It is a great honour to have this opportunity to celebrate the contribution which Solly Zuckerman has made in many different fields in a career of over sixty years, during most of which he has been working for the Government in various capacities.
There can be very few scientists who can claim to have involved themselves in such a wide range of areas, and of areas of such [end p1] pertinence to affairs of current public concern. His earliest work, which has been a continuing interest and stemmed from a study of baboons he conducted while an undergraduate at the University of Cape Town, was on the social life of monkeys and apes (which some might conclude was a very good preparation for his subsequent work in Whitehall). [end p2] During the course of this, I understand that he established a colony of monkeys in Oxford, as well as bringing a baby baboon back from South Africa to stay in his flat in London. The importance of this work is demonstrated, among other things, by the fact that some of it helped to lay the ground for the later development of the birth control pill. [end p3]
He served with distinction in the War under Lord Mountbatten, then Chief of Combined Operations, and as planning adviser on strategic air operations to Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, the Deputy to General Eisenhower. The work which he did informed bombing operations in several theatres, including in the lead-up to, and aftermath of, [end p4] D-Day.
As he is the first to admit, not all lines of scientific enquiry bear fruit in practical results—although I shall not comment on whether the fault for that lies at the door of scientists, politicians or someone else—and I was amused to learn that one of the projects of Combined Operations during the War which did not [end p5] progress far beyond the conceptual stage was project Habbakuk, which envisaged the building of a vast aircraft carrier out of reinforced ice, which would have had a hull thirty feet thick and have been about half a mile long. Although the project commended itself to Winston Churchill, it eventually came to nothing, but perhaps it will be resurrected at some point in the future by [end p6] a cost-conscious Navy.
Solly 's valuable work on bombing during the War led onto work subsequently on the effects of the use of nuclear weapons, and he has developed a close interest over many years in questions of nuclear policy and strategy. He became intimately involved in this following his appointment as Chief [end p7] Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence in 1960, and in his subsequent appointment in 1964 as Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government as a whole, in which position he served until 1971. His views on these matters have always been interesting, stimulating and independent—it is one of the functions of the scientist to be independent and enquiring and, if that sometimes [end p8] represents an irritant to Government, it still remains invaluable. As Chief Scientific Adviser, Solly was involved in the discussions leading to the decision to acquire Polaris, and the development of the early thinking on nuclear strategy.
However, Solly 's career in Whitehall was not limited to his time as Chief Scientific [end p9] Adviser. As early as 1946, for example, he became Deputy Chairman of the newly-established Advisory Council on Scientific Policy, and in the period since his retirement as CSA in 1971, he has given very useful service to successive Prime Ministers as a part-time consultant in the Cabinet Office. [end p10]
In his autobiography, Solly self-deprecatingly refers to himself in his early years in Whitehall as an amateur. I cannot claim to have known him at the time, but I doubt that I should be wrong to dispute his description—and it is certainly the case that his career has been outstanding in demonstrating the vital contribution which high quality and professional scientific advice must make [end p11] to the formulation of Government policy in a very wide range of areas.
That contribution has been enhanced by the breadth of his interests, which have not detracted from the scientific contribution which he made in Government. He was Professor of Anatomy at Birmingham University for over twenty years until 1968, and only retired as President of the [end p12] Zoological Society in 1984, after thirty years as Secretary and then President. That he should have combined such a variety of responsibilities is a tribute to his formidable energy and enthusiasm, as is the fact that he should only now be retiring from at least his formal contribution to Government work.
And Solly has demonstrated not only that [end p13] scientists need not confine themselves to a narrow sphere of science, but that they need by no means confine their interests to scientific ones—a proposition in which you will understand that I am a firm believer! He cannot have been a “dull scientist” when, in the period before the War, he formed friendships with, for example, the Gershwins, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepwood [end p14] and Charles Laughton or, in a different walk of life, Hugh Gaitskell and when, during and after the War, he became a friend of, among others, Lord Mountbatten.
Throughout his career, and throughout his years advising the Government, Solly has deployed the enquiring and open mind, the scepticism, the critical powers and the enthusiasm and commitment which mark the [end p15] best of those from the academic world, and has combined these qualities with a natural, practical ability to help in the application of scientific advice to Government action. He has been a wise and professional adviser, and a good and valued friend of very many within and without Government and we all wish him very well (without by any means, expecting that this is the last we [end p16] shall hear from him).