Interview with Rudd Brown

Abstract

An interview on January 31, 1995, with Rudd Brown, on the subject of her former husband, Harrison Brown (1917-1986), who was a professor of geochemistry in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at Caltech from 1951 to 1977, with a joint appointment in the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences as professor of science and government, from 1967. Among other policy positions, he was foreign secretary of the National Academy of Sciences from 1962 to 1974. In 1977, he left Caltech to become director of the Resource Systems Institute at the East-West Center, in Honolulu, remaining there until 1983. Brown came to Caltech from the University of Chicago, and was shortly followed there by several other Chicago geochemists, including Clair Patterson and Samuel Epstein. He and Rudd were married c. 1950 and divorced in 1975. In this interview, she outlines his family background and childhood in Sheridan, Wyoming, and San Francisco and his wartime work at Oak Ridge. She recalls their early life together at the University of Chicago after World War II and their subsequent years at Caltech, including its social life. She discusses his interest in the problems of overpopulation, resource sustainability, agricultural productivity, and East-West relations. She recalls his help in her political campaigns for Congress in 1958 and 1960 and concludes with recollections of his involvement with the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in the 1960s.