Full text of "Coastal engineering : research, consulting, and teaching, 1946-1997"

Regional Oral History Office University of California

The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California

University History Series

Robert L. Wiegel
COASTAL ENGINEERING: RESEARCH, CONSULTING, AND TEACHING, 1946-1997

With Introductions by
Rodney J. Sobey

and
Orville Magoon

An Interview Conducted by

Eleanor Swent

in 1997

Underwritten by
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading
participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of
Northern California, the West, and the Nation. Oral history is a method of
collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a
narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-
informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the
historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for
continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected
manuscript is indexed, bound with photographs and illustrative materials, and
placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in
other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material,
oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete
narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in
response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved,
and irreplaceable.

************************************

All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement
between The Regents of the University of California and Robert L.
Wiegel dated January 8, 1997. The manuscript is thereby made
available for research purposes. All literary rights in the
manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The
Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. No part
of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written
permission of the Director of The Bancroft Library of the University
of California, Berkeley.

Requests for permission to quote for publication should be
addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, 486 Library,
University of California, Berkeley 94720, and should include
identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated
use of the passages, and identification of the user. The legal
agreement with Robert L. Wiegel requires that he be notified of the
request and allowed thirty days in which to respond.

It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows:

Robert L. Wiegel, "Coastal Engineering:
Research, Consulting, and Teaching, 1946-
1997," an oral history conducted in 1997
by Eleanor Swent, Regional Oral History
Office, The Bancroft Library, University
of California, Berkeley, 1997.

Copy no.

Robert L. Wiegel, 1976.

Cataloguing information

Wiegel, Robert L. (b. 1922) Civil engineer

Coastal Engineering: Research, Consulting, and Teaching, 1946-1997,
1997, ix, 327 pp.

Oakland childhood, UC Berkeley, 1940-1943; ROTC experience, Army
Ordnance officer, England, France; graduate studies in coastal and ocean
engineering at UCB: wave and beach research, tsunamis, risk analysis,
turbulent motion; thoughts on synergy of sharing ideas, value of
publication, advising and mentoring graduate students; UC Berkeley
College of Engineering teaching and governance, 1957-1987: acting dean,
1972-1973, work with State Coordinating Council for Higher Education,
State Technical Services Program from 1965 to 1968, and technology
transfer; consulting and public service: Namibian diamond project, Hilo
tsunami protection, Alaska beach nourishment, Nile Delta, Papua New
Guinea port construction, Sines (Portugal) breakwater, Strait of Hormuz,
Mica Dam, oil platforms in North Sea and Gulf of Mexico, pipelines in
Patagonia and Alaska, Manfredonia (Italy) breakwater; contribution to
California Advisory Commission on Marine and Coastal Resources, Office
of Naval Research Natural Hazards Review Board, Coastal Engineering
Research Board.

Introductions by Rodney J. Sobey, Professor of Civil and
Environmental Engineering, UC Berkeley; Orville Magoon, Vice
Chairman, Coastal Engineering Research Council of the American
Society of Civil Engineers, and President, Coastal Zone
Foundation.

Interviewed 1997 by Eleanor Swent for University History series.
The Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University
of California, Berkeley.

TABLE OF CONTENTSRobert Wiegel

PREFACE i

INTRODUCTION by Rodney J. Sobey iii

INTRODUCTION by Orville Magoon iv

INTERVIEW HISTORY vi

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION ix

I EARLY YEARS, 1922 TO 1940 1
The Wiegel Family 1
The Decker/Carothers Family, in California Since 1868 2
Father, Stanford 1906, and the Ocean Shore Railroad 4
Good Schools in Oakland 8
A Summer in Hawaii, 1930 11

II ENGINEERING STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, FROM 1940 17
Before World War II 17
ROTC and Accelerated Studies in Wartime 20
Mechanical Engineering Professors Boelter, O'Brien, Folsom 23
Senior Laboratory: Terribly Difficult in One Semester 24

III ARMY ORDNANCE OFFICER IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE 27
Motor Vehicle Repair and Leadership Training 27
Ordnance Service near Cheltenham and in Paris 28

IV RETURN TO CAL, 1946: RESEARCH IN COASTAL AND OCEAN ENGINEERING 33
Full-time Research Employee 33
The Bikini Test: Would Operation Crossroads Cause a Tsunami? 34
Wave and Beach Research for the Bureau of Ships 42
Security Clearance 43
Beach Traf f icability, Liquefaction, Surf Forecasting 44
Harry Seed and Others: The Synergy of Sharing Ideas at the

University 45

College Avenue Pool a Hydraulic Model Basin 48

Field Work and Theory; Engineering and Science 49

Improving Risk Analysis and Probabilistic Models 50

Project Engineer for Wave Research with the Marine Corps 52

Operation MIKI /Manual of Amphibious Oceanography 54

Pioneering Research on Seakeeping Capability of Ships 54

Curtis Crooke, Later of Global Marine 55

Development of The Morison Equation 55

Rapid Deployment Concepts for the Navy 56

Calculating Behavior of Moored Ships: Six Degrees of Freedom 59
Project Engineer to Study Drag and Inertia in the Ocean for

Signal Oil and Gas 60

The Value of Publication in Journals to Disseminate Knowledge 62

Research on Portable Breakwaters Leads to Studies of Mixing

Processes 64

Observations on Peak Load Anticipate Science by Thirty-Five

Years 65

Analyzing Turbulent Motion; "We Don't Understand the Simplest

Things" 65

The Caldwell Equation 69

TEACHING AT CAL, 1957 TO 1987 75

Irrigation 117 at the University of California at Davis 75
The Benefits and Effects of Consulting to Test Professional

Engineering Ability 76

Consulting on a Breakwater Project at Subic Bay in the 1950s 77

Advising Bechtel and GE on a Power Plant in India 79
Professors Wiegel and Johnson Did Not Neglect Their Classes for

Consulting Work 81
Committees for Engineering Education; Saving the Program at

Irvine 82

The Importance of Faculty Socializing 84

Changing Academic Schedules from Semester to Quarter System 86

Teaching in the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory at Berkeley 87

The Pelton Wheel: Materials Change, but Principles Do Not 88

Full Professor of Civil Engineering, 1963 90
Environmental Engineering: Quantitative Treatment, Costs, and

Tradeoffs 90

The Junior Course in Fluid Mechanics: Small Lecture Sections 92

Laboratory Sessions Were Also Essential 93

Outstanding Students Condit, Beebe, Prins, et al. 95

The Master of Engineering Degree with a Non-Scientific Minor 96
The Alumni Network of Worldwide Importance for International

Understanding 97
Teaching Coastal Engineering at the National University of

Mexico 98

The Successful Work-Study Program 101

Grade Inflation Did Not Mean Lower Quality Students 103
Berkeley's Successful Extension Program for Continuing Education 104

The First-Ever Short Course in Earthquake Engineering 105

The Resulting Textbook: Another Aspect of Teaching 106

Chair of the University-Wide Extension Program 108
Member and Chairman of Chancellor's Advisory Committee on

Education of Military Officers (ROTC) 110
The Importance of Having Well-Trained Civilians in the Military 111

Advising Graduate Students: Matching Talents and Problems 112
A Practical Problem with Pumps in India Leads to Research

Projects 113

Pioneering Research on Mixing of a Surface Buoyant Jet 116

Some Special Graduate Students from Egypt 118

The Richmond Field Station 122

Development of Pioneering Wave Generators 123

Pre-Feasibility Studies for the Polaris Missile 124

Graduate Students and Surfing 126

Teaching Students to Write and Speak Persuasively 126

Teaching the Use of a Specialized Library 128
Inventing the Term Oceanographical Engineering and Authoring

the Book 128

VI UNIVERSITY ACTIVITIES IN ADDITION TO TEACHING 131
Director of the State Technical Services Program, 1965-1968 131
Attending Meetings of the California Coordinating Council

for Higher Education 136

University Organization More Like a Symphony Than a Business 138

The Engineering Advisory Council Develops a Master Plan, 1965 139
Member of the Institute of Marine Resources Executive

Committee, 1966-1972 141

Service on Coordinating Boards and Academic Senate Committees 145

The Most Difficult Year: Acting Dean, 1972-1973 153

More About the State Technical Service Program 158

The Challenge of the Information Age and Data Management 163

Wave Sensor; Example of Technology Transfer 165
Introducing Television Instruction through University Extension 171

VII ENGINEERING ACTIVITIES AS PUBLIC SERVICE 173
Publication Resulting from Conferences and Workshops 173
Sponsoring Technical Assessment to Correct Public

Misinformation/Perceptions 179

Some International Conferences on Coastal Engineering/Councils 185

An Innovative Sand Breakwater at a Namibian Diamond Project 193

California Advisory Commission on Marine and Coastal Resources 197

Office of Naval Research Natural Hazards Review Board 201

Engineering Committee on Ocean Resources 202

More on the Use of TV in the College of Engineering at Cal 206

Hindcasting Wave Conditions 209

Civilian Member on the Coastal Engineering Research Board 213

Photographs 220
Technical Advisory Council for Tsunami Protection for Hilo,

Hawaii 223

Nature's Always Responding to the Last Major Event 227

Advising on the Coastal Construction Control Line in Florida 228
Evaluating Orange County, California, Reports and

Recommendations 229

Beach Nourishment Advisor in Barrow, Alaska 230

Examining the Nile Delta 231

Advising on a Port for Papua New Guinea 232
Study of Sines, Portugal, Breakwater Disaster Led to Watershed

Changes 233

The 0' Shaughnessy Seawall: A Lesson in Good Engineering 237
Adjudicating a Dispute over a Breakwater in the Strait of Hormuz 240

Kittimat, Canada: Local Tsunami 242
On the Board of Engineers of the Mica Dam, World's Second

Biggest Earthfill Dam 242

Designing Steel Platforms in the Forties Field, North Sea 244

Helping to Design the Cognac Platform in the Gulf of Mexico 245

A Tension-Leg Platform, a New Technique 246

Pipelines: Patagonia/Alaskan North Slope 247

A Breakwater for Manfredonia, Italy 247

You Absolutely Have to Read: the Importance of Archives 248

The Southern Swell 251

VIII MENTORING AND ADVISING GRADUATE STUDENTS 254

Match a Problem with a Student, Encourage, and Wrap It Up 254

Thoughts on the Political Aspects of Coastal Engineering 256

More on the California Coastal Commission 258

A Particularly Interesting Trip to Russia in 1971 261

The Coastal Engineering Research Center 264

Final Thoughts on Balancing Coastal Uses 269

TAPE GUIDE 271

APPENDIX

A Guest Editorial, "The Coast and Professor Robert L.

Wiegel," Thomas R. Kendall, Shore and Beach.

July 1994. 272
B "Keynote Address," Ben C. Gerwick, Jr., Shore and

Beach. July 1994. 274
C "Professor Wiegel' s Legacy," Choule J. Sonu, Shore

and Beach. July 1994. 276

D Robert L. Wiegel, Curriculum Vitae. 279

E Robert L. Wiegel, Publications, as of 31 December 1996. 287

F University History Series List. 299

INDEX 310

PREFACE

When President Robert Gordon Sproul proposed that the Regents of the
University of California establish a Regional Oral History Office, he was
eager to have the office document both the University's history and its
impact on the state. The Regents established the office in 1954, "to
tape record the memoirs of persons who have contributed significantly to
the history of California and the West," thus embracing President
Sproul 's vision and expanding its scope.

Administratively, the new program at Berkeley was placed within the
library, but the budget line was direct to the Office of the President.
An Academic Senate committee served as executive. In the four decades
that have followed, the program has grown in scope and personnel, and the
office has taken its place as a division of The Bancroft Library, the
University's manuscript and rare books library. The essential purpose of
the Regional Oral History Office, however, remains the same: to document
the movers and shakers of California and the West, and to give special
attention to those who have strong and continuing links to the University
of California.

The Regional Oral History Office at Berkeley is the oldest oral
history program within the University system, and the University History
Series is the Regional Oral History Office's longest established and most
diverse series of memoirs. This series documents the institutional
history of the University, through memoirs with leading professors and
administrators. At the same time, by tracing the contributions of
graduates, faculty members, officers, and staff to a broad array of
economic, social, and political institutions, it provides a record of the
impact of the University on the wider community of state and nation.

The oral history approach captures the flavor of incidents, events,
and personalities and provides details that formal records cannot reach.
For faculty, staff, and alumni, these memoirs serve as reminders of the
work of predecessors and foster a sense of responsibility toward those
who will join the University in years to come. Thus, they bind together
University participants from many of eras and specialties, reminding them
of interests in common. For those who are interviewed, the memoirs
present a chance to express perceptions about the University, its role
and lasting influences, and to offer their own legacy of memories to the
University itself.

The University History Series over the years has enjoyed financial
support from a variety of sources. These include alumni groups and
individuals, campus departments, administrative units, and special groups
as well as grants and private gifts. For instance, the Women's Faculty
Club supported a series on the club and its members in order to preserve
insights into the role of women on campus. The Alumni Association
supported a number of interviews, including those with Ida Sproul, wife
of the President, and athletic coaches Clint Evans and Brutus Hamilton.

Their own academic units, often supplemented with contributions from
colleagues, have contributed for memoirs with Dean Ewald T. Grether,
Business Administration; Professor Garff Wilson, Public Ceremonies; Deans
Morrough P. O'Brien and John Whinnery, Engineering; and Dean Milton
Stern, UC Extension. The Office of the Berkeley Chancellor has supported
oral history memoirs with Chancellors Edward W. Strong and Albert H.
Bowker .

To illustrate the University/community connection, many memoirs of
important University figures have in turn inspired, enriched, or grown
out of broader series documenting a variety of significant California
issues. For example, the Water Resources Center-sponsored interviews of
Professors Percy H. McGaughey, Sidney T. Harding, and Wilfred Langelier
have led to an ongoing series of oral histories on California water
issues. The California Wine Industry Series originated with an interview
of University enologist William V. Cruess and now has grown to a fifty-
nine-interview series of California's premier winemakers. California
Democratic Committeewoman Elinor Heller was interviewed in a series on
California Women Political Leaders, with support from the National
Endowment for the Humanities; her oral history was expanded to include an
extensive discussion of her years as a Regent of the University through
interviews funded by her family's gift to The Bancroft Library.

To further the documentation of the University's impact on state and
nation, Berkeley's Class of 1931, as their class gift on the occasion of
their fiftieth anniversary, endowed an oral history series titled "The
University of California, Source of Community Leaders." The series
reflects President Sproul's vision by recording the contributions of the
University's alumni, faculty members and administrators. The first oral
history focused on President Sproul himself. Interviews with thirty-four
key individuals dealt with his career from student years in the early
1900s through his term as the University's eleventh President, from 1930-
1958.

Gifts such as these allow the Regional Oral History Office to
continue to document the life of the University and its link with its
community. Through these oral history interviews, the University keeps
its own history alive, along with the flavor of irreplaceable personal
memories, experiences, and perceptions. A full list of completed memoirs
and those in process in the series is included following the index of
this volume.

September 1994 Harriet Nathan, Series Director

Regional Oral History Office University History Series
University of California

Berkeley, California Willa K. Baum, Division Head

Regional Oral History Office

ill

INTRODUCTION by Rodney J. Sobey

Robert Wiegel's international reputation as a pioneering
researcher and prime mover in coastal engineering has been well
established since the 1960s. It would have been very easy for him to
live off this reputation for the balance of his career. But that is not
Robert Wiegel.

He has always taken his commitments to his family, to his
profession, and to his university very completely and very seriously.
Much of this is public record. More still is compellingly documented in
this oral history. Parts are known only to those privileged to know him
well.

Robert Wiegel's interests are catholic in the extreme, and belie
the popular image of an engineering professor. He has always been
concerned with the entire spectrum of engineeringresearch,
instruction, investigation, environmental interaction, design,
construction, and communication.

Bob always recognized the importance of the written word.
Beginning in the 1950s, he developed and personally maintained a
library, the "Wiegel Ocean Engineering Archive." It is housed in the
Water Resources Center Archives on the Berkeley campus with the status
of a reserve collection. It is a unique collection with a very Robert
Wiegel personality. It has a wealth of historical documents from the
early years of coastal engineering, together with numerous extracts from
the quality press and the scientific press on aspects of coastal and
ocean engineering. It also includes a lot of the gray literature,
unpublished reports with limited distribution lists.

Bob has always been an avid consumer of quality newspapers, from
all over the country. His particular interest is in the reporting of
aspects of coastal engineering and natural hazards, but his concerns
have never been restricted to just coastal engineering. He has been an
equally avid reader of the scientific press. He is very well read on
the "pre-history" of coastal engineering, with particular interest in
Mediterranean harbors in biblical and Roman times.

His legacy to his students is considerable and largely untold. To
his students, he was always patient and encouraging. He was always
available and his open door has been legendary in O'Brien Hall. It has
continued to this day, a decade after his "official" retirement. His
teaching was committed and enthusiastic. He has continued to contribute
to coastal engineering graduate classes, giving today's students a
glimpse of his magic. The place of a focused discussion in the entire

spectrum of engineering is always a secondary theme in his classes. He
communicates much of this through his stories and through commentaries
drawn from the current press. During his active teaching, his passion
for the written word and the value of library research were central
themes in his graduate teaching. His insistence on written term papers
on a focused topic was and still is unusual in engineering. He
recognized writing and library research skills as perennial weaknesses
of engineering education.

His legacy to close academic colleagues is an issue to which I can
personally relate. I came to Berkeley because of Robert Wiegel. His
international reputation was established and intimidating when I first
met him. Robert Wiegel as a mentor and a colleague has been a joy. He
has set an example of academic commitment that I have always viewed as
the goal. Students were always his first concern. Canceling class or
office hours was never an option. His busy schedule of national
academic and professional committee assignments was always scheduled
around his classes. Overnight "red-eye" flights to and from the East
Coast were a standard practice. His insatiable reading has been a
continuing source of inspiration, support, and encouragement. Despite a
ballooning literature, he has remained exceptionally well informed. A
week does not pass without at least one item of "compulsory reading" in
my campus mail box from Bob Wiegel. He has been a consistent source of
calm rational advice, encouragement, and moral support. He has always
been there for me. Thank you, Bob.

In my travels, it has always been a pleasure to be identified as a
colleague of Bob Wiegel. The genuine admiration and affection for the
man who has gone before me has been a continuing source of pleasure.
Apart from his expertise in coastal engineering, the message I hear
every time is of Robert Wiegel, the gentleman.

I would like to acknowledge my co-conspirators in making this oral
history happen. The planning was initiated together with Linda Vida
(Librarian, Water Resources Center Archives, Berkeley). Financial
support was provided through Robert Whalin (Director, Waterways
Experiment Station, Vicksburg) . Steven Hughes guided the project
through the Vicksburg bureaucracy. Mabel Iwamoto and Orville Magoon
assisted with background information. The interviews were planned,
completed, and edited by Eleanor Swent (Regional Oral History Office,
Berkeley) with considerable assistance from Bob Wiegel.

Rodney J. Sobey

Professor of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, University of
California, Berkeley
September, 1997
Berkeley, California

INTRODUCTION by Orville Magoon

Bob Wiegel epitomizes inspiration, professionalism, technical
insight, encouragement, and the highest degree of colleague relations
and loyalty. Bob's oral history is a testimony to these and many more
facets illuminating his brilliant career. Unquestionably, Bob Wiegel
has had an enormous impact on my life.

In 1951, while I was a graduate student at Stanford, I found the
proceedings of the First Conference on Coastal Engineering, held in Long
Beach, California. After ordering my own volume from the Council on
Waves Research at UC Berkeley, I went personally to the Berkeley campus
to discuss my interests in the coast. When I arrived at O'Brien Hall, I
walked to the appointed room to find Bob Wiegel, Joe W. Johnson and Dean
M. P. O'Brien, a constellation of mind and inspiration I shall never
forget. After I explained that I was having trouble understanding
breakwaters, Bob not only encouraged my questions and prompted my study
of concrete armor units, but he soon asked me to lecture on the same
subject to one of his classes at the university. Bob always answered a
question with a challenge of his own.

Perhaps the most difficult coastal project I have ever tackled was
the repair to the seaward heads of the Humboldt jetties. In my now
annual visits and lectures for Bob at Berkeley, I discuss the concepts
that formulated the triumph of coastal engineering over the forces of
the ocean waves at those jetties. Those concepts, which became the
foundation of my philosophy on coastal engineering, were woven
successfully from the threads of inspiration engendered by Bob's
academic encouragement at that first meeting back in 1951.

From the start, Bob taught me with questions that made me
determined to find my own answers. In this way, he encouraged a
professional attitude of personal responsibility that provided a solid
ground for my own career. I had to discover for myself how to solve the
problems we confront in an ever-changing coastline defining an ever-
changing world. Because of Bob, I was well equipped for the challenges
that would confront me in the years ahead.

Today, I am deeply grateful, not only for Bob's professional
leadership, time, and encouragement, but, above all, for the friendship
of a great man.

Orville Magoon, Vice Chairman

Coastal Engineering Research Council of

the American Society of Civil Engineers
and President, Coastal Zone Foundation

Middletown, California
December 1997

INTERVIEW HISTORY- -Robert L. Wiegel

Robert Wiegel 's pioneering contributions to coastal engineering,
his five decades of world-recognized research in coastal wave and beach
processes and earthquake-generated tsunamis, and the practical
application of his work for government and industry gave impetus to his
oral history. His textbook Oceanographical Engineering established the
discipline. His role in fostering research, mentoring several
generations of students in civil engineering, and serving the College of
Engineering at Berkeley and the University of California at large, as
well as the national and international professional community, made him
an ideal candidate for an oral history memoir.

I was asked in the fall of 1996 to work with Professor Wiegel to
document his career in a field only slightly related to my experience as
a research interviewer of mining engineers. Fortuitously, I had just
returned from a holiday at Cape May, New Jersey, where I spent many
hours walking and driving along the waterfront and observing its
historic works of coastal engineering, although at the time those words
were not yet in my vocabulary. I did not feel totally unqualified to
interview Professor Wiegel, and any trepidation I felt diminished when I
first spoke with him by telephone; as a first-rate teacher, he is very
willing to impart information to an eager listener. In this first
conversation, we established an additional basis for rapport: my husband
served in the amphibious forces of the U.S. Navy, and much of Wiegel 's
research was generated by that branch of the service; at that point we
became Bob and Lee.

As preparation, I conducted informational interviews with his
Civil Engineering Department colleagues Professor Rodney Sobey and Mabel
Iwamoto at the University of California at Berkeley, and Orville Magoon,
past president of the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association,
in Middletown, California. Apart from the useful information acquired
about his work, I gained a strong sense of the very deep affection and
admiration which Wiegel 's associates have for him. I was also supplied,
by Wiegel and others, with abundant references and materials on the
history of the Beach Erosion Board, the Coastal Engineering Research
Council, and the various organizations which have evolved since
protecting the fashionable beaches of Cape May first became a
governmental priority in the nineteenth century.

We held a planning session in his office on the fourth floor of
O'Brien Hall on 2 December, 1996, and then we recessed while he and his
wife spent their customary vacation in Hawaii. Seven interviews were
conducted in the same office on 8 January; 4, 12, and 19 February; and
10, 12, and 31 March, 1997.

vii

The Wiegel office is crowded with well-organized reference
materials and up-to-date equipment. When I arrived, Bob was usually
working at his new 100-megabyte computer. At our first meeting, he
explained his physical limitations: he is totally deaf in one ear as a
result of surgery for an acoustic neuroma. The consequent nerve damage
has also moderately impaired his speech. He preferred to be interviewed
in the morning before he tired. He presented this information
cheerfully; in the same practical way, he showed me where the materials
relevant to the interviews were stored in his drawer, so I would know,
"just in case something happens." His memory seems unimpaired and his
travel schedule is still one that might daunt someone much younger. He
prepared carefully for each interview, with notes and references at
hand. He returned telephone messages promptly and kept interruptions to
a minimum.

While the tapes were being transcribed, the Wiegels went off to
England and Paris. The transcript was sent to him on 1 July and was
returned less than two weeks later, meticulously reviewed, with
corrections and additions for accuracy and clarity but no substantial
changes. After these corrections were made, Bob requested a second
review which resulted in only a few very minor corrections. He selected
a number of photos to accompany the text. I prepared a skeleton index
which he enlarged.

Thanks are due to Professor Rodney Sobey for suggesting this oral
history and arranging for the funding which made it possible. He and
Orville Magoon also contributed introductions. Mabel Iwamoto,
administrative assistant for thirty-seven years with the Sanitary,
Environmental, Coastal, and Hydraulic Engineering Division of the Civil
Engineering Department, indicated to me how much Bob Wiegel cared for
those he worked with and for his students. Linda Vida-Sunnen of the
Water Resources Center Archives also made me feel that it was an
uncommon privilege to work with Bob Wiegel, and indeed I came to agree.
As an editor of professional publications with many years of experience,
he understands the detailed process of putting together a document.
This awareness, together with his personal kindness, facilitated to an
exceptional degree both the interviewing and the editing.

Researchers in the history of coastal engineering may also want to
consult the oral history of Morrough P. O'Brien, Dean of the College of
Engineering, Pioneer in Coastal Engineering, and Consultant to General
Electric, Regional Oral History Office, University of California,
Berkeley, 1988. For more information on the history of the University
of California, consult the University History series list which is
included in the appendix of this volume.

The tapes of the Wiegel interviews are deposited in The Bancroft
Library and are available for study. The Regional Oral History Office
was established in 1954 to record the lives of persons who have

viii

contributed significantly to the history of California and the West.
The office is a division of The Bancroft Library and is under the
direction of Willa K. Baum.

Eleanor Swent, Research Interviewer /Editor
Regional Oral History Office

October, 1997

University of California, Berkeley

Regional Oral History Office University of California

Room 486 The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California 94720

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
(Please write clearly. Use black ink.)

Your full name Robert Louis Wiegel

Date of birth 17 October 1922 Birthplace San Francisco, CA, USA

Father's full name Louis Henry Wiegel

Occupation Engineer Birthplace Irwin, Westmorland County, PA

Mother's full name Antoinette (nettie) Lavern Decker

Occupation Housewife Birthplace Kelsey (near) , El Doerado County, CA

Your spouse A" 116 Pearce

Occupation Birthplace Ebbw Vale, U.K.

Your children ,T n hn MansfiplH <"arol Elizabeth Diana Louisa

Where did you grow up ? Oakland, California

Present community Berkeley, California

Education B - s - mechanical engineering, 1943; M.S. in mechanical engineering, 1949
University of California, Berkeley, CA

Occupation(s) Professor of Civil Engineering, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA
Consultant in coastal and offshore engineering

Areas of expertise Coastal and ocean engineering (mostly civil engineering)

Other interests or activities Extensive participation on professional society
activities

Organizations in which you are active American Society of Civil Engineering.
American Shore & Beach Preservation Association. Engineering Committee nn
Resources, National Research Council committees

I EARLY YEARS, 1922 TO 1940
[Interview 1: January 8, 1997] II 1

The Wiegel Family

Swent: We'll begin at the beginning and you can tell where and when you
were born, and we'll talk a little bit about your family
background.

Wiegel: I was born in San Francisco in 1922 on the seventeenth of October,
and about two weeks later, the family moved to Oakland,
California. I was raised in Oakland; went through the Oakland
school system, all the way through, and then the University of
California.

Swent: How long had your family been in California?

Wiegel: My father came out in the early 1900s from a small town [Irwin]

near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to go to Stanford. In those days,
Stanford was not expensive.

Swent: It was free at one time, wasn't it?

Wiegel: Yes.

Swent: But you had to be a very good student to get in.

Wiegel: He had to work, and then school, work and school.

Swent: All the way from Pittsburgh?

l tt This symbol indicates that a tape or a segment of a tape has begun
or ended. A guide to the tapes follows the transcript.

Wiegel: Yes. He started in a college up in Pennsylvania: Bucknell

College. He worked for the railroads for a couple of years as a
surveyor both on the Northern Pacific Railroad up in North Dakota,
and then the Western Pacific Railroad in Nevada and across the
Sierra Nevada. I guess in his first year he had had surveying in
college. So that was about the turn of the century. I know he
started Stanford in 1902, and was in the class of 1906.

My mother was born in California, in Kelsey, which is near
Placerville in the gold country. Her mother had come out from
Ohio with her family via the Isthmus of Panama in 1868. So on my
mother's side, we've been in California since 1868.

The Decker/Carothers Family, in California Since 1868

Swent: Was there a train across the Isthmus by then?

Wiegel: I believe so. I don't know. All I know is that the family
records said she came out via the Isthmus in 1868.

Swent: That was a heroic thing to do.

Wiegel: They lived in San Jose, farmed, but then moved up to the gold
country.

Swent: What did they do there?

Wiegel: I'm not completely sure. I know her brother owned one-third of

one of the gold mines and mills in the hills up there between 1879
and 1883. It was the Rising Sun Mine.

Swent: They had wonderful names for those old mines, didn't they?
Wiegel: Yes. This information is lost.

Swent: No, it's not lost, we're preserving it. What was your mother's
family name?

Wiegel: My mother's name was Decker and her mother is Sarah Elizabeth
Carothers. Her father was William Decker and he was born in
Wisconsin Territory in 1845. He moved to California, we believe,
in 1868.

Swent: The same time as the mother.

Wiegel: But we've no idea how he got to California. We were long-time
Calif ornians.

Swent: Yes, indeed; lots of strong people there.

Wiegel: My mother lived in San Francisco at the time of the 1906

earthquake. They lived in a tent for two weeks in Golden Gate
Park in San Francisco.

Swent: How old was she at that time?
Wiegel: My mother was born in 1885.

Swent: So she was about twenty years old, twenty-one- -would have a very
clear memory of it. She was not married yet?

Wiegel: No. She got married in 1907. I think it's of interest that both
my grandfathers were in the Union army in the Civil War.

Swent: From California?

Wiegel: No. My grandfather on my mother's side was from Wisconsin, and my
grandfather on my father's side was from Pennsylvania. My
grandfather on my father's side is John Wiegel, and he lived until
he was ninety-nine. The interesting thing is he attended the
Seventy-Fifth Encampment at Gettysburg.

Swent: Oh, my. What a powerful experience that must have been.

Wiegel: I know. We have a photograph of him up at the Seventy-Fifth
Encampment.

Swent: Did you know him?

Wiegel: I met him twice. My mother's father died before I was born; just
a year before I was born. But my father's grandfather I did meet
on a couple of occasions.

Swent: Did he talk to you about--

Wiegel: Oh yes. The Civil War? Yes. He didn't remember much by the time
he saw me, of course, because he was an old man; a very old man.

Swent: But that had been important in his life.

Wiegel: Yes, it was.

Swent : Of course it was . How did your parents meet each other?

Wiegel: One of my mother's cousins, Bob Hudson, was an engineering student
(also, class of 1906) at Stanford, and that's how they met.
Incidentally, he was co-founder of the firm, Hunter and Hudson, in
San Francisco; an engineering firm which is still in existence, I
believe. I don't know for sure.

Father. Stanford 1906. and the Ocean Shore Railroad

Swent: What kind of engineering did your father

Wiegel: My father started--! think it was mechanical and civilbut then

at the end, he went into law. When the earthquake hit, I think--!
don't knowthere were jobs available. He was up in Oregon, and
we don't know exactly whatbut from the little records, I suspect
he was working on a railroad up there. But when he come back to
California

Swent: So he was actually not here at the time of the earthquake?
Wiegel: I think he was at Stanford, I'm not sure.

Swent: Yes, spring of 1906, he would probably have been still at
Stanford.

Wiegel: We assume he was working on railroads, but then he came back and
went to work for a company called the Ocean Shore Railroad, which
was putting a railroad from San Francisco south along the coast to
Half Moon Bay and then it was to continue all the way to Santa
Cruz, but never did. Construction was started in September 1905.
One of the real problems was that the right-of-way was across what
is known now, and was known then as the Devil's Slide. It was as
difficult for the railroad as it is for the highways. [laughs]

Swent: It hasn't changed. That is south of Pacifica

Wiegel: He was the engineer in charge of the construction.

Swent: Was this railroad a private enterprise?

Wiegel: Yes, those things were all private.

Swent: Subscription, I suppose?

Wiegel: I don't know the names, but they were big San Francisco people;

the money people. They called themselves capitalists. They were

honest capitalists. One was J. Downey Harvey, who became
president of Ocean Shore Railway.

Swent: Yes, they accumulated capital--

Wiegel: --and they invested it. But they also developed property, and of
course the reason for putting the railroad in was so they could
sell property in the Half Moon Bay area and all the way down. The
fact is several little towns were started by those people: Half
Moon Bay, El Granada', Princeton, Moss Beach. There were several
other ones; all the ones south of Pacifica were really started by
those people. For several years, my father was also resident
manager of the property development.

Swent: As well as the railroad?

Wiegel: That was finished by then, as far as they were going to go. The

first train ran to El Granada on 21 June 1908. They decided not

to continue south of--I don't know if they ever went south of Half
Moon Bay; I can't tell you.

Swent: But it did go as far as Half Moon Bay?

Wiegel: Yes. It went as far south as Tunitas Glen, where work stopped in
December 1908. The railroad had been constructed from Santa Cruz
north to Swanton, but my father did not work on this section.

Swent: Over Devil's Slide? Or through, I guess.

Wiegel: Yes. On it? [laughter]

Swent: Did it have tunnels?

Wiegel: I think there were a few tunnels.

Swent: Were there?

Wiegel: Well, if they were, they were little, tiny short ones. Nothing

like the one they're proposing for the highway now. It would have
been maybe a hundred yards long or so, through San Pedro Point.
There was a saddle cut on Montara Mountain.

'Incidentally, El Granada was originally named just "Granada," the
name in the tract map and on the rairoad station. The U.S. Post Office
changed it for some reason in January 1909. -R.W.

Swent: I wonder if there are any remnants of that roadbed?

Wiegel: I believe there are. Highway 1 inherited parts of the roadbed.
I've read the track was removed in 1920.

Swent: Very interesting.

Wiegel: So the next stage in this: he started to buy up some property.

They owned a fair amount of property there; they also owned a half
interest in a farm in the San Jose area.

Swent: This was through his wife's family, perhaps?

Wiegel: I'm not sure. I really can't tell you; I don't know. The farm, I
suspect, was joint with his wife's familyI'm not positive. He
died in 1940, so I was just--

Swent: You were a youngster.

Wiegel: I had just graduated from high school and was going to start Cal.

Swent: You said your parents were married in 1907, soon after he left
Stanford. Did they live in San Francisco?

Wiegel: They first lived in a little town: San Juan Bautista.
Swent: Lovely place.

Wiegel: But that was just for a short time, and then they moved to San

Francisco. Actually, they had a home, they lived--my brother and
older two sisters, when they were young, were raised in El
Granada, because they had a home down there and my father would
commute to San Francisco. Then they moved to San Francisco.

Swent: He commuted by train?

Wiegel: At the start, but it never really worked well, [laughter] That

train was a financial failure. One reason was, I think, because
of the cost of maintaining the road beds and rails in the area.
Also because of relatively poor service, buyers of property were
letting it go.

Swent: You have two brothers and a sister?

Wiegel: Three sisters and one brother. My brother was the oldest; he was
born in 1908, and then my eldest sister was born in 1911 and a
second sister in 1912, and I was born in 1922, and my youngest
sister was born in 1925.

Swent: Almost two families.

Wiegel: Almost two families, yes.

Swent: Were there other children in between who died?

Wiegel: No. In the previous generation, of course, children died. My

mother's brother died when he was a young man, and another one of
her brothers died when he was an infant. That was what life was
like back in those days. But by the time my family came along,
they had decent medical--

Swent: I was wondering about the flu. The Spanish flu came in that
period.

Wiegel: No. I think my mother's brother died of scarlet fever, or

something like that. Which, again, was not uncommon in those
days.

Swent: No, it wasn't at all. Why did your family move from San Francisco
to Oakland?

Wiegel: My guess is to get more sun.

Swent: Where was their home in San Francisco?

Wiegel: They had several homes out near what they call the panhandle of

Golden Gate Park, between there and Pacific Heights, in that area.

Swent: Where there was fog?

Wiegel: Yes. Of course, they had the ferryboat system, so when they moved
to Oakland, it was easy to take what they called the commute train
which then went from Piedmont Avenue to the ferryboat. It was not
a bad commute.

Swent: I think it was easier then than now.

Wiegel: I remember when the San Francisco Bay Bridge opened up, it was
marvelous there for a while. It was very easy. Then they'd
catch the commute train at Piedmont Avenue and go straight to
downtown San Francisco. So that worked really well.

Swent: Where was your home in Oakland?

Wiegel: It was very near the Oakland Rose Garden; what is now the Rose
Garden. Not too far from Lake Merritt.

Swent: Lovely area.
Wiegel: Very nice area.

Good Schools in Oakland

Swent: What schools did you go to?

Wiegel: I went to Lakeview, the grammar school, then Westlake Junior High
School, and then Oakland High School and then to Cal. All five of
us went to Cal, which is what we called it then. We didn't call
it UC Berkeley or Berkeley.

Swent: No, it was just Cal.

Wiegel: We called it Cal. My brother graduated in 1929 in Economics, and
then from Boalt Hall in 1932, and then passed the State Bar exam.

Swent: What was your brother's name?

Wiegel: John Mason--he went by his middle name of Mason. He was a lawyer,
but he also started a law publishing firm, which published The
Weekly Law Digest, and he was editor and publisher of it for his
whole professional life. Then my two older sisters both graduated
in 1933 from Cal.

Swent: Were they twins?

Wiegel: No. My elder sister, Marion, had pneumonia, and had to drop out a
semester, and in those days, you graduated once a year, so she
graduated the following year because she had to make up a
semester's work. Then my youngest sister, who started Cal during
World War II, didn't finish. She became an airline stewardess
instead, and then met a young graduate of Annapolis, George
Dickey, and got married. She died years ago of cancer.

Swent: And your other sisters you said were teachers?

Wiegel: No, not teachers. They're both still living. One's married name
is Morris, and the other's married name is Christopher.

Swent: Do you have any recollections of your school that were

particularly important that you would like to mention? Teachers
who were influential?

Wiegel: You mean grade school?

Swent: Any school. Were there outstanding teachers that influenced you?

Wiegel: We had very good teachers, very good. We had good science
courses .

Swent: When did your science courses begin?

Wiegel: We had something in junior high school; it wasn't just biology.
In high school I had the chemistry and the physics and all the
mathematics courses. I did have very good teachers in chemistry,
physics, mathematics, but I also had an excellent teacher in
English that drummed into us how to write.

Swent: I gather you think that was pretty important?

Wiegel: I think that is very important. There's been an oral history of
Morrough P. O'Brien, 1 and I worked for him directly here for quite
a few years, and I remember him once saying after he had been
listening to a student trying to present his researchbecause he
had read what the student had writtenand I remember him saying
once, "If you can't write clearly, you can't think clearly." I
think this connection of thinking, writing, speaking, reading, is
absolutely vital. As you know, reading the newspapers, we don't
have as much emphasis on doing this as there used to be.

Swent : No .

Wiegel: There were no excuses; you did it. My mother taught me to read
before I started school. I can still remember that. But there
was no nonsense. You studied.

Swent: Yes.

Wiegel: And I've always enjoyed studying. So I can remember having good
teachers, and very supportive teachers.

Swent: What about your science training in high school? Were there
laboratory courses as well as lectures?

1 Morrough P. O'Brien, Dean of the College of Engineering. Pioneer in
Coastal Engineering, and Consultant to General Electric. Regional Oral
History Office, University of California, Berkeley, 1988.

Wiegel: Yes. Chemistry certainly was laboratory. There wasn't much in

biology; I think it was mostly lecture. But chemistry and physics
were both laboratory. But also I took machine shop and wood shop.

Swent: Were these required?

Wiegel: No, I had the time so I took them and I'm glad I did because I've
done most of my own repairs ever since.

Swent: That's helpful.

Wiegel: I think we had a good school system; a well-rounded school system.

Swent: Where did your interest in the ocean and coasts begin? Was that
an earlier track or not?

Wiegel: We had a summer home at Capitola which is on Monterey Bay about

five miles southeast of Santa Cruz, and my mother owned the house-
-after my father died, of course for quite a few years so even
when our childrenand we have three childrenwere small, we
would go down there and spend a couple of weeks at the ocean and
so forth. But also when I was in high school and junior high, we
used to go up to Yosemite and camp. That's why I got interested
in geology.

I was interested in geology, and I was going to become a
geologist when I came to the university because my middle sister
worked for Shell Oil Company and at that time there were jobs in
oil companies, and I liked geology, and oil companies used
geologists so I thought, "I'll become a geologist." But during
the stimmer, I met a person who was a Cal student in mechanical
engineering, and he said, "If you want a job, there are more jobs
in mechanical engineering in the oil company." So when I came, I
wrote down I wanted to be a mechanical engineer, and I was. I
didn't even know what mechanical engineering was. So it was just
by happenstance, and I got my degree in mechanical engineering,
and after the war a master's degree.

Swent: Let's not jump up to that quite yet.
Wiegel: We won't jump into how I got into the ocean.
Swent: Your father died when you were very young.

Wiegel: I was eighteen, maybe seventeen, but it was the summer just before
I started Cal. He died of a heart attack in Yosemite.

A Summer in Hawaii. 1930

Swent: That's too bad. How did the Depression affect your family?

Wiegel: Definitely. We had owned a fair amount of property, and most of
it had to be sold off during the Depression. I do remember we
went to Hawaii in 1930 and spent the summer in Hawaii.

Swent: That was a bit unusual, wasn't it?

Wiegel: It took you five days to go over by boat and five days to get

back, and we had rented a cottage on Waikiki Beach, and I remember
my brother running into a record that showed it cost twenty- seven
dollars a month.

Swent: And you stayed there for the summer?

Wiegel: For the summer, and that's where I learned to swim. I was seven
years old.

