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Once, during an interview, I saw him in action as he described a run of knotty calculations he was doing in his head — the kind of math his peers usually worked out on paper or with computers.
That gift was surely one reason that Enrico Fermi, a founder of the nuclear age who mentored him at the University of Chicago, called Richard L. Garwin “the only true genius I have ever met.” It also played to a popular image of Dr. Garwin as slightly robotic, even computerlike, a thinking machine that happened to have legs.
Dr. Garwin died last month at 97, leaving behind a legacy of contradictions. In 1951, at age 23, he designed the first hydrogen bomb, the world’s deadliest weapon, a planet shaker that could end civilization. He then devoted his life to counteracting the terror.
Over four decades of interviews, chats and social interactions, I learned that the man behind the stereotypes was full of surprises, which I wrote about in a recent article.
He had a reputation for being cruel to those he saw as less talented. That may have been true in the prime of his professional life. But in person during his later years, Dr. Garwin came across as a gentle academic, a humanist whose life turned out to be rich in benevolent acts.
Years ago, Gene Cittadino, a friend of mine who taught science history at New York University, asked me if Dr. Garwin might be willing to speak to his class. After the talk, Gene and several students took him to lunch and were regaled with stories about the presidents he advised. “He was soft-spoken, sharp as a tack and funny,” Gene recalled. The whiz, he added, “treated us with respect,” as if we were his colleagues.
Dr. Garwin could be surprisingly well-informed about things social and civilized. I once asked my wife, Tanya, to join us at a Sunday brunch. She was reluctant, fearing we’d talk endlessly about subjects in which she had little interest.
He won her over — and impressed me — with his knowledge of Paris and what was current, including at the Musée d’Orsay. It became clear that his dance card was full. He was no ivory-tower recluse.
Still, Dr. Garwin had his quirks. His colleagues liked to tease him about his near obsession with fixing things. As one joke went: If Dr. Garwin were facing the guillotine during the French Revolution and the executioner’s blade got stuck, he’d look up and say, “Oh, I see the problem.”
I witnessed his fix-it urge when Tanya and I went to dinner with Dr. Garwin and his wife, Lois. As appetizers were served, he began using his table knife to straighten the prongs of his fork, prompting her to elbow him firmly. He quickly realigned himself.
Ms. Garwin once told a historian that her spouse was challenged in “anticipating people’s reactions” to what he said and did. In time, she added, he became “much more diplomatic,” no doubt aided by her reminders.
After more than 70 years of marriage, Ms. Garwin died in 2018, leaving her husband in charge of his personal and social life.
The next year, an email from Dr. Garwin appeared in my inbox: “When can I invite myself to dinner?” It was an interesting night. He arrived in a coat and tie and sat next to one of my wife’s friends. Afterward, they exchanged emails and pumpkin pie recipes.
Over the years I interviewed and met with Dr. Garwin dozens of times, on some occasions asking questions about sensitive issues of bomb physics and national security.
Some nuclear experts shy away from such discussions, out of fear of accidentally breaking the rules of federal secrecy and ending up in jail. Not Dr. Garwin. He knew exactly what had been declassified and went right up to the line. He was just as much a stickler for national security rules as he was for exercising his democratic right to speak his mind.
Other reporters learned how generous he could be. Ann Finkbeiner wrote a book about a secretive group of federal advisers to which Dr. Garwin belonged, describing him as “helpful and charming when you least expect it.”
I visited Dr. Garwin for the last time over a weekend in late January at his home in Scarsdale, N.Y. I found him reflective. A granddaughter called as we ate lunch. Later, he spoke of the things he valued most. In order of importance: his family, the planetary environment and his country. No surprises there.
What floored me was his concern that foreign intelligence agencies could be monitoring him in efforts to learn H-bomb secrets more than 70 years after a test of his design created a mushroom cloud 100 miles wide.
The hidden danger from the existence of “many nuclear weapons,” he said, was the increased risk of theft, errors, accidents, unauthorized use — of unpredictable acts that could set off a global chain reaction.
“The likelihood goes down if we continue to make progress on arms control,” he said.
His calculus of hope seemed like a last gift to humankind. It came not from a thinking machine but from a man of remarkable grace, charm and wisdom.
William J. Broad has reported on science at The Times since 1983. He is based in New York.
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