad jokes about blithering, chocolate-eating, pink housecoat-wearing house wives who burned the pot roast after crashing the car and bouncing a check at the lingerie shop. It was popularly believed that women were not physically and mentally capable of driving a car or operating heavy machinery. As baby-making machines, they were basically barred from entering professions that Nature had supposedly reserved for men: science, medicine, business, law, academia and politics—except, of course, as secretaries.

  Desiring independence and a meaningful career, Katharine Kennedy Everett had rebelled against the convention of marriage, but social institutions generally frowned upon woman who dared to profess ambition. Empowered by credit cards to shop for brightly packaged frozen food and (carcinogenic) beauty products and expensive bedroom sets, many college-educated women resigned themselves to serving the needs of her male “breadwinner.” The standardized American housewife of the mid 20th century was designed to remain a perpetual child married to a grown-up with a career.

  Four generations of Everetts: Hugh Sr., Hugh Jr., Hugh III, Elizabeth, 1957.

  Nancy fretted in the trap. Everett worked long hours and traveled frequently, leaving her home alone to vacuum the carpets and change the diapers. As his work was top secret and highly technical, she was excluded from gossiping with him about goings on at the office. The WSEGers socialized at each other’s homes, but spouses were appendages, not principals. Bored, she volunteered with the local chapter of the League of Women Voters, editing the monthly bulletin.

  She penned a semi-serious letter (which she probably never mailed) to television talk show host, Jack Parr:

  Dear Mr. Parr: HELP! Please do something to keep my marriage from coming to a premature end. Its only our fifth anniversary, and I find out my husband can’t go to sleep at night without you on TV. Its not so bad for him; he eventually has the good sense to drift off to sleep. I however am distracted by your guests…. I became addicted at the same time my husband did (what could I do, sleep in the guest room?) but my life has been miserable since…. I hope you will see what you can do about changing your time slot say to noon … I know it is too late to change my husband’s habits, so unless you want an unhappy marriage on your conscience, PLEASE come up with something!

  It might make me feel a little better if you invited a League of Women Voters woman on your program. Well, why not? You’ve had everything else but the kitchen sink.2

  Tucked into her Princeton diary was a thought she had typed up, written perhaps after meeting Everett, (it does express his philosophy of life):

  Someone prophesied that 90 percent of people will be ruled by 10 percent of people. These 10 percent will be the most highly intelligent. They will guide people into doing most constructive and healthy activities. But they will have power over peoples’ minds. They will hammer into their heads what is ‘right,’ what they must do for their own good and for the good of all others. They will accomplish this in [the] same way [as] the science of advertising a lot of ignominious, trifling necessities of everyday life puts all out of proportion their importance.

  Advertising will be used for mass control. People won’t want to listen, and they will hate it, but they will listen and grow used to it. Just as the child revolts against losing his freedom. But when he becomes accustomed to receiving and carrying out orders from a few elite, wise counselors, he will not know what to do if they should cease.3

  She saw her marriage as unequal, writing (after Everett’s death),

  I must accept responsibility for being unassertive, childish, (dumb), slow, dense ?!? .. With Hugh I never asserted myself on purpose – ‘I will never be the cause, I will never give him reason for our break-up’ (if such should threaten). If there is to be one it will be because your spouse wants it – ‘don’t stay with me on my account, I want you to feel free to leave’ – [I was] masochistic – too giving.

  I’ve never developed close support systems with women – never nec. I looked down on nitty gritty home making things women were relegated to and talked about, menus, cleaning, etc. – not for me. If I had a man to share life with – the rest falls into place ok…. I think it was O.K. marriage – really, it grew – but on some levels – I could never be outgoing, gracious, loving…. Why must I always be the understanding one of other’s needs?4

  Hot shot at the Pentagon

  In late 1957, Everett was promoted to head WSEG’s Strategic Analysis Group, the team responsible for mathematical analysis and computerization. He quickly became a virtuoso at programming in FORTRAN.