Swent: Was your father working there at that time?

Wiegel: No, he wasn't. He went over with us, and came back to California
after a few weeks. When I say we were over there--my mother, my
three sisters and myself. My older brother was not there because
he was, at that time, he was a cadet for the summer for the Dollar
Steam Ship Company, and he had an opportunity, so he was sailing
around the world at that time.

Swent: Wonderful. What ships did you take over to Hawaii?

Wiegel: I think it was called the Matsonia.

Swent: The Matson Line. That must have been a wonderful time.

Wiegel: I've loved Hawaii ever since.

Swent: And you still spend time there?

Wiegel: I think I've been out more than fifty times.

Swent: But that was the first time, in 1930?

Wiegel: Yes.

Swent: Had your mother been there before?

Wiegel: No.

Swent: That was a new experience for all of you.

Wiegel: My mother had some relative that had moved out there. She was a
school teacher, I believe. Again, this is pretty hazy.

Swent: Perhaps it influenced you?

Wiegel: It could have, but I've loved it ever since.

Swent: Of course you have. We've mentioned the Depression, but it didn't
devastate your family, I gather?

Wiegel: No. I know it was severe because I know my father had to sell

quite a bit of property at that time. Bits and pieces and things
of that sort. I think that this is true: that anyone raised
during the Depression time became quite frugal and learned to
save.

Swent: It was a formative experience.

Wiegel: To this day I've never, ever, bought anything on the installment
plan with the exception of a home. Even an automobile--! saved
the money ahead of time. I'm sure that was the result of the
influence of the Depression and how it affected people.

Swent: It was a watershed.

Wiegel: It was a watershed, and nobody had anything. There was no problem
because you couldn't compare anything; nobody had any money.

Swent: Did your father have a car?

Wiegel: Yes.

Swent: What kind of car did he drive?

Wiegel: The ones I can remember were on two occasions he bought a Nash,
but before I was born--and I know this from a photograph--! think
it was back in 1918, he bought a car, and it was an open car. I
think it was called a Vielie. All I know is there was this
photograph, and it was an open car, and I can remember my brother
saying that my father bought the car, and the driving lesson
consisted of the salesman getting in the car with him, driving
around the block, and that was it. It's your car; you're a

Swent :
Wiegel:

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Wiegel:

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Wiegel ;

Swent :

Wiegel:
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Wiegel:

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Wiegel:
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Wiegel:
Swent :

driver. He was living in El Granada at that time, and he drove it
down overat that time it was a mountain road, dirt road, from
Redwood City over the mountain and down. I'm surprised that I had
a father, [laughter]

When you lived in Oakland and he commuted to San Francisco, how
did he get to the train?

I think he drove to the train and parked it. The train then went
to the ferryboat, which crossed the bay. That's my remembrance.

Did your mother drive?

No, she never drove. 1 understood she started to drive once, and
had a bad experience and decided she didn't want to.

That was rather typical.

Our home in Oakland was only two blocks from a very nice shopping
area which is called Grand Avenue, so there was never any problem.
Of course, in the early days, when I was a boy, I can remember a
truck would come along with the person that sold vegetables and
eggs--eggs were delivered, milk was delivered, ice was delivered.
But this person sold from this truck all your vegetables.

What kind of person was it?
remember?

Was he Italian or Chinese? Do you

Yes. I remember calling him Tony, so--

A number of those vegetable people were Italian.

Of course in El Granada, the farmers there were all Italian, and
of course they were very wealthy. My father worked closely with
Dianda, who was a close friend of Giannini, and he was the big
artichoke farmer there. The farmers were almost all Italian and
very successful. I always say I grew up with an Italian stomach.

That's good.

I still like Italian food.

Do you have any recollection of the Long Beach earthquake?

No.

It wasn't even noticed here, I suppose?

Wiegel: No. The reason I'm familiar with it is because it was a landmark
in the state of California. It's what triggered our earthquake
codes, the first codes, and also the structural engineer license
that didn't exist before then. When I got interested in
earthquake engineering, then I became very familiar with the Long
Beach earthquake.

Swent: But when it happened

Wiegel: But nothing personal.

Swent: What about the general strike on the waterfront in San Francisco?

Wiegel: All I can remember was that it existed. I can remember all the
headlines in the newspaper. This is the one in San Francisco on
the waterfront.

Swent: There was one also in Oakland.

Wiegel: The one I'm familiar with--I think is the general strikewas the
waterfront one in San Francisco.

Swent: That was San Francisco in '34, I think.

Wiegel: Remember I was twelve, and when you're twelve you don't pay that
much attention.

Swent: What kind of clothes did you wear in school?

Wiegel: When I was in high school, it was just slacks. It wasn't jeans.

Swent : Not j eans , no .

Wiegel: Slacks and what we call sports shirt now, and a sweater.

Swent: What kind of shoes?

Wiegel: I don't know. [laughs] A pair of shoes. They certainly were

not tennis shoes we wore during the summertime. I don't remember
wearing tennis shoes to school.

Swent: I don't think so.

Wiegel: During the summer, I think we wore tennis shoes. Of course, when
I went to Yosemite and so forth, we always wore boots up there.

Swent: Did your mother have household help to do the washing or cleaning?

Wiegel: When I was very young, yes. But that ceased. I can only remember
Mrs. Kraevish--! can remember her namebut that must have only
been for the first couple of years.

Swent: So your mother did the washing and the cooking?
Wiegel: Yes.

Swent: Maybe sent laundry out? As a boy, maybe you didn't even know that
this has happened.

Wiegel: I know we had a washing machine downstairs because I remember the
clothes.

Swent: But in those days the boys didn't mess with that, I guess.

Wiegel: I don't think so.

Swent: Times have changed a lot.

Wiegel: Times have changed. That's rather hazy, but I know we had a
washing machine and a clothes drying line.

Swent: Did you help at all with any household things?

Wiegel: Gardening; I've always liked gardening. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
We had a nice garden, and I always liked it. No, I studied.

Swent: That was your job.
Wiegel: That was my job.

Swent: I noticed in one of the other oral histories--! think you wrote an
introduction--! think it was in thatthere was talk about the
importance of good math background early, a good foundation in
math. I gather that you feel you got that in your schooling.

Wiegel: I remember when I started engineering- -and later on, people say

the sameit is so important to have a good background in math and
physics and chemistry. Then you were flexible. I got into
mechanical engineering not even knowing what it was. Later on, I
could understand: if you had this good background, you can shift.
This is what permitted me to get into the physical oceanography
and so forth was a decent background in those three subjects.

Swent: What was the level of math, let's say in high school? Did you get
calculus?

Wiegel: No, no one got calculus then in high school. We went through
Swent : Algebra?

Wiegel: Trigonometry, solid geometry- -we didn't get into spherical

trigonometry--! don't think I got spherical trigonometry until I
got to college. Then that's where I got calculus and--

Swent: And chemistry and physics--at that time they were separate
courses. A lot of blanks in the atomic chart in chemistry.

Wiegel: Oh, yes. When I took physics in college, it was just the start of
nuclear physics. Engineering students didn't have any of the
nuclear physics.

Swent: What did you have in high school physics?

Wiegel: Just mechanics and electrical circuits, maybe a little bit of

electromagnetic radiationa little bit of that. It wouldn't have
been too much.

Swent: Did you get good grades in school?

Wiegel: Yes. I was always a good student and a hard worker.

II ENGINEERING STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, FROM 1940
Before World War II

Swent: Going to Cal--what sort of admission application procedures were
there?

Wiegel: I think it was based on your high school grades. I think I signed
up, and then I remember having to take a Subject A exam, which 1
passed because of that very good teacher I had in high school
in English that really drummed it in. 1 can remember her saying,
"Write simple sentences. If you write complex sentences you'll
trip yourself up." When you took the Subject A exam, and part of
it was the written part--I kept it simple and I passed it. I
still remember that.

Swent: So this exempted you from--

Wiegel: It exempted me from taking whatever they call thatSubject A, I
guess they call it. Maybe they still do.

Swent: Perhaps they do.

Wiegel: I've always read a lot too. Again, everyone in the family read.
Books, magazines, everything. I think that's very important.

Swent: Yes. Did you live at home when you came to Cal?

Wiegel: I lived at home. There were three friends going to Cal that lived
close to each other, so we would take turns driving.

Swent: Again, what kind of car did you drive?

Wiegel: It was my brother's--! guess I drove once a week, I think that is
what it was, and one of the others drove twice a week. It was a
Nash.

Swent: Your family car, or was it your own?

Wiegel: Oh no, in those days almost no person that age had a car. When I
was at Cal there were a couple of students that had cars, but
that's all. Just a couple. Nobody else had cars.

Swent: You could borrow the family car for a day?

Wiegel: Yes. There was an arrangement. Coming by bus took a long time.
I did it a few times, but I would have to walk like ten blocks to
catch a bus.

Swent: And you could park here?

Wiegel: Yes. There was an old dirt lot; I guess it's about where the new
business school is, and that was just a big open dirt lot there.
You just parked; there were no fees or anything like that. Almost
nobody had a car, so there was no difficulty. I remember--! think
this is kind of importantit was in high schoolyou talk about
peers; you read it all the timepeer pressure and so forth.
There were five or six of us that were good friends, and after
school in high school, we very often played basketball not teams
or anything, I don't know what you'd call it, but we'd just break
up three on a side and play. Two of them became medical
doctors, one clinical professor at Stanford, one a clinical
professor at UC San Francisco, one got a ph.D. in physics, and the
other got a ph.D. in chemistry, and another became a dentist. So
it was kind of interesting.

My guess is that we were about the only ones that did this
sort of thing.

Swent: Did so well.

Wiegel: I guess it was because we were all into chemistry and into physics
and that must be it because those were small classes. Not many
students really took them; looking back I realize that that was
probably the connection.

Swent: These were high school friends?

Wiegel: Those were in high school; we all went to Cal.

Swent: Would you like to give their names?

Wiegel: One was Charles Miles. He became a clinical professor at

Stanford; I remember him well because his brother, who was a
little older, John, went to Caltech. He is a retired professor at

UC San Diego and was vice chancellor for a while. Smith was the
other one who was a clinical professor at San Francisco- -Ed Smith.
Doug Pingree became the dentist. There was another one, Mort
Sarver, who became an optometrist and a clinical professoror
whatever they call them at Berkeley in optometry. He did a lot of
work on the contact lens sort of thing. Bill Eustis, got his
Ph.D. in chemistry under Professor Calvin. His brother became a
professor of French literature here at Cal. I guess what it was:
these were academically oriented families or something.

Swent: You all helped each other?

Wiegel: I think so. A couple of those names I haven't thought of in a
long time.

Swent: So when you started Cal--

Wiegel: 1940.

Swent: You graduated from high school in '40--

Wiegel: --and then started Cal in fall. My father died that summer. Then
in 1941, of course, was Pearl Harbor.

Swent: Your first year and a half was before the war then?
Wiegel: The first year was before the war.

Swent: Were there intimations of the warthat you were sensitive about
it?

Wiegel: Not that I can remember. In those days we all took ROTC for the
first two years. It was mandatory for men. Every male had to
take ROTC for the first two years.

Swent: How did you feel about that?

Wiegel: I didn't feel one way or another; you had to take it; you took it.
At that time. Then, when the war came, I could see the advantage
of becoming an officer and so I asked to get into the upper
division ROTC; you needed a minimum of B grades or something like
that. In those days, a B was a good grade; you had to have a
minimum of a B average. So I applied, and because I was in
mechanical engineering they accepted me in army ordinance.

Swent: You had the two years of basic ROTC and then you applied for

Wiegel: Then you applied, and I was accepted. I'm not completely sure,
because things got a little hazy as to how the military treated
you. Remember it was a war, people were being drafted; you had to
go to the draft board. When I started upper divisionthat would
have been my junior yearwe were cadets and into the military.
In my military service [record] it says that the starting date of
service is something in the middle of 1942. This was not good
planning on my partit just was very fortunate.

I and a number of others wanted to be sure we got through
and got our degrees, so we went during the summer. At some stage,
we were actually put into uniform and moved into one of the
fraternity houses--it served as a barracks, or whatever you want
to call it- -and went through another summer. I started Cal in
September or the end of August in 1940, and I graduated in
engineering in early October 1943. That was hard.

Swent: So you accelerated your college?

Wiegel: Yes. In engineering you had to take quite a few more courses than
what you had to in L&S that is, Letters and Science. We had to
take many more units. We had to satisfy all our engineering
requirements with the ROTC in addition, so you did nothing but
study, period. You didn't do anything else except study. It was
no pleasure, but it's just one of those things. Like people say,

so you did it.

ROTC and Accelerated Studies in Wartime

Swent: Can you be more specific as to what changes the war brought to you
as a student on the campus?

Wiegel: You mean when I was a student?

Swent: Yes, before Pearl Harbor and the bomb.

Wiegel: In the first place, your friends all started to disappear into the
military! It was only if you were like myself, that is, in upper
division ROTC and in engineering where the military wanted you to
get that degree because they wanted engineers. So those of us
that were leftagain, we just worked. There was all the
difference in the world. There were no social activities. You
look at these movies at what people did in college; there's not
any resemblance whatsoever to my remembrance of going to college.
You worked all the time. But I always appreciated ROTC because I
think it was vital; I could see it even then.

Many of the previous ROTC people had been called in- -young
officersprior to Pearl Harbor. Obviously, there was a lot of
planning going on because my cousin was pulled in; a couple of
other ones were pulled in. My brother- -well, he didn't go in
immediately. He wasn't in upper division ROTC in the late 1920s.
After the war started, he became a member of the Judge Advocate
General's department, which is the legal section of the army.
There was just a day-and-night difference. The student population
amongst the males just dropped way down. Is that what you asked?

Swent: Yes; I was wondering what changes the war brought to your studies.
Wiegel: Just a day-and-night difference.
Swent: Classes were much smaller?

Wiegel: We went right straight through. I'll say this: because some of

the professors they knew what pressure we were under, this going
continuouslysome of them, especially Professor Everett Howe I
remember him. He was so kind to those of us still here, knowing
the circumstances that we were studying under and working under.
But then some of our professors like when I was a senior I had a
course from O'Brien in fluid mechanics and he was gone most of the
time. Later on, after I came back and got to know him, I realized
what he was doing: all this amphibious and undersea warfare
research type of thing, so there was good reason for him to be
gone.

Swent: But you didn't know this at that time?

Wiegel: No, we hadn't a clue. It was all classified. Then our last year-
-I think this is kind of interesting- -when we graduated this
small groupseveral of them disappeared. The rest of us were
going to officers candidate schools. At that time we didn't get
commissioned at graduation because they didn't have the time to
have the summer camp and things like that. So you didn't get
commissioned directly; you were sent to officer's candidate school
directly, and then you got your commission. But several of the
people disappeared, and we didn't know what had happened to them.
I think it was three or four, and they were ones that were in what
we called metallurgy. After the war we found out they had all
been sent down to Los Alamos. At that time all we knew is one day
they were gone.

Swent: Very secret.

Wiegel: So that was after the war and in hindsight was kind of
interesting.

Swent: Do you have any recollection of the Port Chicago explosion?

Wiegel: That there were sirens for hours.

Swent: Did you feel it here?

Wiegel: No; but the sirens I guess there were a lot of casualties.

Swent: Were you informed at all about it?

Wiegel: Only that it had occurred. 1 would have been interested, so
obviously there couldn't have been much.

Swent: It must have been kept rather quiet.

Wiegel: It must have been, but I do remember the sirens going.

Swent: There were black-outs of course?

Wiegel: Yes, there were black-outs. I don't think it bothered us. There
was gas rationing, which meant that things became very difficult,
but on the other hand, when we were pulled on active duty and
housed by the military on campus, there was no problem. We didn't
have to worry about commuting or anything, you were just here.

Swent: You were no longer commuting then?

Wiegel: No.

Swent: This began--

Wiegel: Living with the military in one of the fraternities that they took
over.

Swent: This is when you began the upper division ROTC?

Wiegel: Not immediately. Sometime in between I can't remember. We were
all pulled in and sent down to the Presidio at Monterey to process
us. But we were only there for about two days and brought back up
here and moved into one of the fraternities. The fraternities-
there wasn't anybody there so the houses were available and the
military leased them. We ate there; they had cooks that prepared
the food, so it was a regular military type of living there, which
was lucky .

Swent: And lots of studying.
Wiegel: And lots of studying.

Mechanical Engineering Professors Boelter. O'Brien, Folsom

Swent: Who were your teachers that you especially remember?

Wiegel: Well, Boelter. He became the first dean of engineering at UCLA
after the war, and he was in heat transfer. Then, of course
O'Brien at Cal. Even though I didn't see much of him, he was
impressive and I liked the subject. And Folsom; Richard Folsom.
They were all three professors in mechanical engineering. And
Howe, who I mentioned earlier. But those are the four that I
remember. I remember Professor Buck in mathematics.

Swent: You were just saying that your professor Folsom became very--

Wiegel: He was my advisor when I was a junior and senior. In those days,
you had to have a major area within mechanical engineering, and
mine was fluid mechanics and heat transfer, and I took several
courses from Folsom. I took one course in pumping machinery, but
then I did what was known as ME 199--that was the research
available for undergraduates and I did that with Professor Folsom.
Then when I came back after the war, when I was interested in
going to graduate school, I went to see him because he had been my
advisor. I was still on active duty. I was a first lieutenant
and you accumulated leave because you couldn't take it during the
war. But anyway, he's the one that then got me started after the
war.

Swent: Let's go back a bit.
Wiegel: But that was the importance.

Swent: Was it a major decision to concentrate on fluid mechanics? Did
you have to actually declare this?

Wiegel: Yes. I think what it wasduring the junior year, that was the

course that interested me the most. Also, it was important in the
oil industry. So then in the senior year, I concentrated on it.

Swent: What was the status of that discipline at that time?

Wiegel: Not very advanced. [laughs] But fortunately, I had three people
who, in hindsight, I can see were developing these fields, and so
I was fortunate that I had three very interesting people.

Swent: These were?

Wiegel: Boelter, O'Brien, and Folsom. It was them, obviously, that got my
interest aroused in fluid mechanics and heat transfer.
Incidentally, that's the area that our present chancellor, Chang-
Lin Tien--his field was fluid mechanics and heat transfer.

Senior Laboratory; Terribly Difficult in One Semester

Swent: Yes. What sorts of things did you study at that time? What sorts
of things did you do your research or your laboratory work in at
that time in fluid mechanics?

Wiegel: There wasn't any particular thing in fluid mechanics. At that

time they had a senior mechanical engineering laboratory and every
student had to take it, and in the semester system it was four
units plus four units, and then three units plus three units of
lectures that went with it. But because of those of us going
through, we had to lump it altogether in one semester. The
professors said they didn't want to do it; it would kill us. When
we finished we said, "You were right."

Twice a week we would do experimental work that would last
all afternoon or in the evening, and we'd have to write it up and
get the reports in and come back within a couple of days for the
second experiment of the week.

Swent: What sorts of experiments were you doing?

Wiegel: All types: mechanical, internal combustion engines, steam engines,
wind tunnels, pumps, all kinds of mechanical equipment, air
compressors; you do experiments with all of them. Study the
theory, do the experiments, compare results with theory and so
forth. There wasn't anything specifically hard in the laboratory,
but it was a terribly difficult thing to do because of this time
constraint. But when you finished, you really thought you knew
something about engineering because you could really sit down,
read something, and do something. Of course they knew that. This
was designed by people that knew what they were doing even though
it almost killed us.

We learned a lot. That was more general in mechanical
engineering. We had to write these reports, and you had a senior
course that you had to write something up and make an oral
presentation, and it was graded both from the written and the oral
standpoint. That, I thought, was very useful too.

Swent: Yes, to learn to present your ideas.

Wiegel: To learn to present your ideas, because for the rest of your life
--of course, I've been in teaching, but even those who are not in
teaching are going to have to present their ideas to the boss or
the owner, or somebody. You're always having to present ideas.

Swent: Was there a graduation ceremony and all that sort of thing?

Wiegel: These presentations were both in mechanical engineering, and

electrical engineering, and maybe in civil--! don't know. But I
do know they were in electrical and mechanical because they were
given by the chair of the department.

Swent: It was a serious matter.

Wiegel: In mechanical engineering, it was O'Brien who, at that time, was
not yet dean; he became dean the following year. Because of
having to take the ROTC at certain times, I wasn't able to take it
from him, so I took it from the person who was the chair of
electrical engineering--! remember that. But it didn't make any
difference because these people were broad, and you could choose
your subjects and so forth. There is one other thing I should
say: because of the ROTC thing, which had to be fit in, there was
one senior course that I had to take in civil engineering that I
couldn't go to any lectures because it was given at exactly the
same time. So I got permission of the professor, who was Harmer
Davis, and I should give him credit; Harmer Davis said, "Okay."

So I did the homework, and then the military would allow me
to take the mid-term. So I wasn't able to go to any lecture, but
Harmer Davis was fortunately an understanding person. So I passed
the course; it sure wasn't with the highest grade, but I passed it
without being able to go to any lectures.

Swent: But you did the work?

Wiegel: I did all the work, yes. But it wasn't easy; that interval. I
don't look back upon it with fondness; going to college.

Swent: Lots of fun and games. No.

Wiegel: Graduation. Yes, there was a graduation, and about the only

people in engineering who attended it were those in ROTC because
we were ordered to do it and march to it because the rest of them
were all- -there weren't many. As soon as the last exam was taken,
they would be leaving. Nobody would be around, you see. They
either got a job or they were going into the military or something

like that. So about the only ones that attended the graduation
were those of us in uniform. So I don't remember much more about
it than the fact that we marched to the graduation exercise in the
football stadium.

Swent: There must have still been women students.

Wiegel: Yes, but in mechanical engineering of course the graduation
ceremony was for the whole university at that time. I can't
remember anything about it except for the fact that we were
ordered to attend and we marched up, took our seats, and that was
it. Yes, there were women.

Swent: You were too busy even to notice the girls.
Wiegel: We might have noticed them but-- [laughter]
Swent: [laughter] --didn't have time to do much about it.

Wiegel: You didn't have much time, no. Of course, in engineering- -women

just didn't go into engineering in those days; that's all there is
to it. They would be like my sisters were political science
majors. English, of course, was the most popular major. I guess
it still is probably. Now, of course, we get women whose fathers
were engineers. It's just a whole new world now because they are
encouraged to go into these subjects. Especially the
environmental aspects got quite popular.

III ARMY ORDNANCE OFFICER IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE

Motor Vehicle Repair and Leadership Training

Swent: So then after you graduated, did you go into active service?

Wiegel: Immediately within one day, or two days or something like that, we
went by train back to the officer's candidate school.

Swent: Where?

Wiegel: In my case, this was ordnance at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in
Maryland.

Swent: What about that?

Wiegel: Well, it was very rigorous, but I remember that compared with my
last year at college, I thought I was on vacation almost. You're
up at 5:30 in the morning, and went to class, class, class, and
you studied until 10:00 at nightthis was easy! You had to be
on, but compared with that last year in engineering at Cal, it was
very simple and well done. They were trying to pick up on the
leadership aspects: administration, how you get people to do
something. No place in engineer ing- -or, as far as I know,
anything else on campuswere you ever exposed to how to get
somebody to do something. So it was the leadership thing that was
interesting.

Then, after you got your second lieutenant's bar, they sent
you to specialty school, and because I was in mechanical
engineering, I went to the one on motor vehicles. Some would go
into armaments; they pushed me into motor vehicles because I'd had
a course in internal combustion engines. Then I went overseas to
England.

Swent: Where was the motor vehicle duty?

Wiegel: The same place.

Swent: At Aberdeen? And then you were shipped over to England?

Wiegel: Shipped over to England.

Swent: How did you get there?

Wiegel: By ship. It was one of those- -we had our own bunks. Some of them
there were three people in each bunk. In other words, each person
got eight hours. It was that bad. But I was on a smaller boat,
and I can't remember too much details about it, but I know each
had his own bunk.

Swent: When was this?

Wiegel: It was "44.

Swent: It was still a pretty dangerous trip across.

Wiegel: Oh, yes, it was all convoys.

Swent: There were a lot of submarines still.

Wiegel: Oh yes, it was all convoys. I know we landed at Liverpool, I
remember that. Then, from Liverpool, we went into what they
called a replacement depot and then different units would say,
We're short a person, and they would match your specialty. I
think I was there for two or three weeks, and I was shipped into
an ordnance battalion which was in England.

Ordnance Service near Cheltenham and in Paris

Swent: Where?

Wiegel: Near Cheltenham in Gloucestershire. Cheltenham is about halfway
between Oxford and Birmingham. It's in what they call the
Cotswolds Country. It's beautiful; Cotswolds is a beautiful
country. I was in an ordnance battalion, and it was completely
rebuilding engines and power plants and things like that. It was
a shop that was set up by General Motors to completely redo
vehicles because they got worn out with two and half ton trucks
and things like thatthe wear on them was tremendous. So that's
what we did.

Swent: Was there bombing in that area?

Wiegel: Not while I was there. There had been. My wifeI met her at

that time. We didn't get married until after the war, but I did
meet her at that time. She's from Cheltenham. She can remember
that. Incidentally, she had two brothers, both who were in the
R.A.F. One was a pilot, and he was killed in October of '44; his
plane went down. Her other brother was a navigator. They weren't
together. But her other brother survived and became a teacher; he
taught English for years.

So then, about Christmas of '44, our unit went over to
France, and it was a pretty cold winter. That was a very cold
winter over there, just like this year is a cold winter in Europe.
We ended up with another big factory outside of Paris. I was in
heavy ordnance. I ran into my brother, because my brother was an
officer in the Judge Advocate General's Office, and he was
stationed there. Not in the factory. His group was stationed in
Paris. So we would see each other very often on Sunday; Sunday we
had off.

Swent: I'm trying to think of when Paris was liberated.

Wiegel: He was there. Not when it was liberated, but he was there when
Churchill came through. They moved in very shortly after the
troops moved through. He can remember seeing Mr. Churchill
marching up the Champs Elysee, very impressive and moving. I
forget when that was .

Swent: That was before you got there?

Wiegel: I didn't see it, I know that. Oh yes, he was over before I was.

Swent: What was your wife's name?

Wiegel: Anne Pearce. She was born in Wales, in Ebbw Vale. But she was
raised in Gloucester and then Cheltenham.

Swent: How did you meet?

Wiegel: At a dance. The military had a dance. Her father was manager of
the local bus company and both her brothers were in the R.A.F.
Everyone in England was involved. There was no alternative in
England. Most people were here too, but not as much. There,
everyone was .

Swent: What was your experience in Paris?

Wiegel:

Swent :
Wiegel:

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Wiegel:
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Wiegel:
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Wiegel:

Swent :
Wiegel:

I never liked Paris until many years later. There was nothing
wrong .

But you weren't seeing the glamor.

No, they had been through war; everything was in bad repair. It
was beautiful. I must be careful in describing it. Museums
weren't open, restaurantsnone of the things that people
associate with Paris existed except the scenery. I can still
remember the cathedral, and I can remember going out to Orleans
Cathedral but the stained glass had all been removed to put it in
safety, so you didn't see what you see today. But still it was
impressive; the buildings were certainly impressive.

In Christmas of '44 you were there?

Yes, that's when we moved over; in Christmas of '44.

How long were you there?

In the summer- -

The war ended there in May.

The war ended there in May.
clearly.

Of course I can remember that very

What are your memories of that?

Just that everybody was shouting and running aroundit's France.
Obviously they were absolutely thrilled that it was over. That's
about all I can remember. But as I hadn't been in the military
that long, I volunteered to serve in the Pacific theater. First
they asked for volunteers; then they used the army system to say,
"You volunteered." First they ask, and there were several of us
that decided to volunteer to serve in the Pacific theater. We
were sent down to Marseilles to ship out. We were on a troop ship
heading for the Philippines, because by that time, the military
had secured the Philippines and they were building up for the
invasion of Okinawa. We were out for a couple of days when there
was this flash about the atomic bomb going off, and then a few
days later there was a flash that the war was over.

Where were you?

I don't know,
someplace.

We were in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean

Swent :
Wiegel:
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Wiegel:

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Wiegel:

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Wiegel:
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Wiegel:

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Wiegel:

Swent :
Wiegel;

I'm trying to think how you were going from Marseilles.

It would have gone through the Panama Canal.

Panama?

It wasn't going the other way--we weren't going down around
Africa. We weren't going through the Suez.

Through Gibraltar.

Yes, I can remember Gibraltar. So when you said, "Where were
you," we were someplace in the Atlantic. They got orders to move
to the Atlantic coast and unload us. So I was back in the States,
and I had another year to serve. I didn't know how long I had to
serve; as it turned out, it was another year. So, first, because
I came from California, they just gave me orders to go home and
then to--

Where did you disembark?

It's just down below Washington, D.C., in Virginia. Hampton
Roads, I think it was. Then, on a train, I got back.

Were you married yet?

No.

So you took the train all the way across the country?

Yes. I don't know whether it was a train--! remember arriving out
here. It might have been air on a stand-by basis. It must have
been air on a stand-by basis because it was too quick. Then they
put me in an army camp that had a whole bunch of German P.O.W. 's
[Prisoners of War] in the Stockton areaall prisoners of war that
were all working with sugar beets and in the potato fields,
harvesting them. I was there for a few months and then they
shipped me back to Fort Dix, New Jersey, which was a big base.

What were you doing with the P.O.W. 's?

Army of ficer--somebody had to be in chargewe had soldiers as
guards for them. They worked on the farms; they were farm
laborers.

You were a supervisor?

I had seven hundred in my group--

Swent: Nothing to do with your training?

Wiegel: Absolutely nothing except that you were a lieutenant and a

lieutenant was supposed to work through a couple of sergeants, and
it works. It does work. Then I was shipped back to New Jersey- -
Fort Dix--and there I got back into ordnance again. I had the
motor vehicles on Fort Dix. Then I got sick and ended up in a
recuperation hospital in Florida for a month. It was hepatitis.
Every time you turned around in the army you get an injection, and
they were pretty surebecause there were several casesthey
thought it must havein those days nobody knew much about it, so
the treatment was just you took it easy, no fatty food or
anything like that.

After the recuperation hospital, I received my separation
from service. I had a couple of months of accrued leave, so I was
still on active duty, but detached until you served out the length
of time that you had coming to you from accrued leave. But they
just said, goodbye, and that was it. I came back here, and that's
when I went to visit Professor Folsom here on campus to see about
going to graduate school.

Swent: You came back to live with your mother?

Wiegel: Yes; came back home.

Swent: And came over here to talk to Folsom?

Wiegel: So that would have been June; I know I started to work on June 20,
1946. That was the interesting thing too, because I was on
terminal leave, but I got a job at the university it was a
strange thing, the military said, goodbye. They gave me a check
up until the end of my leave.

Swent: You were free to do whatever?

Wiegel: Whatever I wanted to do. At that time, everybody wanted to come
back to college. Most of them wanted to finish. I had gotten my
Bachelor's degree, but I wanted to go to graduate school, and
that's why I saw my former advisor, Professor Folsom.

IV RETURN TO CAL, 1946: RESEARCH IN COASTAL AND OCEAN ENGINEERING

Full-time Research Employee

Swent: Why did you want to go on to graduate school?

Wiegel: I don't really know; I just decided I wanted to go to graduate

school. I actually was thinking about what nowadays we call the
M.B.A.--they didn't call it that. But it was called the School of
Commerce, and I was actually thinking of doing that, but my
sister--the middle sister, Wilma, who was a secretary at Shell
Oil--and her boss was the head of manufacturing at Shell; that is
all of the refineries. At that time it was Monroe Spaght.

Wiegel: He said it would be better to get an M.S. in mechanical

engineering. He had a Ph.D. in chemistry from Stanford. He was
from Eureka. He eventually became managing director of the entire
worldwide Shell Oil complex in London. So I got good advice from
the person who obviously knew. [laughter]

Swent: Yes, indeed.

Wiegel: It was just one of those fortunate things. So when I came on

campus, I came to see my advisor in mechanical engineering, and he
said, "What are you doing?"

And I said, "I'm on terminal leave."

He said, "Would you like a job for two weeks?"

I said, "Yes." It was a classified job on the Bikini test,
and I've been here ever since. I started the 20th of June, 1946,
and I'm still here on campus in 1997. I was hired fifty years ago
last summer.

Swent: Last June. And it wasn't anything you intended, it just

Wiegel: Nothing was planned. I cannot tell you why I decided I wanted to
go to graduate school; I have no idea.

Swent: But it turned out to be fortunate.

Wiegel: I'm very pleased that I did. It's been a very interesting and
pleasant life.

Swent: And Folsom was still here, and had been one of your favorite
teachers?

Wiegel: He was a tough person.
Swent: Was he?

Wiegel: Yes. But he left a little later, and went to [University of]

Michigan as the head of engineering research, and then he became
president of Renselaer.

Swent: Renselaer Polytechnic?

Wiegel: Yes, Renselaer Poly; he was president of it. Incidentally, the

library there is named after him now, I understand. He died last
year. I kept up with him all these years. We've been good
friends all these years.

The Bikini Test; Would Operation Crossroads Cause a Tsunami?

Swent: So the Bikini job--I think we have time; would you like to talk
about that research project? Your first one.

Wiegel: It is interesting. Several of the people involved in the Bikini
Test from Berkeley and from Scripps Institute of Oceanography
which is a part of the University- -were on Oahu as a part of the
staging for the tests because it took months to get everything
down there and installed.

On April 1, 1946, there was an earthquake up in the
Aleutians, whichnow we knowtriggered a massive underwater
landslidetriggered what we call a tsunami, popularly called
tidal waves, and it caused a lot of damage and loss of life in the
Hawaiian Islands. Remember this was in the Aleutians that it was
triggered. The tsunami waves also caused damage along the north

coast of California. They were worried that a nuclear explosion
might well trigger an underwater landslide on the ocean side of
the atoll which would generate a tsunami, which might cause
devastation.

Let me back up: about ten years ago, I was having lunch in
southern California with Roger Revelle. Roger was largely
responsible for the start of UC San Diego. Roger was also the
person that most people give credit for as thinking about the
problem with carbon dioxide and the greenhouse effect. He's the
one that is generally given credit for that. But he was a navy
commander during the war, and he was the contact with the people
and this is an area we'll get into much detail laterat Scripps
and Berkeley on the amphibious research, but he also headed up the
oceanographic segment of the science thing for the Bikini test.

He was talking with O'Brien at Bikini, and was worried about
this. O'Brien said, "I'll send a cablegram back and we'll get a
test done, because I know that we can do something in the
laboratory." That's when I happened to walk into Folsom's office.
He had just got this cablegram from Bikini, and O'Brien was the
dean of engineering here at the time, but he was at Bikini for the
test. I walked in the door, and I did the job

Swent: So this was a rush job?

Wiegel: I had two weeks to do the whole thing: figure out what to do, set
it up, run the experiments, analyze the results, say whether it
looked like it was going to be dangerous or not dangerous .

Swent: What a responsibility!

Wiegel: For reasons that it took years to find out, what I did was right,
[laughter]

Swent: Fortunate.

Wiegel: But O'Brien knew it probably would be, because he had the
background to realize it.

Swent: So you had to know all the structure of the atoll and so on,
didn't you?

Wiegel: No, nobody knew very much of anything about that. I just made an
equivalent of something like fractured rock, and put it in an
unstable situation, triggered it so it went downit was in the
waterit moved under the water, and it generated water waves as
it went out, and I could measure them and then scale up to the

Swent :
Wiegel:

Swent :

Wiegel:

prototype. Of course, now it's very clear, but it was not at all
clear in those days, that it wouldn't be very important, because
you had to have something with much larger length than the water
depth in order to generate waves that would be of ocean-wide
importance; it would only have local importance.

So you decided it was okay?

I said, "It scales up small."
[laughter]

I see.

They decided it was okay.

So it was just a complete accident that I was employed at Cal. (I
was, however, a reader for one semester when an undergraduate.) I
don't know whythey had me on the payrollthey had other work to
do, so I just did it. In other words, it was just for two weeks,
but once I was on the payroll, there were other things. It was
all classified in those days. It was all very interesting.
Because of this, I didn't go back to school as such. They had a
deal that a university employee could take a course for credit
each term if he or she was accepted, and I had been accepted. So
I worked full-time and then took a course, and then another
course, and then another course.

So I never came back as a student as such, I simply took one
course at a time. Then at the end, I was sent away before the
last semester ended, but I finished my Master's. That's why I
didn't get a Ph.D., because I was sent by Dean O'Brien to do
something else for the Marine Corps, and I spent two years. By
then, I wasn't even interested in any more advanced work.

What sorts of experimentsafter the Bikini one then were you
doing research?

I did field measurements, and measured waves, worked on the design
of wave recorders. I was also loaned for an interval to Professor
Harold Johnson, who was doing work in high speed aerodynamics of
what we call rockets now in the atmosphere on the heating and I
worked with him. I did some of the first tests and calculations
on that. But then I went back into oceanography, but I did do
some of the earliest work on the aerodynamic heating of rockets-
re-entry vehicles- -whatever you want to call them.

In those days we were worried about getting them out because
it wasn't anything to do with manned flight; it was straight
military applications. So that's how I did it, and eventually I

did get a Master's degree, but then I was sent to head up this
research project on amphibious oceanography.

Swent: That was down the road a ways.

Wiegel: That was in December "48. Anne came over to visit in 1948, and we
got married.

Swent: But you started here in '46?

Wiegel: In two years, I was working full-time, but I managed to take

enough courses to get my master's degree. I've always been a hard
worker.

Swent: Were you instructing students as well?

Wiegel: Not then.

Swent: You were just doing research?

Wiegel: I had no intention to go into teaching; never entered my mind.

Swent: Oh, really?

Wiegel: No. That all came by complete accident at a later date.

Swent: You were doing research and experiments?

Wiegel: And a lot of field work. A certain amount of field work. Then,
when I went down to Camp Pendleton with the Marine Corps , it
became all work in the field, which is very important because--
this was the real thing.

Swent: That's the real thing.

Wiegel: That's one part of the real world, yes. That was very important,
because that has always given me a different way of looking at
research, both laboratory and theoretical. I'm very pleased that
it went that way.

Swent: We might expand just a little bit more on Bikini. This was

research that was done by the government and the university in
collaboration?

Wiegel: Operation Crossroads. It was the big nuclear device in Bikini

Lagoon, and they had many, many naval ships and craft: LSTs, LVTs,
aircraft carriers. They were in the lagoon, and they exploded the
device and studied what happened to them. We were interested in

the size of the waves; the base surge that generated waves that
moved out, and how it impacted the ships, and then how it overran
land.

It's a huge amount of water, and it moves out. It turns out
mathematically that it's in many ways similar to the generation of
tsunamis, so there was a classified segment of stuff that always
went with this kind of thing for quite a few years.

Swent: I was interested too in the collaboration between the university
and- -was it the army or the navy?

Wiegel: That was navy. The Bureau of Ships at that time the university's
connection was with the Navy Bureau of Ships . That was the
nuclear device test, Operation Crossroads.

Swent: Because I think this was sort of the beginning of such
collaborations, wasn't it?

Wiegel: It started during the war.

Swent: Before the war, universities didn't do military research, did
they?

Wiegel: MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] might have. Somebody
must have been working on the radar and stuff. Somebody must have
been doing that; my guess is that it was MIT. Berkeleyit was
during the war, and it was before this; this goes back to the
amphibious work and the generation of waves by winds; the
prediction of surf; how high will it be in a landing?

Swent: --for planning invasions.

Wiegel: --for invasion, and what will be the effect on landing craft? The
effect on landing craft--a good deal of that was done at Berkeley.
We had a little model towing tank here at Berkeley. But also,
they were out measuring wavesmeasuring surf, surveying profiles
through the surf zone because nobody knew anything about this.
Landing craft would come in, and suddenly would hit bottom and
would be inundated by if you turn around, and look at the wall,
you'll see two photographs: at the top is a Marine Corps
amphibious tractor that has been waterproofed. That's an
amphibious tractor coming in through the surf. Down at the
bottom, you see what they call a DUKW, which was a two-and-a-half-
ton truck by General Motors but a boat, also.

By amphibious, it can work in the water or on land, and can
move between the two. That's the sort of stuff that was being

done at Berkeley- -how were these things behaving and why, and I
spent quite a while working on this. Berkeley hadthere were
only four schools of naval architecture and marine engineering in
the United States, and one of them was at Berkeley, one at MIT,
one at Michigan, and a private one on Long Island. So we had a
little bit of background here at Berkeley in the naval
architecture stuff.

Swent: So when were you working on this?

Wiegel: That was

Swent: When you were an undergraduate?

Wiegel: No, that's when people like O'Brien and Folsom

Swent: But these were developed

Wiegel: This was afterwards. 1 worked on them after the war.

Swent: Because they were used in the war.

Wiegel: Oh, yes. The Marine Corps wanted to know much more about how they
behaved.

Swent: They were used, but they didn't know what some of their
characteristics were, and how to improve them.

Wiegel: They lost a lot of people; and they were killed not by the enemy

gun firethere were a lot of people killed by enemy gun fire but
a lot of people were killed by straight accident of these
operations, turning over in the surf and were drowned.

Swent: By what kind of accidents?

Wiegel: Just accidents; capsized, and they would be trapped and drowned.
That's what the Marine Corps wanted to find out after the war.

Swent: Why that was happening.

Wiegel: Why it was happening, how they could design better techniques,
better equipment. This then got into the development of
helicopters; maybe the best thing is not to go through the surf,
but to fly over the top. That's a whole other phase; that's after
the war. During the war, some people at Berkeley like O'Brien and
Folsom and Joe Johnson (who was working on underwater explosions)
were working on and another name, John Isaacs he was older, came
back to school and went through in three years in civil

engineer ing- -but he's the one that developed most of these
techniques for measuring things in the actual surf. He had been a
commercial fisherman as a part of his younger career.

