Welcome again to the Laboratory. My name is James Symons. I'm the director of the Nuclear Science Division here at LBL. Actually, that's the descendent of a division which our speaker founded many years ago, and so it's a real pleasure for me to be able to introduce him to you today. Glenn Seaborg is a very special person for this laboratory and also our state and our country and for the world. He first came to Berkeley 62 years ago. He was a UCLA graduate, which explains why he still supports the Bruins in basketball but the Bears in football. He did his Ph.D. here in the 30's. He then went on to do research on transactinide elements, including the discovery of, first of all, plutonium and then many other elements all the way up to element 106, which is planned to be named seaborgium, so he will be one of the few people with a living element.
After starting his scientific career he then worked during the war on the Manhattan Project, particularly on the chemical projects at Argonne separating plutonium. After the war he continued his scientific career and also his career in public service. In the late 50's he was Chancellor of UC Berkeley. He went back to Washington in 1961 to be Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, which he did through the 60's and 70's under Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. Then he returned to Berkeley, and since that time he's been active continuing with his scientific career and also with a lot of other interests in education and so on. Along the way he won a Nobel prize and did a few other things; so he's had a really marvelous career, and he's still fully active. His office is next to mine, and he's usually in before I am in the morning. He's here every day. He has a tremendous interest in education and arms control and other things which he dedicates his time to these days. I'm taking up too much of his time, so I'd now like to introduce Glenn Seaborg to you and he's going to talk to you about FDR to Bush, 50 years of Advising the Presidents.