  In 1958, the Institute for Defense Analyses contracted with the Department of Defense “to perform basic research in communications theory, mainly in mathematical areas, for the National Security Agency.”5 At that time, the very existence of the NSA was a state secret.6 IDA offered Wheeler the directorship of the NSA’s “cryptographic laboratory” at Princeton, but he declined.7 Among Everett’s papers is a blank NSA security clearance application form. It lists several hundred organizations that “have interests in conflict with those of the United States.” Job applicants must not have been associated with any of these groups, which included American Women for Peace, Committee for the Protection of the Bill of Rights, and the National Negro Labor Council.8 It is almost certain that, through IDA, Everett was involved in the early years of software development at the NSA’s Princeton lab, which used the most advanced computers to design and run decryptio
n and encryption programs. Then as now, the black-budget-funded “puzzle palace” scooped up domestic and global electronic communications for intelligence data mining, often illegally. After Everett left WSEG, his Lambda Corporation held an NSA contract.9

  At the Pentagon, Everett soon convinced his bosses to purchase WSEG’s first computer: a $47,000 LGP-30 manufactured by the Librascope company of Glendale, California. One of the first commercial “desk” computers, the machine encased 133 vacuum tubes inside its 740 pound bulk. Its brain knew only 16 commands, and its output was a paper tape: it was more of a super-smart typewriter than a machine capable of running war simulations, which was Everett’s ultimate programming goal. Pugh and Everett flew to California to vet the Librascope. While sharing a hotel room, Pugh was amazed when his friend pulled a large bottle of bourbon whiskey out of his suitcase. He said this was the first time he had noticed Everett’s dependence on alcohol, an addiction which was to progressively worsen.10

  Everett’s dream machine, the IBM 650, priced at $115,000, finally arrived at WSEG in early 1958. Taller than a person, it needed its own room with a specially built floor to accommodate the mainframe, four tape drives, printer, and punch card sorter. With the assistance of WSEG chemist, Larry Dean, Everett invented software platforms capable of running his optimizing algorithms. WSEG used the new computer to project the fighting capabilities of the U.S.S.R. nuclear forces, using information on the Soviet economy and its military-industrial infrastructure gathered by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency.11 The burning issue of the day remained accurately evaluating ballistic missile parity.

  Wheeler, the lobbyist

  In early 1958, Wheeler lobbied hard on Capitol Hill to escalate the development of nuclear armaments by creating a civilian-run National Advanced Research Projects Laboratory; the purported missile gap was central to his arguments. He kept Everett apprised of his progress, sending him a copy of a letter he had written to Eisenhower’s science advisor, Dr. James Killian, with a cover note:

  This is a copy of what I sent off after listening to a classified briefing on the terrifying lead the Russians have on us. I can’t see any escape from out having to set up some such central advanced projects research lab.12

  Wheeler worried that excessive security precautions were keeping scientists from getting all of the information they needed to invent advanced weaponry, including anti-ballistic missiles (ABMs). He told Senator Lyndon Johnson’s Preparedness Subcommittee in 1958,

  Anyone who visits the laboratories in which some of our national defense effort is going on is deeply impressed and disturbed by the fragmentation of effort … Able and devoted men in these groups are unable to have access to each other’s efforts … to gain important information about the nuclear characteristics of the device that they are supposed to be shooting down. Men in this work are supposed to do the job with one hand tied behind their backs and the other hand all taped up except for one finger.13

  Wheeler was particularly concerned that research on solid propellant fuel for intercontinental ballistic missiles was not centralized. He wanted the new lab to be closely connected to the Institute for Defense Analyses’ ARPA and WSEG divisions. And in his testimony he put in a substantial plug for the weapons research division of the Du Pont corporation, although he did not mention that he regularly consulted with Du Pont. He also had long time consulting ties to Convair Corp., which manufactured Atlas missiles, and had mounted a public relations campaign to promote the claim that the Soviets possessed vastly more ballistic missiles than the United States.

  In the summer of 1958, the nationally syndicated columnist, Joseph Alsop, pushed the phony missile gap story; he went so far as to fabricate a table of figures showing that the Soviets would keep ahead of the U.S. by more than a factor of ten for the foreseeable future; when, in fact, the U.S. was ahead of the Soviets—and responsible elements in the intelligence community knew that to be true.14 As the politics around the missile gap got hot, heavy, and contentious, Wheeler abruptly stopped lobbying for the laboratory. He retreated to academia and his theoretical work. After Kennedy was inaugurated president, top officials were compelled to drop the missile gap claim because, blessed with irrefutable intelligence data from U-2 spy plane flights over of the Soviet Union, the truth was reported to them by WSEG and Everett in a blacked-out study called Report 50.