But that was the war stuff. After the war, the Marine Corps
wanted to find out much more about it. But that we'll get into
later, because ultimately I was the project engineer writing a
seventeen-hundred-page manual on amphibious oceanography for the
Pentagon. We've kind of gone ahead now, this was done after the
field work for the Marine Corps, after we had returned to campus.
I never intended to teach; it never entered my mind. It came
about at a later date.

Swent: Serendipity.

Wiegel: So I was doing all this between '46 and '48, and that's when Anne
came over to visit my mother. Then we got married- -about a week
later, Dean O'Brien sent me out to head up the project for the
Marine Corps. That's when the semester system- -you finished
lectures before Christmas, but then came back after Christmas for
examinations. I was sent before Christmas--! know I never took a
written examination in the last course; I think the professor must
have just examined me orally or something. It's hazy. Anyhow, I
finished; I got my master's degree.

Swent: This might be a good place for us to stop, although I do have more
tape if there's anymore.

Wiegel: This seems to be a reasonable place to stop.

Swent: Let's just talk about your children for a few minutes.

Wiegel: Yes. We have three children, and they all graduated from Cal.

Swent: So that's two generations of 100 percent Golden Bears.

Wiegel: Right. I want to be sure that's in there.

Swent: Let's get your children's names.

Wiegel: The oldest is John Mansfield; he graduated--! can't remember the
dates. He's just forty-one this year; he graduated in chemical
engineering. My eldest daughter, Carol, graduated in forestry,
and she's thirty-eight this year. My youngest daughter, Diana,
graduated in economics, and she's thirty-five. Then later on, she
went and got an M.B.A. at UCLA [University of California at Los
Angeles]. Anyhow, all three were Cal grads.

Swent: That's wonderful. John Wiegel: he would be the third?

Wiegel: No, because there were different middle names. Our son is John
Mansfield, after my wife's older brother.

Swent: John was your grandfather's name also, and your father's.

Wiegel: No, my brother's name is John, but he was always known by his
middle name, Mason.

Swent: So you've continued that tradition? And he's also an engineer?
Wiegel: Chemical engineer.

Swent: That's wonderful. I think perhaps that's a good place for us to
stop. You're going off for three weeks in Hawaii.

Wiegel: Maui first, Kauai for a week, and then the Kona coast of Hawaii.

Swent: And you've done this many times?

Wiegel: Yes.

Swent: It's a tradition.

Wiegel: It's a tradition; we've done it--I won't say every year since I've
retired, because I was recuperating from open-heart surgery two
years ago. Didn't go any place then.

[Interview 2: February 4, 1997] it

Swent: We're beginning the second interview, and you're recalling being
at Berkeley beginning your research work. Perhaps you would like
to talk about the Richmond Field Station.

Wiegel: Well, the Richmond Field Station didn't come into existence until
several years after the war. I think it's best to talk about it
at the appropriate time, and start in what I did when I first came
here.

Swent: You were a graduate student at that time.

Wiegel: I came here to apply for graduate school, and was offered a job to
do for two weeksa rush job, which I mentioned earlier, and then
I was asked to do something else, and then something else. I
became a graduate student, but not in a normal sense. I was a
full-time research employee, and at that timemaybe still a
university employee can take one course at a time as long as he or

she meets all the criteria, and that's what I did. So even though
the G.I. Bill [Servicemen's Readjustment Act, 1944] was in effect,
I made almost no use of it whatsoever because I was a full-time
employee, and I believe the tuition at that time was only
something like twenty-seven dollars a semester. So it was not
really important. So I was working full-time.

Swent: In reading Morrough O'Brien's oral historywhen he first started
out, there was only one student in the graduate school, and then I
believe there was a huge burgeoning after World War II, wasn't
there?

Wiegel: When I started to do the graduate studiesand it would have been
in the fall of 1946 there were not many graduate students at that
time because they had this big bulge a tremendous demand of
returning veterans to finish their undergraduate degrees, or,
because of the G.I. Bill, start with their undergraduate degrees.
So there were very few graduate students .

Swent: Still?

Wiegel: Yes.

Swent: Do you recall how many there were?

Wiegel: I can't remember. The college would have all those statistics.

There were very few, that's all I can remember. I was a graduate
student in mechanical engineering, and I believe I knew all of the
other graduate students in mechanical engineering. I think there
were only a few dozen; it's something that small.

Wave and Beach Research for the Bureau of Ships

Wiegel: I joined, then, this group that were doing the wave and beach
observations: the study of landing craft performance for the
United States Navy Bureau of Ships. This was a continuation of
the war-time activities that was done in support of the amphibious
landings in both the Pacific, North Africa, and across the channel
into France. We were doing field work, so I would go out, and we
were doing surveys of beaches and using the DUKWs, which is an
amphibious truck. It was called WOBS (Wave Observations, Bureau
of Ships); then the WAVES project.

Swent: Where were you going?

Wiegel:

Swent :
Wiegel:

Well, the group had been doing studies in California, Oregon,
Washington. The first one I worked on was surveys at Half Moon
Bay in California. Then the university was asked to observe a
major rehearsal at Camp Pendleton of the amphibious landings--it
was a rehearsal or practice by the Navy Pacific Amphibious Command
and the Marine Corps- -and so I participated in that and went down
to Camp Pendleton with a group of engineers and others from
Berkeley.

We observed the observations and made measurements --more as
an operations research activity. Some of the photographs that you
see on the wall of these landing ships and things of that sort
were taken of these rehearsals.

You are an expert photographer,
you start taking pictures?

When did this begin? When did

I'm not an expert photographer. I learned that if you take a lot
of photographs, occasionally you get a good photograph, [laughter]
There's a big difference.

I've seen some very nice photographs that you took.

That's because I took many, many photographs and occasionally got
some very nice photos.

There were some of Half Moon Bay that were in one of the
publications that you had taken.

Yes. Some of these you see on the wall I took; some, other people
took. Willard Bascom (he was known as Bill then) took some of
them, John Isaacs took some of them, Don Patrickmany people took
different things. We had a very large collection of photographs
which are still around. I'm afraid they'll get lost one of these
days. Those things happen.

Security Clearance

Swent: We'll have to talk about your archive later. Maybe you'll keep
them there. Did you have to get clearance for these things?

Wiegel: I had clearance. Yes, it was a classified contract. We all had
clearance.

Swent: You went through a clearance procedure?

Wiegel:

Swent :

Wiegel:

Swent :

Wiegel:

Yes. I don't remember what the procedures were at that time,
certainly we all had clearance.

but

The reason I'm asking this particularly is because in John
Whinnery's oral history, 1 the question was asked about the furor
over the loyalty oath later, and he said it didn't affect these
people because you had all clearance and gone through that anyway.
It was a matter routine to--

We never even thought about it. Many of us had been in the
military. We understood the necessity for confidential work for
military sort of things . What we were doing eventually became
generally useful worldwide for civil works, but we were doing it
for military operations at that time. So every one of us were
cleared. It was a routine check-up; I don't remember the details.

Were you able to discuss what you were doing,
you tell your wife where you were going?

for instance? Did

Yes. There are different levels of clearance. The fact that we
were working on things was not classified. The details of some of
some of these things were classified. But within, I would say, a
couple of years at the most, they declassified most of them. It's
only later on when I started to do some work on the preliminary
studies of the Polaris missile launchings from submarines that it
was very high classification. That you couldn't even talk about
at that time. You couldn't even say you were doing anything. But
that was a very special thing.

Beach Trafficability, Liquefaction, Surf Forecasting

Swent: We'll have to mention that in more detail later. At this time,
the landing craft and the DUKWs--you were observing the waves?

Wiegel: Waves --how they affected beaches, how the landing craft operated
when they were coming in through the surf, how they operated on
the beach face, how the vehicles behaved as they were coming off
the landing craft and moving up over sand. In fact, it's rather

1 John R. Whinnery, Researcher and Educator in Electromagnetics.
Microwaves, and Optoelectronics. 1935-1995; Dean of the College of
Engineering. UC Berkeley. 1959-1963. Regional Oral History Office, The
Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1996.

interesting: historically, one portion of it developed into what
is known as beach traf ficability. Too often a vehicle would
unload from the landing craft and get stuck in the sand- -couldn't
moveand they'd just clog up your beaches. After studying it for
a while, it became evident that the problem was largely what we
now call liquefaction.

Harry Seed and Others; The Synergy of Sharing Ideas at the
University

Wiegel: In the early 1950s, we had a special contract with the navy--not
part of the broad studiesbut a special contract to look into
this beach traf ficability. Professor Horonjeff was the principal
investigator, and I was a member, and a young assistant professor
of civil engineering by the name of Harry Seed was on it. Harry
Seed went on to develop most of the theory which is used worldwide
on liquefaction, which is a major problem of some earthquakes.

Swent: Now this gets into geology and seismology.

Wiegel: It gets into geology, seismology. I could get into that later,
but Harry Seed is important because he eventually received the
National Medal of Science for the work that he did in soil
mechanics, earthquake loading, and especially liquefaction. It
stemmed from these studies he made for this military problem. Now
we can go back because that happened at a later date, but I wanted
to be sure we get that in.

I think I'd like to say in general that looking back, I've
really been fortunate with the remarkable type of people that I
have worked with, both with faculty, other engineers, and then the
high quality students that we've always had. This all works
together. This is synergy. You don't do these things by
yourself; everybody talks to each other, you share ideas, you talk
back and forth, and sometimes, you're never completely sure where
something came from because each of you adds a little bit and
piece and modify it and so forth. That's one of the reasons this
university became great; there was this large group of people that
were very, very good. Harry Seed, of course, being one of them.

Swent: That's the beauty of the academy, isn't it?

Wiegel: Yes. Of course, the problem is now we're getting to where many of
them are deceased. Both Seed and Horonjeff died some years ago.
Folsom, O'Brien, and Isaacs are also dead now.

Swent: I thought that they laid out metal screening on the beaches?

Wiegel: In some places, but it didn't work very well. They bent down and
wound up and it didn't work very well.

Swent: No. It was impractical.

Wiegel: The other one I worked with at that time on these things in

addition to 0'Brien--of course O'Brien was dean so I'd see him
very, very rarely--but it was Professor Joe Johnson; John Isaacs--
who shortly afterward left and went down to Scripps Institution of
Oceanography, which is a part of UC San Diego. Well, then there
wasn't a UC San Diego; it was a part of the university. He spent
the whole rest of his professional career at Scripps. Then
Willard Bascom went on to do a lot of the early work on the deep
sea drilling project, which is a very, very important scientific
advancement .

Swent: You mentioned at that time this was under contract with the Bureau
of Ships--

Wiegel: Bureau of Ships, that's correct.
Swent: So it was entirely a military--

Wiegel: It was all military at that time. It's just that almost all of
the things that we learned turned out to be very useful for
civilian applications and still are. Part of it was the study of
how waves are generated by winds blowing over the ocean, how
they're generated by ships moving across water, how they're
generated by underwater explosions, how they're generated by
underwater earthquakes and landslides and all of these things. So
how waves are generated and how you can predict them was and is
important for the militaryto be able to predict changes in wave
conditions and not just the waves in the deep ocean, but the much
more complicated as they come onto shore and form breakers --what
we call surf.

So it's surf forecasting that was an important part of it,
and the characteristics of these waves: how they're generated, how
to forecast them, and what are their characteristics. It became
evident that one had to deal with statistical representations. So
this got us into probabilistic theories and things of that sort.

Swent: And this is fluid mechanics?

Wiegel: It's applied to fluid mechanics, correct. We were fortunate at
Berkeleyand it was a new professor who was an older person,

Jerzy Neyman--one of those unbelievable Hungarians, I believe. He
had formed what is now known as the statistics department in
mathematics; it was separate. So one of his graduate students,
Robert Putz, worked with us on these problems to really get into
making use of the advanced work that was done during World War II
in communication theory, and to use that background for the
statistics of waves. So again, it was one of these fortunate
things that these people were here. We could all talk to each
other and work together. It was a wonderful time. Just like
Professor Whinnery talked about in his field; what a good time it
was to talk to everybody in related areas.

Swent: So you were actually measuring or observing the waves--

Wiegel: Measuring them. I did some work on the design of wave instruments
under Professor Folsom and John Isaacs. The person that did most
of this was another young person--he was just out of the navy-
Frank Snodgrass--who was doing a Master's degree in electrical
engineering. He was the one who developed the advanced wave
recorders and analysis equipment. But also working in conjunction
with him was Neyman's graduate student, Robert Putz. So it was
not just measuring waves; it was the analysis.

We did much of that here at Berkeley, which then of course
was taken over; other people did it and everybody adds to it both
here and- -a lot of this was still being done in the UK in England
by that group there. We knew each other; we would write back and
forth and share all of our ideas. There wasn't competition for
publication in those days. You shared ideas. You were trying to
solve a problem.

Swent: And this was a very new field, wasn't it?

Wiegel: Yes, it was brand new in many ways. In other ways, it's a very,
very old field. Read the Bible and St. Paul--

Swent : Shipwrecks .

Wiegel: --and his travels in the Mediterranean, and you'll recognize many
of these problems: trying to land a ship on shore under bad sea
conditions. So it's a very old problem, but a very new way of
trying to study it. [laughter] It's still fascinating. We did
then, you see, field workfield measurements, and we worked in
the laboratory.

College Avenue Pool a Hydraulic Model Basin

Swent: I wanted to ask about the College Avenue pool. Was that part of
this?

Wiegel: Yes. The College Avenue poolwhen we did field work, we worked
in the hydraulic laboratory and we did theoretical studies as
well, and the College Avenue pool was originally a swimming pool
on the extension of College Avenue, which doesn't exist any more
because that was then a part of campus -- that ' s gone. College
Avenue- -you know where it stops now- -well, it continued. It
jogged up and continued on to what is now part of campus.

There was a swimming pool there, but sometime during the
1930s--the Hearst swimming pool was built for women, and then
there was one down in the men's gymnasium, so there was this
earlier pool left. Fortunately nobody had bulldozed it; I guess
there was no money to do anything like that, and so it was turned
into a hydraulic model basin. Also, a small towing tank had been
built there. This was during the war. I had nothing to do with
that; it was prior to my coming.

Swent: A towing tank?

Wiegel: A towing tank, to tow ship models. So that's where some of the

early studies of amphibious vehicles were made for the navy- -being
developed by a company then known as Food Machinery Corporation.
They were developing these amphibious vehicles; these tractors,
one type of amphibious vehicles. They were studying the
performance of various models in the towing tank which was right
adjacent to College Avenue, next to the pool, and then some three-
dimensional studies were made in the College Avenue pool.

Swent: How valid was this?

Wiegel: Well, many of these things were valid. Others had scale effects,
but it was quite a while before we found out about scale effects,
quantitatively. It wasn't until we had a full department of naval
architecture and marine engineering at Berkeley, which was
developed after World War II. The lead of that was a retired navy
commodore, which is one star, and he was a naval architectHenry
Schade, called "Packy". Then they built a big towing tank because
they had just obtained Richmond field station at that time--I
don't remember the date- -but that's jumping ahead.

Swent: Were you working at the College Avenue pool at all?

Wiegel: Just a little bit.

Field Work and Theory; Engineering and Science

Swent: Mostly you were doing the actual field work?

Wiegel: Field, and things of that sort. Correct. So we did field

studies, hydraulic laboratory work, and theory. We did research,
but we also did practice. We were trying to develop better ways
for these things to perform. So it was a combination. This is
very important, I think- -that I had this opportunity to spend so
much time doing field work, because during my whole career I've
gone out in the field almost every opportunity that came to me.
To see things as they actually are and work with full-scale things
because many of the things in the laboratory do have what we call
scale effects and I was able to observe some of these things.
That's very important in engineering. Very important.

I think I'd like right here to mentionbecause both O'Brien
and Whinnery had mentioned about what similarities and what
differences there are between engineering and science. Like John
Whinnery said, "It's really a spectrum and at the two tails of the
spectrum, they're very different. In other words, the real
scientist scientists at one end, and a type of engineer that knows
almost no science at the other. But most engineers and scientists
are in the middle of the spectrum where you do both. You can't
separate them."

Swent: There's a good deal of overlap.

Wiegel: Tremendous overlap. One of the things about engineering is that
we so often have to deal with uncertainties. Somebody wants
something done, and we know approximately what's going on, but
there's all kinds of variabilities. So we're always dealing with
these uncertainties, and we're trying to estimate: can I build
something that will do something that is safe, and I'm not going
to lose people and they're not going to be killed, it's not going
to fall down. But what kind of safety factors? I think this is
one of the main things in engineering, and of course a lot of
scientists do this same thing; they're interested in the same
thing .

But another factor in engineering is the economics. If
something costs too much, somebody's going to say, "Hey, wait, I
don't have that kind of money. It's all very nice, but I can't

afford it." So this is a difference in many cases, but on the
other hand, many scientists have the same restraints. They'd like
to perform a test, and somebody says, "Hey, wait, that costs too
much money." So this is why I say there's many, many overlaps.

There are two types of design in engineering: functional and
structural. This is importanthow do you design something
functionally, so that it can perform its function. As an example,
the design and the layout of a harbor and the protection of the
docks from waves so ships can be loaded and unloaded.

Improving Risk Analysis and Probabilistic Models

Swent: Then you mentioned the probabilityprobabilistic I think was the
word you used

Wiegel: Nowadays there are two terms that are used: risk analysis and
probabilistic models. These are two pieces of the same thing.

Swent: Now is this new wording for an old thing, or is this really kind
of a new way of looking at things?

Wiegel: It's an old, old thing, but it's much more quantitative now. In
other words, when I say "we," I mean people that have this
ability--! 'm using the very general term "we"--to be able to have
really quantitative estimateswhat they call distribution
functions of these occurrences. Like the distribution functions
of floods, or the distribution function of wave heights, or the
distribution functions of earthquakes. In other words, the
probability of occurrence of these things.

Then in the risk analysis, what you're doing, you're
applying this to some other thing to see how this wave height and
the uncertainties in the wave force equation what kind of a
loading it's going to cause on a structure- -what load will a
higher wave height exert on a structure. Then you come up with an
analysis of the loading on the structure and the risk that it
might fail. Under wave loading or earthquake loading, or wind
loading. So the probabilistic information is in there, but then
the risk analysis, in my opinion, is combining the probability of
occurrence of different things with how it will affect a structure
or an operation. So they're old, but we're doing much better now
quantitatively and presumably will continue to improve our
quantitative ability.

Now to get back onto a schedule. In late December 1948:
O'Brien asked me if I would go down to the US Marine Corps base at
Camp Pendleton in southern California and take over as the project
engineer on a new study that the university had contracted with
the Office of Naval Research to do on amphibious oceanography.
This was to work with Marine Corps personnel and equipment and run
tests through the surf under different conditions and at different
areas, and again, find out what was happening.

Swent: Had you gotten your master's by now?

Wiegel: No.

Swent: You were still plugging along.

Wiegel: Let me explain: At that time, we were on the semester system, but
the semester continued after the Christmas break. I was sent down
to Camp Pendleton, so I don't know--I had this one last course I
was taking and whether or not the professor gave me on oral exam,
I'm not quite sure, but at least I passed. You did a pretty
detailed master's thesis then, and I handed my master's thesis in,
and I did get a degree, a master's degree.

Swent: What was the topic of your thesis?

Wiegel: Waves in the laboratory- -and using a resistance type wave gage
suggested to me by Professor Einstein, who had just come to
Berkeley from Caltech--that ' s our professor Einstein, not his
father.

Wiegel: Einstein worked on sedimentation, and did what is generally

considered to be the major theoretical advance in the transport of
sediments: that's silt, sand, cobbles by rivers. This is used
worldwide today. Then, when he came here, he started to apply
some of his ideas to the transport of sand along beaches and
things of that sort.

Swent: Were you observing that as well as waves?

Wiegel: Yes. Professor Johnson did most of the work on sedimentation.

Einstein worked in it also. Then another person came- -he was an
older personProfessor Trask, who was a geologist. He started
what is known as geological engineering at the University of
California at Berkeley. He was brought here by O'Brien especially
to do that. He had done much work on sedimentation. His
undergraduate degree was in mathematics, and he was, I think,

either the first, or one of the first to apply statistical theory
to the study of sediments. Again, that was an advantage. At a
later date, I shared an office with him for a couple of years,
which was great because I was able to learn from him how a
geologist thought about these things. But that's jumping ahead.

Project Engineer for Wave Research with the Marine Corps

Swent: So you went to Camp Pendleton?

Wiegel: Went to Camp Pendleton, and my wife- -Anne and I got married in
early Decemberthen moved immediately to Camp Pendleton. As I
said, I did somehow wrap up whatever I was doing and got my
Master's degree, but that was the end of my graduate work. I had
no intention of teaching; it never even entered my mind. I was
going to continue working for a while on amphibious oceanography
because it was interesting, and then go out in industry someplace.

Swent: What opportunities would there have been in industry?

Wiegel: Well, I was interested in the oil companies, and I would have
applied to Shell Oil or Chevron then called Standard Oil of
California.

Swent: Were they doing drilling platforms and that sort of thing?

Wiegel: Not then, that was shortly afterwards. A little later, 1 would
have been able to work for any of the oil companies .

Swent: At that time, I was wondering what might have been your options?

Wiegel: Remember I was a mechanical engineer, so I was thinking in terms

of refineries or things of that sort. But what I was doing was so
interesting that I just forgot all about it, to be frank. I don't
think I even thought about it until you asked the question, in all
those years. [laughter]

Swent: This would not have related directly to any oil occupation, would
it?

Wiegel: No. So I worked with the Marine Corps in landing craft. Captain
Bill Lund was the Marine Corps captain we worked most closely
with. But we had two navy officers: a Lieutenant (j.g.) D.A.
Patrick of the Civil Engineer Corps was assigned to it, and then a
Lieutenant Harold Kimberley, who was what the navy called an

aerologist--today we'd call him a meteorologist. Again, we were
doing surveying and wave forecasting. We had wave recorders, we
were installing them and measuring with them. We were measuring
landing craft performance by putting up two photographic survey
towers, with cameras that were really photographic transits so we
could get the information in three dimensions (by photogrammetry)
on the performance of landing craft under different conditions.

We started at Camp Pendleton, but then we moved up to
Monterey Bay in a LSI [landing ship tank] the navy assigned to the
project, and all of our equipment, the Marine Corps, and the
amphibious vehicles were on it, and we were in Monterey Bay. We
also had a Marine Corps aeroplane for use in taking aerial photos,
which was flown up. In those days, you just did something, so we
just landed and beached the LSI at Monterey Bay right near where
now is the Naval Post-graduate School.

Swent: It wasn't there then?

Wiegel: It wasn't there then. It was still Del Monte, but the military
had it because they used it during the warthe hotel. But we
were on the beach, not the hotel. We were there near Fort Ord,
and operated in Fort Ord, which is a very, very difficult beach
and surf conditions to operate at. From there, we moved up to
Oregon, at Clatsop Spit. That's immediately south of the mouth of
the Columbia River. That was, you might say, the absolute
opposite condition of Fort Ord. Fort Ord is a very steep beach
and Clatsop Spit is a very, very flat beach. To give you an idea;
the slope of the beach in Fort Ord may be one foot vertical and
ten or fifteen horizontal; at Clatsop Spit it's something like one
in 150. So there is a tremendous difference in the type of surf.

But this is what we were studying: how would vehicles
perform, what was the surf like under these different conditions.
Again, it was this opportunity to study things in the field as
they actually are. I've been very fortunate to have been able to
do that. Then we came back to Berkeley-- just the two of us--
Lieutenant Patrick of the Civil Engineer Corps was put on detached
service or whatever they call it, and he and I then did the next
stage of trying to wrap up the reports on what we had done for the
Marine Corps. .

Operation MIKI /Manual of Amphibious Oceanography

Wiegel: In October 1949, we participated as observers of a practice
amphibious landing [Operation MIKI] on three beaches of Oahu
[Territory of Hawaii then] , taking many photos to document the
beaches, surf, and landing craft performance. It was a full
operation with an army division (2nd Division, I believe). Rear
Admiral Doyle was Commander of Amphibious Forces, Pacific at that
time. Johnson, Bascom, Patrick, and I went on this study, and we
prepared several detailed reports on it for the navy and marine
corps.

The Marine Corps then wanted us to prepare what they called
a manual of amphibious oceanography, and I was asked to be the
project engineer and editor of it. This turned into a 1750-page
manual which was printed by the Pentagon printing office. I think
it was in 1952, and it was classified at that time, but then later
they declassified it.

Swent: That was a long three years or so.

Wiegel: Something like that. Yes, there was a lot of work that went into
it.

Pioneering Research on Seakeeping Capability of Ships

Wiegel: The navy, at the same time--! guess it was the Bureau of Ships-
were funding a hydraulic model study at Berkeley of a landing
craft in the surf --that is, waves breaking on a beach in a
hydraulic model. Professor Harold Iversen was in charge of that
project. So we then started, by design, not by accidentto
compare what we had observed in the ocean with measurements and
what he and a couple of graduate students had observed in the
laboratory. We really made some pretty good advances and when
Commodore Schade came to start the department of naval
architecturehe came at the invitation of Dean 0'Brien--he said
this is the first time that he had ever seen details of the naval
architectural seakeeping capability of a ship. It was new; nobody
had ever done it before. So those of us in mechanical
[engineering] who shortly after became civil [engineers], were
working very closely with this new group in naval architecture.

Curtis Crooke, Later of Global Marine

Wiegel: One of the graduate students that was doing this was a young

person by the name of Curtis (R.C.) Crooke, and I mention his name
in particular because after he had finished, he went to work for a
small company that had formed in southern California to do off
shore oil drilling. The name at that time was Continental, Union,
Shell, and Superior: CUSS. But then they changed and became known
as Global Marine, and Bob Bauer was chairman of the board of
Global Marine. They developed into one of the two major off-shore
drilling companies worldwide. I mention this in particular
because at a later dateby then, Curtis Crooke was senior vice
president for development. He was still pretty young. Everybody
was young in this field; there wasn't anybody old. He was the one
that was in charge of the very, very secret program that developed
the Glomar Explorer, which was the--I have here a newspaper
article--! pulled it out--"ships that came in from the cold"--you
know, from the spy episode. That was the ship that either did or
did not lift a Russian nuclear submarine off the bottom someplace
near the Hawaiian Islands, and that was Curtis Crooke.

He also, on a non-classified project, was largely
responsible for the Glomar Challenger, which was the drill ship
developed to take the deep-sea cores that have led to remarkable
advances in plate tectonics and all of this stuffby taking these
cores all over the world. It was a very interesting group of
people that were working in this area.

Development of The Morison Equation

Swent: Yes. The results of all of that have been tremendous.

Wiegel: At that time, there were other ones here: I mentioned Frank
Snodgrass and Bob Putz--but there were also other graduate
students, Bob Fuchs and Richard MacCamy in mathematics, did their
Ph.D.s with Hans Levy in the math department. Then Thorndike
Saville, Jr., who did his master's degree, and then Jack Morison--
one r, one s--and Jack was the one that did his work under O'Brien
on the wave-induced forces on piles. I mention this because that
equation is known as the Morison equation. It should be known as
the O'Brien, because O'Brien wrote it down and said, "Here, test
this." It should be known as the O'Brien-Morison-Johnson-Schaaf
equation. We all agree that it should have those four people's
names on it .

Swent :
Wiegel:

But it's known as the Morison equation; it's still used
worldwide. As far as we know, it has been used in the design of
every single pile-supported--or what we call space frame
[fabricated with steel tubes] off-shore oil structure in the
world. I don't care whether it be Japanese, Korean, U.S., French,
Norwegian, Britishbut every single one uses what is known as the
Morison equation.

What were the four names? O'Brien, Morison, Johnson- -

O'Brien, Morison, Johnson, and Schaaf. Schaaf was a theoretician
and did a lot of work in rarefied gas dynamics. That's what he
became famous for at Berkeley. Schaaf became chairman of the
department of mechanical engineering. So that was, again, an
interesting group.

Rapid Deployment Concepts for the Navy

Wiegel: We also were doing a lot of work for the navy in concepts of

breakwaters for rapid deployment. In other words, not these big,
massive rubble-mound breakwaters that take two years to build, but
something you could take to a site, and it's either floating or
it's something you could drill or drive some piles inpneumatic
breakwaters, compressed air--all sorts of ideas. It's the things
that the navy could use to deploy rapidly. You see, getting
across and getting your landing craft in, and securing the
beachhead is just the first part; then you have got to bring
supplies in. For that, you have to have some of sort of harbor.

About this time in the early 1950s, there were other studies
going on with the use of helicopters for landing, because it
became clear that the best way for the Marines to do their
landings, would be to come in and fly and land over the shore by
helicopters and secure it. But you still have to have supplies.
Now, I would like to just mention something else: this is a
Science magazine--

Swent: We could just include that if you want.

Wiegel: --3 January, 1997. A little note "Navigating the shrinking

financial seas for Marine geo-science." It says the agency, ONR
[Office of Naval Research], previously focused, "'on open ocean
and anti-submarine warfare because of the Soviet threat, 1 says
Thomas Kinder, a program manager in coastal dynamics at ONR. 'But
now, because of things like Somalia and Desert Storm, the emphasis

is on littoral--for emphasis, coastal warfareand getting landing
craft safely onto hostile shores. 1 "

Swent: Isn't that interesting? Fifty years later.

Wiegel: Fifty years later, and I know they had a meeting with lots of
people at the navy postgraduate school.

Last year, there was a meeting at the Naval Post-graduate
School in Montereyunclassified meetingof people of several of
the services and so forth on what research should be done on
coastal works, of coastal oceanography to work on this problem. I
didn't attend, but I saw the note from the meeting, and there was
no one at the meeting who seemed to have had any experience
whatsoever in actual operations. They were all scientists, each
one saying the work they were doing should be continued- -was
important .

So I think that the navy would be well advised to go back to
some early reports and see what was known and what is known. This
is fifty years later.

Swent: Just give me a chance to ask a question that I had. This mentions
the Office of Naval Research, and you were working at this time
with the Marine Corps

Wiegel: It was an Office of Naval research contract, but the Marine Corps
was paying for it.

Swent: ONR did exist at that time?

Wiegel: It had just come into existence.

Swent: Were there these other organizations like NOAA and--

Wiegel: No, NOAA didn't exist then. The other organization was the Beach
Erosion Board of the Army Corps of Engineers. At that time that
is in the early 1950s they started to fund some research. They
did research themselves, but they started to fund some research.
They did fund some work here at Berkeley, at Scripps Institution
of Oceanography, and at New York University perhaps other places,
but I happen to be familiar with work that was done at each of
these three places.

Swent: But you were not working with them yet?

Wiegel: I was starting to work on some of these things. You didn't just
work on one thing; very often you might be working on several
things .

Swent: I was just wondering when that connection came.

Wiegel: In the early 1950s. I think, for the historyand of course

you'll have it in more detail in O'Brien's oral history but he
was doing work with the Beach Erosion Board in the 1930s. In
fact, he shortly became a civilian member of the Beach Erosion
Board, and because of the work he was doingand it was largely
field measurements in New Jersey, Long Island, California- -it was
largely because of thatI'd better back up also there were a few
Army Corps of Engineer Officers in the 1930s and later on also--
that were sent to Berkeley to do work in civil engineering. They
worked with O'Brien and did bachelor theses, several of them using
hydraulic laboratory models of waves and beaches. So when World
War II came, this was known, and this is why O'Brien then worked
closely with these others to do all this military work. But
that's all detailed in O'Brien's history.

So now we have the contact after the war, and the Beach
Erosion Board, with the civil work because during the war, the
Beach Erosion Board did all kinds of military stuff for the
landings, especially in Europe and North Africa and so forth. So
they wanted to get on with research because this was the time it
was also recognized that you had to combine science and
engineering. Engineering had to be thoroughly science-based; get
rid of as much art you're still going to have art, but substitute
as much science as you can for art, and then use art to help out.

So the Beach Erosion Board had let some contracts here at
Berkeley. So there was the Office of Naval Research then, and the
Beach Erosion Board. The National Science Foundation and NOAA
were not in existence at that time; later these became major
sources of research funding. Plus, on wave- induced forces on
structures, oil companies put money in to do research.

Swent: Was UCLA in the picture yet?

Wiegel: UCLA was in the picture during World War II because they had a
professor of meteorology. That is where the navy sent their
young, very bright officers to learn meteorology. A small group
in the Air Force did also, with Professor Bjerknes. He was a
Norwegian who was the founder of scientific meteorology, and he
was at UCLA. Professor H.U. Sverdrup, who was an oceanographer
he was a Norwegian also, and director of Scripps Institution of
Oceanography- -was doing the development of the wave forecasting

techniques for the military with Walter Munk. He taught some of
the young people in this group at UCLA--so UCLA really had a major
impact because of this one professor of meteorology. But there
was no engineering at UCLA at that time. You went the first two
years at UCLA, but then had to come to Berkeley for your junior
and senior years.

Calculating Behavior of Moored Ships; Six Degrees of Freedom

Wiegel: At this stage, then, we were doing research on beaches and so

forth for the army, but now we were working on the motion of ships
for the navy, both freely floating, but also moored ships. I did
a lot of work on the behavior of ships that were moored. There
are many problems with moored shipsthey move around, this way
and that. We also did some of it for an oil company- -what is now
known as Chevron- -for drilling through a moored ship, drilling an
oil well. Or first drilling cores, and then oil wells from a
moored ship. It's a very, very non-linear--what a mathematician
would call a strongly non-linear problemthe mind doesn't foresee
these things; that's all there is to it. It's just too
complicated. We had all kinds of troubles.

Now, because we noticed that when you set up an experiment
so a moored ship should just have certain degrees of motion, that
after a while it would be moving in all different degrees. For a
ship that isn't mooredits natural degrees of freedom are pitch,
heave, and roll. But a moored ship has three more because of the
moorings: which is sway, yaw, and surge. So there are what we
call six degrees of freedomand energy was transferring amongst
them. Now they have a new term for it; they call it chaos. This
is one of the chaotic motions. There are different definitions,
but this is one of the real ones. No wonder we had trouble.
This, again, is engineering.

We used the envelope of these motions to design for. In
other words, we couldn't predict reliably. But we'd get enough
information that we could develop envelopes, and then you could
design by using those.

Swent: Were you doing this out in the ocean?
Wiegel: No, we did the work in the hydraulic model.
Swent: Here on campus?

Wiegel: No. Now we were at Richmond Field Station. So this must have
been in the mid-1950s or something like that. Most of this was
for the navy, and we had ship models which they built, and we
developed the techniques of modeling this. Here again, we were
lucky that one of the young professors was Ray (R.W.) Clough that
worked with us for one summer. He developed the manner to be able
to model this nonlinear system. Two of the graduate students
working on it were R.A. Dilley and J.E. Williams. I can't get
into it; it's very complicated. We were asked to give a paper
over in the Netherlands, and we flipped a coin and 1 won, so I got
sent to the Netherlands to give the paper. Van Lammeren, who was
the head of the Dutch naval architecture group, said that our
paper was the most original given. We had really done something
new. Of course, we were all young. Ray Clough eventually also
received the National Medal of Science, because he developed what
is known as the finite element method that is used worldwide in
the design of all kinds of structures. Again, this is one of
those

Swent: It must have been exciting.

Wiegel: It was. It was one of those interesting things. So we did a lot
of work with the navy on this sort of stuff. But then, shortly
after, I no longer did it. By then, we had a real good group in
naval architecture here (Randy Paulling and John Wehausen; much
later, Bill Webster), and they took over all this sort of thing.
But this person I mentioned earlier, Jack Morison of the Morison
equationthen we got a contract to measure the forces

Project Engineer to Study Drag and Inertia in the Ocean for Signal
Oil and Gas ##

Swent: You were just saying that then you began a new project.

Wiegel: Yes, an oil companyan independent oil company called Signal Oil
and Gas Companynot Signal Oil, but Signal Oil and Gas Company.
Sam Mosher was the founder and chairman of it- -he later became a
regent [of the university], incidentally asked us if we would
study wave- induced forces in the ocean to see whether there were
scale effects. In other words, there were data and studies
available that Morison and others did in the laboratory. So we
got permission from Davenport Cement Company, which is about ten
miles north of Santa Cruz, to make use of their pier that's
extended into the open ocean. They were no longer using it for a
ship to berth along and to ship out cement; they now were shipping

it all by rail or by truck. So they allowed us to use their pier
which had deteriorated badly, and we had to do some maintenance on
the walkways to get to its end.

This was a big advance, because now we were trying to
install things in the ocean, and the forces were big, and you
didn't blame a tank, you blamed the ocean. You had to work with
it as it was. I was asked to be the project engineer, and others
were--Dick Barry, a grad student; Ken Beebe, a graduate student;
Jim Moon, who was a private consultant in the oil business; and
Frank Snodgrass again, in instruments; and another grad student,
Mike Hall. We all worked on it. Incidentally, Beebe eventually
became president of a company, PMB, which was bought out later by
Bechtel; it's now a wholly owned subsidiary of Bechtel
Corporation. That took about a year's work down there, and
another year doing the write-ups and so forth.

Swent: How is this different from what you had done before?

Wiegel: This was installing a vertical circular cylinder one of them six
inches in diameter, another a fabricated cylinder two feet in
diameter- -into the ocean and all instrumented with strain gauges
to measure the strains and then find out the stresses and
calculate the forces . We had wave recorders there measuring the
waves, so we were checking out the Morison equation, and
calculating what's called coefficient of drag and coefficient of
mass. There are two components of the forces: one is the standard
drag force, which is what's used in aerodynamics and things of
that sort; but because of waves not being steady, we have
accelerations, so we have inertial forces. So it's both drag and
inertial. They work both at the same time, but they are in
quadrature. Again, it's very difficult to sort out.

Swent: They work at the same time, but they're--

Wiegel: You always have these two force components, but trying to sort
them out is complicated. Again, you have to use statistical
techniques to do it well.

Swent: There was one word in there that I missed; did you use the word
quadra. . . ?

Wiegel: Quadrature. One component is proportional to the sine, and one is
proportional to the cosine square. I no longer can remember what
the word quadrature formally means, but that's what it means from
a practical standpoint. Even though we were doing the work for an
oil company and they paid for it all, they said, "Go ahead and
publish it." At that time, things had really not been worked out

as to what you could publish and what you couldn't. Remember, so
much of what we had done for the military was classified; we were
just used to writing reports for the navy on a classified project
and that was fine. Much of it, the navy said, "Go ahead and
publish it after the war." But it wasn't worked out yet with a
private company; they had paid for it. But they said "Go ahead"
so there was no problem.

The Value of Publication in Journals to Disseminate Knowledge

Swent: Where were you publishing?

Wiegel: In journals. The results of that was in an American Society of

Civil Engineers publication. They have several divisions. One of
them is the waterway and port division; it's now called waterway,
port, coastal and ocean division. It's a formally reviewed
journaltechnical journaland we published the results in there.
These were the only full-scale measurements of these two
coefficients, so they were used by many companies worldwide in
their designs. That was a big engineering step forward. Again, a
lot of scatter, a lot of uncertainties, but you could deal with
the envelopes of the curves. Similar work was being done at Texas
A&M for another oil company.

Swent: Was there, at that time, pressure or reward for publication from
the university?

Wiegel: For those of us in the research staff, we never thought about

anything like that. We published because we wanted people to know
about it. We'd attend meetings; people would say, "Will you
publish it?" We did. We were encouraged to publish by O'Brien
and Professor Johnson. They encouraged us to publish, but I
wouldn't say it was pressure. You just wrote it up and published
it because you wanted people to know about it. You've done a lot
of work, and you thought it was pretty good. During this whole
time, there was a lot of work being done by as I mentioned
beforeProfessors Joe Johnson, Jack Putnam, and then later,
Parker Trask, and also Hans Albert Einstein on sediment, beach
movements, sand transport.

This was almost all under contract with the Beach Erosion
Board of the Army Corps of Engineers. About sometime in the late
1950s or something, NSF [National Science Foundation] came in
existence and they started to fund some of it. But I didn't work

on those, so I can't remember exactly who funded--. I can't
remember when they came into existence.

Swent: Were you writing grant proposals and things like that at this
time?

Wiegel: They were pretty simple. Remember we were doing things they
wanted.

Swent: You weren't out searching for them; they were coming to you.

Wiegel: They were coming to us. Not one of these did we go out and search
for. At this time, as I mentioned before, I was again the project
engineer. There was always a professor who was a principle
investigator.

We never published anything on the Polaris project; it was
secret. That was really classified. We couldn't even say that we
were working on it. It was interesting because we could see there
was a scale effect-- I mentioned scale effects. A big contract
was then let by the navy with Lockheed to develop a towing tank
which was in a building that could be pressurized or evacuated by
air--change the air pressurebecause in turn we could see that
you had to deal with ratios to absolute pressure, not atmospheric.
Lockheed hired three of our people away like that! They all left
here and went to Lockheed. You had to have a secure building-
just all kinds of things. I thought I should mention it because
the fact that we worked on it is no longer classified at all. It
was kind of interesting to have done that.

Two terms have come into existence since World War II: one
is called coastal engineering, and that's much of what I have
done; and the other is what is called ocean engineering, and
sometimes off-shore engineering. This would be your off-shore oil
platforms, submersibles, underwater sensing devices all kinds of
stuff for submarine and anti-submarine warfare would be ocean
engineering. For the oil companies, it would be more likely
called off-shore engineering. The reason is, in the Gulf of
Mexico, they went from Louisiana a little off-shore and built a
platform, so it was called off-shore. Then they kept going into
deeper and deeperLake Maracaibo in Venezuela was first, and then
the Gulf Of Mexico, and then the North Sea, and now it's all over
the place. We had done much of the work for years in both of
these areas: both the coastal stuff directly for the Army, but
then for oil companies and so forth.

Research on Portable Breakwaters Leads to Studies of Mixing
Processes

Wiegel: Well, there was another thing, and I think this is important: one
of the studies we were making for the navy for transportable
breakwaters, was the use of a ship that could be moored, which had
a series of pumps installed in it with holes out its side, with
nozzles used to generate water jets. The jets would then cause a
surface current, and the current would oppose the waves and cause
the wave to break, and you could use it as a breakwater. It
works, but whether or not it's practical for a particular set-up,
depends on the wave lengths.

Swent: So it's not a physical breakwater at all?

Wiegel: It's not a physical breakwater, no. It was really a derivative of
the studies we were doing for the navy or army--! don't remember--
it might have been navy on the use of a pneumatic breakwater-
people kept talking about it, but it never really was any good.
Finally, G.I. Taylor of Cambridge University showed it really was
the horizontal currents at the surface generated by the rising air
bubbles which caused circulationthat caused the effect. That's
why we decided to jump over and generate the surface current
directly. This got us into the mixing of jets.

For quite a few years, we then studied mixing processes,
right up until the time I retired. The mixing of a river flowing
into the ocean or a bay (an estuary): it's fresh water into salt
water; how does it mix? The cooling water of power plants
discharged into the ocean: take ocean water in and cool the power
plant steam, then discharge the warm water into the ocean; how
does this buoyant flow mix? So all these, what we might call
water quality, are important. So we really got into the problem
of water quality in the coastal regime as an outgrowth of working
on a hydraulic jet breakwater for the navy. This again is how one
thing leads to another. Of course, now everybody is very
interested in water quality; many students have done their theses
on water quality. Some of it was supported by the California
State/University of California Water Resources Center, some by the
National Science Foundation, some by the Pacific Gas and Electric
Company; they were interested in cooling water. So this has been
a major sub-field in coastal engineering, which is still very
important .

Observations on Peak Load Anticipate Science by Thirty-Five Years

Wiegel: I'd like to back up to the problem of wave forces on structures.
If you have a pier through the surf--a fishing pier like the one
at Santa Monica or Santa Cruz--and you occasionally have big waves
that break, the surf forms right there along the pier; you have a
breaker hitting a pile. When we were doing these field studies,
we noticed a peak loadvery short durationa hundredth of a
second or so but a very high load compared with the normal wave
load. We observed it in some laboratory studies we were doing as
well, and we filed it away--we wrote a paper and presented the
data, or a couple of papers, but did not understand it.

It was many years later that finally, looking at some work
that a naval architect was doing on the landing of a sea-plane in
the water surfacegave us the theory, or the lead to the
development of the theory for wave loads on a horizontal member of
an offshore gas structure in the southern North Sea- -when I say
"we," I mean generally, not me to be able to calculate that peak
load. So thirty-five years after the original observations,
finally, I saw how to apply the concept to the force of a breaker
on a vertical pile. I had to modify the concept, and include
information on breaker kinematics, and published the work.
Science was catching up with the engineering in that case.

Analyzing Turbulent Motion; "We Don't Understand the Simplest

Things"

Wiegel: Another thing is about the way waves behave not when they're

breaking even the simplest thing even in the laboratory a nice,
simple wave that's nice and smooth the flows around a structural
member are rather complicated. It's not just velocities; there
are accelerations and decelerations, and there are reversals of
flows, so in aerodynamics and my original training in mechanical
engineering was fluid mechanics, including aerodynamics and heat
transfer so I had the background there in aerodynamics, you
study flows in wind tunnels, but the flow is all going in one
direction, not reversing.

So what they call the wake in the flow past an airfoil or
some other shape- -in our case, the wake becomes the leading flow
as the flow reverses. So we have this problem of very complicated
turbulent motion. Now turbulent motion is still one of the things
we know very little about. There's been thousands and thousands

of studies, and of course, at Berkeley, A.J. Chorin in the
department of mathematicsis the leader, or certainly one of the
leaders worldwide in the mathematical theory of turbulence. But
even using what they call massively parallel computers, we can--I
say "we," not "me;" I can't solve them at allthey can solve some
of these flows when it's turbulent.

There was an article in the January 1997 issue of Scientific
American discussing this. With all these advances and all these
techniques and everything, we can still explain quantitatively
only the simplest cases. So again, we're forced to use empirical
measurements and envelopes and things of this sort. I remember
attending a meeting in Bristol in 1978 on hydrodynamic problems,
et cetera, in regard to offshore oil platforms in the North Sea.
A well known hydrodynamics person said we don't know enough about
the theory to be able to design reliably. I said that I expect
all of the oil in the North Sea would be depleted before the
theorists would be satisfied. Twenty years later, it looks as if
I was right.

Swent: There are still things to learn?

Wiegel: Still things to learn. But one of the things I remember from our
Professor Einstein he was a wonderful person he said, "Knowledge
is the inside of an expanding sphere. What you know is on the
inside of the sphere; what you don't know is everything outside of
the sphere; but what you know you don't know is on the surface of
the expanding sphere. So as your knowledge increases, the sphere
gets bigger, the surface gets bigger, so the more you know, the
more you know you don't know."

Swent: That's very true, isn't it?

Wiegel: I remember something else Professor Einstein said. Incidentally,
we called him Hans when he first came here, but Albert later. His
family called him "Young Albert" and called his father "Old
Albert . "

I asked him, "Did you ever talk with your father about your
work on sediment transport and the turbulent processes involved?"
He said, "Yes."

Then I asked, "But, what did he say?"

Our Professor Einstein said, "He said it is too
complicated." Note the "complicated" not "difficult"; this is
important. I used to relate this to my students.

But again, a recent article in Science was on, "Why is ice
slippery?" Of course I thought, "Everybody knows that you can ice
skate because of the pressure of the ice blades; it liquifies the
ice in contact." The two professors- -one of them is here at
Berkeley at Lawrence Berkeley Lab in chemistrysaid essentially,
Oh no, that's what we all thought, but that isn't it. He stated:
"...very good circumstantial evidence that the surface is
molten. .. .the surface of ice is extremely dynamic." He was
referring to the top layer, only a few molecules thick. In the
articleit 's the 20 December 1996 issuethey mention another
statement --and this was Professor Steve George at Colorado
University who said, "This illustrates how we don't understand
the simplest things we know about."

I love that last quote, because this is how I feel about
some of our things. We see them all the time, we see waves coming
in, breaking on the beach. We see beaches come and go, and we
know about it, but they're so complicated that we still do not
thoroughly understand the physics. We understand portions-
glimmers of this and that. So here's where we are, and again this
is engineer ing- -we have to deal with these uncertainties.

I think I mentioned that we did a lot of work on wave
generation, and one of the people who was here-- who after he
finished his Master's degree, went on and did a Ph.D. at Texas
A&M, made a lot of headway in wave forecasting techniques by the
name of Charles Bretschneider. O'Brien had asked him to study
this and gave him directions on the way to go, to modify the
forecasting curves used during World War II and afterward by the
navy and everyone else, called the Sverdrup-Munk curves they were
both at Scripps Institute of Oceanography. They were developing a
physical theory for wave generation, and O'Brien looked at all
their data and said, "Well, the way to handle it is so and so" and
he told them to use dimensional analysis, which they did using
the similarity principle.

So the real concept on how it was done was really O'Brien's,
not Sverdrup or Munk. They had made major headway--! don't want
to underestimate it. Anyhow, he had Bretschneider continue it,
and got a lot more data and made it a lot more formal. Then two
people again Frank Snodgrass, whom I mentioned earlier with his
instruments and Bob Putz, who was a student of Jerzy Neyman
really went into the statistical and probabilistic models of these
things, which are used pretty generally today. They then became
known as the Sverdrup-Munk-Bretschneider wave forecasting curves.

Another example of where sometimes your observations get
ahead of you: John Isaacs had mentioned to me he had observed, in

some conditions in the ocean near shore, waves which look like
they have some of the characteristics of a Mach reflectionthat
is a sonic boom and how it behaves moving in contact with land.

So I started to look into it with graduate students--! was a
professor by thenand we developed knowledge of the subject with
three or four grad students doing laboratory studies, preparing
papers on the finding, and presenting them at meetings and this
has become very well-known. Professor Ed Laitone at Cal was using
the method of characteristics to study shock waves theoretically
and also once towed an airfoil at the free surface (air/water); he
told me that the ratio of C v and C P were such it might be valid to
study shallow water waves by this meanswhich is what we did.
But the theory was not developed. Professor Lighthill in Britain
had done a theoretical analysis of the sonic boom/ land surface
problem. At the end of the paper he indicated he would continue,
for water waves, but I have never seen this I don't think it was
done. This is again a very difficult non- linear phenomenon, and
it's only within the last ten years that theoretical advances have
been made by Professors John Miles, W.K. Melville, C.C. Mei, Phil
Liu, and their graduate students. So sometimes you're way ahead
in observations and developing methods for handling problems. We
learned how this would affect a breakwater, for example. So
again, this is one of the places where engineering is different
from the science, because in science, you'd want to be able to
formulate the thing mathematically. Well, nobody was able to do
that until much later, but still we could deal with it. I think
that's kind of important.

Swent: Did the scientists then draw on your observations?

Wiegel: Oh sure, we (this is the general "we") all worked together. Once
they make some advances, then we know how better how to look at
things and what to measure. It is an iterative way you advance.

I think I've already covered the rapid deployment for the
military and so forth.

Swent: Were there ever any I don't want to use the word conflict but

differences between projects that were funded by different groups,
or requested by different agencies. Were there cases where you
were doing research for one

Wiegel: Never any conflicts, no.

Swent: --person or entity and other research for another agency?

Wiegel: One study always helped out another study.

The Caldwell Equation

Swent: That was my next question: were you able to channel a lot of
things from one research project into another?

Wiegel: All the time. There was one other thing: I mentioned that the

studies of sediment transportthat is, sand motion on beaches and
things of this sortthat were being done here was by Johnson and
Einstein and Trask, and I did a little bit, but not much. I've
always been interested. They did quite a bit. There was an
equation that appeared in a study in Orange County at Anaheim Bay
where they had beach erosion problems. It was for the Los Angeles
district and a person by the name of Joe Caldwell came across a
formula that somebody at Scripps had said, "This should be used."
He called it the "littoral drift factor." We don't know who the
person was; unfortunately, it's been lost. But it's the right
concept that sand transport by wave action appears to be
proportional to wave work (time rate of work, "wave power") rather
than wave height. My guess was it was probably Walter Munk or Bob
Arthur but I don't know, and we can't find out from the written
record, and they don't remember.

Anyhow, it was written down and it appeared in this Corps
publication and credit given to the input from Scripps. But it
requires, again, field measurements, because there's a coefficient
in the equation that masks so much that you don't know. Caldwell
used the Corps' surveythe measurements made by surveying beaches
to the southeast of Anaheim Bay and came up with an estimate of
this coefficient. It's called the Caldwell equation, or later the
"SPM formula" (as it appeared in the Corps' Shore Protection
Manual), but as he said he didn't do it, but he was the one that
got a coefficient for real beaches. It's still useful today. I'd
like to jump ahead because it illustrates something: last year I
was asked to review a whole series of reports by the Los Angeles
District of the Army Corps of Engineers and by a number of
consultants to them on the Orange County coast waves, and
currents and tides, sand transport and beach changes and coastal
subsidence all kinds of things.

Wiegel: --and the result of the study was for use by Orange County

personnel and the county supervisors to make long-term plans for
the whole coast: "what are we going to do; what should be our
policies?" This is this general coastal zone management thing
that we like to do or would like to do and finally can do when
there is funding. The more you know about a subject, the more

likely you are to make good decisions. It doesn't mean you will
make a good decision, but at least you're more likely to if you
obtain good scientific understanding and information.

I looked intoas a part of thisa study made by some South
African engineers published in an international journal just two
or three years ago. They looked at all of the formulas for
alongshore transport of sand used worldwide, and evaluated them to
decide which one or ones might be best, using all the good data
they could get. The Caldwell equation was the second best of
these. I think- -that is, of course, the people that developed it
had the right idea there are more advanced theories than the
Caldwell equation, but when you get into the more detailed ones,
they are so complicated you don't know how to handle them, and
interrelationships cannot be entwined. So this I found very
interesting.

The measurements used by Caldwell were made at the place for
which I was making this review for the Army Corps of Engineers in
Orange County. I found that kind of interesting because you see,
1956 to 1996

Swent: --forty years.

Wiegel: --forty years. So again, I think you hear a lot about "publish or
perish" and all this and that, and "we" didn't do it to publish or
perish; "we" did it to make the information available. But this
shows you how important it is to publish these things, because it
was available to others. Joe Caldwell died years ago and nobody
remembered anything about it, so if it hadn't been for the fact
that he wrote this report and so forth, it would have been lost.
I think that's an important thing: that "publish or perish" is
good for several reasons, that being one: to document these
things .

Swent: Also I think it's interesting that it had spread as far as South
Africa.

Wiegel: It was spread every place: Japan; Australia; all through the
European continent; Taiwan uses it; it's used in India.

Swent: These things are valid all over.

Wiegel: Yes. If you do have the right physical concept, then it's valid.
Again there is scatter, and this is still a real problem. That, I
think, is kind of a broad picture of the research. It should be
stated that all of this was done by graduate students- -with a few
exceptions. I started as a grad student, and then I was full-time

research for a while; but I think there were only two or three of
us like that; everyone else was graduate students then and all the
way through.

I should mention that at about 1957--this will get us into
what will be coming up next timesome timeand I can't remember
just when I got into teaching by complete accident. A professor
at UC Davis left one week before, or two weeks before school the
fall semester was to start and they needed somebody to teach
Irrigation 117, which is hydraulics. So the dean up there phoned
the dean at Berkeley- -that must have been O'Brien still and
asked, "Can anybody teach this course?"

I was asked would I mind teaching it. I said, "Sure, I'll
do it." So I would take the train up. They arranged for me to
teach twice a week, and I'd take the train and I'd do all the
preparation on the side. I was still working full-time on my
research because I couldn't drop it, but I taught that course. So
I got into teaching by accident.

Swent: We'll go into the teaching next time. We might just here mention
--you were living in North Berkeley?

Wiegel: That's where I live now.
Swent: Were you living there then?
Wiegel: Yes.

Swent: When you were down at Camp Pendleton, for instance, you mentioned
--I think your wife went down with you.

Wiegel: At Camp Pendleton we lived in a Quonset hut on the Marine Corps

base, and then we lived in Monterey or Carmel for a few months and
then we lived up in Seaside, Oregon, for a few months.

Swent: You just rented places, or did the project provide something for
you?

Wiegel: No, we rented places. Then we got an apartment in Berkeley on
Ashby. I forget when we built our first house. I designed it,
and my uncle, who was a contractor, built it in North Berkeley.
That's not the one we're in now, because when we had the third
child, it became evident that we needed more space, so we bought
one of those big old Mediterranean-style homes. I guess we bought
that about thirty- four years ago or something like that. We've
lived in North Berkeley for many, many years. I'd say that would
put it over forty years.

Swent: Did you have children at the time that you were moving around?

Wiegel: No.

Swent: That was before children.

Wiegel: The eldest is forty-one, then thirty-eight, and thirty- five.

Swent: So you didn't have a child in the Quonset?

Wiegel: No.

Swent: What did your wife do while you were measuring waves?

Wiegel: In the Quonset, nothing. It was southern California, there were
beaches and so forth, but when we moved to Berkeley, then she got
a Job in a bank. Actually, it was Bank of America on Piedmont
Avenue in Oakland, and after a short time, she got a job at the
Bank of Berkeley, which made it a lot easier to get to work. In
those days, it wasn't that difficult to get from one place to
another because it wasn't as crowded. So she worked for those two
banks until she had the first baby, our son.

Swent: How you were traveling around? You mentioned you traveled to

Davis by train. You were using a car, I suppose, to go from here
to Half Moon Bay, for instance?

Wiegel: Yes, we'd always use cars.
Swent: What kind of cars did you have?

Wiegel: Well, on the field stuff, it would be a university car, I have no
idea.

Swent: Was it a four-wheel drive, a van?
Wiegel: They didn't have such things.

Swent: This is what I'm trying to get at. What sort of vehicles were
you--

Wiegel: When we were working down at Davenport and so forth- -a couple of
the people lived, actually, in Santa Cruz and just drove back and
forth from there. I would do down, but we'd have a pick-up truck
to take our equipment a university pick-up truck to do that.

Swent: The pick-ups had come in by then, but I think vans were later.

Wiegel: There were no vans; not that I know of. When I had the military
project, we had four-wheel drives because we were using military
equipment. So there we had three-quarter-ton trucks for equipment
and things of this sort. These DUKWs are four-wheel drive too.
But those were furnished by the military and operated by military
personnel. We didn't drive them. It was a military operation-
some of those thingsnot the one at Davenport, but the amphibious
work was all strictly a military operation.

Swent: Is there anything else that we should...

Wiegel: I can't think of it right now. Remember, I've only sketched the
research that we've done because there was all kinds of it. I
think that the point is: so much of it was done by graduate
studentsbits and pieces; we all worked together; we did science,
we did engineering, we did research, we did design. We didn't
separate these things.

Swent: I think you've given a good feeling of the cross fertilization.

Wiegel: I think that's important.

Swent: I think so, too.

Wiegel: We weren't specialists at all.

Swent: You did mention that you shared an office with Trask and learned

so much from that; at this time, where physically were you sharing
information? Were you eating lunch together, or drinking coffee
together? What sort of social

Wiegel: Before we moved out to Richmond Field Stationthat 's when I

shared an office with Trask--it was on campus. But we hadfirst
when I came here, space in the top part more likely an attic of
what is called California Hall now. It was just a big open space.
A couple of professors had offices, but the rest of us were just
in a warehouse-type of thing at the top.

Swent: Were you working at tables?

Wiegel: We used desks that they brought in and things like that, but then
we'd go up to the laboratory that was a hydraulic engineering
laboratory in the Mechanics Building which is now gone. So we'd
do our testing there or up at the College Avenue pool. Then we
were moved into a new building, Hesse Hall, which is a part of the
mechanical engineering laboratory here on campus , and we had the
top floor no windows at all. Then we had a series of offices,
and we had a coffee mess, but a good deal of it was open. So we

just moved back and forthso we discussed things as they came up.
This is where I shared an office with Trask.

Then when we moved out to Richmond Field Station, we had a
temp, one of those wooden building out there, and again, we would
just have coffee, or rather coffee and donuts. It was just
running back and forth; if something came to our mind, we'd go
talk to the other person or persons, or they'd come see you. You
did it all the time. In some ways, it's kind of like what you
read about how Andy Grove and David Packard and those groups
behaved--the open office. This is what is was. You were all
engineers or scientists or mathematicians, and you were just
interested in the problems so you'd talk with each other- -nothing
formal whatsoever about it. If you went to see the dean it got
formal.

V TEACHING AT CAL, 1957 TO 1987
[Interview 3: February 12, 1997] #f

Irrigation 117 at the University of California at Davis

Swent: When we stopped last time, you had just been asked--kind of as a
last minute thingto teach a course in irrigation up at Davis.
Irrigation 117, I think it was?

Wiegel: Yes, that is correct.

Swent: That was your initial jump into teaching.

Wiegel: Before I get into that, I think I should just mention that the
interview last week was on university research, and I think I
should mention that I have been fortunate to have often done
research with graduate students and we wrote multiple-author
papers. I never once published a paper a student worked on that
the student's name was not on the paper.

Swent: Incidentally, the list of your publications is enormous.

Wiegel: I did a lot of writing.

Swent: You certainly have published a great deal.

Wiegel: They've been studied by others, and they've been recognized, and
they have been partially responsible for my receipt of several
major awards. This is really to verify that the work we did was
good and useful. One was the ASCE [American Society of Civil
Engineers] Research prize in 1962, and membership in the National
Academy of Engineering in 1974. Then I was elected a fellow of
the AAAS--that's the American Association for the Advancement of
Science--"for leadership and many research achievements in coastal
engineering." That was in 1979 or 1980. We'll get into teaching

now, but we hear the term "publish or perish," and we hear and
read the statement that universities don't recognize people for
their teaching, but they insist on research. I would like to say
that I think that the universities' insistence on researchdoing
it and publishing it--is excellentour functions include both the
transmittal of knowledge and the development of new knowledge.

This is the thing that keeps your mind active: the
development of new knowledge, and also the assessment of your
publications of your research in reviewed journals is necessary.
This gives an external look at what you are doing. I think this
is very important. This now leads me into teaching more
generally.

Swent: Yes, and then later we'll talk more about your editorship of some
of these journals, too.

Wiegel: Thank you. That's all teaching, too.

The Benefits and Effects of Consulting to Test Professional
Engineering Ability

Swent: All of these things inter-relate, don't they?

Wiegel: That's right. Although today's subject is university teaching, I
would like to modify it. Engineering is a profession, and so we
should include a few comments on the benefit of research, but also
the benefits and effects of consulting, because it is a
profession. Consulting confronts faculty members with reality,
and it tests their professional ability. But also, by talking
about the consulting that you do, where it is germane, in a
course, exposes students to what they may do in the future, and it
also teaches them some of the aspects of the professional portion
of engineering. This doesn't come out of textbooks; this comes
out of relating how you can see some thing- -how you design
something, both functional and structural- -how you interact with
the clients, because you always have a client.

Somebody wants something; you try to give them what they
want, or if you think perhaps they are wrong, lead them into some
other way of looking at something. I've been very fortunate
throughout my entire career to do consulting in the U.S. and
abroad in a number of countries for government agencies, for
corporations. I notice that in some place in the notes you asked
to talk about any conflicts between the university and
corporations, in regard to consulting. I've never found any

Swent :

problem whatsoever. Any company that have I worked for was
pleased to have the information presented to the students, and the
students have always appreciated learning about what's going on
today, because as a student, they think about a future job. They
say: "I want a job that's interesting to me now, who might I work
for, and will it be something I'll be interested in, in the
future?".

So because of consulting, you're teaching the students
something else besides the ability to analyze.

I'd like to have you be more specific about consulting jobs: how
you got them, what they were, and how they came about?

Wiegel: You got them by somebody either coming to you or phoning you.

Consulting on a Breakwater Project at Subic Bay in the 1950s

Swent: What was the first consulting job you ever had? Do you remember?

Wiegel: Well, one of the early onesProfessor Johnson and I were asked by
the navy to go out to Subic Bay in the Philippines and look into
the possibility of a new breakwater to protect the airfield that
the Civil Engineer Corps of the navy had just constructed. We did
fly out for the navy, made investigations, and made a report to
the navy on how the thing might be constructed and what its
effects would be.

Swent: When was this?

Wiegel: It was 1955. That was one of the early ones.
Swent: And was it built the way you recommended?

Wiegel: I don't know. I remember somebody once telling me when I said
that for many of the companies I'd done consulting for, I was
never completely sure what was done, and the person said, "Were
you sued?"

I said, "No."

He said, "It must have worked." [laughter]
Swent: It's true.

Wiegel:

Swent :

Wiegel:

Swent :
Wiegel:

Swent :

Wiegel:

Swent :
Wiegel:

Swent :

A bit of humor, but unfortunately an awful lot of truth in that
statement. But I worked for many companies.

So this one came aboutyou were assisting Professor Johnson, I
take it?

No, it was jointly. Professor Johnson and I were truly
colleagues. We worked together. My main field work was with
waves and wave forces and things of that sort, and Professor
Johnson was more with sediments- -sand movement. We would both do
these things, but each one of us would put in the portion that he
was best suited for.

What form did your report take to the navy?

At this stage, I can remember that it was a three-quarter-inch
thick report in a blue folder. But it did lay out a possible
breakwater--! believe it included the wave conditions that might
exist inside and outside the bay, and the effect of a small
natural island (Grande Island) that was near the entrance. This
required development of the wave climate near the site in the
South China Sea, and wave refraction drawings. I can't remember
the details, but it was a real professional consulting report. I
do remember that.

Just a bit about the mechanics of doing the report when you went
out there, because technology has changed. You flew out, of
course, to the Philippines. Do you remember what kind of plane
you flew?

It was either a navy plane, or shortly thereafter, it would have
become a part of military air transport. I suspect it might have
been what they call military air transport. I do know that we
flew from probably Alameda Naval Air BaseI'm not sure of that
to Hawaii, and then we had to get off the plane and stay a day in
Hawaii while we got our new priority, and I guess we flew to
Johnson Island, and then Johnson Island to Midway, and then Midway
to Guam, and then Guam to Subic Bay. It was something like that.
It was not easy. You just didn't go down, book a flight, and go.

That's right.

It took you a lot of time. Those airplanes were all propeller, so
they weren't as fast asby far the ones we have nowadays. It
was a lot of work to go overseas in those days.

And how did you take your notes?
Typewrite?

How did you make your notes?

Wiegel: No, everything was handwritten that we did.
Swent: How did you get your report?

Wiegel: Afterwards, we'd pay to havethis was done in the summers or
things of that sort and then we'd pay to have them typed up
outside and pay to have drafting done outside and then submit them
to the client.

Swent: Did students help with any of that?

Wiegel: No. Consulting very often led to research on problems that were
uncovered by the consulting. Sometimes, in the case of the navy,
very oftennot this particular onethey decided they wanted
research. Then students would work on research as a part of the
university activities and be research assistants. So from that
standpoint, there was a positive derivative.

Advising Bechtel and GE on a Power Plant in India

Swent: I wonder if you could think of one, and just trace it through the
steps of how you got it and how it developed?

Wiegel: Let me talk about a later one. I was asked to do some consulting
for jointly this was quite a bit later Bechtel and General
Electric Corporation on a nuclear power plant in Tarapur, India.
It became evident that there was much we did not know, and so the
companies agreed that the university should do some research on it
under what was called "a service-to- industry contract." So a
short proposal was written and a contract

Swent: Who wrote it?

Wiegel: I wrote the proposal.

Swent: How did you learn that it needed to be--

Wiegel: I don't know; I can't remember why people from Bechtel and General
Electric came to see me, it must have been a paper of mine they
read.

Swent: Had they have given you a request for a proposal?
Wiegel: Yes. Anyhow, this is a formal--

Swent: I hate to be picky, but how are these thingsdid they telephone

you, or come to see you, or write you a letter? How did this come
about?

Wiegel: Well, undoubtedly, it was a telephone call first, and then they
came to see me. Remember, this is going way back.

Swent: I know. I'm just wondering how these things progressed.
Wiegel: So we discussed it, and talked about what might be done.
Swent: Was this a power plant on the coast?

Wiegel: It was a coastal power plant, and in fact, it has since been
built, and it has been in operation for many decades.

Swent: What was the name of it?

Wiegel: Tarapur. That's on the Arabian Sea. In other words, the west

coast of India. So we wrote a proposal, just a couple of pages,
and of course this meant that somebody in the dean's office had
reviewed it, and somebody in the chancellor's office had agreed to
it before our proposal could go out. When I say we wrote it, we
wrote the technical portion. The proposal was then written using
university boilerplate. So they matched all the university
requirements. This resulted in the employment of three or four
graduate students as research assistants; Ismail Mobarek and Juan
Jen worked on it. It was done in the model basin at Richmond
Field Station, which was then outdoors with a high fence (wind
break) around it .

We worked on it for at least a full year, including the
summer. For one of them it led to what eventually became a Ph.D.
thesis at some stage. I can't remember exactly. Of course, with
other work. I think about that time, the National Science
Foundation got interested in what we were doing, and we got
funding from the National Science Foundation to do a much broader
based study, and then this continued.

Swent: What was the study? The challenge?

Wiegel: That would be the mixing of the cooling water. You take ocean

water in from the ocean, which is relatively cold, use it in the
condensers of a power plant. Remember when I say nuclear power
plant, it generates steam to drive the turbines, so you need
condensers. You use these great amounts of ocean water for
cooling and then discharge the heated water into the ocean and it
mixes. So we were looking into the intakes and the discharge and
how it mixed. The quality of water.

Swent: The temperature was different, was the--

Wiegel: About twenty degrees Fahrenheit warmer would be the discharge
temperature from the intake temperature.

Swent: But it was the same chemical water?

Wiegel: The same chemical water, yes. All we did was heat it. That's all
that occurs in a nuclear power plant, too, believe me. It's just
heated.

Swent: So your question was the mixing of the

Wiegel: --the mixing of it, and would the water temperature be low enough
after it mixed in the first few hundred yards to satisfy the
ecological concerns about its effect on fishes and other marine
organisms. Not so much fish, but the other marine organisms,
because they're in much greater abundance. Fish generally like
the warm water, and can swim away if they don't. You take cold
water, warm it, and discharge it, and the fish thank you for doing
so.

Professors Wiegel and Johnson Did Not Neglect Their Classes for
Consulting Work

Swent: Did you get to go to India? Did you travel out there to see it?

Wiegel: They wanted me to. I've been to India twice, but the timing was
such that I just could not get out there. Remember when you're
teaching, you're teaching. So unless the timing is such that it's
at Christmas or summer or something like that, you don't do
traveling to a distant place like that.

Swent: This is an assumption that you're making, but I've been told that
this was one of your distinctions: that you did put your teaching
schedule ahead of any other consideration.

Wiegel: I always did, yes.

Swent: You always met your class responsibilities?

Wiegel: Yes. On a few rare occasions for one at a much later date I was
the U.S. representative to a UNESCO meeting in Paris on ocean
engineering curricula in universities. They agreed that, seeing
that I was asked to be the U.S. representative, this was quite
legitimate to be absent from teaching for a week. There were a

few other times like that. Again, Professor Johnson and I traded
our courses. If for some reason I had to do something like that,
or if I had to go to Washington, D.C., for two days for a
committee meeting, he would take my class and if he had to go to
Washington for a committee meeting or something, I would take his
classes. Between the two of us, we always taught every single
class; always. I don't think there was ever a time when a class
was missed. We both took it very seriously.

Swent: Yes. You are distinguished by this, I think.

Wiegel: Thank you. We worked hard at it, and we believed in it.

Committees for Engineering Education; Saving the Program at Irvine

Swent: I'm sure your students appreciated that attitude as well.

Wiegel: I think they did, but they always liked to learn about what you

found out from these trips. They always enjoyed that. Perhaps we
can get back to this a little later. I think that I should
emphasize that teaching in a professional field is different than
teaching in more academic subjects. I noted while reviewing some
records in preparation for this interview that I served on the
Chancellor's Committee for Professional Education from 1969 to
1973. I had forgotten there was a special committee for it, but
at least at that time, the chancellor recognized the function and
wanted to have some input to him about this .

Swent: Do you recall anything about that committee? What you did on it?

Wiegel: No, I can't, because I also found that at the end of that time, I
served on the University-Wide Committee on Engineering Education,
which is the office of the president, and that was the year I was
the acting dean of the College of Engineering. I do remember one
thing that was very important in that case, and that was a meeting
at the new campus of Irvine. They were considering whether or not
to abandon engineering at the new campus.

Swent: They had engineering?

Wiegel: They had started engineering at Irvine. Remember it was a brand
new campus at that time.

Swent: Let's see, let's get a year for this.

Wiegel: I was acting dean from 1972 to 1973, so Irvine was formed before

that. But it was the meeting of this engineering advisory council
to the president of the university. That meeting consisted mostly
about whether or not to recommend to the president to continue
engineering or to drop it at Irvine.

Swent: What were the reasons for this?

Wiegel: One of the reasons was that a local state college--! think it was
Fullerton, but I'm not positivehad a very large number of
engineering students and there were not many coming to Irvine. My
remembrance is that I argued really strongly to continue it.
There were arguments on both sides. These were the deans of
engineering at UCLA, Davis, and Berkeley, plus a few other people
on the Engineering Advisory Council, I think--to continue. We
thought it was very good. Bob Saunders was the person in charge
of the program there- -he had been chairman of electrical
engineering at Berkeley beforeand we thought he was doing an
excellent job. He was concentrating on engineering systems. So I
think that was important.

Swent: And what was the result of your

Wiegel: They continued it. They developed a fine school of engineering.
Remember, it was a little, tiny thing at that time, but they have
a fine school at Irvine.

Swent: Which they might not have had.

Wiegel: They might not have had. It was very, very close. I think you'll
read, or remember in John Whinnery's historyhe talked about
Santa Cruz . They wanted to get a program going at Santa Cruz in
engineering, and Whinnery and Howard Eberhart did a lot of work
towards that, but that never came into existence. It was decided
to drop it because of what was called the Terman Report. Terman
was dean of engineering at Stanford and then provost and so forth.
But all those details are in Whinnery's oral history. But it came
very close to losing the engineering at Irvine. It was very
fortunate for the state that it didn't come about. As we know, we
need these schools. So that was important.

I think I mentioned at the end of the previous session that
was last week- -that I got into teaching by chance. I was a full-
time research engineer at Cal starting about the middle of June,
1946, but owing to an emergency at UC Davis by the way, the
emergency was the professor who was going to teach a course in
irrigation left. It was that simple. The dean at Davis phoned
the dean at Berkeley and said, Help. This was just about two
weeks before the start of the fall semester. So Dean O'Brien

recommended that the dean at Davis contact me- -which he did. This
was in the mid-1950s.

In fact, not the dean at Davis, but the chairman of the
Department of Irrigation, Bob Hagan, contacted me, and I agreed to
teach it. I had two weeks notice. I had never taught before. I
commuted two days a week by the Southern Pacific Railroad from
Berkeley to Davis, and I spent the entire time on the train and
when I was up thereexcept for teachingpreparing my lectures.
I was so fortunate in that Professors Einstein and Johnson here,
and also Harold Iversen, who was in mechanical engineering- -really
helped me. Boy, I had question after question which they helped
me with. So I was able to go ahead and teach the course.

Swent: Who were the students?

Wiegel: It's interesting, because at Davis a good number of them were
graduate students, even though it was an upper division
undergraduate course; because it was irrigation they were from
many countriesa number from Central and South America because of
irrigation, an extremely important subject then and now and will
be as long as we like to eat food. So that was interesting.

The Importance of Faculty Socializing

Swent: What were you learning at the same time?

Wiegel: Like somebody said, "The way you really learn a subject is to

teach it the first time." You puzzle over every single thing, but
as I said, I was so fortunate in having these three faculty people
to help me. They were simply great. I would like to say here
that I've been extremely fortunate throughout my whole career with
the people here at the university. The other faculty- -we've
always worked together. The staff you don't do these things by
yourself. It's very fortunate. One of the things: please never
underestimate the value of having coffee together, which we did
later when I became a full, regular faculty member. After
lectures, we'd go have coffee, and we'd discuss teaching and
course content .

Swent: Where did you go?

Wiegel: The place we first went to at Berkeley was a drugstore at the

corner of Hearst and Euclid, and it was Reed' s- -Herman Reed. We
almost made him an honorary member of the College of Engineering
at one time, because it was the poor folks' faculty club for

Swent :
Wiegel:

coffee, and we'd always go over there after our morning lectures.
Then many of us ate regularly- -we ate lunch at the Faculty Club.
Mostly the discussion was about teaching and research in all the
different fields: mechanical engineering, civil engineering, naval
architecture, mining engineering. We all talked to each other.

This has almost disappeared at the Faculty Club. I still go
there for lunch almost everyday and you do not see that anymore.
I don't know what has happened; I think it's unfortunate. It
doesn't happen.

They're still eating lunch there, aren't they?

Very few engineering faculty eat lunch at the Faculty Club.
Almost none. I don't know where they go. It's very surprising to
me, but it's been a big change. There used to be two tables-
large tables filled with professors of engineering that ate there
every day. Now you see one or two professors of engineering and
that's all.

Swent: That is a change.

Wiegel: It's very surprising. I think I mentioned I took the train up to
Davis and back, but then, because of university red tape, I think
I taught half the course before I finally got my appointment. So
I was, at the same time, working every night and weekend, plus the
other days a week on my research contract. I then continued
throughout the semester really doing the teaching essentially on
my own time. I was putting in more than forty hours a week in
research and probably another twenty hours or twenty-five hours a
week on the teaching. The first time you teach somethingit
sounds like a lot--twenty-five hours a week for two one-and-a-
half -hour lectures. That's about what it was. Of course up there
you graded all your own problem sets as well as tests.

Wiegel: The course I taught was very much like the first upper division

course in fluid mechanics at Berkeleywe used the same textbook-
only our examples there would be more of irrigation components and
systems: bringing water down to the farm not so much in pipes, but
in open channels and things of this sort.

Swent: Was there field work?

Wiegel: No, no field work. That was strictly a lecture course. Later, of
course, the students in irrigation would have a number of follow-
up courses, and some of them would include field work, but I
didn't teach those. There were other people on the full-time

Swent :

Wiegel:

faculty at Davis that did that. But one nice thing: there was a
tiny, one room, interim faculty club at Davis. It was just set up
really for lunch, and I would generally have lunch with an
assistant professor of English and another one in political
science. So our luncheon discussions were usually very broad-
based: English literature, political science, and irrigation.
But it was interesting. I enjoyed that.

Had the previous teacher of this course left any kind of syllabus
for you?

No, none whatsoever. This is where Professors Einstein, Johnson,
and Iversen were of such great help to me. Otherwise I could have
done it, but it would have been a poor job.

Swent: Just to know what you were expected to cover.

Wiegel: The department office had that information. I didn't know any of
the techniques- -what to look for or anything like that. When I
was an undergraduate, I was a reader in a similar course when I
was a junior or senior or something like that, so at least I'd had
a little bit more. I think what they say is this: "If you want to
learn a subject, take a course, then be a reader in a course, and
then teach a course; then you know something about the course."

Changing Academic Schedules from Semester to Quarter System

Swent: Then you really do.
academic schedule?

Were Davis and Berkeley both on the same

Wiegel: Yes. In fact, all of the university was on a semester schedule.
Not the same semester system that we have now.

Swent: What was it?

Wiegel: The fall semester continued after Christmas break. Incidentally,
we went from the semester, which was that one, to the quarter
system at Berkeley, and then back to the semester system. In
planning the new semester system, the present systemthey
recognized the problem of having the Christmas break and coming
back and doing another week of lectures, and having your
examinations in January. So they modified the semester to finish
before the Christmas break (now called the winter break). Now,
they're discussing on this campus--! just learned within the past
weekthey're discussing trying to have a system where you go
back, start school later, continue after the Christmas. All I can

Swent :
Wiegel:

say is, "Don't they ever learn?" That was no good at all and I
hope that they don't fall into the trap of doing it again.

Isn't that interesting? To go back to the same

They are discussing it. Hopefully, they will not do it.

Teaching in the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory at Berkeley

Wiegel:

Swent :
Wiegel:

Swent :
Wiegel:
Swent :
Wiegel:

Shortly after that, in the late 1950s, I was appointed, on a part-
time basis, to be a lecturer in mechanical engineering here at
Berkeley. I taught a section of the required senior course in the
mechanical engineering laboratory. The portion I taught was more
on the pumps, compressors, wind tunnelsthat aspect of mechanical
engineering.

Where were your classes held?

They were held in one of the buildings immediately adjacent to
this one. This one wasn't built then. This one is O'Brien Hall.
But the one I'm talking about is Hesse Hall, (also the Mechanics
Building, for pumps) and that was a mechanical engineering
laboratory, and it still is part of the mechanical engineering
laboratory, but I don't believe that any single item of equipment

that we used then is in that laboratory any more,
different, which it should be.

It's all

What sorts of things were you teaching then? What were you using?

It was just a laboratory. The students did the laboratory
experiments and every single senior student in mechanical
engineering had to take this extensive laboratory. I taught one
of the sections.

What sort of equipment were you using?

Pumps .

What kind of pumps?

All kinds: centrifugal pumps, water hammer pumps, displacement
pumps--also we taught about air compressors, and then tested
airfoil sections in a wind tunnel. Remember, my original
undergraduate work in mechanical engineering was heat transfer and
fluid mechanics, so I'd had a reasonable background in
aerodynamics. I could handle those.

Swent: You mentioned that the equipment has all changed since, so how has
it changed?

Wiegel: It's gone, and new things--computer-controlled this, computer-
controlled that, etc. I don't know.

Swent: So the things that you were teachinghow were they controlled?

Wiegel: By hand- -mechanical.

Swent: Not even electrical?

Wiegel: A few electrical things, but a good deal mechanical.

The Pelton Wheel: Materials Change, but Principles Do Not

Swent: The materials had changed as well, I presume. Were there any
ceramics used or plastics?

Wiegel: This is interestingyou mention materials, and this is one of the
major advances that have been made and are still being madeis in
the understanding and the development of materials.

But first: more than a hundred years ago, there was a tiny
hydraulics laboratory on campus, and a person came down from the
gold country and his name was Pelton. He had a model (or one was
made here I don't know which) of a device that he was going to
submit- -he hoped to win an award on a method of changing from
water power to electric power. It became known as the Pelton
wheel. It was tested on this campus- -probably by Professor Hesse
--either report number one, or report number two of the I guess
it was called College of Mechanic Arts or something- -back about in
the 1880s--was on the Pelton wheel. Incidentally, the little
model that was used is on loan by the university to the Oakland,
California, Museum and they have it displayed very nicely in the
section on the work done up in the gold country.

I was told, many years ago, that after the work that was
developed by Mr. Pelton and then I believe it was Professor Hesse
in the laboratory here at Berkeley the main thing was, you had
buckets of the double-lobe type, mounted on the rim of a disk
runner, and the water jet would impinge on the bucket. The
divider split the jet in two sections to balance the lateral
forces , which permitted a much lower load on the bearings .

There were some modifications in the shape and spacing of
the buckets and so forth during these tests, but I have been told
that since that time, there have been almost no changes in the
configurationof course, they got bigger and bigger--it has been
the materials improvement that have been the main thing that has
changed over the years. Now, Pelton wheels are still used
worldwide on practically every single, what they call high-head
hydroelectric plant. By high-head, they mean a big elevation
difference between the surface of the reservoir and the location
of the turbine. I digress, but I think that's interesting.

Swent: No, it's not a digression at all.