  Wheeler, the coach

  Shortly after Everett’s thesis was published, Wheeler dropped him a note:

  Dear Hugh, I am very eager to see you and talk with you and learn the latest information. I saw General James McCormack [IDA president] at the Bohr Atoms for Peace ceremony in Washington Oct. 24 and asked him how you were getting along. He said you were worth your weight in PU 239 and that you were one of the top people in the whole organization in his view.15

  Wheeler believed that Everett’s talent for quantum theory was being wasted at WSEG. He set Everett up with the offer of a job teaching physics at the University of Wisconsin.

  I hope that Lou Sachs will succeed in luring you into quieter and more reflective areas at Wisconsin because I think you really have a lot of original things to give to the world which you can’t do through the present set-up. If you are hell bent on staying in Washington at any price why don’t you let me see if George Washington University couldn’t make a really attractive position for you? And for the love of Mike please wire or phone Bohr long distance and make a series of dates to chew on what you now have formally in print – and what I hope you will soon further augment in print.16

  Wheeler convinced the physics department at Boston University to solicit Everett for a teaching position.17 But the long distance struggle with Bohr had seriously soured Everett on the perils of academic discourse and, regardless, he was captivated by the world of operations research; he fully intended to use WSEG as a catapult into the lucrative arena of private defense consulting where a young man with a taste for the good life could make some real money and change the world.

  One of the most important assignments ever undertaken by Everett was his leading role in making a global assessment of the U.S.’s offensive options in nuclear war. Known as Report 50, this historic report made operative the concept of “assured destruction” that became the strategic posture of both the Soviet and American blocs. Everett made a mathematical breakthrough that was a lynchpin of the report, which, among other achievements, debunked the notion of a missile gap. But prior to hunkering down to invent a new way of computerizing calculations for the report, Everett finally complied with Wheeler’s request: He traveled to Copenhagen and met with Bohr in the spring of 1959—with unintended consequences.

  24 A Vacation in Copenhagen

  If Bohr had discussed his view on language before quantum physics was developed, many might have thought he had been bitten by a mad mathematician. After all, how could there possibly be any connection between the real world and the abstract mathematical schemes that interested Bohr so much? On the contrary, such schemes were merely logical fictions created by the human imagination.

  But an abstract mathematical scheme is the basis of quantum physics…. This makes the radical character of Bohr’s point of view stand out more clearly. If one were to ask Bohr how we can live with this abstract quantum world, he would answer: ‘There is no abstract quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum physical description! The task of physics is not to find out how nature is, but to find out what we can say about nature.’

  Aage Petersen, 1968.1

  Fock in Denmark

  In Everett’s files there is an article by Soviet physicist Vladimir A. Fock chronicling his visit to Bohr at his Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen in 1957. It sets the scene into which Everett walked two years later to defend his theory. Fock’s account may have given him cause to believe that Bohr could be open-minded about the relative states theory.

  Fock observed,

  Everywhere in Copenhagen one feels the closeness of the sea.
Outside my windows in the hotel there is a canal (the entrance to the inner harbor) over which there is a bridge which can be opened for boats. The central part of the city is on the northern side limited by some long narrow lakes which give the impression of a river or canal, but which unexpectedly end. On these lakes there are gulls, duck and swans, and in the whole of Copenhagen, and especially in the older part of town, the pointed towers are particularly characteristic. In the town there are many parks and open places, but they make an unpleasant impression by the circumstance that they are filled with military huts with concrete walls rising from the ground with portholes. These huts were built partly during the German occupation and partly after the end of the war. Considering the fact that in military respect they are useless, it is difficult to avoid the thought that the reason for their construction is to keep up the atmosphere of the ‘cold war.’2

  An extended visit to the Institute was structured to encourage the informal exchange of ideas between the 30 or so physicists on the premises at any one time. Fock explained,