Wiegel: I think it's very interesting because these are teaching

laboratories. It's how you teach students: they get their hands
on it. When Hunter Rouse, who had written the history of
hydraulics in the world, then expanded in a separate book the
history of hydraulics in the United States, he stated that the
first teaching hydraulic laboratory in the United States was at
Berkeley. So the hydraulics laboratory you see has been in
existence as a teaching laboratory and used for research and
development for more than a hundred years. We have new equipment,
of course, and we did giveor rather loanthe original Pelton
wheel to the Oakland museum; I checked it out last year, and it is
well displayed.

I think you'll notice our logo at the north end of the
hydraulics laboratory, which is in this buildingO'Brien Hall,
and the logo is an old I believe hurdy-gurdy wheel that Professor
Johnson found up in the gold country. It was all rustedit has
been cleaned up but it is an original from some place, so you may
want to look at it. But it's the logo.

Swent: So the equipment that you were working with was made of metal in
those days entirely?

Wiegel: Yes. Incidentally, there's a very interesting article in the

January 1997 issue, or maybe the December 1996 issue of Scientific
American on some of the inventions of Hans Albert Einstein. Not
our Albert, but his father, of the famous E-mc 2 . When he was
young, "Old Albert", as his family called him, worked with another
physicist who later also became a Nobel prize winner, and one of
the things they worked on was the development of a non-moving-part
pump.

They developed it for use in the refrigeration industry, but
because of cost and so forth, it, or modifications of it, was only
used by the Swedish firm Electrolux. But when they started after
the end of World War II- -to pump radioactive molten materials in

some of the devices, use was made of that concept. The
electromagnetic way of pumping--! should mention that. We didn't
have anything to do with that, but pumps have changed too is what
I want to say.

Full Professor of Civil Engineering. 1963

Swent: Yes, they've changed drastically.

Wiegel: Now, after that, in 1960, I was appointed by President Clark Kerr
to be an associate professor of civil engineering full-time with
tenure. As I said, I never had any intention to go into teaching,
I just, step-by-step, became one. I've enjoyed it. I'm certainly
pleased that it occurred, but I didn't plan on doing it. In 1963,
I was promoted to full professor of civil engineering.
Incidentally, John Whinnery was dean when I was appointed
associate professor, and when I was appointed full professor, John
Whinnery asked me to serve as an assistant dean in the College of
Engineering, which I did, and I served in that capacity for eleven
years, for John and his successor George Maslach.

I also would like to mention that the department of civil
engineering was renamed last year the department of civil and
environmental engineering, which I think is a good move
considering the way the two words are currently used. It's more
descriptive of what is done in this department.

Environmental Engineering; Quantitative Treatment, Costa, and
Tradeoffs

Swent: I was wondering whether you might want to talk about how
environmental consciousness changed your teaching or your
students?

Wiegel: Certainly, the students today- -at least the ones that apply to
Berkeleythe graduate studentsare very interested in the
environmental conditions and how you can handle them
quantitativelynot just qualitatively, but what can you really do
about things quantitatively. We've always been interested in the
environment. It started out because the environment would keep
belting us droughts, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes. In my
area, coastal engineering, we deal with harbors and ports and
breakwaters the environmental effects are very important; I think

that people should read books like Two Years Before the Mast
[Charles Henry Dana] and see what life used to be like--how
difficult it was.

Swent: I recently read that book, just a couple of years ago.

Wiegel: I used to recommend to my graduate students to read it to get an
idea of what life was like back in the early 1800s. We weren't
doing so much to the environment, but the environment was doing a
lot of things to us: storms, waves. Life was terrible. Floods.
It was terrible. Very, very difficult, and many people were
killed. Your life expectancy was not very long then. We had to
learn how to modify the environment, to decrease the hazards.
Then, of course, we got to the place where, because of population
pressure, there are just so many people that it became recognized
that we had to mitigate many of the things that we had done in the
past, and we have to modify what we do in the future.

So you want to examine whatever plans are being discussed;
what their effect will be on the environment. But it should be
quantitative, because as you know, you have to balance off costs.
I remember years ago when I was developing a new course calledit
was CE 207--it was on mixing processes. This was a big portion of
what you needed to know when you dealt with water quality: mixing
one fluid with another, or things in fluids.

I was impressed by a paper I read many years ago on waste
disposal in the ocean. Many towns and cities would simply have a
pipe or an open channel built and municipal waste and industrial
wastethe municipal waste was not that bad, but the industrial
waste was, would then go into the ocean and mix with it. Then,
people talked about the public health problem. It turned out that
it is a public health problem if you're discharging waste into
fresh water a river, a lake because kids, or adults, when
they're swimming, might ingest the water with the bacteria and
whatever else was in it. In the ocean, you usually take only one
swallow of salt water and learn a lesson.

So basically, you do not ingest salt water when you're
swimming, so it's an entirely different problem, but the standards
were set, based really on fresh water. There was a professor of
sanitary engineer ing- -not here, I don't know where- -who wrote an
article and he really looked into the public health problems, and
then came up with a conclusion which I think is very valid in many
aspects. That is: you only have so much money that can be spent.
From a public health standpoint, for this amount of money, in his
opinion, you would get more for it when you're dealing with
discharge into the ocean, salt water, if you spent it for more
lifeguards.

He said, "Think about it: if you did ingest this water and
you did get sick" --incidentally, there are very substantial and
detailed studies by epidemiologists on this subject of the
relationship between waste in the ocean and people getting
diseases. I'm talking about real professionals that know what
they're doing. He said, "Then you get sick, but if you drown,
you're dead. What is the better way of expending public funds?"
I've always thought about that, because we still have that with
us. There's only so much money; what might be the best way of,
let us say, having a better quality of life? I don't know. I
still read articles on it. Would I be so smart, I would know the
answers to these things.

The Junior Course in Fluid Mechanics; Small Lecture Sections

Swent: I'd like to have you be a little more specific about the courses
that you were teaching.

Wiegel: Well, there were two graduate courses in coastal engineering.
Swent: You're distinguishing between graduate and undergraduate students.

Wiegel: Yes, and I want to mention it. I almost always taught one or two
undergraduate courses. One was the junior course in fluid
mechanics, and the other was a hydraulic laboratory sectionwe
had several sections. We made a conscientious decision not to
have a big lecture or laboratory section; we had smaller sections,
and then when we went on the quarter system, we would give the
lecture course once each quarter, and I would teach one of them,
Professor Einstein would teach one of them, and Professor Johnson
would teach one of them.

Swent: What course was this?

Wiegel: The first course in fluid mechanics, which was a junior course
required of all civil engineering students and all mechanical
engineering students. At the start, we would jointly work with
the mechanical engineering department and we all taught together,
and Professor Iversen also taught one, and I think Professor Laird
in mechanical, and later, Professor Talbot. So there were quite a
few sections because we wanted the classes to be small.

Swent: How small?

Wiegel: No more than thirty students in the lecture course. We found that
if you get many more than thirty, you no longer got the students

asking questions. That was the reason: you wanted them to ask
questions. This is one of things you try to encourage. Our ideas
about things change; many of them are right, some of them are
wrong; never hesitate to question anything. That's what you want
to do as an engineer: question, always question. We did.

In engineer ing- -not just our group- -but in engineering, we
took teaching undergraduate courses very seriously. We considered
the students to be professionals in training. I think that's the
difference: they weren't just students, they were being developed
into engineers , and we were engineers .

Swent: So you were teaching these lecture sections; how often would they

meet?

Wiegel: Three times a week.
Swent: One hour?

Wiegel: Fifty minutes. But we also, because of the large number of

students, there were a couple of times we would have two sections
in a semester. I guess it was when we went to the quarter system.
We had one section that would be of three fifty minute lectures,
and then another section--! think this was the fall quarter, when
there would be many students taking itgiven on Tuesday and
Thursday, they would be one hour and twenty minute lectures. This
was to give the students flexibility so they could fit it into
their schedules. We were serious about it; as far as I know, they
still are serious. Of course, having been retired since 1987, I'm
not completely sure of what they do today, but we worked hard at
it.

Laboratory Sessions Were Also Essential

Swent: Were the laboratory sessions in addition?

Wiegel: The laboratory sessionswe also had teaching assistants, because
you had laboratory parties of three or four students and you had
to keep your eye on them remember these are pumps and turbines
and things of this sort, and you have to be there, you can't just
ask a student to go in and do it. So either a teaching assistant
or the professor was there in the laboratory the entire time that
the students were there.

Swent: How long was the laboratory session?

Wiegel: I think they were about three hours; that's the best of my
remembrance. If they finished it earlier, they finished it
earlier. They had assigned--! think--it was three hours. Of
course, they had to write up their work. This is another aspect
of teaching: writing up. You had the students write about what
they did, what equipment they used, present their findings
discuss--and then draw conclusions based upon what they found out,
and make recommendations. This drawing conclusions and making
recommendations is a vital part of any profession. You have got
to do this all the time. You can't just discuss things, you can't
just have a debateyou have to draw conclusions and then make
recommendations either to your professorbut this is just to
train you, so you'll do it for the client.

The only way you teach it is by doing it. It's got to be
hands-on. It doesn't do any good just to lecture about it, they
have to do it. That requires a lot of work by the professors and
the teaching assistants. The teachingbecause of many things-
cost and other things, and the pressure of adding other things to
the curricula- -the use of laboratories has gone down and down.
Not just here. Last year, at a meeting I was talking to a
professor at Caltech [California Institute of Technology] and
another one at M.I.T. and both of them said their laboratories
have suffered badly. There's not the support for laboratories,
and the courses aren't given any more, or in such a reduced form
that the students don't get much opportunity.

You get much more in computer analysis. You can't just keep
adding things on; things have to drop; the student has got to
sleep sometime. That's basically it. Plus the fact that the use
of computers is very inexpensive; the use of laboratories is very
expensive. So the budget has driven more of it, I think, than
anything else. But it's too bad. At least the students who work
in research projects have an opportunity to get this hands-on
experience. Engineering is still a lot of working with things, or
you're designing something. You're designing hardware, or you're
arranging hardware into a system. Look at the Boeing 737 and the
problem of stability and control. That's a real hands-on problem
--just as an example, because you probably have read about it in
the newspaper during the last two months .

There are many other examples , but not quite brought to our
attention like when an airplane goes down because of a control
problem. We have just all kinds of excellent students, and many
of them worked in research projects and this gave them an
opportunity of doing things themselves. There's nothing like
doing something yourself to build up your confidence that you can
do something. This is very important in the education of
professionals; not only the information, but the self-confidence

that I "can do something myself." We've had very, very fine
students over the years.

Outstanding Students Condit, Beebe, Prins, et al.

Swent: Would you like to mention any in particular?

Wiegel: Some of them have been particularly successful. The current
president and chief executive officer of Boeing aircraft--

Swent: I would like to have you mention some of the students that you
particularly remember.

Wiegel: I mentioned I had a student who was in mechanical engineering as a
research assistant when he was a senior, during the summer, and
his name was Phil Condit. Phil is the current president and chief
executive officer of Boeing.

Swent: He did very well.

Wiegel: Another one I can remember that went way back is Ken Beebe. He
went to work for a small structural engineering firm in San
Francisco and eventually bought the principals out when they
retired, and the name was changed, and his was added to it. It
became known as PMB. I forget what the P and the M stand for, but
the B is Beebe. It was bought out, and is now a wholly-owned
subsidiary of Bechtel Corporation. Those are just two.

We also had visiting scholars from foreign countries, some
of whom were Fulbright scholars. In fact, I believe that the
first Fulbright scholar in civil engineering was Egbert Prins from
The Netherlands. He spent a year with us here, and then
eventually- -he just retired recentlyhe became the director of
the Delft Hydraulics Laboratory in the Netherlands, which is the
biggest such laboratory in the world. Another young visiting
scholar was Kyoshi Horikawa from Japan, and eventually he became
dean of engineering at the University of Tokyo and is currently
the president of a private university, Saitama University, in
Japan. When they were here, they were young, so they were the
same age as our graduate students, and they all worked together
and they learned from each other. Incidentally, many of our
graduate students were from foreign countries; many foreign
countries.

96
The Master of Engineering Degree with a Non-Scientific Minor

Swent: Was this something new after the war?

Wiegel: That was after the war. Before the war, there were almost no

graduate students in engineering. They were almost non-existent.
Of course, remember, many of the graduate students had been our
own undergraduate students here at Berkeley, and we, in
engineering, really- -and that's throughout the whole country- -feel
that engineering students should be encouraged to get at least a
master's degree in order to get a good enough background. This
isn't, and can't always be the case, but many of them do go on to
graduate work; many of them for a master's degree.

We have two types of master's degree: the master of science,
which is a one-year program; and then we developed the master of
engineering, which is a two-year program. That is really, in my
opinion, the best professional degreethe two-year master of
engineering.

Swent: How do they differ?

Wiegel: In one way, of course, it's twice as much work; one was two years,
one was one year. But in the master of engineering, you had the
same amount of required course work as you would for the Ph.D.
you just didn't spend that extra one, two, or three years of doing
a thesis. But there was a big difference. The Ph.D. is oriented
toward research and teaching and so forth, but always found to be
very useful by companies, and companies hire our Ph.D.'s
routinely, believe me.

But the two-year master of engineering had two minors in it
as well as the major. One of the minors had to be out of the
sciences. It couldn't be in mathematics, it couldn't be in
physics, it couldn't be in another branch of engineer ing- -it had
to be in, let's say, business administration, and then more in the
"person" aspects of business administration. The purpose was to
get a different viewpoint; a non-science viewpoint. This has been
very successfulfor engineers to have that background.

Now, the students were from California, they were from other
states, or from other countries, and we always have what we called
the bullpen; this is the place where you have a lot of desks and
chairs, and the grad students each have a desk and a chair, and
they have a coffee mess. They get to know each other, they talk
to each other, and they probably learn as much from each other as
they do from their professors. But also, because of this
worldwide mixand many of them remain lifelong friends--! think

this has done more good than the U.S. State Department, from the
standpoint of international affairs. I'm very serious; because I
see this time after time after time. Somebody will come, say,
from Kuwait, and say, "Oh, so and so from Denmark came to see me.
We were both graduate students at Berkeley." It's almost like the
English system of the old school tie: they have this tie with that
golden bear on it. It's a little bit of humor, but it's very
serious. It's very important for civilization.

The Alumni Network of Worldwide Importance for International

Understanding

Swent: Many of them have returned to their own countries?

Wiegel: Many of them returned, many of them have become professors, or
they becameover the years, director of institutes, heads of
companies, and so forth. One of them went back and eventually
become professor at the University of Cairo named Mobarek, and
then went to work for the World Bank in Washington, D.C., where he
still is, and he heads up the desk for port development in all of
Asia. They all talk to each other; they still do.

Swent: It's a wonderful network.

Wiegel: It's a wonderful network, and they're friends. You don't fight
with a friend.

Swent: And also well-trained engineers.

Wiegel: You get along. They're well trained, they're well educated.

There's much more to it than just the technical education that
occurs; it's a social and professional education. The university
of course has a study abroad program, where you go to Verona or
Cambridge, and there's one at Cairo University- -many placesand
it's still in existence. But also, there have been special
programs where we try to help a university get established. Going
back twenty, thirty years ago- -there was one at Santiago, Chile at
Catolica University, and there was one at Kampur in India, and it
was one of the Indian institutes of technology (IIT). India
wanted to develop institutes in which they could train scientists
and engineers who would then graduate and help develop their
country.

I think there were five or six of these. One of them was
the one at Kampur, and the University of California was one member
a consortium of universities to work with IIT Kampur. I remember

M.I.T. and Caltech both being in the same consortium. Between
1969 and 1972, I was the University of California's
representative. This was out of the office of the president of
the university, then Clark Kerr. The money came from U.S.
Congress via the state department or something, to purchase
equipment, and to pay for personnel exchanges. We would send
faculty over there from these different institutions; they would
send faculty here for a year or soagain to get these
interchanges of ideas.

Teaching Coastal Engineering at the National University of Mexico

Wiegel: Teaching at a major university is very broad. It's not just

teaching undergraduates or graduates, but it's doing these other
things: teaching and working with people in other countries and
other institutions. I remember once, Professor Johnson and 1 were
asked to go to Mexico and teachthere was a graduate course we
gave in coastal engineering, and the Mexicans wanted to develop
their coasts and their ports and they had developed some in
Acapulco, for example coastal resorts. They wanted to learn
about all these new techniques that had been developed.

So Professor Johnson and I were asked by Professor Emilio
Rosenblath to go, and we did go to the National University in
Mexico City 1 which was a big university to teach the graduate
course one of the graduate courses we taught here. No
modification; they wanted it exactly the same, and taught in
English. The students--! think there were seven or eight and
they all were fluent in English, and they all had undergraduate
degrees in civil engineering, and we taught the full course there
during the summer. This is just an example of the breadth of
teaching that goes on. Again, teaching of engineering improved.
I think I mentioned already that the big advance made in
engineering at least in civil, and I think in almost all
branches, perhaps except for electrical, which had already done
it was during World War II, where it became much more scientific.
The capabilities of doing analysis were improved tremendously.
Also getting field studies and things of this sort.

Swent: How did the capability of analysis improve?

1 Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. It was done at the request
of, and by arrangements by, Professor Emelio Rosenbleuth who was dean of
their graduate school. --R.W.

Wiegel: That requires the mathematical formulation of physical problems,

and then, of course, later, with the invention of the computer, we
could really do some of these things. Before, engineering was
really an art, not so much science, but an art. I'd like--I think
I mentioned that I had been asked to write a history with
Thorndike Saville, Jr. --who was also a graduate student here at
the time I was taking graduate courses at Berkeleyso we became
lifelong friends, and we're still close friends--he and his wife,
me and my wife

His father was at that time the Dean of Engineering at New
York University. Two years ago, we were asked to write the
history of coastal engineering in the U.S.A., and this was
published last year by the American Society of Civil Engineers in
the book that was called, History and Heritage of Coastal
Engineering, edited by Nicholas Kraus, 1996.

Digging into the history, I came across a short note by an
engineer in New York his name was Henry Sharp. I don't know who
he was or anything, but I'd like to quote this.

Conditions vary so widely from place to
place, that rule of thumb methods are sure to
give a large percentage of failures, and a
structure successful at one place may be a
dismal failure at another. On the other hand,
the engineer who wishes to attack this problem
scientifically finds that science has done
very little to help him. He is almost
entirely without trustworthy facts and must
work up his data from hasty studies of his
own.

Please insert "his/her" for each "his," because fortunately today
we have many young women in engineering. (To me they all seem
young nowadays.) [laughter]

Swent: Well, they are young.

Wiegel: And especially in the portion of civil engineering that's the

environmental aspect. They're very interested in it. It was an
art at that time, and it wasn't very good art.

Swent: When was this written?

Wiegel: This was in the late 1920s. It started to change a little bit in
the 1930s. Dean O'Brien that 's in my field, coastal and off
shorewas one of the first to really start to change it. But it
was World War II, and we have already gone into that in the

100

section on research and so forth. This affected the teaching
dramatically, because now we could teach analysis.

Swent: You mean the computer?

Wiegel: Well, no, this is the physics of what was going on, and then the

mathematical formulation of these things. That's analysis. Then,
when the computers came along, we could do a lot more numerical
analysis.

Swent: I just want to be clear. You said that what the relationship is
between the war and this change in--

Wiegel: Because, I mentioned this earlier in the interview about the

amphibious operations: it was necessary to make reliable estimates
of what wave conditions would be at a landing site sometime in
advance, and then how these conditions might affect the operation
of landing craft and then after the landings, at a later date, the
trans-shore shipment of supplies and so forth. This required
quantitative information and these techniques were not available,
so the military contracted with universities such as M.l.T. and
Berkeley to advance these things.

Swent: So it was the urgency of the military?

Wiegel: It was the need and the urgency. It really was urgent, of course.
Once in a while you hear in a meeting: "Why did so-and-so write
and make this statement when a little more checking might have
made it better?" And I'll tell them, "I don't think they had
another year at their disposal. 'Let's hold the war off for a
year while we check this. 1 " They don't understand the urgency at
that time. I don't think anyone understands urgency unless you
were absolutely face to face with having to make decisions.

You see, teaching is, as I said--now this gets me into field
work because it's not just analysis, but we didn't have the data,
we didn't have the measurements. We had to develop equipment to
measure things, and incidentally, I was a mechanical engineer, and
some of the first things I did after I was here at Berkeley after
the war was work on the development of instruments to measure
things in the ocean, and then on how you analyze your measurements
and compared them with theories and things of this sort. But I
went into that, in more detail.

But the other thing is that we worked in the field, we
worked in the laboratory, we worked on theory, we taught, we did
research, we did consulting, we did design, we did all of these
things. This was a marvelous opportunity develop yourself as a
combined professional and teacher; to do all of the things. Of

101

course, this is what makes life interesting too: is that you have
this great variety of things that you do.

Swent: I wanted to have you talk also about your development of these
instruments for measuring.

Wiegel: The navy supported that, because they knew of their need. There
were a couple of people: one of them who was Roger Revelle, who
was a navy commander then, but he had a Ph.D. in geology from
Berkeley, and he was a geology oceanographer at Scripps, and later
became director of Scripps Institution of Oceanographyand he was
the one that did come up with the concept which--and the push--to
develop what is now known as the University of California at San
Diego, and Revelle College is named after him. Because of him,
they had let these contracts; Berkeley had one, and M.I.T. had
oneWoods Holeto develop instruments to measure ocean
phenomena. We had some very good people. One of them was Frank
Snodgrass, who I have mentioned several times.

Swent: Did you work on those as well?

Wiegel: Yes, I worked on one; the thermopile wave meter was the one that I
worked on. But there was a non-linear transfer function in it,
and I didn't know much about, or anything, about that at that
time. Later on, I learned a lot about the fact that you needed to
have linear transfer function if we're doing to do spectral
analysis of things. That could get into a whole other two hour
interview. Needless to say, I learned a lot. Frank Snodgrass
knew this; I learned it from him. But he then left and went down
to Scripps Institution of Oceanography and developed a number of
very fine instruments and installed them, and they did some of the
great worldwide experiments because of the development of the
equipment. In other words, we did everything; all aspects.

The Successful Work-Study Program

Wiegel: I would like to jump off here, and it's a slightly different
thing, because in engineering- -at some universities there is
something known as the work-study program. It's where after the
first two years, a student will get a job with industry or
government agency, and work six months, and then come back to
school six months, work six months, come back to school six
months. So it would take five years to get a four-year degree,
including summers. It wouldn't work out, except you had to
remember the summer.

102

At one university, the University of Cincinnatiat least
years agoall students were on that program, but certainly in
mechanical engineering. But in Cincinnati, there were all kinds
of big industrial firms. O'Brien started it here, and it's still
in existence, and it's a good program, I think. It's small. When
I was assistant dean, I was in charge of the program; this is one
of the main things I did. I was in charge of it for many years.
We would always have these students coming back from work. We'd
have a little get together in the evening down at the Alumni
House cof fee, donuts, cookies students are always hungry. They
would talk about the work experience.

One of the things that would come through is, time after
time after time, they seemed to be surprised that, "Gee, the
people I'm working for are awfully nice to me." You wonder, did
they expect to be bitten or something? It's true; it was
something that always seemed to surprise them. One of the other
things we found was that the students in the work-study program
generally didn't take much longer to get the degree than the
students who weren't on the work-study program. One of the
reasons is, of course, a lot of students they were all
undergraduate, not graduates, and most students, at least the ones
that came to Berkeley, had to work to help support themselves.
Not all, but many, many did.

So many weren't taking a full-time load of courses; they
would have a part-time job in the summer they had to get a job
and so forth. So it worked very well. Also we found out that
most of the students in this work-study program, when they
graduated went to work for one of the companies they had worked
for in the program. There, were two reasons for this: the company
had been able to look at them, and they had been able to look at
the company. The other thing that really impressed us, was their
response when we asked what they did in detail. This was for all
the students at the meeting; they all heard each other talk about
what they did after they came back. The ones that had finished
their junior year almost all of them had been assigned real
engineering work.

Somehow, in the junior courses they learned enough that
they could do a lot of engineering. This made them feel very
good. It also made the other students feel good too when they
learned, "Gosh, these courses I take are useful." That's a good
program, and that's a very important part of teaching if you can
get the jobs, and you can have the students take them.

103

Grade Inflation Did Not Mean Lower Quality Students

Wiegel:

Swent :
Wiegel:

Swent :

Wiegel:

We've been asked quite a bit aboutafter the grade inflation that
occurred in the 1970s and 1980s--whether or not this led to a
lower quality of the students at Cal.

What do you mean by grade inflation?

A student thirty years ago, for a certain amount of work, would
get a C, and then after a while, the class average became a B, not
a C. This has occurred in almost all universities, except perhaps
at West Point and the Naval Academy.

You mean they give more B's and A's now than they used to?

Yes, than they did. This is called grade inflation. It's not so
much in engineering as in others, but it still occurredit is
occurring. Well, certainly this is my opinion from my
observations--! checked this out with others toowe all agreed
that it did not lead to a decrease in the quality of the students.
The grades might have been inflated, but the students coming in
were still good; what they were learning was very good; the
engineers going out were very good. So although there was
inflation, it didn't affect the overall capabilities. I think

this is important: the quality has remained high,
important .

That's very

When did they change from A's and B's to numbers, and what effect
did that have?

We still give A's and B's, only each one had a number, so you add
up the numbers. An A is 4.0, an A- is 3.75, a C+ is I forget.
But we gave students the grades, A, B, C, and then we'd give these
numbers and we would add them up and all that kind of stuff. I
heard one person suggest that what you really should do and I
think one university did it that way so you could judge- -on the
student's grade record would be, say, A, or A-, or B, and then
slash, and you'd give the average grade given in that class. In
other words, if a student was A-/B+, it wasn't quite as good as A-
/C+. But we didn't do that.

104

Berkeley's Successful Extension Program for Continuing Education

Wiegel: Another aspect of education is what is sometimes referred to as
continuing education- -university extension. The Berkeley campus
has done this very successfully for many, many decades.

Swent: You were a pioneer.

Wiegel: No. In one aspect, yes, I'll mention that later, but not in

extension in general, just one aspect of it. The work may be done
with full courses, and sometimes these are the equivalent of a
course given on campusthe same one. This was for people who
were working full-time, so they would take a course at night or
weekends. It may be in a subject that was not available when they
were a student. The computer field, for example: the numbers of
courses given in computer science- -hardware, software- -by Berkeley
is great.

These may be given on campus, they may be given in San
Francisco, or down on the Peninsula. They may be given by those
people down on the Peninsula in Silicon Valley who are working on
developing the newest thing in a particular piece of computer
hardware or softwarethey 1 11 teach, they'll work at night. They
don't have to. It's an attitude: they're doing it, they're
interested, they want other people to know about it. This has
been marvelous. They may be courses entirely different.
Especially, say, in the arts and the humanities. I don't know too
great an amount about the details of those, but again, this is the
quality of Cal.

Wiegel: The College of Engineering made surveys of the graduates of our
undergraduate programsone year after graduation, five years
after graduation, and so forth. After the first year out,
engineers would say we wished we had more design in our courses;
the first job usually being in design. Five years out, we wished
we had more on analysis mathematics and physics because they're
looking in more depth. Ten years out, we wished we had had more
management. Fifteen years out, we wished we had had more
humanities. Twenty years out, we wished we had had more in the
arts. I'm not talking about everyone, but kind of general- -this
is the way life changes. So extension activities are useful in
all of these. Students go out to classes, if they have the
energy, at night or weekends; they catch up on these things that
they see they were missing, or that they wanted to take.

105
The First-Ever Short Course in Earthquake Engineering

Wiegel: Other ones are called short courses. These are something you give
in maybe one week. An eight-hours-a-day type of thing for a week.
Or maybe not quite that, but usually it would be about a week. In
1965, we gave the short course that was named Earthquake
Engineering. Several of the engineering and seismology faculty
here at Berkeley developed this, triggered by Karl V. Steinbrugge,
who was a Cal graduate, who was a civil engineer with the Pacific
Fire Rating Bureau.

In addition to the Fire Rating, of course, and go back to
the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906--fire did more damage
than the earthquake directly, so the Pacific Fire Rating Bureau--
which was a kind of consortium of insurance companieswhat they
wanted to do is to make things safer. In other words, the best
thing to do in the insurance business is to make things safe so
that they don't burn down or they don't shake down. You prevent
the damage. Karl was the leader in that group and an expert on
earthquakes and the damage that earthquakes do to buildings, and
what you could do to minimize the loss. He suggested we give a
course on earthquake engineering, and we agreed. We thought this
was great.

A small working group was formed of several faculty members
and Karl Steinbrugge. I was asked to chair it--I guess this was
because I was an assistant dean. I had worked in one aspect of
this: tsunamis. These are sometimes called tidal waves, or
seismic sea waves; and these are the giant waves that are
generated by the tectonic displacement of underwater earthquakes,
or a very high-speed underwater landslide triggered by an
earthquake. I had been doing a lot of work on this one aspect.
This is an important aspect of underwater earthquakes . For
example, back in the 1700s, or something like that, when Lisbon
had a huge loss of life--

Swent: 1755, I think.

Wiegel: Something like that- -of the earthquake. When you looked into it,
it wasn't the earthquake, it was the tsunami that was generated
that killed almost everybody. Two of the great earthquakes in
Japan along the Pacific coast were in 1896 and 1933, and a lot of
the loss of life was because of tsunamis. I was doing a lot of
work on one aspect. We organized it, and there was a series of
lectures on different subjects, starting off with Bruce Bolt, who
was the professor of seismology and director of the seismographic
station here at Berkeley. Incidentally, he was chairman of the
academic senate two years ago, and is currently president of the

106

faculty club--so Bruce has remained very active. At one time, he
was chairman of the California Seismic Safety Commission, which
reports to the governorthat ' s Bruce Bolt.

So first a lecture on seismology, then geology, and then the
technical aspects of foundation design--how you design buildings
for seismic safety. We did it via University Extension. They
sent out a brochure, and we were inundated with applicants. There
were so many, there was no way we could get them all in. We
talked it over--I think there were fifteen of us--by now we'd
gotten all the speakers and so forth. They were from here
(Professors Harry Seed, Ray Clough, Joe Penzien, Bruce Bolt, and
others), from Caltech; one of them, of course, was George Housner,
the great person in earthquakes; another was Don Hudson. The
person from the University of Illinois, Nathan Newmark, who, in
the United States, was the number-one person on impulse loadings
of structuresthat is, explosions; Karl Steinbrugge; then the
presidents of two San Francisco engineering companies, structural
engineers that did earthquake designs: Henry Degenkalb and John
Blume. There was also Cal's T.Y. Lin; the famous T.Y. Lin of Cal
and of private practice. Another, from Chevron corporation, John
Rinne, later became president of the ASCE.

So we decided we would have two sections, one starting on
Sunday instead of Monday, and we would have Sunday, Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday for one section, and then we'd have
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday for the second
section. So each of us gave the lecture twice, and that way we
could keep the number of students down in each section.

They weren't just engineers from companies that attended; it
turned out that professors of many universities, and many
government agency engineers wanted to take it. It was new. I'd
like to mention that five of the lecturers have since been awarded
the National Medal of Science at the White House at different
times (George Housner, Nate Newmark, T.Y. Lin, Harry Seed and Ray
Clough) , and nearly every one of them became a member of the
National Academy of Engineering or the National Academy of
Science, or both.

The Resulting Textbook; Another Aspect of Teaching

Wiegel: The people that took the course said, "There's no book on this

subject. We want a book." So I was asked to try to get all these
people to write a chapter on their presentations. Some of these
were the top people. How did you get them to write a chapter?

107

Also, we had told them they didn't have to worry about writing
anything; and then come back and ask them to do so--I didn't
relish this.

Swent: Even though they had given lectures at this conference?

Wiegel: Yes, they had given lectures, heard the students' comments, and

they understood the need. Also, we said, "It would look funny if
we don't have a chapter from every one. People might say, 'Gosh,
wasn't his good enough?'" No, I didn't say this, but you twist
arms a little. However, they were all nice people and thoroughly
professional. So I was asked to be the coordinating editor and
Prentice Hall published it [Earthquake Engineering, 518 pp.]. By
the time we got all the papers written and everything, it was 1970
before it was published. It wasn't easy to get together, but it
was the first book on the subject and it was used worldwide for
years. Many universities used it as a textbook. So again, that's
another aspect of teaching: not only did you teach directly, but
you developed a textbook that many other people can use.

Swent: Did you have any student help with the textbook?

Wiegel: No, this was really state-of-the-art. This was the sort of thing
that only the leading person--

Swent: I just meant with the mechanics of it.

Wiegel: Not that, no.

Swent: You had secretaries who helped you?

Wiegel: I had no help whatsoever.

Swent: You did your own typing and everything?

Wiegel: No, each author prepared their own. I can't tell you, for

example, whether or not George Housner had help at Caltech--that I
don't know.

Swent: You did the editing?

Wiegel: I did the coordinating editing. It was just to be sure there
weren't gaps. There's a big difference. When I became editor
later on of the journal Shore & Beach, that's different. I read,
I edited, and exchanged comments with an author. This wasn't that
sort. This was just to look for gaps and to try to get
consistency; that's all. You didn't have to edit the writing of
these peoplethey were all pros.

108

Chair of the University-Wide Extension Program

Wiegel: I guess it must have been because of that successful short course,
because, just after it was given, I was asked to serve as chair of
Berkeley's academic senate's committee on extension. Not just
serve on it, but to be chair of it. Then shortly later, I was
asked to chair the university-wide committee on extension. That's
all extension activities: here, UCLA, UCSF Medical Schoolall of
these things. Continuing education of the bar--all of that came
under the university-wide extension. Each campus had a dean of
extension, and we were the liaison between the dean and the
regular campus faculty, academic affairs, and so forth. So I've
always had a real--

Swent: How did you feel about that?

Wiegel: That was a lot of work. But again, I feel very strongly that this
is a major activity of a university. You're serving a very broad-
based group of people. You're doing a good service in many, many
areas. As you can see, I've had a tumor in my inner ear removed
surgically, I also had open-heart surgery. So I'm very grateful
that the medical profession has a very excellent, extensive
extension service teaching doctors new procedures. [laughter]

Swent: So that they're up to date. That's right.

Wiegel: So you've got the professions. But then there's this whole other
portion which is the quality of life: the humanities, the arts,
which are made available by so many extension courses. They're
very popular. I don't know if you've looked into--

Swent: I've taken a number of them.

Wiegel: So you know.

Swent: I'm well aware of them; they're great.

Wiegel: And people do a good job. Once in a while, it's not so good, but
mostly, they do a very good job.

Swent: The ones I've attended have been very fine.

Wiegel: I organized other short courses- -which had nothing to do with
being chairman of the committee- -with some other people like
Professor Gerwick and others, and Paulling in Naval Architecture,
in offshore engineering. Lectures were given by faculty,
engineers in industry, and in some government agencies. This was
for the oil companies and engineering companies; also professors

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from other universities attendedthe drilling for oil and gas in
the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea. We gave the first ones
given any place, and we were doing much of the research at that
time, both in civil engineering and naval architecture. People
came from all over the world to take those courses. They would
come from England, France, Norway, Japan, when we offered a course
in offshore engineering.

Swent: Where did you give them?

Wiegel: Here on the Berkeley campus. Sometimes at a hotel at the Berkeley
Marina. Those were always short courses. We learned our lesson
after the first one. Each person giving a lecture was asked to
prepare a written hand-out that the students could have. Do you
notice all the big thick blue binders in the bookcase behind me?
Each one of those is a short course series of notes on some course
that I was associated with. The last one that I had anything to
do with was after I retired, and it was just to be a participant.
It was a university extension course held on the Clark Kerr
Campus--you know that nice campus that used to be the California
School for the Blind before they moved? This was on estuaries and
coastal wetlands: the mixing processes in estuaries, geology of
estuaries, the biology of estuaries, the chemistry of estuaries-
all of these things on estuaries. You know, San Francisco Bay is
an estuary.

The leader of this, who organized it and so forth, was Peter
Goodwin, who had been a graduate student at Berkeley from England.
He did his Ph.D. here at Berkeley. His major professor was Hugo
Fischer, who was tragically killed in a soaring plane crash. We
were able to arrange to have Norman Brooks, a professor at Caltech
and Fischer's mentor, step in and help out with the thesis.

Goodwin then went back to England after his Ph.D. and taught
there. But then I guess he found he liked the climate in the San
Francisco Bay better, so he came back to the Bay Area, and he
worked for a firm in San Francisco that is well known in the
environmental field- -Phillip Williams and Associates. He was the
organizer of it. That was only about three or four years ago.
That was very successful, too. Incidentally, Peter Goodwin is now
a professor at the University of Idaho.

People are so interested in the environment, and this was
all quantitativeall of these different aspects. Again, you see,
that's teaching. But the people were not only from government and
companies, but from other universities and other countries.

I somehow skippedand I remember and it must have been
when I was first appointed associate professor and Glenn Seaborg

110

was chancellor at that time, and he had a reception for new
faculty in the chancellor's home on campus. We were talking about
how long it took to prepare a lecture, and how long in advance it
took. I said, "Well, I have to prepare mine a few days before,
and then I go over the notes the night before." He understood
that, but what he usually did was to prepare three lectures in a
row, and go through the notes once for the three lectures in a
row. I thought, "There's a difference. What a mind!" I found
that kind of interesting.

Member and Chairman of Chancellor's Advisory Committee on
Education of Military Officers (ROTC)

Wiegel: There are other aspects of education that I would like to add.
One of them is the education of prospective military officers:
this is ROTC I was in ROTC when I was an undergraduate, and very
appreciative that I had that opportunity. ROTC is very important
from a national standpoint. But also, it's about the only place
in the university that leadership is taught. How do you lead? As
important as how one leads is, how does one make decisions under
extreme stress? It may be in war, it may be when you're
practicing landing an aircraft on a carrier, it may be when
something goes wrong with a power plant, and you have got only a
few seconds to make a decision. So the ROTC program serves a use
broader then just preparing people to become military officers,
most of whom are simply on a reserve status.

I have been on the chancellor's advisory committee on
military officers education program since 1978. I'm still on it.
I served as chair of it on two separate occasions. Some of the
best comments on the value of ROTC programs in universities such
as Berkeley are in one of the publications that are the printed
version of talks, discussions, question and answers of the Fleet
Admiral Nimitz lectures on national security affairs here at
Berkeley. It was by John Lehman, who had been, amongst other
things, secretary of the navy as well as a navy pilot, and is
currently chairman of Lehman Brothers of New York, the investment
brokers.

His lecture series were "Naval Power after Cold War
Victory." This was the first speaker we had after the collapse of
the Russian empire which was called the Soviet Union. A major
point he made was that the founders of the United States were
worried about military take-overs of government. They had seen
the experience in European countries, and they didn't want it to
happen. We do have three military academies: West Point, the

Ill

Army; the Naval Academy, or Navy and Marine Corps; and the Air
Force Academy. But we also have ROTC programs in many
universities, and during the troubled times in the sixties and
seventies, many universities cancelled them, such as Stanford.
The U.C. Regents told the faculty this is a regential matter, not
a faculty matter; we will continue ROTC programs!

So Berkeley continued to give ROTC, but there has been a
much bigger input from the faculty, and this is via the committee
the chancellor established on military education, and it's still
in existence. It's still very active. It has good members on it.
The current chairman is Tom Barnes, who is jointly a professor of
law and a professor of history. Bob Middlekauff is on it--he was
provost here and then went down to be head of the Huntington
Library, but is back. He's a former Marine, and as they say,
"Once a Marine, always a Marine."

Everyone on the committee was a former Marine, Navy, Army,
or Air Force. We all had experience. We're running out. This is
why, even though I'm retired, I'm still on it. We're running out
of faculty people with three, four, etc., years of military
experience.

The Importance of Having Well-Trained Civilians in the Military

Swent: You seem to have felt very good about this.

Wiegel: I felt very good about it; still do feel very good about it.

Anyhow, the point is that we want to be sure that our military is
still civilian and from many levels of our population and from
many areas of specialties. We need engineers, we need pilots, we
need humanists, we need business administration, we need all kinds
of people to get different viewpoints, and to make sure it's
civilian, not a military hierarchy. So we need the military to
prevent wars or to minimize them or to fight them if need be, but
we also want to be sure it's always civilian from throughout the
country so there is not a military takeover which has happened in
many, many, many, if not all countries. I consider that a very
important part of teaching and related activities.

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Advising Graduate Students; Matching Talents and Problems

Wiegel: I'd like to mention that I retired from active teaching in June,
1987. I'd been here more than forty years in either research or
teaching, and became a professor emeritus. However, I still give
several lectures each year in a few courses, and I give a seminar
in the interdisciplinary ocean engineering seminar, E 201.
Incidentally, I'm scheduled to give one this coming Friday on this
subject. I also help, when asked, with students in their
individual research. I am in each morning by 8:00 a.m. (0800)
with my door open and it stays open the whole time I'm here in
case a student wants to drop in.

One of the very nice things about the university is that
when you're retired, if you still want to be active with the
research and students, you can do so. I have done this. I
suddenly realize I never mentioned anything at all about the
students and their Ph.D. theses. This is a one-on-one where they
work with you and a few of the other professors. I was supervisor
of twenty- six Ph.D. theses.

Swent : That ' s a lot .

Wiegel: That's a lot. And I've been on a number of other Ph.D. thesis
committees, and I've supervised a number of mini-theses for the
master of engineering program. This is one-on-one working with
students, teaching, and so forth. One of the things that you
learn when you supervise a student's Ph.D. thesis, you try to
match the particular sets of talents of a student with a problem.
Every problem is different; every student has a different mix of
capabilities. Somehow you have got to match these so the students
can go ahead and do a good job.

Sometimes if a student hasn't done a good job, it's because
a professor hasn't matched the student with the problem. Then you
have got to encourage the student. You talk to them, you keep
their spirits up. You give them ideas, directions, who else to
talk to, what courses they might have to audit to help out. Then
you have to tell the student to stop. You've done enough, write
it up, and leave. Get a job. Because if they really get
interested, they always want to do one more thing. Sometimes you
have to say, "Stop."

Swent: Enough is enough.

Wiegel: So there's four things: match the students, guide them, encourage
them, and get them to finish. I'm sure there's many things that
I've left out.

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Swent: I have time if you do. Do you have time to go a little more?
Wiegel: Yes, if you have some questions.

Swent: I'd like to have you be a little more specific about some of
your

Swent: Particularlyand it might come into this discussion of Ph.D.
theseshow much input or consideration was there for specific
problems that industry was facing? Did you have advisors from
engineering companies, or would you gear a researchyou were
doing research for I'm not phrasing that well.

Wiegel: One main factor of importance in working with companies or

government agencies was, say, doing work on projects where you
would see that you just don't know the answer to a question. But,
from an engineering standpoint, somebody with more experience or
sometimes yourself would say, "Here, we can go ahead and do this
using such and such safety factor in there you can proceed." But
then you file it away, thinking, "One of these days, somebody
should learn more about this . "

This is where the matching comes in; trying to match these
various assorted problems that you keep on discovering, with
somebody's particular set of capabilities. Then, of course,
because very few if any of our students come from wealthy families
and could support themselves in graduate school- -somehow, you have
to have a research contract, either from government or industry,
or something like that. When I say government NSF, or ONR, or it
might be the State of California. So many of the theses were in
research to develop new knowledge in one of these areas in which
we didn't know the answer to a problem.

A Practical Problem with Pumps in India Leads to Research Projects

Swent: This is what I wanted to bring out: that there must have been a
relationship with

Wiegel: Earlier, I mentioned the cooling water system for the power plant
at Tarapur, India. It is a good example; one of the people who
was working as a consultant to the joint Bechtel-General Electric
Company, was Dick Eaton. He had retired as technical director of
the Army Corps of Engineers Beach Erosion Board. Former to that,
he had been an engineer at the Los Angeles District of the Army

114

Corps of Engineers. Dick was a very good observer and had lots of
practical experience. He had come back from India at Tarapur, and
we were talking- - i. e. , Dick, myself, somebody from Bechtel,
somebody from GE- -about the intake structure.

This was in a rock reef area. There was not sand there; it
wasn't a sandy beach, it was rock. They were going to rock dredge
an entrance channel and a stilling basin in the rock, and then
install a series of big pumps to pump ocean water through the
condensers, and out of the condensers through an outlet back into
the oceanmaybe a half a mile away or something like that. The
question arose: how much wave action can these pumps take, and
still behave in an appropriate manner? The companies had asked
the pump manufacturers, and the pump manufacturers said, "As
little as possible." That's not a very good answer. We never did
find out how little "as little as possible" was. This is
engineering, as opposed to science.

Dick Eaton had observed wave action at several places where
inlets to the harbors had been dredgedthat is, dredging a
channel deeper than the natural water depth. In some cases, they
dredged the channel seaward of the entrance jetties; he observed
that the waves coming in from the ocean got smaller for some
reason, so that the waves that penetrated into the harbor basin
were much smaller than if they didn't dredge that entrance seaward
of the jetties. Engineering observation, no theory. But he had
observed it. So we at Berkeley made a hydraulic model of this,
and dredged it, generated waves mechanically, and sure enough the
waves were smaller. Only now, we could measure them, and we could
say how much smaller. By lengthening the channel out from the
pumps, and increasing the dredged depth, we could get the waves
small enough that the pump people said, "Yes, we think that's
okay." Why? Now this gets into science, research, Ph.D.s. ,

A little later, there was a match: there was a student that
had the background, had the courses, had enough ability, and he
went to work on it. This, of course, is again an example of why
you have several faculty members on a Ph.D. thesis committee,
because I understood a certain amount about it, but some of things
were pretty darnedvery subtle, to be frank. Professor John
Wehausen, a professor of engineering science, was in the
department of naval architecture at Berkeley he was aware of some
theory that would indicate that this should be the case. He
couldn't get the exact answers, but he could get regimes.

So we had this student, and he was from Egypt. He had been
working for the Suez Canal Authority, and the Egyptian government
said he could come, and helped him, and he met all the
requirements and he was here. He was a very bright person. He

115

has incidentally become--step-by-step--the director of research,
the director of engineering, and he's in now the number-two
position in the Suez Canal Authority, I understand. The top
technical person.

Swent: Do you recall his name?

Wiegel: Nabil Hilaly. He did his Ph.D. thesis on this subject; both in

hydraulic model and theory, and developed, then, the techniques to
be able to analyze and say why this would happen. Professor John
Wehausen was on the committee, and provided substantial
theoretical insight. There's the consulting thing by this other
person; the work we did on a contract between the university and
the company solved the engineering problem, but did not answer the
scientific question. The Ph.D. thesis answered the scientific
question. His work was published in a refereed journal.

Swent: Then you have the whole thing.
Wiegel: I think that's a very good example.
Swent: That's an excellent one.

Wiegel: There are several others, but that's the one that I remember most
clearly.

Swent: If you could detail a couple of others, it would be very helpful.

Wiegel: Let's see.

Swent: You mentioned Bechtel. Have you done much with Bechtel?

Wiegel: Yes, over the years; one project was concerned with the

possibility of a future mudflow causing wave overtopping in the
design of the rehabilitation of a dam and reservoir after the
Mount St. Helens volcano eruption in 1980.

One of the things that we worked on for a long time was
wave-induced forces on off-shore oil structures. I talked about
this earlier: we did both laboratory and field work. One of the
things we observed when we put an instrumented pile in the surf
zonethis was down in Monterey Bayand measured the waves with a
recorder and measured the strains in the pile induced by wave
forces on the pile- -we saw that when a wave broke against the
pile, suddenly you would get a sharp peak in the forcejust up
and down not over a tenth of a second in duration.

Swent: I think you have gotten into this.

116

Wiegel: We did it in the laboratory, and instead of a tenth of second, it
was a hundredth of a second. Filed away. No idea as to what in
the world was responsible for it. Decades later, Paul Kaplan, a
naval architect who had been working on the problem of the landing
of sea planes --which incidentally was the outgrowth of what the
great von Karman at Caltech had done during the war on the impact
load on a sea plane or other airplanes being "ditched" hitting the
water surface--. Paul Kaplan was looking at a problem with a
British company that had an off-shore platform in the southern
North Sea. This was one of the first ones for recovering gas.

One of the cross members failedwhat they called fatigue
failure- -they blame much on fatigue failure. They don't always
understand what has happened, I hate to say it. A lot of it is
fatigue failure, but lots of times fatigue simply gets blamed
because you don't know what it is. It got worn out, so you could
say it was fatigue, low-cycle fatigue. But it broke, and another
one broke. That person, Paul Kaplan, had a flash of an insight
that it was an impulse loadremember engineers use F=MA; force
equals mass times acceleration. But really Newton used the
summation of forces is equal to the change in momentum, and
momentum is the product of mass and velocity.

When it came to water loads- -what part of the ocean is
exerting the load? Is the small portion of the mass of the ocean
imparting the load changing with time? The answer is yes. So he
saw it. Then, I took thatthis wasn't a Ph.D. thesis, because
this was much later there was nobody to match with the problem.
For a vertical pile in the wave breaking zone, the surf zone,
using the same concept, I found that we could predict these
things --making use of this, concept. We had been designing these
things by putting a safety factor in. Now finally, after maybe
twenty-five or thirty years, we finally understood the physics of
it.

You see how much better that is when you teach the students,
and you could teach them the physics, and you say, "You see this
peak? You see how high it is, and how short the duration is? Now
here's the formulation and the mathematics." It's not easy to
make the calculations without computers, but now we can compute
it. So that's a second example.

Pioneering Research on Mixing of a Surface Buoyant Jet

Wiegel: Another example is concerned with a part of water quality, thermal
quality. Much of it was done after our work on the power plant in
Tarapur. When the intake water's heated and then discharged, it's

117

not that it's warm, although the temperature is what you're
interested in for marine biology studies. But the mixing has
nothing to do with the temperature as such, it has to do with the
fact that it's less dense after you heat it. It's called a
buoyant flow. The discharged water wants to stay at the surface,
because it's lighter than the ocean water. It doesn't want to mix
with the cooler water below, but it does mix because of
turbulence. There was little that anyone had done on the mixing
of a surface buoyant jet. Almost nothing.

We, and others at MIT and Caltech, had worked on it; this is
why GE and Bechtel asked us to do a hydraulic model study for the
Tarapur project. We knew that from a practical engineering
standpoint, engineers could go ahead and design a system; there
were systems in existence. But there were, over the years,
additional studiesand part of this was supported later by
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, because of the Diablo Canyon
power plantwe did a lot of work for them. Hydraulic modelswe
worked with them when they were making their full-scale tests-
compared model results with full-scale measurements. I think
there were either two or three Ph.D. theses that were supported
before we really understood the physics and could do the
analytical and numerical calculations.

It wasn't until we compared the results of our hydraulic
models with the extensive, very expensive full-scale measurements
that PG&E made at Diablo Canyon that we knew the problem was
solved through the use of an undistorted densimetric Froude number
in modeling it. Now perhaps one can make useful estimates using a
numerical model- -but I don't know for sure as I haven't kept up
with this type of work. But still, I believe a large hydraulic
model, using undistorted scales, might have to be made because of
the complexities. I wish I had the time to go into this again.
Some of the support during the early days was by National Science
Foundation, some was supported by the State of California water
resources group- -because it's a water quality problem and then
later a large part by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company.

For decades, there were three groups working on this type of
problem: myself and Fischer here at Berkeley, Norm Brooks and his
colleagues at Caltech, and Don Harleman and graduate students at
M.I.T. Later, many around the world were doing it, but for years
there were only these three places where this sort of work was
done. That's a major input to the water quality thing: to get
quantitative answers so you know what's going to happen. That's
needed by marine biologist as an input to his/her work. They want
to know what the temperatures are and things of that sort, and we
have to be able to tell them what they are.

118

Swent: You say everybody's doing it now?

Wiegel: A number of universities in the U.S. and France and Japan and
England. But the early work was done by these three groups.

Some Special Graduate Students from Egypt

Swent: Just one other thing: you mentioned Egypt a couple of times. Did
you have a lot of students from Egypt?

Wiegel: Yes. At one timeand this has got to be thirty years ago or

morethe dean of engineering at the University of Cairoshortly
after Egypt took over the Suez Canal of course, you've read
articles, you heard statements at that time of how they couldn't
run it, but of course they could; they have run it, and have done
an excellent job he wanted to have some of the brightest students
do graduate work in this field of coastal engineering because it
would apply to the Suez Canal, the inlets, the canal operation,
and so forth. I don't know the connection, but somehow at some
place, he had met Professor Johnson. Joe said they would have to
meet the university requirements. That's all there is to it.

So the Dean of Engineering at Cairo University chose these
I think it was five and they were carefully chosen. Believe me,
they were and are smart. They were the cream of the cream because
they were with the biggest money-maker in Egypt the Suez Canal.
So they sent their applications, and there was no question. The
graduate division read them; accept them! [laughter] Not going
to get anybody better than this. So we did, and I don't think
they all came at one time; I think there were three, and one and
one or something like that. I think there were about five. I
know one of them is currently professor at the University of
Cairo; one is now the number- two person in the Suez Canal
Authority; one, Ismail Mobarek, is with the World Bank and prior
to that, also a professor at the University of Cairo; one, I
think, died of a heart attack.

Swent: Are you still getting students from Egypt?

Wiegel: No. We have got a professor from Egypt, Mustafa Foda. He didn't
do his Ph.D. here; he did his Ph.D. at M.I.T., but he's professor
here now. He was an undergraduate student at the University of
Cairo, and studied there under Professor Mobarek.

Swent: But this was sort of a one-time thing?

119

Wiegel: That was a one-time thing. We had one or two before; we've had
several after. But the ones in my mind are the ones --we had
others that come in structural engineering, and sanitary
engineering--! have got to be careful. I'm talking only about my
personal experience.

Swent: Yes, that's what I'm asking about.

Wiegel: In water resources and so forth, we've always had them from Iraq,
Iran, Lebanon, and Israel.

Swent: What other countries in particular?

Wiegel: Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Australia, the Philippines, Korea,

Malaysia, Japan, China, Taiwan, England, France. Many, manyeven
one from Iceland.

Swent: Everywhere.

Wiegel: As I said, so many of the students became good friends and remain
good friends. I think that responded to your question.

Swent: That's fine, yes. Is there anything else you wanted to mention
before we wind up here?

Wiegel: I'm sure as soon as you leave, I will. That's the standard
operating method.

Swent: Make a note, and we'll catch it up next time.

Wiegel: The first thing I said this morning was: by the way, last time I
forgot. Next time, I will start off, "By the way."

Swent: That's fine, that's just fine.

[Interview 4: February 19, 1997] II

Swent: Before we get started on anything a little more formal, we were
just chatting here about how things get forgotten, and that, of
course, is what oral history is all about: trying to preserve
those things. You were pointing out to me a report of a
conference held in 1965. It's a big, inch-and-a-half -thick volume
called California and Use of the Ocean, which is the proceedings
of a conference?

Wiegel: No, this was a plan.

Swent: A plan that was put out by the University of California Institute
of Marine Resources: California and Use of the Ocean. What

120

Wiegel:

Swent :

Wiegel:
Swent :
Wiegel:

started this is we were talking about a conference that Orville
Magoon is co-organizing or co-chairing which is going to be held
March 24-27, 1997, entitled, "California and the World Ocean '97."
It's almost the same topic, and going to be held down in San
Diego. Bob was saying the importance of updating things and
sometimes repeating things just so they don't get lost.

Well, the thing that came to my attention was that yesterday
afternoon, we were having a two-hour meeting foryou might call a
steering committee, or something like that for the Water
Resources Center Archives. One of the things that was mentioned
is how many consulting engineering reports that are made for
clients about water resources, and other subjects of course, are
forgotten after a few decadesmany of which have extremely
interesting data and recommendations. It's not that anybody does
it on purpose; it's that everybody is busy and they may or may not
write a paper on it or an article on it, and after a few decades
it becomes lost except if these companies are willing to give
copies to something like the Water Resources Center Archives.

This recalled to me that you may even print large numbers of
reports and they get lost; people don't know about them. You can
talk about bringing things up on the computer, but you have to
have something to start with. Unless you put in some of the
correct code names, you never will find these things. I don't
know whether or not the people that are organizing this new
conference are aware of what occurred more than thirty years ago,
but I'm going to certainly send a note to Orville Magoon and
mention this to him.

He may well be aware of it, but I'm going to mention that we
have a copy of the report in the archives here on the Berkeley
campus .

It's very possible that if everyone assumes everyone else knows
it--

I know things can get forgotten because- -
They certainly can.

--I have been trying before each of these interviews to go back
and refresh my memory about things, and some of the things I
brought up I remember fairly well, others I just remember, and
then I find things that I had forgotten completely about.

Swent :

That's very easy to have happen, isn't it?
about the water archives.

We do want to talk

121

Wiegel: Let me pick that up just a little later this morning, because it
is a very important part of the university, and it's well thought
of; I know that. The people that work in it are highly
professional and dedicated and work well with the students as well
as people from the outside. It's not just a university activity;
it was founded by an act of the state legislature many years ago.
O'Brien was one of the people that worked with the state
legislature in establishing the Water Resources Center, and then
the archives became an important part of that center.

Professor Joe Johnson of hydraulics was the first archivist,
and one of the reasons the collection is so good is that O'Brien
and Johnson knew many of the early engineers that worked on water
supply in the state of California, and because Professor
Etcheverry taught here and practiced irrigation engineering in
California and elsewhere for decades, and was well known and
thought of. That is: irrigation, hydro-electricity, water supply
for cities, flood control. They knew these people, and they
talked to them, and said, "Why don't you turn over your consulting
reports and data to this new archives so it won't get lost." This
is what they did, and something they have been doing ever since.
It's a very important thing to this state, and it's important to
people in many other parts of the country and the world. It's
well used. It's now on w.w.w. worldwide web.

Swent: So that means it's really important.
Wiegel: Yes. People become more aware of it.

Swent: Well, I think that everybody has become much more aware of the
importance of water within the last few years worldwide.

Wiegel: We had a little joke yesterday. Don't say scientists don't have a
sense of humor. We were thinking of California's water, and we
were thinking of floods and droughts, and this is the California
equivalent of the Chinese yin and yang. But ours is flood and
drought, [laughter]

Swent: That's right.

Wiegel: I'll mention that a little later under governance of the
university.

Swent: Yes, all right. That's what we were going to talk about today.

122
The Richmond Field Station

Wiegel: But I'd like to, if you don't mind, pick up a couple of items that
I had forgotten about last week when we talked about university
and teaching. As part of it, you asked about the Richmond Field
Station. I made a few comments at that time, but I would like to
add to what I said. Originally, it was named the Engineering
Field Station, but the name was changed by Chancellor Kerr when he
was chancellor of the Berkeley campus, I believe. The property
was purchased by the UC regents shortly after the end of World War
II, and many details about this development are given in the oral
history by Mike O'Brien.

Most of the large engineering laboratory facilities were
built there. It's located in Richmond, at the edge of San
Francisco Bay, and it's about a twenty-minute drive from here,
which made it rather inconvenient for students and faculty to use,
but the alternative of not having these large facilities would
have been detrimental, so it was well that this was done. But it
was inconvenient, unless you were there full-time. I spent many
years there; in fact, until I was full-time on the faculty. Then
I maintained an office there for many years thereafter, and my
graduate students and I used the facilities right up until I
retired in 1987.

Swent: Is it at the water's edge?

Wiegel: It's at the water's edge, and several of the large facilities are
the model basin and the naval architecture laboratorythe ship
model towing tank. Specifically, what I wanted to mention about
thatbecause it might get lost the information- -the rails on the
towing tank, and also on the model basin, are very special rails.
They were shipped to the university by the navy's ship model
towing tank (located in the vicinity of Washington, D.C.), when
they upgraded theirs in the mid-1950s. So we were fortunate to
get these. Also, the towing tank is built on deep bay mud, so the
whole thing floats like a reinforced concrete ship and the rails
can be adjusted both for alignment and for vertical accuracy.
This has had to be done several times since the original facility
was built, but it permits the facility still to be used.

Swent: You say, "still to be used?"

Wiegel: To use a towing tank, you have to have very accurate alignment of
the rails, and it must be level. By being able to adjust this,
you can continue to use the facility. If we had not done it, it
wouldn't have been operational.

123

Swent: Because of the underlying

Wiegel: Because of the gradual differential settling. Because of the fact
that it was built on this deep mud.

Swent: I see. Was it affected in the earthquake of '89?

Wiegel: I can't tell you whether or not it did settle--! was retired then
--but it could have been easilyit's quite a bit of work to align
up and so forthbut they're still using it, I know. Only now,
what they're towing instead of a ship is a three-dimensional
model of an airplane, and it is towed underwater in order to study
the tip vortices if formed. This is being done by the department
of mechanical engineering, and I think it should be mentioned that
the department of naval architecture and offshore engineeringas
it's now called is being disestablished at the end of this
academic year. Some faculty will go into civil engineering, some
into mechanical engineering, and the ship model towing tank will
become a part of the department of mechanical engineering. The
hydraulic engineering model basin and wind wave tank at RFS are in
"mothballs" closed down and locked up. There is no staff. I
find it sad.

Some of the details of the facility have been described. I
looked up to find out about it. Forty years ago almost, Mac
Snyder, Karl Bermel, and myself wrote a paper in which we
described all of these facilities, plus the ones on campus, in
hydraulics and coastal engineering with drawings on how the things
operate and so forth. So that's in the record in what is called
a there's two terms: a refereed journal and an archival journal.
In other words, it's in a journal that's kept by many libraries.

Development of Pioneering Wave Generators

Wiegel: As you can see, I'm using words I heard yesterday at the meeting.
The most important thing about the facility, I think, is that the
first programmable wave generator anywhere in the world, and
probably the first wave spectral generator anywhere in the world,
was designed and de-bugged for use in that tank between 1959 and
1961. This has been copied by other people, but this was the
first one, done here by J.W. Cuthbert, Oswald Sibul, and Bill
Webster. Webster is now professor of naval architecture here at
Berkeley and currently an associate dean at the college of
engineering. The late Oswald Sibul was from Estonia. In fact, he
escaped from Estonia when the Russian Empire took over the Baltic

124

countries at the end of World War II, and he spent his
professional career here in naval architecture at the university.

Also, the pre-feasibility studies for the Polaris missile
were done in this tank. This work was classified and was never
written up, and I think it's well to get in the record that that's
where it was done.

Pre-Feasibility Studies for the Polaris Missile

Swent: Did you work on that?

Wiegel: Yes. We had several of our graduate students work on it, most of
whom were hired away from us by Lockheed Aircraft Corporation that
then continued to do the real development work. So we did the
first workobviously it was good because they hired all of our
students from us .

Swent: How does it work to have graduate students work in a project like
that that's so highly sensitive?

Wiegel: One way you can do classified work is to break it up into bits and
pieces. These students had clearance

Swent: Of course.

Wiegel: --because, remember, some of our students were--I don't think I
mentioned, but the Army Corps of Engineers, for years sent, or
permitted young officers to apply, because they had to be accepted
as graduate students like any other graduate students. There was
an unwritten law in the Corps of Engineers that to be promoted to
field grade you should earn a Master's degree in engineering. So
we always had several students who were in the military, but
also, we had others that did have clearance in those days. People
now can't conceive of the fact that we did these things, but we
did. You could keep the security level low by breaking up the
project into little bits and pieces.

Swent :

But the person at the top had to be aware of the whole project?

Wiegel: Oh, yes. The person at the top who was undoubtedly back in the

Pentagon knew many things . I knew a certain amount because I had
high clearance. But the students wouldn't have known anything at
all about any of the details. Even though they had low clearance,
they just were working on it. They did not analyze the data. To
analyze, we used navy photographers to take the data onyou would

125

call them motion pictures, but they were really photographic
transits. They had been very carefully calibrated at the navy gun
factory, and they used photogrammetry to get motions and things
like that. But that was all done on a navy facility, so navy
personnel took the photographs and they analyzed them on a navy
facility. So that's how you handle things when you're under
extreme pressure to get something done rapidly.

Swent: So what were you doing here then?

Wiegel: Setting up the procedures and then thinking about the value of the
work. We then realized that the next step had to be done in a
facility which would have been quite different from what we had,
because you would have to have a towing tank in a building in
which you could adjust the atmospheric pressure because you had
to--as a part of the modelingworry about the ratio of absolute
pressures, and we were working in atmospheric pressure because the
tank was in the atmosphere. So the next testand this is what
Lockheed didwas to build a facility to do this in Sunnyvale.
So I made that recommendation.

Swent: Polaris was launched from underwater?
Wiegel: From a submarine underwater. Correct.

Swent: So it had to cope with water pressure, and atmospheric pressure
and--

Wiegel: --and very complicated things at the free surface. We did learn
some interesting

Swent: Complicated things at what?

Wiegel: At what they call the free surface, when the missile came up and
was about to go from water to air. Interesting things did occur:
it could come right back down and hit the moving submarine if it
wasn't designed properly. But that sort of thing was thought
about in advance; it wasn't a surprise that was one of the
reasons for the experiments.

Swent: Were there ever any cases where someone was denied clearance?

Wiegel: I'm not aware of a single case, no. Incidentally, you had asked

at one time about the loyalty oath and so forth; well, I wasn't on
the faculty at that time, I was full-time research staff, and of
course, people like myself really didn't quite understand what was
bothering them because we were all cleared. We all just
automatically had done all of these things. We just didn't
understand it.

126
Graduate Students and Surfing

Wiegel: I think I mentioned that I supervised twenty-six Ph.D. theses, and
many master of engineering mini-theses, and much of the work on
these theses was done using the facilities at the Richmond Field
Station. I think I just mentioned to you that a number of
students were young junior officers. If you're a junior officer,
you're young, because it's up or out in the military.

Swent: Are there any in particular that you remember?

Wiegel: I remember one of them: Homer Johnston. Homer became a brigadier
generalseveral of them became general of ficers--but Homer wrote
an article- -he was from southern California, and he loved to surf,
and he wrote a serious article on surfing: what makes good surf
sites? It was the first paper that I am aware of, in which
anybody has ever tried to figure out why a place was good for
surfing; the combination of waves and the bathymetry and so forth.

Swent: What? Bathymetry?

Wiegel: Yes, bathymetry: underwater depths and configurations. What makes
a good surfing site? Homer Johnston looked into this, and came up
with the first recommendation as to what he thought might be a
good combination. A few years later, a person going to the
University of Hawaii--Kimo Walkerdid a Ph.D. thesis on this.
This is very serious because surfing is an important subject
because so many people enjoy it.

Teaching Students to Write and Speak Persuasively

Wiegel: I mentioned the master of engineering degree as a two-year

professional degree which I believe to be the most cost-effective
degree that we give in engineering from the standpoint of people
becoming practicing engineers, rather than research and teaching.

I think that somebody should do a history of that degree:
how it came about, why it's important, and how valuable it has
been. I thinkat sometime somebody should do that. Not me, but
somebody should.

Swent: Had it already been given?
Wiegel: No, it was developed in the 1960s.

127

Swent: What was the impetus for it?

Wiegel: It was probably a few people like Earner Davis that recognized
the reason I say Banner Davis is that Banner Davis was the
director of the Institute of Traffic and Transportation, and he
worked closely with people in regional planning, city planning,
and things of this sort. You just don't design a highway, you
don't just go take soil samples and decide what sort of foundation
you need, and how wide your cars are, so how wide your lanes have
to bebut you have to work and see how this will fit in with the
entire concept of how you move people and things from place to
place.

So Harmer saw the needand others too, but I remember
Banner of an engineer who would take a minor, similar to a minor
for a Ph.D. that they would take in mathematics- -take a minor in
something that's completely out of engineering to get a viewpoint
of some other discipline. In regional planning, in history, in
public policy, in portions of business administration those
portions that deal with people. At least in civil engineering,
this has been very successful. I think that somebody should
document that at some time.

Swent: Bas it been a popular degree?
Wiegel: It's been a very popular degree.
Swent: It really met a need, then.

Wiegel: It's two years, and the number of units of courses that have to be
taken are about the same certainly no less than for a Doctor's
degree. There are two minors, but one has to be out of
engineering or physics or mathematics; it can't be in any of
those, it has to be for engineers to learn something about the way
other people think about problems. This is valuable. Practicing
engineers, and of course all others this is connected with this
have to sell their ideas. It's no good just having concepts,
design procedures you have got to sell them.

Look what's going on right now with the proposal to replace
the east side of the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge. You have
to come up with designs or concepts but you have got to sell
these to somebody. First your professor, or your boss, or the
public. You always have to sell these things. This is done in
writing, or more and more with visual aids and things like that
orally. Time after time, you would hear senior engineers tell the
students when they came and met with them in student chapters of
the societies one of the big problems with engineers is they

128

can't express themselves wellor at least many cannot express
themselves well either in writing or orally.

I took this very seriously, and in one of my graduate
classes, I had every student prepare a term report in lieu of a
final examination. The final report, on a subject directly
related to the course, had to be written up- -it may include a
designbut this was a written package of the type you would
prepare for your boss or somebody. Then, in another graduate
course, I had each student give a twenty- five minute oral
presentation. You see, this is what you call "learn by doing."
In addition to learning by doing- -that is, you learn how to make a
presentationbut there's also no better way of learning a subject
than preparing and giving a lecture on a subject. So this was
always useful.

In the written paper and the oral presentation, I made them
use the library, because I wanted them to get used to digging
things out for themselves, and learning how to use the library to
find material. I think that this has worked very well, because 1
still see former students coming back and using our archives to
get material from it.

Teaching the Use of a Specialized Library

Swent: These were graduate students who still needed to learn to use the
library?

Wiegel: These were graduate students. They still needed to learn how to
use the library as a real resource. Remember this is not a
standard library. This is finding not just published papers and
things like that, but old consulting reports and data reports and
that sort Of information. That's all part of teaching; that's all
part of learning these things. What's new about the present so-
called "information age"? Probably more rapid access and better
ways to manipulate data.

Inventing the Term Oceanographical Engineering and Authoring the
Book

Wiegel: As a part of teaching the graduate courses in the first few years,
I did revise and add--

129

Wiegel: --to my class noteswith them gradually approaching the format of
a textbook.

Swent: You developed this out of your courses?

Wiegel: Out of my lecture notes that I had been giving. I would say about
three years of lecture notes. I was asked if I would be willing
to do it. I didn't realize how much work was involved.

Swent: Who asked you?

Wiegel: Prentice Hall, the publishers.

Swent: They came to you?

Wiegel: Yes. They did a very nice job, because I at least had enough

sense to say I wanted it in a large size format with many, many
figures and photographs, and they agreedbut that's an expensive
thing to do.

Swent: How had they heard about you?

Wiegel: I don't know. After I did thatafter it was published, it was

used worldwide. One of the reasons for this I think is: we had a
number of young visiting scholars in the 1950s from many
countries, and because of that, they were familiar with my
lectures and class notes, and later, with the book. The book was
used worldwide as a textbook.

Swent: They took it back home with them?

Wiegel: Yes, and it was used by those who came later for several decades
before it became out of print. It's still in use by consultants
as a reference book. Engineers still tell me how useful it is to
them. Let me back up now. I gradually changed a course that I
inherited when I first started to teach, on the design of
hydraulic structures such as spillways, irrigation, canals and so
forth, into more and more of the water quality and mixing. I
developed really a completely new graduate course in that field,
and for a decade, that was taught only in three universities:
here, at Caltech by Norm Brooks; and at MIT by Don Harleman.
Now, of course, it's taught at many places.

Swent: This term: oceanographical engineering. Was that one that you
invented, or had it been used before?

Wiegel: I invented the term--

130

Swent: That's what I thought.

Wiegel: --and people ask my why. I said, "I was thinking of mechanical

and electrical, so there's oceanography, and so I coined the term
oceanographical' to be the equivalent of mechanical and
electrical." I would have called it coastal and offshore
engineering if I had to do it over.

Swent: Coastal seems to be the term that has

Wiegel: Yes, but it's broader than coastal. I did much in what is called
offshore engineering. That is some of the things needed for the
design of offshore oil platforms. So it was broader, but I coined
it for that reason. I think I did the right thing, but I would
have done it differently.

Swent: This book is referred to as the book that really established this
branch of study.

Wiegel: Yes, that's right. That was worth it. I'm very pleased that it
was done, and of course I would modify many things in it now, but
as far as I know, there's nothing in it that is wrong. I don't
mean there are not mistakes; I corrected a number of mistakes.
When you have a book with hundreds of equations, you're going to
have "y's" without the square in them or something. Those are
just plain mistakestypos and stuff. But as far as the
fundamentals are concerned, it's still correct, I think. Although
I would update it in many ways, life became so busy--I never got a
chance to try to put a later edition, although Prentice-Hall kept
asking me to do so. It was reprinted a number of times with
corrections of the mathematics and so forth. Now I finally got to
today's subject, [laughter]

Swent: All right.

Wiegel: When I got thinking about some of these things it was a week ago
we had the interview, and my mind starts turning over--

Robert L. Wiegel with Mark V Wave Gage, 1949,

Tests of amphibious vehicles, Fort Ord, California, February 1950. Left
to right: Robert L. Wiegel (kneeling), unidentified, Captain Lund, Rear
Admiral Doyle, Morrough P. O'Brien.

Lunch at Spenger's Fish Grotto, Berkeley, California, October
1957. Left to right: Robert L. Wiegel, Hans Albert Einstein, Joe
W. Johnson.

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Dean Emeritus Morrough O'Brien and President Emeritus Clark Kerr at
1987 Symposium in O'Brien's honor at the University of California.
Mrs. Mary O'Brien and Professor Robert L. Wiegel look on.

Photo courtesy College of Engineering Public Affairs Office

Top: ASCE Coastal Engineering Research Council meeting, New York, 1989.
Left to right: Eco Bijker, Ron Noble, Bob Dean, Orville Magoon, Thorn
Saulle, J. A. Battjes, Robert L. Wiegel.
Bottom: Robert L. Wiegel in his UC office, May 1987.

Opening Ceremony, 22nd International Conference on Coastal Engineering,
Delft, The Netherlands, July 2, 1990. Left to right: Egbert Prins,
unidentified, Prince Klaus, Robert L. Wiegel.

131

VI UNIVERSITY ACTIVITIES IN ADDITION TO TEACHING

Director of the State Technical Services Program, 1965-1968

Swent: That's very good, I'm glad you did that. We had planned to talk
today about your activities in university governance.

Wiegel: I'd like to modify the governance a little bit, and expand, just
in terms, some of other activities that the university does for
the benefit of the state and various segments of government and
the general public. The university does many things that are
useful.

One current example is technology transfer. There are
articles, almost on a weekly basis in the popular pressa number
of articles in the technical presson this subject. Technology
transfer is to take new ideas coming out of research and turn them
into products or systems to make life presumably better, or to go
back and rectify mistakes that we made in the past. This is done
on an accelerating basis. We're running now, when we used to walk
on these things.

It's been done ever since research has been done at
universities and has been used under different names. The reason
I chose this, is that more than thirty years ago, the Congress
passed a law on what they call technical services. They call it
the State Technical Services Act. This was technology transfer by
a different word.

Swent: And this is the national Congress.

Wiegel: That's the thing that was passed by Congress. Lyndon Johnson was
president, and when he signed the law, he used something like the
expression maybe this is the "sleeper" of the XXX Congress--!
forget which Congress it was. They all have a consecutive number.
I did the legwork between the university and the governor's office

132

in Sacramento. Governor Pat Brown designated the University of
California as the agency to run it for the state of California.
Clark Kerr was president, and Harry Wellman was the university
vice president. In other words, when Clark Kerr was on a trip,
Harry would be the acting president and so forth. I was asked to
be the director, after being recommended by the dean of
Engineering, George Maslach. I was in their office complex and I
had an office down the hall from them in University Hall. For
three yearsthis was 1965 to 1968--I was the director.

Swent: What was the exact title?

Wiegel: It was called the State Technical Services Program, and the idea
was to develop better means than those that were in existence to
transfer all of this research that was being done at universities
--remember, at the University of California, this also included
the Lawrence Livermore Lab, and many things that were developed
for security projects, but what you would call spin-off to private
uses or public uses. So there were tremendous amounts of this
information; but how to get people to make use of it in better
products or better systems?

I had an advisory council that was set up by President Kerr.
These were very distinguished engineers and scientists mostly,
although there were a couple of other types to add breadth in
public policy and things of this sort. One of the members was
David Packard, the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard. Another was
Bill Gould, who at that time was vice president of Southern
California Edison, and later became the chairman of the board of
Southern California Edison. Another person was Abe Zarem. I
remember him, because he was the founder and inventor of electro-
optical systems. You have heard of Xerox?

Swent : Yes .

Wiegel: There are two parts of Xerox: there's the actual way that the

image is made, but this can't be done without the electro-optical
system to sense everything and tell it what to do. Abe Zarem was
the one who had invented that, and his company was merged with
Xerox, and he ended up owning huge numbers of shares in Xerox. I
think at the time of this, he might have been worththey used to
laugh, "How many millions did you make or lose today while you
were attending this meeting, Abe?" But he wasn't interested in
money except for its use in improving his research facility that
he used to develop new concepts. That's what he was interested
in.

Bob Johnson was another member. At that time, Bob headed up
the aerospace portion of Douglas. Later, Douglas aircraft was

133

bought out by McDonnell, to become McDonnell Douglas Corporation- -
and Bob Johnson ended up corporate vice president for engineering,
and then eventually, the head of all McDonnell-Douglas West Coast
operations, which is their space program, Douglas Aircraft
Corporation. So these were people that had done this sort of
stuff.

We were interested in inventors. What was it that made an
inventor? There aren't many people who are real inventors.
Occasionally you'll read that it's just by chance that people
invent this or that, but it's not that simple. People who are
inventors there' s something different in the way their mind
works. We looked into that.

Swent: What exactly were you doing?

Wiegel: I was the director. One thing I did was to serve as the liaison

between the university and the governor's office, via Hal Walt who
was Deputy Secretary of Finance. Mostly, I would go out; I would
meet people; I would give talks. I should say that I think one
of the reasons why I had been appointed to this was: there was a
San Francisco Bay Area relation with industry committee, and I was
the university representative on it. So I knew many of the people
in the Bay Area of this sort. I think that was one of reasons: I
knew a lot of people. I had a lot of energy, and I've always been
a great reader. I would just read books, journals, magazines,
newspapers, on all kinds of subjects. I got very interested in
entrepreneurmanship and management and financing of businesses and
things of that sort.

At the faculty club at lunch, I would always be talking
about these kind of things, so I thinkyou never know for sure
why anything really happens , but I think those had something to do
with it.

Swent: During those years were you continuing to teach as well?

Wiegel: Oh, yes.

Swent: But you had an office?

Wiegel: I had an office on the seventh floor of University Hall. That's
the building down just to the west of campus at the corner of
University Avenue and Oxford Street.

Swent: Precisely what were you trying to set up? Meetings or courses or
fund-raising?

134

Wiegel: Not fund-raising, no. It was funded, but matching funds were
required by any group who received a contract.

Swent: What were you trying to do?

Wiegel: One of the people was with the Lawrence Livermore Lab. He was a
physicist or electrical engineer, Hy Olken, but he got very
interested in how to take new ideas and turn them into products,
and had been doing a lot of thinking about the subject. We funded
him with a university contract to write a book on this subject:
how he found you could do thismaking use of ideas coming out of
the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. We contacted--! think it was a
contact with Bill Gould, or Bob Johnson in southern California- -a
person down there that made a series of television programs for
public television on people who had done this, to give examples,
to try to encourage other people to do this sort of thing.

But there was just too much direction from Washington. I
think in engineering, it's something like where the client over-
specifies a project, and because of over-specification, it really
denies the engineer designing something to use much judgment about
what to do. This was what they did, in my opinionafter three
years, I recommended that the university no longer continue to run
this in the state, and they accepted my recommendation and dropped
out. A year or two later, the whole thing fell. But a good deal
of it was because of too much interference from Washington, over
specification.

I would like to say I've been on other things since then in
an advisory capacity to committees in Washington. I find that
this is a tendency of people in Washington: that they know what's
best for you, and they want to tell you what to do. This is
especially true in standards and things like that which I've had
some experience in.

Swent: I just can't figure out exactly what it was all about. It sounds
terribly vague to me.

Wiegel: We knew what we wanted to do.
Swent: Which was?

Wiegel: When I say "we," that's editorial "we." We didn't know how to go
about it. We knew bits and pieces.

Swent: You were trying to speed up this transfer?

Wiegel: Trying to speed it up. Of course, it probably had nothing to do
with what we did, but in the Silicon Valley today, this sort of

135

stuff is done routinely with a speed that's almost mind-boggling,
as I think you know. So there are people that know how to do it.
But there are the inventors, and the entrepreneurs. The
entrepreneur- -and you will be talking to an entrepreneur in a few
weeks that's Orville Magoon--they don't give up; they try this,
they try that. If something failsor it may not fail; it just
isn't successfulthey don't quit. They go on. They work on that
again, they may work on a modification. So you have got the
concept, the idea, but you have to match with it these other
people that can and do push.

Then the hardest thing is trying to judge what people might
want, or they may not even know they want it. Now, you market it,
and get them to see why they might like to have it. So what we
wanted to do was fairly clear-cut; how to do it was what we were
all struggling with. We made some headway, but I think you'll
still find out today that people still don't know too much about
why this one person seems to be an inventor, and the next thirty
people are not inventors.

Swent: I'm still unclear. This commission was it a commission or
council that were you chairman of?

Wiegel: I was the director for the state of California, and I was to go

out and search for ideas, for people, not to transfer the product,
but how this is done; how it can be done, not to do it. The wish
for more/better technology transfer keeps coming back in. I
forget what they call it in Washington, D.C., now. President
Clinton and Vice President Gore were pushing it to put some money
into developing things that might turn into new products and this
and that. This is the top-down thing, and it doesn't seem to work
very well. You need this one person here: somebody that gets an
idea, and then somebody that will work with them and push, push,
push.

So the concept the ideawhat we were trying to do was a
good one, but it went up and then came down. Now it's back in
fashion again. As I said, the state's got an advisory council in
technology transfer. Good luck. [laughter]

Swent: So that was something you did for three years?
Wiegel: Yes, on a part-time basis.

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Attending Meetings of the California Coordinating Council for
Higher Education

Swent: That's quite a while.

Wiegel: But I also taught my courses at the same time; I had my graduate
students. I had my research contracts. I've always worked long
hours. As part of that, I had to attend a few meetings of the
California Coordinating Council for Higher Education, and on a
couple of occasions, make reports to them. Remember this was a
program for the state of California, and the Coordinating Council
consisted of the president of the University of California, the
president of Stanford, the president of USC, the chancellor of the
California state college systems, and the head of the community
college systems. I forget the others, but it was the overall body
that coordinated higher education in the state of California.

Swent: Very important.

Wiegel: I found, being able to attend several of those sessions and to

report to them a couple of times, that this was very interesting.
I learned a lot about how the state's higher education worked. In
governance, a lot of it is because of people talking to each
other. In fact, I've given quite a bit of thought to how
universities govern. It's very different than the military, which
I know quite well. It's very different from most corporations,
and so many old, large corporations were set up under the model of
the military, as you well know. Very different from government
agencies, where you have got the chief executive, you have got the
commander, you have got the director, and they tell people what to
do. At universities, you don't. You may try, but it doesn't get
you anywhere.

Swent: You can try.

Wiegel: So governance is really through committees, and meetings, and
selling. Ideas are going up, ideas are coming down, ideas are
going sideways. In the higher education system in California, the
fact that you had the people like the president of the university
of California, the president of Stanford, the chancellor of the
state collegesthey all talked and worked with each other. You
try to get rid of friction. This state, I think, is wonderful.
The idea of community colleges where people can live at home and
go to school at the advanced level for the first two years--
because as you know, when you go to college, if you have to live
away from home, this costs a lot of money, and if you can have in
most communities a school where you can take your first two years

137

and not have this expense of boarding outthis worked,
it still is a very good community college system.

I assume

Then you had your state colleges, which were four years; the
derivative of the old state normal school that were at the turn of
the century for training teachers, but then became much more like
universities in that you take many different subjects, so you can
go to a state college. Practically every big city had a state
college. San Francisco State, Fresno, Los Angeles, Long Beach,
San Diego. We have many; and these are fine institutions. Then
you had the University of California which had the undergraduate
programs, but also had the graduate programs and the medical
schools and the law schools and things of this sort.

Swent: When were you on this council?

Wiegel: No. I attended some

Swent: You attended

Wiegel: Yes, President Kerr was on the council.

Swent: When were you attending, working with them

Wiegel: That was in 1965 to 1968, when I was the director of the state
technical services.

Swent: And the state master plan for education was

Wiegel: It was in existence.

Swent: But it wasn't very old. It had been

Wiegel: No, they had just started it.

Swent: That was--I have the date here somewhere.

Wiegel: It was just before that, because Clark Kerr was one of the

architects for it. I forgetwas Wallace Sterling the president
of Stanford?

Swent: I think so.

Wiegel: I think it was Sterling.

Swent: So they were still kind of working through that?

Wiegel: That's right.

138

Swent: An interesting time to be there.

Wiegel: For me it was very interesting. As I said, I became absolutely
sold on the way the state of California was doing this.

Swent: You were taking reports from your task force?

Wiegel: I had to report to the council on a couple of occasions because it
was a project for the state of California. The University of
California had been delegated the responsibility.

I've always been interested in what makes entrepreneurs and
things of this sort, and how you get new products. People say,
"Gosh, all these committee meetings and all of these things are a
terrible waste of time and a terrible waste of money." Well, it
certainly takes time, and it certainly takes money, and there's
undoubtedly time and money wasted, but I don't think there's an
alternative to it. I don't see how you can have a university
operate without this.

University Organization More Like a Symphony Than a Business

Wiegel: In fact, I used to semi- joke that when chancellors are looking for
faculty, they always want somebody of independent thoughts, and
then they go through this big search program, and they choose a
faculty member and then another, and these have been chosen for
their independence. Then the chancellors want to get something
done, and they find out they can't because these people are too
darned independent . In most companies , you hire people to work as
teams. In a university, you don't. You don't hire a team of
professors. You hire this one, this one, and this one.

Somebody once said that the concept in industry and the
military where there's a commander, a chief executive, and five
people report to this person, and each of these have three or four
report to them and so forth- -he said, "That may be all right, but
then there's other kinds of organizations like a symphony. Can
you imagine the conductor conducting, and it's the only the lead
violinist, the lead horn player, the lead tymbalist watching him,
and then three or four other people watch each of these? You
wouldn't have much of a symphony."

Swent: That's true.

Wiegel: Only whoever it was expressed it much better. But in some ways
the university is like that. In some ways, the head of the

139

university must be simply like a conductor of a symphony. He's
got to see, hear these nuances and modifications and reflections
off the walls every single place you give a symphony. In every
single building the acoustics are different. It's different with
people in it; it's different in the summer than in the winter,
because in the winter people are dressed heavier. I'm not joking;
this affects the acoustics. Somehow, a university is kind of like
that, and it's not easy to get it to run.

Swent: No, it isn't.

Wiegel: But that's part of governance; that's the way it's done.
Swent: It's critical for it, isn't it?
II

Wiegel: One example of a mechanism to help the universitythere' s a

university-wide governance, and remember there are the several
campuses, which I think of as independent dukedoms. You call the
duke a chancellor, but in some ways it's similar to the days of
old. But there's university-wide governance, and this is more
difficult.

The Engineering Advisory Council Develops a Master Plan, 1965

Swent: This is sort of like your violin sections.

Wiegel: Yes, that's right. One of the ways they do it, is the president
of the university has to get inputs and advice. They get it
through the university academic senate statewide--! think it's
called the Academic Council or something. But there also was the
Engineering Advisory Council set up by Robert Gordon Sproul, and
continued by Clark Kerr when he became president, and this
consisted of a number of distinguished engineers throughout the
state from industry, universities, state colleges, representatives
of community college.

Perry Yates--and those are the early dayshe was the senior
vice president of Bechtel Corporation, and he was the number-two
person to Mr. Bechtel at that time. Not young Steve, who's now
retired also, but old Mr. Bechtel. Perry Yates was really the
number-two person and he chaired the Engineering Advisory Council
when Kerr was president of the university. Much earlier, George
C. Tenney was chairman (1949- ); he became president of the
book publisher McGraw-Hill. They were good friends of Mike

140

O'Brien. One of the things that President Kerr asked the Advisory
Council to do was to consider what should be done in the
university system for engineering, because remember, these new
campuses were coming. Until after World War II, for example, to
get your engineering degree, you had to come to Berkeley the last
two years. You could do your first two years to UCLA, and I
believe your first two years for a while at UC Davis after it
became broader than an agricultural experiment station. At the
end of World War II, of course, UCLA developed into a four-year
college and not too many years later, Davis did too. Then other
campuses were coming on--UC Irvine, San Diego, Santa Cruz,
Riverside.

So they did a lot of thinking, and they came up with a
report which was called An Engineering Master Plan Study for the
University of California. This was September of 1965. I have a
copy here.

Swent: This is a beautiful gold-bound book.

Wiegel: It's a beautiful gold-bound book. It's 177 pages.

Swent: A big report.

Wiegel: They had a lot of input from faculty on the different campuses,

and also what became known as the Lawrence National Laboratories.
A lot of these recommendations were implemented.

Swent: Were they?

Wiegel: Yes. I went back to look at one chapter last night. The one on
continuing education, which is engineering extension. Much of
what they recommended has been implemented. Some of the things
were not, and reading them, I think should be. I think they gave
very good advice. But that's part of governance in this symphonic
way of looking at things. Ideas flowing in all directions.

Swent: One of the questions that I asked someone recently was whether

this advisory council was still used, and evidently, it isn't used
at all now.

Wiegel: It could be.

Swent: It doesn't even meet once a year. I'm not sure if it even still
exists. Those are some stellar names on that list.

Wiegel: Well, I think you have a lot of background in mining. One of the
members was Phil Bradley, who was "Mr. Mines" in the state of

California for decades. He was a real hard-bitten outdoors mining
type. I remember him very well.

Swent: A great lover of Cal.

Wiegel: They all were.

Swent: I think this advisory council doesn't really--

Wiegel: Doesn't each campus have one of their own now?

Swent: I'm not sure about that--

Wiegel: I'm not sure, either.

Swent: --but I did ask recently and was told that they no longer meet.

Wiegel: This study is a good study.

Swent: I think that council also served as liaison between the university
and industry.

Wiegel: Oh, yes. Ideas were flowing in all directions: industry and
government agencies and other educational institutions too.
Another way that it is handled is through internal institutes and
things of this sort. I give one example because I mentioned it
before just briefly, "California and the Use of the Ocean," and it
is an IMR report [The Institute of Marine Resources].

Member of The Institute of Marine Resources Executive Committee,
1966-1972

Swent: What was your role in all of this?

Wiegel: I will mention it just shortly. It was established in the
university. It's kind of like the Water Resources Center,
established really because the state legislature had become
convinced that the state needed a Marine Resources Institute.
This is- -fisheries, for example; fisheries are extremely
important. Not only commercial fisheries, but sport fishing and
things of this sort. Then the fact that cities along the oceans
would discharge their wastes, agriculture waste goes into rivers,
rivers into estuaries. All of these things. So Roger Revelle--
people had listened to him and heard him, and people in the state
legislature decided that the state of California needed an

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institute of this sort that was broad-based, and went ahead and
established it with a certain amount of funding.

The idea is : you then get research contracts and things like
that to do the real in-depth work. There would be enough to fund
a director and so forth. President Kerr's office established an
executive committee for it.

Swent: Were you involved with this?

Wiegel: Yes. Bill Nierenberg, who was director of Scripps, was a member.
I was a member representing Berkeley. The dean of engineering at
UCLA was on it. The chair of it was retired navy Rear Admiral
Charles Wheelock. Wheelock had been--just before he retired-
inspector general for the Bureau of Ships of the navy. A very
fine person. Roger Revelle talked him into coming to Scripps
after he retired as a rear admiral. Officially, he was acting
director of this new institute from when it was founded--! think
1954 to "57--and then director for another five or six years. But
unofficially, he was filled in as Roger Revelle 's person that
really ran Scripps administratively.

Roger was the idea person scientifically, but as Roger said,
he was not a good administrator. Admiral Wheelock was a superb
administrator. When I was on the executive committee for the
institute, Admiral Wheelock was chairman of the executive
committee for the institute. I got to know him very well. He
worked on other things in addition to this --he worked a lot with
Clark Kerr and Harry Wellman in the physical planning for the new
San Diego campus. How many acres did you need? Where might be
the best place? What portion of it should be dedicated to
teaching facilities? What kind of housing for students? These
things. Then Charles retired from that area, and moved up to
Carmel, and later on to Aptos. He also worked with Kerr and
Wellman on the physical planning for the Santa Cruz campus. So he
added a lot to it, and he was a very, very fine administrator. I
remember one thing about him: he would ask me, "What time is it,
Bob?"

I would look and tell him, and finally I said, "Admiral
Wheelock, why don't you ever wear a wristwatch?"

He said, "Bob, my whole career in the navy was controlled to
the second. When I retired, I took my watch off, and have not
worn one since." [laughter]

I don't remember how long I was on that, but I remember the
director of the institute at that time was Benny Schaefer, a
professor of fisheries. He was one of these very broad-based

143

people too. He knew a lot about biology, but he knew a lot about
economics, he knew a lot about commercial fishermen, who were
about as hard-hitting and independent group of people as exist in
this world. He served for two years as science advisor to Morris
Udall when Udall was Secretary of the Interior, so Benny knew his
way around.

He served with Udall for two years just prior to becoming
director of the Institute of Marine Resources. What we did in the
executive committee- -we tried to work out what type of work should
be done on which campus. To match the capabilities of people on
different campuses, and then how to distribute the few funds that
were available through the state, but then also to encourage these
people to get research contracts. So we did a lot of that. Benny
died and we needed a new director, and maybe because I was the
person furthest away from Scripps, Vice President Wellman asked me
to be chair of the search committee for that.

We made a completenot just national, but international
search for a director. We ended up with a person who was down
there: John Isaacs. Isaacs is the only person I have known well
that I really consider to be a genius. I know an awful lot of
very smart people, but John Isaacshe died a few years ago he
would just see how things worked and why. Then he'd look at you
and wonder why you couldn't see it also. He would see these
things, and sometimes they were wrong, but very often they were
right and they were new. Then professors or graduate students
would work on these things for one, two, three years, and finally
be able to find, formally, why what he saw was a truism- -why it
was. He was really quite a remarkable person. He was always very
interesting.

Swent: I see that was in 1970 and '71 that you were doing that.

Wiegel: Schaefer died in July, 1970. That's right. We spent probably
six, seven months searching for a director. John Isaacs would
have come aboard probably in 1971 or earlier. The institute is
still in existence, and still university-wide, but it's governed
by this way of talking to each other regularly. I was going back
through some of my records, and it's kind of interesting, but the
last job that I did outside of my teaching and so forth just
before I retired--! was asked to be the chair of the five-year
review of the Institute of Marine Resources. It was kind of
interesting. Years after I had served on the executive committee
to go down and have to interview everybody.

By then there was an assistant director at Davis, one here
at Berkeley, one at Santa Cruz, one at Riverside, one at UCLA, one
at Santa Barbara. I found that really interesting. I jumped back

144

in, and learned all over again what they were doing. They were
doing lots of good work. It's a mechanism that had worked.

Swent: Just to get the dates right: you were on that executive committee
from 1966 to '72. That was six years.

Wiegel: That's probably about right.

Swent: And the search committee was 1970 to '72, and then the review
committee was in 1987. Almost twenty years later.

Wiegel: Almost twenty years later.

Swent: From 1966 to 1987. In that time, it had grown from one location
to many.

Wiegel: It was every place.
Swent: Every place.

Wiegel: I said, Riverside. Why Riverside? They have a lot of pretty good
agricultural people and things like that out there, so my guess is
that may have been the reason. Davis was straightforward because
that was food- -fish- -how you process food. You notice how fast
the oils in fish change to where you don't--! remember asking a
famous fisheries person at Scripps--because I did a lot of
overseas traveling, and I would be in the Philippines, or New
Guinea, or in the airport- -about eating things. He said, "Not
shellfish, but you can eat fish, because if fish has gone bad, you
can smell it. You won't want to eat it." You don't eat the guts;
I always remember that. So when I go to these type of places, it
would be fish and yogurtthose are the two things--

Swent: Always safe.

Wiegel: --that seem to be safe.

Swent: That must have been very gratifying.

Wiegel: It was. Remember, I've always had a lot to do with the oceans --
we'll find out more about this a little later when we go into
professional activities and so forthbut this is why I was asked
to serve on it. Not just coastal, but I was very interested in
shipping and such off-shore things as waste disposal, water
quality. All these things tied in, you see, with fisheries.

145

Service on Coordinating Boards and Academic Senate Committees

Wiegel: Another one I was on was the coordinating board for the Water

Resources Center. That was from 1982 to 1987, when I retired. In
my last year I served as chair of the search committee for the new
chair of the Water Resources Center, who reported to the
university vice president for agriculture. I was also on the Sea
Grant Coordinating Council. Sea Grant was established by act of
Congress. They got a lot of research money, but it's not only
research; they want peoplein a manner somewhat similar to the
agricultural extension servicethere was a fisheries extension
service to get out and work with commercial fisherman and people
like that. This is state by state. Texas has a big program going
on; Oregon has a fairly good-sized program; Washington on the
fisheries; California on the fisheries. Fisheries is important.

Swent: What was your role in that?

Wiegel: I was on the university's Coordinating Council from 1970-1974;

this was appointed by Vice President Harry Wellman, and reported
to him. It was to set up how the university would handle the
various proposals that were made for funding from Washington under
the Sea Grant Act, because that was funded by Congress, and then
it was handled under NOAA- -National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration. Bob White was the administrator of NOAA. That's
within the Department of Commerce. Part of it was because Bob
White had been the head of the U.S. Weather Bureau, and the
weather came under NOAA. The United States Coast and Geodetic
Survey became a part of it. That's now called--! don't know what
name they have it nowthey did all the hydrographic surveying.
Bathymetric surveys for navigation and things of that sort.

There was a rear admiral who was director of the survey
Admiral Nygren. Much of the fisheries were and incidentally, at
one stage, Bob White did ask me a couple of time to see if I would
become the assistant director of NOAA for the marine laboratories,
but I talked it over with the family, and we didn't want to move
to Washington, D.C. It would have been a very interesting job,
but I didn't really want to move to Washington, D.C., either.
It's hard to move from Berkeley. I like to go places. I go all
the time, but not to move. So there were all these things, and
they all kind of inter- tied together.

There was the way the research would be done, where teaching
would be done, and I was kind of a liaison amongst these things
because for one reason or another, I happened to have been
appointed to a number of them at that time, which tied into other

146

committees I was on in Washington. I think that was part of the
reason.

I think I mentioned another governance activity- -during the
late 1960s and early 1970s--when all the unrest that we hadboth
student and a number of faculty- -and some of the faculty were
trying to get the R.O.T.C. off campus. Incidentally, it is off
campus at Stanford and Princeton and other places. But the
regents said, "This is a regential matter, not a faculty matter.
You will have it." So we have it to this day. It was when Al
Bowker became chancellor- -he established an advisory committee on
military education I think I've mentioned this before.

Swent: Just briefly, but we didn't go into detail.

Wiegel: So a good deal of it is done through faculty, because all members
of that advisory are members of the faculty. Originally, we
reported directly to the chancellor, but because the chancellor
can really have only so many things reporting directly to the
chancellor, currently, we report to Carol Christ, who's the vice
chancellor, but also provost of Letters and Science. I think we
report to her, not just because she's the vice chancellor, but
because she's the provost, and then at the same time, report to
her as the vice chancellor. But I did go into ROTC before, and
why I think it's important and so forth.

I didn't mention that as a part of this, a couple of us are
also members of this advisory group on the Fleet Admiral Nimitz
Memorial Lectures in National Security Affairs, and I'm still
active on that. That was funded by donations. The group raised
almost a half a million dollars, I think, in a few months. The
money is in escrow, or whatever the university agency is that
manages accounts. It keeps building up and up. The first lecture
was given by Samuel Huntington of Harvard University. I mention
that because Huntington just had a new book published recently
that I read. I bought it and read it when I was out it Hawaii.
It's called The Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of World
Order. This has been highly recommended by the New York Times .
The Wall Street Journal, Forbes magazine. A variety of people
have said it's good, and it is. It's very good. He's certainly
pessimistic, thoughmore so than me.

Swent: He was the first?

Wiegel: Yes. After that, we had a former secretary of the navy, John
Lehman .

Swent: When was the first lecture? Do you know?

147

Wiegel: 1986. It's been a decade. Incidentally, the one coming in April
is four-star Admiral "Snuffy" Smith, who has just retired as the
head of naval operations in the Mediterranean; which includes the
NATO operations in Yugoslavia. We're looking forward to his
lectures in April. He said he will address the Yugoslavian
situation.

Swent: So are these speakers always

Wiegel: And another was secretary of the air force, Hans Markhe had been
professor of nuclear engineering at Berkeley back in the 1950s.
Then Admiral Bobby Inman, the famous Inman of the national
security affairs. Another was General John Galvin, who had just
retied as Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (NATO).

Swent: So these are always military people?

Wiegel: No. We had a U.S. congressperson. Huntington is a professor.
We've had two professors of history, Huntington being one. So
it's a mix. These are public lectures. Open- -everybody invited.
But in addition, they always give lectures to the ROTC students--
the navy, the air force, and the army--to try to get across to
them ideas and give these people the opportunity in asking
questions of ones who have really done it. A four-star, or a
secretary of one of the services, or a congressperson who had been
the head of a related committee. It's a very good opportunity,
and of course it's good for the community because people from all
over can come and listen to these lectures.

Swent: This is every year?

Wiegel: Every year. So you see, this is another way of governance. It's,
again, ideas up and down and back and forth all the time. Deans
O'Brien and Whinnery and Maslach, all encouraged faculty to
participate in the academic senate; especially on the committee
work. I did this throughout my career.

Swent: You did a lot of it.

Wiegel: I did a lot of it. As you know, a year after I retired, I was
asked to be secretary of the Academic Senate, which I accepted.
But I resigned the position--

Wiegel: I had a major operation; I didn't get my energy back, and I became
completely deaf in one ear, and lost the balance control from one
inner ear, and also I found the job wasn't all that interesting.

148

I had got much more interested in the professional fields again:
engineering.

Swent: I was going to ask: is this unusual for an officer of the senate
to be a retired professor?

Wiegel: I was chairman of the committee of rules and jurisdictions at one
time, and thirty years ago I could have answered you about that.
I knew the by-laws of the regents, I knew the directions that the
regents had given, I knew the by-laws of the Academic Senate, and
the answer is: it's someplace in there, yes, you can be. But I
forget exactly why.

Swent: I would guess this might be quite an honor to be asked?

Wiegel: Oh, yes, it was. I was pleased to do it, but as I said, I

unfortunately had this serious medical problem. It took quite a
while to recuperate. I think I mentioned earlier two of the
committees on continuing education- -the one on extension of the
Berkeley senate, and another one for the university-wide
extension, which was--I chaired the Berkeley campus committee, and
then for a few years I chaired the university-wide committee.
This was the working relationship between the full-time academic
people on campusesthe Berkeley campus committee was just
Berkeley, but the university-wide one was for all campuses
including the medical schools and so forthand how you got
information flowing and back and forth between people who are
regular faculty, but were willing and able to give these courses
in extension, as well as others.

Sometimes extension courses are given by regular faculty
members; other times they're not. For example, the ones so
successful in San Francisco and the Peninsula in computer science-
-very often these are given by the people down in the Silicon
Valley that are doing all these things right now. Yet, they're
willing to take the time to give these courses at night and on
weekends for other people, to upgrade or update them. It's a
wonderful activity. That's part of the governance: through these
academic senate committees.

Swent: That would fit in with your technology transfer.

Wiegel: That would fit in with technology transfer, because it is idea
transfer. Isn't that what education is about? Ideas; not only
transfer, but questioning ideas.

Swent: That's right.

149

Wiegel: I remember seeing a bumper sticker: "Who are you to tell me to
question authority?" [laughter]

Swent : That ' s a good one .

Wiegel: That's a Berkeley- type of sticker.

Swent: You were chairman of the university extension...

Wiegel: It's the Academic Senate Committee.

Swent: Starting in 1965 and then from 1966 to '72, you were chairman of
the university-wide committee.

Wiegel: Yes. That's the one that was very broad, because that's where we
also worked with the people at UC San Francisco, UCLA, and so
forth. The medical schools have done a great job, as you know.
Thank goodness doctors keep up to date. Most people seem to
realize that this is necessary for doctors, but of course it's
just as necessary for engineers, and for people in any other
activity--business--any other professions.

Swent: Teachers certainly.

Wiegel: You have got to keep up to date with all this new information.
This is what is done through these extension activities. The
university has done a very good job. But in addition, they have
these wonderful broadening things in the humanities, and the arts,
and things of this sort. It's all self-supporting. I don't know
about the medical school; I have to be careful, because I don't
know. But all the other programs have to be self-supporting. Not
each individual one, but in the aggregate. You may make a profit
in this one, and you may lose in this one, but in the aggregate
they have to be self-supporting. I'd just like to thank all these
people who are willing to teach these courses because they don't
make much money. It's almost a public service on the part of the
people who give them.

Swent : What a wonderful one .

Wiegel: A wonderful one.

Swent: So you clearly enjoyed that very much.

Wiegel: I thoroughly enjoyed that.

Swent: You were also on the committee for rules and jurisdiction, and
that, again, went to the university-wide one.

150

Wiegel: Yes. That was a surprise. I was asked to chair the Berkeley

committee, and I wondered, "An engineer?" I thought it would be a
professor of law or something. Incidentally, the dean of the law
school was on the committee. Anyhow, I was asked to do it, and I
also was parliamentarian of the senate for a while.

Swent : Yes .

Wiegel: It wasn't until many years later that I found out the famous book
used by so many parliamentarians, Robert's Rules of Order, was
written by an Army Corps of Engineers officer 130 or 140 years
ago, by the name of Henry Robert. He eventually became chief of
engineers, retired about 1900, and shortly after he retired, he
chaired the consulting board that came up with the plans to
rehabilitate Galveston, Texas. In September of 1900, there had
been a terrible hurricane that killed about six thousand people
and destroyed somewhere around thirty-six hundred buildings. They
always talk about the Galveston seawall; well, it was more than
thatit was the Galveston grade-raising, seawall, and revetment.
They recommended that part of Galveston Island, where the
buildings were, be raised by ten feet or something like that,
using sand dredged from Galveston Bay. People always talk about
the seawall; they never seem to know that the seawall was largely
to protect this raised material that had been placed. He was
quite perceptive. I'm sorry that General Robert was not asked to
make plans at a number of other places at the same time, and use
the same concept.

So I guess the engineers can work well in rules,
jurisdiction and parliamentary procedures. One thing is: the
committee on rules and jurisdiction did not havethat is, the
Berkeley campus, did not have much power. The statewide one did.

Swent: You went on to be on that for a long time.

Wiegel: Yes. But the Berkeley campus committee, by design, did not. This
was not oversight, but design. But we were asked questions by
many people. We did our homework well; we did a lot of work.

Swent: You were on that statewide committee for fifteen years.

Wiegel: Was it that long?

Swent: From 1976 to '77, and '78 to '81.

Wiegel: That's five or six years. I went on sabbatical, I think or
something, during fall '77- '78. I was chair of the Berkeley
Committee from 1968-1970, and then 1975 to 1981, except fall of

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1977, and on the university-wide committee during the 1976
interval.

Swent: I'm sorry; five years.

Wiegel: But because we did our homework--

Swent: But before that, you were on the--

Wiegel: Yes. --almost all of our recommendations of the Berkeley
committee were accepted by the people involved.

Swent: What were some of them?

Wiegel: I can't remember. Lots of them were pretty sensitive anyhow, but
I can't remember the details.

Swent: I wish you could.

Wiegel: It would be like: who would have voting rights in departments;
would an adjunct professor be able to vote on this or vote on
that; what rights do assistant professors have, or do they have
any when a promotion of someone to full professor is being judged?
These kind of things. Lots of things like that. Many of them
would be individual things, but as I said, we did our homework,
and almost always our advice was accepted.

Swent: You reported to the senate?

Wiegel: We reported to the senate, yes. Certain things, if they required
action by the senate- -maybe somebody said, "We don't think this
senate rule is right"--then we would write a motion to bring
before the senate, and then the senate would make a decision if
they were going to change something. Those are all buried in
academic senate minutes one place or another. I did learn
something there very well: you need a good minutes of senate
meetings because very often the question would be, "What was the
intent of the senate when they approved this?"

Here you have a bare-bone one-sentence motion that was
passed, debated, and all this and that; but then somebody said,
"What was the intent, because I don't think it applies to this,
and I don't think it applies that." So we would dig into the
minutes, and we always wished they had been more thorough. They
were pretty good, but there often seemed to be something missing
about the intent. It was what one professor might have said, and
that kind of swung the vote.

Swent : Then the next important one was the committee on committees .

152

Wiegel: That is the only elected committee of the academic senate, and is
for two years. I think of Herb Caen, because he died just
recently, but some years ago he had what he thought was a very
humorous little tidbit about the fact that the Berkeley senate had
a committee on committees. He liked that. He said, "Only at Cal
would they have a committee on committees." Of course, it was the
committee the entire senate membership elected by secret ballot,
and the committee on committees is the one that then appointed all
other committees of the academic senate. This includes the budget
committee, the graduate council which had graduate affairs, the
committee on courses of instruction which reviews all courses. So
courses, faculty, committee on graduation standards. All of these
things.

That's the gut of governance of the academic part of the
campus. All of these are appointed by the committee on
committees, and the chancellor would always ask the committee for
names of faculty to serve on chancellor's committees, or the five-
year review committee of departments, or organized research units
and so forth. I remember most everybody that was elected was
broad based and well known, because otherwise, they wouldn't have
got elected. They were for two-year terms. Marion Diamond was a
member and John Whinnery was a member when I was on it, 1982-1984.

Swent: That's the key committee.

Wiegel: We were really conscientious on this, but we also had a lot of

input from the secretary of the academic senate, who at that time
was Milton Chernin. He was a retired dean of the School of Social
Welfare, and he was an extremely knowledgeable person. We had to
find out not only what people could do, and most of us would know
this , but they would know the ones that seemed to be willing to
serve in committees. But sometimes you had to twist arms. We all
twisted arms of individuals to get them to serve. It's
unfortunate, but not a great number of people are willing to serve
on these things, but they're sure willing to complain when
something goes against what they would like to see done.

I used to be very blunt: "Put up, or shut up. If you're not
willing to serve, then don't come complaining if some committee
makes decisions that you don't agree with." This is how we govern
ourselves.

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The Most Difficult Year; Acting Dean. 1972-1973

Wiegel: Back then, the new chancellor was Albert Bowker and the dean of

engineering was George Maslach at that time, and Bowker asked him
to become one of the two provosts; one was for the College of
Letters and Sciences, the other was for professional schools. I
was asked to serve as acting dean, and I did this in 1972 and
1973, but I still taught my graduate courses. I could drop the
undergraduate course, but I taught the graduate courses.

I was supervising five Ph.D. theses. I was principle
investigator on a couple of research contracts. I was on the
University Sea Grant Coordinating Council, which I mentioned
earlier, the Chancellor's Executive Committee on the Earthquake
Research Center, the Board of Directors of the Faculty Club--in
fact I was president for one of the yearsand I had just become
the founding president of the International Engineering Committee
on Oceanic Resources, which I had been working to get going for
three years, and which was and is advisory to UNESCO. I was on
the Governor's California Advisory Commission on Marine and
Coastal Resources, which is the predecessor to the Coastal
Commission. I was an ex officio member of the National Research
Council's Marine Board. I was vice chair of two ASCE units: the
executive committee of the waterways and harbors division, and the
coastal engineering research council. Both of which I became
chair of a little later.

Swent: Those were terribly busy times.

Wiegel: I inherited several personnel problems that had to be resolved
which I did.

Swent: In the dean's office?

Wiegel: In the dean's office. These were not told to me in advance.
The budget cuts had started, so suddenly there was less money
also. That had nothing to do with the personnel matters; this was
separate. Fortunately, the college had good staff --and still
does --including Dave Brown, who was the budget and facilities
planning officer in the office of the dean. He retired only last
year. He was very good, and all of the rest of them were.

Also, the great help of our secretary (later an

administrative assistant) in the hydraulics groups, Mabel Iwamoto,
should be recognized. My handouts and other classwork was always
taken care of to help me in giving my courses. I think I have
already mentioned someplace the accolades President Kerr has given

154

to some university administrative assistants. Dave Brown and
Mabel Iwamoto are of that caliber.

Swent: Where was the dean's Office at that time?

Wiegel: On the third floor of O'Brien Hall. It wasn't set up like it is
now; a little different. The staff is now bigger, and things of
that sort. But the department chairs were all very good. One of
them, incidentallythe chair of electrical engineering, Tom
Everhart--is currently president of Caltech. That gives you an
idea of --when I said the chairs were pretty good, they were very
good.

It was a very hard year. In hindsight, I should not have
taken it. It was a terrible overload. I was always a team
player, but, boy!

I read John Whinnery's oral history again, and John said
that when he became dean, Fred Terman--who had been dean at
Stanford, and then provost at Stanfordtold him never to take a
problem to bed with him, but John said that Fred never told him
how he could do this. I never had that problem of taking problems
to bed, but on the other hand, I don't think I got much sleep that
year, so I don't think there was anything I could do about it.

Swent: That was 1971, you said?

Wiegel: It was 1972 to '73, I think. It was in the early 1970s I know. I
also had good advice from several senior faculty, particularly
Earl Parker and Harmer Davis; both of whom John Whinnery
mentioned. But also John Whinnery. So when I had some tricky
things I would go talk to these three--! knew them all well.

Swent: You had a young family at that time too?

Wiegel: Yes. We always liked to ski. I don't think we got to ski much
that year. I suspect we didn't get up to ski. We like to ski,
and in the summer we used to go up to Tuolomne Meadows in Yosemite
and camp. I'm sure that we went camping. We've always liked the
outdoors.

I remember one of the things Harmer Davis told me: "Bob,
there are some problems that you can solve, and there are other
problems that you can only cope with." Just last month I read the
book by Henry Kissinger called Diplomacy, and of course on a very
much higher level, Dr. Kissinger said he learned that there were
some problems you could solve, but many you could just cope with.
What is the term the British use? "Muddling through." You
couldn't solve them! That's all there is to it. So what do you

155

do when you can't solve a problem? It won't go away; you just
kind of hope it might. But there are things you can't solve.

Swent: Americans love to try to solve everything.

Wiegel: I remember reading, years ago, about it was a joint venture, but
I think it was largely Britishit was in the end of the last
century. A cable across the Atlantic from some place in the
British Isles to Canada and then down to the U.S. had been
installed. Some of the great physicists in the U.K. were working
on the transmission problem, and of course, you had in the U.S.,
people that were also on it: Thomas Edison on transmission; the
telephone transmission by Bell. There was a proposal in Britain
to put a cable from London across the Continent, across the
Mediterranean, Arabia, then all the way to India. So the foreign
office in London could be in almost instantaneous contact with the
representative of the queen in India. Only it wasn't proposed by
the foreign office; it was proposed by some entrepreneurs who
thought it was a good thing.

The story that I read some place was the foreign office
turned it down. They said that one of the great advantages of the
present system was: a letter comes from the viceroy, or whatever
they call the person, in Indiacomes by packet ship to London; we
read it, discuss it, and send an answer back by packet ship to
India, and by then the problem's resolved and our bad advice will
not have to be taken.

You asked a little bit about departments. When O'Brien was
dean, there was only one department in engineering; it was the
department of engineering. O'Brien was dean of the college of
engineering and chairman of the department of engineering. Then
there were a number of divisions: mechanical engineering,
electrical, civil. But in the transition from O'Brien to
Whinnery, the chancellor established departments.

This is very important in governance because in the by-laws
of the regents, the department faculty are the ones that have
certain responsibilities and certain authority. Kerr wanted to
have more than one engineering department, a number of them. This
has been well covered in John Whinnery 's, so I won't go into that.

Swent: I was wondering how it affected you, though?
Wiegel: Well, you mean as a faculty member?
Swent: Yes.

156

Wiegel: I don't know, except that one time, O'Brien saidright at the
end--I had been in mechanical engineering; it wasn't civil
engineering; I was, and still am, a licensed mechanical engineer
he decided that if you dealt with water as water, you're going to
be in civil engineering, if you were in steam--if you boiled it or
froze it, you stayed in mechanical- -that was air conditioning,
refrigeration, and steam. That's my only personal experience.
But the most important experience I had with respect to this was
when I was acting dean. A report had been made by a committee-
Don Pederson was chair of the committeebecause there was a
department of computer science in the College of Letters and
Science, but in the department of electrical--! guess at that
time, it was known as electrical and electronics engineering, but
that was where hardware was being developed for computers.

A lot of software concepts were developed in the Letters and
Science department; software was also developed by people in
different engineering, physics, and chemistry groups developing
their own programs. All kinds of people were working on it.
Anyhow, this committee report by Pederson recommended that there
should not be two places that this is really taught ; that the
combination of hardware and software affects the architecture of
the hardware. It would be better if the diverse group of faculty
talked to each other and worked together. I read the report; it
made a lot of sense. I discussed it with the department chairman,
Tim Everhart, and then recommended to the chancellor that this be
done. Bowker acted on the report and recommendations. The
department in Letters and Science was disestablished and the
department in electrical engineering expanded it ' s called
electrical engineering and computer science: EECS now. There's a
big building for electrical engineering, Cory Hall, but the new
one, Soda Hall, is almost all computer stuff. The one across
Hearst Avenue. Of course, this was the proper thing to do.

The report was right, the actions taken were right. It has
been very important. Since then, I believe, MIT, Stanford, and
others have combined their departments too.

Swent: Was this a difficult decision to make?

Wiegel: No, not to make; it might have been to implement. Bowker is a

very strong person. I didn't know him very well then. Since he
retired, he went back East, he was head of some big programs. But
he's now retired. He lives out here in Berkeley, and comes to the
Faculty Club. There is a group of us that have lunch at least
once or twice a week together. He's a very strong person. Of
course, he was professor of statistics. He had a good background
for understanding these things. His father was with the National
Bureau of Standards, so Bowker grew up hearing about all these

157

kinds of things. I'm sure he had no trouble whatsoever in making
the decision, and he's a very strong person, so if he thought
something should be implemented, it was.

Swent: I'm just thinking, as acting dean, it seemed clear to you, but
what would have been an alternative?

Wiegel: Just to have the two separate departments, and in hindsight- -

Swent: Was there any resistance from the Letters and Sciences to giving
up?

Wiegel: Yes. I don't know any of the details; I know there was. As I
said, Bowker was a very strong chancellor. We were lucky; not
just from that standpoint, but in many ways, we were fortunate
that we had Bowker as chancellor at that time. I'm sure he just
said, "This is it." Pederson and his committee, had done a really
good job; they had done their homework well. They analyzed the
problem well, and they had come to logical conclusions and
recommendations .

I served on many college and department committees also.
This is all apart of the governance. One of them was the
interdisciplinary committee on engineering in the ocean
environment. That was from 1964 until 1996; long after I retired.
I've always been interested in this subject. This is a part of
the governance: how do you handle an interdisciplinary program?
It's very difficult; it's hard to get them to work well. It's
hard to get them to work together at all. It's a continual
effort; it still is.

Swent: How large a committee was it?

Wiegel: Six to eight people usually; something like that. It being civil,
naval architecture, mechanical engineering--! still call it
mining- -mineral technology, because of the petroleum, the
offshoreoil and that sort of stuff.

Swent: All senior faculty?

Wiegel: No; across the board. Assistant professors and full professors.
It was done by design that way. I just use it as an example
because it's always been difficult. Now, with the
disestablishment of the department of naval architecture and
offshore engineering, and people going into two different
departments, I'm not really sure as to what will be the long-term

158

survival of it. It sounds like more interdisciplinary effort. I
am worried about it.

Swent: Which of these things was the most gratifying to you?

Wiegel: Except for the year of acting dean when I was not getting much

sleep, I enjoyed all of it, I think. 1 think maybe the Institute
of Marine Resources, because I would go down to Scripps Institute
of Oceanography at La Jolla quite often. I've always gone to see
the people at La Jolla, because I've always done coastal
oceanography, and I knew many of the people there. The people I
worked with that were in physical oceanography and in fisheries
and things like that- -I liked to hear what they were doing. Not
that I fish; I don't mean that, but trying to have what they call
sustainable fisheries. You still see that.

I read an article just over the weekend. It was probably in
the New York Times, or something like that, on sustainable
fisheries. It's a terribly serious problem worldwide. I was
meeting and learning what these people were doing about it; these
top scientists. But so much of it is economics. The Water
Resources Center--! may have mentioned it--I was on the Water
Resources Coordinating Board for years, too, right up until I
retired. In fact, I did two things my last year: one was chair of
the five-year review of the Institute of Marine Resources; the
other was I chaired the search committee for the director of the
Water Resources Center, which is university-wide. I've always
liked these things that cut across different disciplines.

So, I would say the Institute of Marine Resources is a type
of governance. I would have liked that technology transfer, if we
had not had so much over-direction from Washington. Not when you
were working with an advisory board with some of the finest people
who had ever done that sort of stuff. I think I answered your
question.

Swent: Is there anything else that we should talk about today?
Wiegel: I can't think of anything right now.

More About the State Technical Service Program
[Interview 5: March 10, 1997 ]##

Swent: We're beginning our fifth interview here, and at the end of our
last session, we were talking about the State Technical Service

159

Program, and you had a little bit more you wanted to say about
that.

Wiegel: Yes. I think as I mentioned, my entire set of files, which would
be probably a full file cabinetcertainly several drawersis not
here, and not up in our dead storage either, which is up in the
attic here. I now faintly remember, many years ago, somebody from
one of the university institutesprobably governmental or
something like that- -wanted to make use of them for a study they
were doing for the state. The only thing I can think of --because
I'm always pleased to help is that I said, "Go right ahead," and
I've lost track. But since I talked to you last time, which was
several weeks ago, I believe, I have been able to find a few
documentsmaybe four or five that give some of the background.
I was trying to reach for names, and certain specific examples of
some of the programs, and I've done that. I think it is important
because they're talking about this again at the federal level, and
have been for the last four or five years; the state of California
has a group going and so forth. So much of this has been looked
at before. One of the people that was very useful was Hyman
Olken.

He was with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
He's an electrical engineer; but also a writer. A very good
technical writer. He loved it. He was a very good thinker. He
did quite a bit of the work for us. One of the things he did do,
and this was under contract this is one of the items I did find,
and I'm going to turn it over to the Water Resources Center
Archives after today's interview, so we'll read this. It's
called, "Information Resources for Promoting Advance Technology
Development in California." This was back in 1966--thirty years
ago. This lists all the various technical libraries, whether they
are with the government, or with private corporations, not only in
California, but throughout the whole United States. The National
Bureau of Standards special retrieval systems; the way you
retrieve information from the patents office; how you get
information from the small business administration. Then Lockheed
Aircraft's in-house system; Dow Chemical's in-house system.

He collected all of this information and made this
available. I think we could refer to what President Johnson said
when he signed this bill, because when the bill was signed he was
a very

Swent: Which bill was that?

Wiegel: The State Technical Services Bill. This was in 1965. I think

they called it the State Technical Services Act of 1965. You see
every once in a while the same statement: "This may do what for

160

American businessmen what the great Agricultural Extension Service
did for agriculture." The things were so entirely different,
though. One, you did the research, you did the teaching, you
brought it to the individual farmers. Here you're trying to do
something with massive research activities of the Atomic Energy
Commission and Institutes of Health, and make them available to
everybody including very large corporations. So there's really no
comparison; it's rhetoric.

Swent: I wonder if the Internet will make all of this easier.

Wiegel: An internet (lower case) was a very critical part of what was done
thenyou can do it now much faster with the (upper-case)
Internet.

Swent: I was thinking that that will, in a sense, supplant this, won't
it?

Wiegel: The two biggest contracts that we let in the state of California:
one was jointly with the state of California Librarybut they
expanded it in-house to include the public libraries in San
Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Fresno to spread
throughout the state to make all sorts of the technological
information available to people. There was a joint contract with
the Institute of Library Sciences, which was a university-wide
institute of the University of California, and they worked closely
with the California library system. Remember this was thirty
years ago. They were developing how you use computers to access
technology information, and much of this information was being put
on tape, at that time, by some of the government agencies in some
of the private companies.

The university library research group was working on how you
could make this available; how can you access this via computer.
Now, it's almost impossible to access it without the use of the
computer. So we funded some of the first studies of this.

Swent: We?

Wiegel: The State Technical Services within California. I mentioned, I
think, several of the people that were on the advisory council.
Bill Gould chaired it, and he was chief engineer for Southern
California Edison, and later became the chief executive officer of
Southern California Edison- -or CSE, Inc, as it's now known. Dave
Packard was on it. Terman, of Stanford, who was the mentor of
people like Hewlett and Packard; I've heard that he also was the
one who thought of the Stanford Industrial Park, but I'm not sure.
Because when Stanford left the farm and all of the money and his

161

wife who did so much of it--to Stanford, they entailed the
property so it couldn't be sold. They were very perceptive.

So Terman thought about leasing it, and leasing it to these
companies that became high-tech; which was the start of Silicon
Valley. So Terman was a member. General Doolittle was a member.
General Doolittle is known by most people because of leading the
flying raid on Tokyo. But prior to World War II, he was an
outstanding engineer, and he worked with Shell Oil Company. I
remember O'Brien either telling me at some stage, or it might be
in his oral history--! 'm not surethat General Doolittle was the
one who conceived of the system for high-performance aircraft. He
was a well-known pilot; he broke all kinds of speed records and
things like that back in the 1930s. He knew that you had to have
high-performance aircraft, but this required high-performance fuel
that didn't exist, and no company was going to spend the huge sums
of money to develop high-performance fuel unless there was a
demand for it.

The military couldn't develop high-performance aircraft
unless there was high-performance fuel available. Doolittle was
the one that thought of this and pushed it through. He was what
is now known as a systems engineer, and he was on the committee.
Blackwelder was on it. Blackwelder was the one who developed the
automatic tomato picker. You don't just pick tomatoes; the type
of tomatoes that were growing would bruise. So UC Davis people
jointly, at the same time, developed tomatoes that could be picked
mechanically. There's another example.

Swent: Those nice tough-skinned tomatoes that we have today.

Wiegel: Those are great for making ketchup and making soup. They are no
good to eat as a tomato.

Swent: But they don't bruise.

Wiegel: They don't bruise, and they serve the purpose for soup and

ketchup, and you get away from having to have stoop labor. This
is very important; you want to improve the quality of life for
farm labor. That's extremely important. This is a very important
function of engineering. It's always to make life easier for
people doing things. Substitute energy for brute labor;
substitute better ways of doing things and safer ways of doing
things. So many of these things are really to improve both the
standard of life and the quality of life. So they were very good
people on the council.

So this library and this access and the use of computers
were some of the first things we did, because these people were

162

doing that. Another thing is to get it out; get the information
out. It was recognized that television was the way things were
going. Remember this was thirty years ago. There were lots of
popular programs; public television had started. The public
television station in Los Angeles, KCET--Lee Dubridge was chairman
of the board of it.

Swent: He was at Caltech?

Wiegel: Dubridge was also president of Caltech at the time. They had this
program called "R & D Reviews," "Research and Development
Reviews." Los Angeles was the center of R & D in those days; no
question about it. There's an attitude in Los Angeles. It's in
the Silicon Valley now, but you go back thirty or forty years ago
after the war because of the aerospace industry, in this country,
the center was the Los Angeles area. All kinds of people down
there had new ideas and ways of doing things.

They developed a series of these programs and we helped to
fund it substantially. They produced thirty-nine separate
programs. These were interviews with people that did research and
development, but you could have good video shots if it was in
aerospace and things like that because you didn't have to pay for
how much it would cost to take a tape of a launching or something
like that. Nineteen other public television stations throughout
the U.S. took it up, and broadcast them.

Then they were going to have another program called,
"Innovations," where they would interview people who innovated.
That was about the end of it. The State Technical Services was a
five-year thing and it was not continued by Congress. One of the
reasons was that it required matching dollars: half by the federal
government, half by whoever was doing it. Then they said it had
to be non-profit institutes like universities, and things of that
sort. This hamstrung it, because that meant that anyone who put a
proposal in would somehow have to get the other funding from
someplace else and that's not easy.

Swent : No .

Wiegel: The program died at the end of five years. At the end of two

years, I recommended that the university move out of it, and the
State of California take it over through some office in
Sacramento; which they did--I think the Finance Department.

Swent: It's interesting; you seldom hear of anything dying.
Wiegel: Many things die.

163

Swent: These things get a life of their own so often.
Wiegel: Yes.

The Challenge of the Information Age and Data Management

Swent: I have some questions that might fit in with this just as I've
been reading about some of these things. I'm referring to your
History and Heritage of Coastal Engineering, which was published
by the American Society of Civil Engineers for your conference on
coastal engineering in 1996. You did a history in the USA which
is very good, and you mentioned at one time that the Beach Erosion
Board did a wave measurement program at Huntington Beach,
California. You just did a little parenthetical note that the
strip charts and digitized data are no longer available. Then you
said the Los Angeles District of the Army Corps of Engineersthey
didn't keep those kinds of data after they collected them?

Wiegel: This is a very serious problem. We talk about the information

age; there is so much information generated that nobody knows what
to do with most of it. Think of the amount of information coming
back from the space probes: billions and billions and billions of
bits. It's the storage, and certainly nowadays, we have much
better storage techniques: compact tapes and discs and things of
this sort. In those days, that information was on, probably,
paper tapespunched holes or something. I can't remember.

Swent: Strip charts.

Wiegel: You're right, it was strip charts, which meant that somebody had

to look at it and read data from it, and then put it either on

another piece of paper, or punch it in. Remember we had punch
cards?

Swent: Yes.

Wiegel: So there's much data lost, and this whole idea of data management
is one of the main things that the engineering profession, the
science profession, economists, people in business management,
medical management must cope with--how to handle all these great
amounts of data. I remember reading an interview with a top
combat pilot. I forget which battle he was talking aboutthis
goes way back, but after World War II, it goes back to when so
much information was coming in, so it may have been Korea or
Vietnam.

16A

He said that the problem was that so much information came
to him while going into a combat modehe would just disconnect
the stuff because he had to have his mind free to concentrate on
what was happening within the next ten or fifteen seconds. Now
you get into another type of information and management--! 've
always been interested in management --as to how does a person make
decisions under stress? This stress can be combat, which is
pretty high- stress; you're either right or you're dead. But it's
also dams and floods.

You have got a few hours to make a decision as to whether to
start releasing water from a dam because of possible flooding, or
if you release it too much, maybe it's going to stop raining and
you're going to not have enough water next summer for your
agriculture and your home use. Or it can be a nuclear power plant
or something. There's all kinds of these things that you have to
make decisions. There's so much data.

We talk about the information age: it's not the amount of
information; it's the how can we manage information? This is what
we're really struggling with today: how to handle this great
influx of things. That's a real thing.

You mentioned wave recorders. I was trying to think of an
example of this technology transfer, and you triggered it. Here's
a camera, and what do you do now with the new cameras? You point
them, you look, and you push a button because an acoustic signal
has gone out, and reflected off whatever you were pointing that
portion of the lens system at, and it comes back, makes a
calculation with a chip in the camera that said this is the
distance, it then gave this information to a little system running
off batteries, that adjusted the lens to focus it. That's
technology transfer.

People were study ing- -during World War II--bats and how
bats, when their signals went out, told them where things were.
This concept was used underwater; underwater acoustics by the
navy. You can't see underwater very much, but the acoustics are
marvelous. Acoustic waves will go through the whole ocean.
Walter Hunk's experiments at Scripps now where they're setting off
noise in the Antarctic and they pick it up off of Baja California
and off of Japan and so forth. They're looking at temperatures;
temperature variations. But underwater acoustics is what you use.
So the navy did a lot of development.

The Honeywell CorporationMinneapolis Honeywell it used to
be known as they did a lot of work on acoustic ranging. But it's
not just to send the signal out, it's massaging it. You have got
to look at the time it took to go out, be reflected, and travel

165

back, which is very small. Have information stored, what is the
acoustic velocity in that fluid, at that temperature. So it's not
easy. You have to have all sorts of information in there
[interrupted by telephone call].

Swent: We just had a brief intermission. An interruption while Mrs.

Wiegel called to say they had reservations at a hotel in Paris in
May.

Wiegel: In May, yes.

Swent: Going over to Paris from London for lunch. That sounds great.

Wiegel: It ought to be a good lunch. We are going over from London to
ride on the "tunnel-train." We will stay for a couple of days,
and then back to the U.K.

Swent: It should be. That's wonderful.

Wiegel: Anyhow, Honeywell didn't develop it for cameras; it was a Japanese
group, and they developed them for use in cameras and we all use
it now. Honeywell had a big lawsuit against several of the
Japanese firms, and they got a multi-million dollar judgment; I
think it was two years ago. But still, it was technology
transfer. The information is there; it's how do you modify it
that is useful. This is what Hy Olken had discussed thirty years
ago; this procedure. Because you need, not only the information,
but you have to have entrepreneurs that think about that
information in a different context.

Wave Sensor; Example of Technology Transfer

Wiegel: The next stepand this is the wave recorder. One of the

university staff, Lyn Magel, working with the ship model towing
tank at Richmond Field Station thought, "Why don't I just take
this camera and take that piece out of it, and mount it on the
towing carriage when we ' re moving over water waves , and measure
the distance down to the surface and then record it."

As the model ship is being towed down the tank in waves, you
measure the waves. He thought, "I don't care about the camera,
but that's an awful nice way of trying to measure waves." You
don't just do it, because now you have to get it intonot a strip
recorder, but a digitizer, and then put it on a magnetic disc and
develop a program to analyze the input so you see how these
things go. Technology transfer, information retrieval it 's just

166

part of it. It's how do you put these together and come up with
new concepts and new ways to use things. This is what requires
that Silicon Valley type of concept.

Swent: Mentality, yes.

Wiegel: The mentality is: what can I do that's different, and better?

Swent: I have some notes here that I'll just toss out. In 1960, you
developed a practical means for calculating the shape and
kinematics of breakers. Was that a technology transfer kind of
thing?

Wiegel: When was that?

Swent: In 1960.

Wiegel: Gee, I don't even remember.

Swent: You don't remember, okay. Perhaps we'll fill in that later. You
also gotthis was before then even you developed the first
quantitative data on the relation of waves. This is a separate
thing .

Wiegel: That was again one of those things where--science--you don't

always do these by plan. This must have been back in the late
1940s.

Swent: The dates that I have are 1949 to 1957.

Wiegel: That may have been when it was published and so forth. We were
measuring waves up off of Oregon and also waves in northern
California and central California. I remember talking with John
Isaacswho was still here; he hadn't gone to Scripps Institution
of Oceanography yet- -and he said, "We ought to see if we can't see
these coming to Oregon first, waves coming from the Gulf of
Alaska. Then let commercial fishermen and others know that
they're going to be here in California in a day or two."

So I was looking for correlations between locations. I
found something else that I wasn't looking for at the start- -very
good correlations from the statistics of a given record between
the mean of the wave height and the maximum wave height and things
like that.

A British mathematician/ scientist by the name of Michael
Longuet-Higgins was working on it also, and there was a fellow at
Wood's Hole, Dr. Seiwell. This was all independent; three people

167

doing this work independently. We all came up with about the same
sort of thing, only Longuet-Higgins came up with the theoretical
aspect and I just had the data. So that was almost luck. Bob
Putz here at Berkeley came up with about the same theory at about
the same time, but then shortly after he and Frank Snodgrass
advanced the theory and practice substantially.

Swent: How were you aware of what he was doing?

Wiegel: Well, the British and the U.S. worked close together on waves.

This was still an outgrowth of the amphibious type of work and the
cross-channel landings.

Swent: How did you communicate with each other?

Wiegel: By letter originally, but then Michael visited here, and then a
couple of years later, I was asked by the navy to visit a number
of groups in the U.K., and also in France and the Netherlands.

Swent: This was part of that expansion to an international awareness.

Wiegel: I've always been very internationally oriented, because these
things are all international. A person here, another person
someplace else. You become a little community.

Swent: Evidently, the first foreign people that came here were from the
Netherlands?

Wiegel: The first Fulbright scholar in engineering to come to the U.S.--
some Fulbright scholars go from the U.S. to other countrieswas
from the Netherlands, Egbert Prins, and he came to Berkeley.
Egbert eventually became the director of the Delft Hydraulic
Laboratory, which is the biggest hydraulics laboratory in the
world. The Dutch have always had good engineers.

Swent: That leads me to another thing that I thought we might at some

point discuss: in the Netherlands of course it's perfectly clear
that the control of water and the coastal zone is of national
significance.

Wiegel: We always talk about the Dutch boy with his thumb in the dike.

Swent: That's right; it keeps the nation alive. In this country, that's
not so clear. Now, we have most of our population living on
coasts, but there's still a large portion of the taxpaying public
that doesn't care whether there's a beach or not.

Wiegel: I don't think they even think about it. I think they just think
that beaches are there and they should be there.

168

Swent: These billions of dollars that they're spending to nourish beaches
for private use. Has there been any resentment of this?

Wiegel: Not billionshundreds of millions. From 1950-1993, the U.S., via
the Corps, spent $403.2 million, an average of $9.3 million per
year. A lot of this goes back because of one person; a campaign
by one person primarily, Orrin Pilkey, a professor of geology at
Duke University.

Wiegel: In my opinion, his conclusions, which are widely publicized, are
based on selected examples that match his opinions, not a
representative spectrum of beach behaviorat the best, very poor
science; some of it almost non-science.

Swent: He's the one who wrote the book, The Corps and the Shore?

Wiegel: That's the one, but he's written a number of things. I know him
well. Some of the things Orrin [Pilkey] says I agree with; other
things I simply disagree with. I've told him many times that some
of the things he says are just simply incorrect; period. There's
no scientific basis whatsoever for some of his comments. When he
was youngit's my understanding; I think he told me thishis
parents had a home on a beach someplace, and it was destroyed
during one of those big storms. Whether it was a northeaster or a
hurricane, I can't remember. So his whole way of looking at
things has been biased from a very bad personal experience, which
is understandable. This is what I understand.

It's fine to have a point of view, but I still think
scientists should try to separate out correct science from stuff
that doesn't have a scientific basis. I don't like to get into
personalities .

Swent: Personalities affect our positions.

Wiegel: I realize that. The Dutch are going through a big change too.

This has to do with how people's perceptions change. In the early
1950s, there was a severe storm in the North Sea, and we talk
about a hundred-year event, and a two-hundred-year event, and a
f ifty-year but most of these aren't based upon any statistics,
they're just people talking. But the event that hit the
Netherlands and parts of Belgium, southeastern England was and
this is based upon hard statistics about a one-in-four-hundred-
year event.

There were hundreds of people killed; hundreds. Thousands
of hectares, or thousands of acres inundated by salt water.

169

Towns, villages were destroyed; farm animals killed. The U.S. and
NATObut mostly the U.S. --with their equipmenthelicopters,
DUKWs--that's the amphibious vehiclewere great in working with
the Dutch authorities to rescue people and animals and things like
that. They then started what is known as their Delta Plan to
protect the Netherlands from such a terrible event in the future.
This is what really started their modern coastal engineering, just
like our amphibious operations started ours in the United States;
it was this event in the Netherlands.

Swent: That was when?

Wiegel: Probably 1953. Professor Thijsse was the professor there and the
director of the Delft Hydraulics Laboratory, which was a small
laboratory at that time; it developed into a large one. But also,
many new young people came out of physics and engineering to work
in that field because it was a national disaster, and they put in
a tremendous amount of effort, and they developed what was known
as the Delta Plan. It had to do with how to protect the lowlands
with levees, tidal gates; with the Rhine River and the Schelde
River having to flow into the North Sea. I was over there first
in 1954, and several times later. More recently, I was there at
an international meeting; I was still chairman of the Coastal
Engineering Research Council--! was general chairman of the 23rd
International Conference in Coastal Engineering in 1990, held in
Delft. This was much later.

At that time, 1990, the Dutch gave a series of papers on
what they had done on the Delta Plan, and we visited the last of
the big structures which was just being completed on the Schelde.
By then a whole new generation of people had grown up, asking why
are you doing this? Why don't we just let things flow? You see,
no knowledge of hundreds of people being drowned --apparently, the
average person can't read about this and get any comprehension.
You have to see a disaster, to live through it, I think, in order
to have it hit you. The young generation I don't like to say
thatthis is the so-called "generation theory of history," which
sometimes works, and sometimes it doesn't. Certainly the
generational theory of history hasn't worked at all in Yugoslavia;
they still remember what happened a thousand years ago and are
still fighting the same wars they fought a thousand years ago.

So the Dutch people have had a big change. They do all
kinds of beach nourishment, incidentally.

Swent: Do they?

Wiegel: On a percentage basis, they do much more than we do. The Spanish
do much more than we do; the Portuguese do much more than we do;

170

the Germans do much more than we do; the Japanese also
percentage-wise. I think it's because of the fact that they don't
have as much coast, and a lot of the Dutch like to go to the
coast. The main source of income for Spain is the use of the
coast for tourists and so forth. I can get into this again a
little later, I think. I'd like to just wrap up the State
Technical Services to say that the person that was of great help
beside Hy Olken who did a lot of the technical work was Frances
Eberhart. She was the executive secretary for the Engineering
Advisory Council of the university in the president's office.

Also, Harry Wellman asked her to serve as special assistant
to me on the state technical services programbecause through her
other work for many years with the engineering advisory council,
she knew many of California's major engineers personally, and was
greatly respected by them. Many of them were either on the
advisory council or had met with members of the advisory council
and so forth. I just want to be sure that people who did the work
then are credited for itthey really did so much. Fran Eberhart
certainly did this.

I would like to quote here a statement made by Clark Kerr,
President Emeritus of the University of California: "A great
secret of the administration of the University of California is
that it is not really administered by the dean or the department
chairman or the chancellors or the president. It is administered
by an extremely good group of administrative assistants who really
run the place." He then mentioned Fran Eberhart as a model for
all of them. 1

As I said, most of the information is gone, but I do have
some of it which I've now decidedbecause so much of it is
connected with library stuff and retrieval--! will turn it over to
the Water Resources Center Archives so that

Swent: We haven't really mentioned your archives yet.

Wiegel: That I think we'll get to at the end.

Swent: Should we do that later?

Wiegel: --under mentoring.

1 This was given at the banquet of The Symposium to Honor Morrough P.
O'Brien, 23-24 March 1987. ["Mike O'Brien A Master Builder of Berkeley,"
by Clark Kerr, Shore & Beach, vol. 55, nos. 3-4, July-Oct 1987, pp 31-33.]
Fran and Howard Eberhart were at the banquet at the Faculty Club.

171

Swent: Because that's terribly important.

Wiegel: You can see I've always been interested in information retrieval
and things of that sort.

Swent: It's the theme that goes all the way through, doesn't it?
Wiegel: The other was the use of television for education, I think.

Introducing Television Instruction through University Extension

Swent: Yes, and SCUBA [Self -Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus] is
another thing I thought we might, at some point, mention. Some of
these technological things that helped a lot.

Wiegel: The televisionas I mentioned, thirty years ago, people were

using public television for education- -and at Stanford, just about
that same time--Joe Pettit was Dean of Engineering at Stanford
then. Joe is a Cal graduate--! think, 1938 or something like
thathe was in electronics engineering, and became dean of
engineering at Stanford, and then later on, president of Georgia
Tech.

In the early 1970s, George Maslach, who was dean here at
Berkeley, asked me to look into the use of television for
engineering courses. One of the members of the university
Engineering Advisory Council--! can't remember the person's name
now- -was pushing this very much; he knew what Stanford was doing.
Stanford was broadcasting these courses throughout the Peninsula.
They had an antenna up on Black Mountain, which is to the west of
the Stanford campus, and they were doing a very good job. So I
looked into it, and Joe Pettit was very helpful to me. I met with
him several times about it. Our university had a small television
office which was mostly to videotape a few things, and to use
close circuit TV for overflow classesnot engineering, however.
We had some funds available--! 'm not sure where those funds came
from- -to establish a little studio and transmitter. We thought it
might work out.

I did a lot of work on this and got a lot of information. I
remember meeting with Bob Connick, who was acting chancellor at
the time. I spent an hour or two with him on it at his request,
because the problem that bothered me wasn't one of the technical
problems; we could do it technically. Jim Gumming did most of the
technical development. It wasn't getting it started, because
somebody had given money that we could use to build a studio and

172

build a transmitter and so forth. It was how you could fund it
operationally. Stanford had no trouble; they could simply charge.
Stanford's a private university; people are used to paying.
People weren't used to paying the university. But if we did it
via extension, then maybe we could charge, because the extension
had to be a hundred percent self-supporting.

We were talking about televising regular courses; full for-
credit courses. We had to set up a method that people could
contact the professor. If you take a course on campus, if you
have got a question, you just go ask. There's an interaction, and
you don't have this interaction so much via television; although
we worked on ways where a person receiving it could push a button,
a light would go on, and the professor would know that somebody
wanted to ask a question in a remote classroom. A couple of
companies were willing to set up remote classrooms to receive it.
Some already had such a facility because they were receiving
courses from Stanford.

We didn't want to compete with Stanfordthis wouldn't be
fairwe wanted to offer things that Stanford wasn't able to
offer, but still the local industry wanted. I guess that somehow
the funding worked its way out, because I did go down there to the
studio in Mclaughlin Hall just last Friday and there was a list of
five graduate courses and one undergraduate course being given
this spring; all in electrical engineering and computer science.
In fact, almost all were in computer science. It makes use of
both live broadcasts, but also video recording. That is:
cassettes will be sent over to a place; they don't have to receive
it live. I believe it's now done worldwide. I don't know,
because I've been out of this for a long time. So that's one
thing I

Swent: You got in and started.

Wiegel: --started. As I say, they must have somehow worked out the
problem for funding because it's still in operation.

Swent: That was in the 1960s?

Wiegel: That was the early 1970s; 1972 or 1971 or something like that.
It's been in for twenty-five years now.

Swent: At least.

Wiegel: That was just catching up.

Swent: Yes. Some wave motion goes on in the interview.

173

VII ENGINEERING ACTIVITIES AS PUBLIC SERVICE

Publications Resulting from Conferences and Workshops

Wiegel: What is it we're supposed to be talking about today?

Swent: We wanted to talk about your work in the wider engineering

community. It seems to me the publications might come later,
because weren't they an outgrowth of your committee work, or would
you rather begin with the publications?

Wiegel: I think I've already mentioned a couple of publications like the
book I wrote on oceanographical engineering, and the one I edited
on earthquake engineering. This ties directly in. I did pull out
one of the earlier ones here. It's back in the mid-fifties.

Swent: Let me just read the title; may I?
Wiegel: Yes.

Swent: Coastal Engineering Instruments. Beautiful cover photo of the Bay
Bridge, isn't it? "Proceedings of the First Conference on Coastal
Engineering Instruments, Berkeley, California, October 31 to
November 2, 1955. Edited by R.L. Wiegel, published by the Council
on Wave Research, the Engineering Foundation, 1956."

Wiegel: What the Engineering Foundation was: there was something called
the Engineers Joint Council. It's still in existence. It's the
presidents of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and
American Society of Electrical Engineers, and Mining Engineers and
others. The big engineering societies. The presidents of these
meet in New Yorkat least they did, once in a while. They had an
operational arm which was called the Engineering Foundation.
They would fund certain things, and they still do; they still fund
certain conferences. About five or six years ago, they funded a
conference which I attended, on the possibility of global warming,

174

the possibility of sea level rise, what this might mean to
infrastructure and other things along the coast and things of that
sort. I had just come back from a trip to France, and the U.K.,
and the Netherlands for the navy, and we also--at the same time I
was in Grenoble at the fifth conference in coastal engineering,
which was the first one held outside of the United States. I was
a mechanical engineer...

Swent: That was in 1957?

Wiegel: 1954 was when I was in Europe for the first time after the war.

Swent: Right. The fifth conference was in '54 in Grenoble.

Wiegel: That's correct. So I knew many of these people. In fact, I was
doing all the detailed work because Professor Johnson was on
sabbatical leave.

Swent: They had established this Council on Wave Research in 1951, and
you were the executive engineer.

Wiegel: I was the executive engineer. I mentioned to O'Brien and Johnson
that we really needed a specialty conference on instruments: how
do you measure things, how do you analyze them, how do you store
information?

Swent: Was this

Wiegel: It was accepted.

Swent: Because it was your interest?

Wiegel: Yes, I was interested. I was designing instruments and working
with people who designed them and so forth. So it was accepted,
and I organized it. It was held at the university, at the
International House, I think. I remember Tommy (M.J.) Tucker and
also Carruthers from the U.K. came over; the French, the Dutch.
There weren't a great number of us in those days, but they
included John Isaacs, Bill Bascom, Frank Snodgrass, and Don
Pritchard. When I was going through this and looking at some of
the authorsthere's one of them listed who I would like to
mention- -Glenn Schurman. He gave a paper on storm wave force
meter. The reason I mention Glenn Schurman is--I think he did his
Ph.D. at Caltech, but he was in the research group at La Habra,
but then he became interested in the operational group; it was
called Standard Oil Company of California then. Eventually he
became head of allwhat became known as Chevron later onall of
Chevron's operations in the North Sea and in the U.K. He became
the managing director of Chevron U.K. and then was brought back to

175

be corporate vice president of engineering and then corporate vice
president for production worldwide at Chevron, and on the board of
directors. Glenn gave a paper at this conference. I had
forgotten all about that until I picked this book up.

Anyhow, it's not just a publication; it's thinking of what's
needed and then getting a group of people to get together in
giving this. We did it, and this publication which the
Engineering Foundation underwrote the cost of, was used worldwide
because it was the state of the art. One of the reasons I guess
that they said to go ahead and do it is that the fifth conference
on coastal engineering which was in Grenoblebecause Professor
Johnson was on sabbatical, I was asked to really take care of it.
I did it, and I was over there several days ahead of time because
I was in Europe for the navy for other reasons in Britain and
France and the Netherlands, and in Rome for the IUGG congress
[International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics].

I can still remember the French in Grenoble asking me to
please phone the U.S. ambassador to France in Paris and ask him to
come down and give the opening of this conference. How old was I
then? 1954. So I was thirty-two years old. I wasn't about to
make a phone call to the embassy--

Swent: Really?

Wiegel: --in France. So I did contact someone back home in the U.S.; in

those days, trying to make a telephone call was almost impossible.
It's hard to believe now how difficult it was to make a telephone
call trans-Atlantic from a place that was not a capital.
Thorndike Saville, Sr.--you notice the History of Coastal
Engineering of the U.S. was by Thorndike Saville, Jr., and myself.
We were graduate students together, but his father was dean of
engineering at NYU, and it happened that at that time, he was
president of the Engineers Joint Council.

So I mentioned this to the French and that was great because
he was going to be there. So they knew they had, and they
introduced him as, the premier engineer in the United States. I
can still remember getting off the hook; you can imagine me
getting through to the ambassador, but this worked fine. That's
the sort of thing, you see, with publications. You have got to do
this , and you have got to think of these things . Nowadays they
call it networking, don't they? We have always networked; only
with letters and telephones and things of that sort.
Incidentally, a telephone call to a leader in a particular field
is in many ways superior to computer networking- -ask this
authority what are the best two or three publications on the
subject of interest. Another way that we get things published is

176

to have a little specialty conference or workshop. We actually
worked in these, with the discussions included in the proceedings.

I was editor of Shore & Beach for a little over eight years,
up until last year. When Hurricane Hugo--

Swent: Who publishes Shore & Beach?

Wiegel: Shore & Beach is the journal of the American Shore and Beach

Preservation Association. When I became editor, I turned it into
a reviewed journal. It's also archival. "Review" is pretty
clear-cut what is meant; "archival" is not so clear-cut, but as
far as I can see, it means it's available in libraries on a
permanent basis. But that's important. To me, archival means
it's kind of generally available for people to check out of a
library. I don't mean that you can find it in your Kensington
Library (a neighborhood public library) or something, but I mean
certainly the San Francisco library should have it, or the
University of Pennsylvania, or Cambridge University.

So it was archival, but I turned it into a refereed journal.
I also thought after Hurricane Hugo hit and did so much damage in
South Carolina, that it would be well to have an issue that was
focused on that. So the following year, I got some people's
interest in thisBob Dean at the University of Florida, Margaret
Davidson who was the--I think she headed up the Office of Sea
Grant in South Carolina, and Billy Edge who was a consulting
engineer in Charleston at that timeis now professor of coastal
engineering at Texas A&M--they organized a workshop in Folly
Beach, near Charleston, on Hurricane Hugo and we put out a special
issue. It was much larger than a normal issue because the local
Sea Grant agreed to underwrite the additional cost.

So you could get a publication out of a workshop where you
have something that really should be studied. What happened?
What did it do? What were people doing to recover?

Swent: You had the workshop first and the publication followed that?

Wiegel: The publication followed it. Things like that are very

successful. I'm not going to talk about regular publications
where you just send them to the American Geophysical Union, or
American Society of Civil Engineering. But another type of
publication that's very important are from the National Research
Council.

Swent: What is the National Research Council? Whose baby is that?
Wiegel: It's a baby of Abraham Lincoln, I guess.

177

Swent: I guess so, isn't it?

Wiegel: The National Academy of Sciences was established under some sort
of an act of Congress; I don't remember the background to it. I
think it was when Abraham Lincoln was president.

Swent: I think you're right.
Wiegel: I think so.

Swent: I'm just trying to get a little clearer what your relationship
with them would be.

Wiegel: At some stage, the National Research Council was established which
was really, you might say, the operational arm of the National
Academy of Sciences. Then many years later, the something of
health--! forget what it's calledbut the medical people--

Swent: National Institutes of Health?

Wiegel: I forget what it's called. But then the National Academy of

Engineering was born. So there's the National Academy of Science,
the National Academy of Engineering, and I think it's probably the
Institute of Health. These are honorary things. But the
operational--

Wiegel: I mentioned the Institutes of Healthit wasn't. While you were
changing the tape I checked; it's called the Institute of
Medicine. Those are the three honorary organizations. But the
National Research Council is the operating end; it does research
evaluations /state of the art assessments very often. One or more
government agencies will ask for a study or Congress will ask for
a study, and unfortunately many of these have become very
politically sensitive, as you well know.

Swent : Yes .

Wiegel: Especially at the medical end. One of the subjects that was

studied of direct importance to the field I've been in--it was
done in the late 1980s, or early 1990--and it was called Managing
Coastal Erosion. This was done because FEMA--Federal Emergency
Management Administration- -which is the one that you read about--

Swent: We hear a lot about that.

Wiegel: --concerned with floods and hurricanes and earthquakes. It was
established, of course, originally because of how to respond in

178

case the U.S. was hit by nuclear action, and you had to have some
way to set up some form of operations outside the military
immediately to repair things or get things operational again. But
it's much broader than that. Thank goodness, it mostly considers
other things .

So Managing Coastal Erosion was one, and then a more recent
one was published about a year ago: it's called Beach Nourishment
and Protection. These are working groups that are established and
funded mostly by government agencies and they try to get them
funded by several government agencies. So you build up a balance
of stresses there.

Swent: Did this publication come out of a workshop?
Wiegel: It's not a workshop; I'll mention what it is.
Swent: All right. This is a full hardcover book.

Wiegel: Oh, yes. As somebody said, "By National Academy standards, it's a
best seller."

Swent: Is it?

Wiegel: Yes. They had to reprint it within six months of it being
published; they were sold out because of worldwide demand.

Swent: It was published by the National Academy Press in Washington, D.C.
in 1995; sponsored by the Committee on Beach Nourishment and
Protection, Marine Board Commission on Engineering, and Technical
Systems of the National Research Council in 1995.

Wiegel: It barely made it. It was really December of 1995.

Swent: Really? So this was the outgrowth of theyou tell what it was.

Wiegel: In a way. I've been on a number of these National Research

Council committees. When I was younger, I chaired several of
them; one of them being on the safety of off-shore oil structures,
("Verification Guidelines for Offshore Structures") for example.
That was a politically hot issue.

Swent: I'm sure it was. We'll talk about that in a minute.

Wiegel: The one on beach nourishment was over about two and a half years,
and we metthe members --Orrin Pilkey was one of themBob Dean.
The way the members are chosen, we- -when I say "we," that's the
editorial "we" the National Academy realized that you had to have
people that were biased because almost everybody that was a

179

technical expert of something is going to be biased some way or
another, and you wanted technical experts. So what you wanted to
do was: at the start, what are the biases, and then how can we
have a balance of biases? That's the point.

Swent: Representation of all the biases.

Wiegel: We represented the biases because otherwise you're not going to

get experts. You'll get people that don't know anything about the
subject, and that isn't what the academies are about. So we'd
have in-depth meetings. We'd first just--this is the way it's
operated- -you get together and you discuss what you might do--
before, this is done within the academy, it worked out things that
should be done- -you'd done a lot of homework before and this is
back and forth and so forth. You got kind of a statement of what
your overall mission was. When you first meet, you now say,
"What do we need to address this mission? What kind of technical
things do we do?"

Different people will be assigned tasks at the next meeting
will you please report on this, and you report on this, and you
report on this and you get together again. Then, in this case of
beach nourishment, it's quite evident we should go out and see
some of things because the scope had been expanded. I should say
I take a lot of credit for this because I had written to the
chairman of the Marine Board of the National Research Council- -
which I had served on years agostating that I thought they
needed a technical assessment of beach nourishment. I had read so
many articles in the papers like the New York Times, and I know
some of these people: Corey Dean, of the New York Times, who is
one of its science editors. I said there's so much
misinformation, what's needed is really a technical assessment.

Sponsoring Technical Assessment to Correct Public Misinformation/
Perceptions

Swent: I think you mentioned in this history article the problem with

monitoring; that they love to get things going but then they don't
pay attention to them after they're started.

Wiegel: Monitoring--
Swent: That's different.

Wiegel: Here I'd like to make a very serious statement, because I've done
a lot of thinking about this, and I've had a lot of experience.

180

This is my opinion: politicians do not want to know about
something once they've made a decision, because the findings might
well show they made the wrong decision. This an opinion I've
formed. Once they've decided we're going to spend this money on
this--I don't care what the subject is--I don't think they want to
find out if it didn't work. This is one of the reasons why it's
difficult to get money to monitor things. We can do the technical
monitoring; we can get some money. But it costs a lot to maintain
detailed files of this and that. If you're talking about what was
the economic impact, what was the social impactthese are the
things they don't really want to find out about. That's my
personal opinion, and I think I'm right.

About four or five years ago, I was at a meeting at the
National Academy of Engineering that was held at the Beckman
Center in Irvine. That's not UC Irvine, this is apart- -Arnold
Beckman of Beckman Instruments gave a lot of money to the National
Academies of Science and Engineering because he said,
"Everything's in Washington, D.C. You have got to get away from
Washington, D.C." So he said, "I'll put two, three, four million
--whatever it is--to build a new center for meetings." The Irvine
Corporation said, "We'll give you the property free and it will be
immediately adjacent to UC Irvine, which seems to be a nice
reasonable place to have it; next to a university and of course
there's an airport nearby."

There was a meeting there, and it was chaired by the
president of the academy of engineers, Bob White, and it was on
the environment. Who was the Canadian who was deputy secretary
for the U.N. for environment?

Swent: I don't know.

Wiegel: I think his name is Maurice Strong. This was the top person. He
was head of the Stockholm meeting and head of the Rio [de Janeiro]
meeting, and then the top people from some different companies-
Japan was there and so forth. This was an academy event- -other
people were invited, but largely they were members. The president
of Caltech, Tom Everhart, was there; I knew him well and we were
sitting together. Anyhow, I got up and I said, "I'd like to ask a
question. All these environmental issuesbecause my experience
in my own field is that we never seem to be able to get money and
do a good study and monitor and find out what has been the real
effect of something. Is this general or is that just specific in
my area?"

The response wasand this was a considered response this
is a general problem. They don't get the money to really do

181

adequate monitoring. This is one of the reasons I feel the way I
do. So that's the digression. You asked about monitoring.

Swent: You were talking about assessment t and they're certainly closely
related.

Wiegel: I had written to the chairman, and he asked me to make a

presentation at the next meeting of the Marine Board, which I did.
That meeting was in Monterey. It was accepted and modified, but
it ended up that it was more than just technical. When I say
"technical": engineering and science is what I meant. They wanted
legal considerations, they wanted economic considerations, and
then political management considerations. So on the committee
that was established, there were several people who were very
knowledgeable in their own field but didn't know anything at all
about the coast; or almost nothing. So we decided we needed
several field trips. They were interesting people, and I learned
a lot from themwe all did, from each other.

We had to get out; we had to see some of these things. We
had to see areas that were degraded; we had to see areas where
nourishment had been done; we had to talk to people locally. One
site, for example, Ocean Beach, Maryland, which is shown on
television every time there's a northeaster there. In Florida and
southern California. We had to get additional funding because
this all costs money to go out on field trips for large numbers of
people. These things are hammered back and forth. Orrin Pilkey
was on the committee, and I spent quite a bit of time with Orrin.
I said I want to be sure that the worries that you have are all
addressed. He said, "Yes," and he came up with a number of
things, and this is a unanimous report.

And yet in that book of his that you just mentioned, he
says, "Of course, you all know that when you're on the committee
you sometimes go along with them and you don't really mean it."
This is about the only personality I will get into, but to me it's
a strange attitude for a scientist. If there's a scientific
thing, you hammer it out, and you don't agree if you don't agree.
You say, "I disagree. This is why I disagree." This I think is
an example. These are the ways publications get out too, and
these are very useful publications. And will be used worldwide;
we know that, from the number of sales that have been made all
over the world of that publication.

Swent: Was there a publication on Managing Coastal Erosion?

Wiegel: It was another hardcover.

Swent: There we are, yes, okay. You had mentioned that you had that.

182

Wiegel: That's a

Swent: That was National Research Council.

Wiegel: Yes. It was a little earlier.

Swent: 1990, Committee on Coastal Erosion Zone Management, Water Science
and Technology Board, Marine Board, Commission on Engineering and
Technical Systems, and the National Research Council were all the
groups that sponsored that. It was put out by the National
Academy Press, Washington, B.C., 1990. This, again, was the
result of a conference, or series of conferences?

Wiegel: Series.
Swent: I see.

Wiegel: This is kind of sad, because the chairman of this was Bill Wood, a
professor at Purdue, and he died of a heart attack relatively
young just last month. I received a phone call from friends of
mine back there telling me about it. He was an up-and-coming
young person. Interesting, too, because on the side at Purdue
Universitynot only a very good scientist, but he started and was
coach of the women's water soccer team. He had been a nine-time
Ail-American swimmer at Michigan State University. I found this
quite interesting. This was about as broad a stretch from- -but he
was always a community active type of person.

Swent: Was there a publication as the result of --there's a first

international conference on waste disposal in 1959. That was an
important one, was it?

Wiegel: That was very important. I gave one of the papers on that. That
was

Swent: "Mixing of Buoyant Flows?"

Wiegel: No; this one was on measuring ocean currents. Erman Pearson was a
professor at Berkeley. He was a professor of sanitary engineering
here at Cal. He went to the University of Washington as an
undergraduate. He was a football playertackle, I believe, and
he was all-conference tackle. He was a big man, I'll tell you.
He was very, very bright, and he was one of the real leaders in
water quality. Berkeley has been lucky. McGauhey was the one
that hired him, and McGauhey was chairman of civil engineering
when I came on the faculty here.

McGauhey was chairman of civil at that time. Pearson was
doing quite a bit of work on water quality in the ocean;

183

estuaries. When I say the ocean, not deep sea, but immediately
adjacent to the coast. He had all these international contacts
too, so that was an international meeting; it was held at
Berkeley. For years it was about the only book on the subject.

Swent : What was the book?

Wiegel: It was probably just called the proceedings of the conference.
[Waste Disposal in the Marine Environment. Edited by E.A.
Pearson, Pergamon Press, 1960, 369pp.]

Swent: The proceedings of the conference. Was this when you first got
interested in this mixing?

Wiegel: No, I was invited to give it because Pearson knew I was interested
in mixing.

Swent: --because you already were.

Wiegel: It was the other way. That's another digression. It was at that
meeting that one of the papers given by a British specialist--!
forget and I can't pronounce the word, but it's where you look at
how epidemics occur.

Swent: Epidemiology?

Wiegel: Epidemiology, and the study of these things, which is very, very
tricky. He was from Britain, the U.K., and they were tracking
downit was something like a fever, and I forget--it wasn't
scarlet fever, but it was a very serious one. They all knew it
was because it was--say at Brighton; I forget where, but one of
the big seaside resortsand they all knew that it was from the
sewage being dumped into the ocean and people swimming in it until
they started to really try to track it down. It turned out, no,
it wasn't. Typhoid. I remember, Typhoid Mary was what they said.
This turned out to be a Typhoid Mary a person who was selling ice
cream cones at the beach.

Swent: Oh, my.

Wiegel: This shows you one of the difficulties that those people have

trying to sort things out. Everybody "knew" what it was, only it
turned out not to be that. Then they got to finding out there
were other big studies done, one in Rio de Janeirobecause it had
a big sewer outfall, big population. I don't want to downgrade
the disposal of sewage in the ocean, because there's other types
of thingstoxics and they get into fish and so forth; but
getting a disease directly by swallowing salt water with bacteria
or something in it, is practically zero.

184

Two reasons: one, the type of enteric diseases, salt water
kills them, they don't live very long in salt water, that type of
bacteria- -which is very fortunate; the second is, people don't
swallow salt water very often. A kid swimming in a lake or a
river will ingest fresh water. That's a real serious problem.
But you only take about one swallow of salt water in your lifetime
if you can help it. So it's not that big a problem.

Politically, of course, all politicians like it; that's
another thing I learned. I hate to say this, but they don't seem
to be interested in what you find as scientists or engineers. All
they want to do is--the next election say, "Look, I appropriated X
dollars for it to be studied." Maybe it's just me that feels that
way, but I have kind of a bad opinion of their real interest.
Their real interest is getting re-elected.

Swent: Getting elected, yes.

Wiegel: I think I mentioned to you--once, on a commission I was on--

Senator Ralph C. Dills, I believe it was, telling mebecause I
was worried about getting things fixed up, and he said, "Bob, a
person never gets reelected by dedicating a filled pot hole. A
new bridge, a new this or a new that, but not a filled pot hole."
So this problem of maintenance is always difficult, and engineers
are faced with maintenance all the time. Right now the classic
one is either to replace or repair the Oakland section of the Bay
Bridge. But, this will get a lot of attention.

Swent: They seem to be making the decision on the basis of interviews
with the man in the street .

Wiegel: Well, I still have to go back to Sir Winston Churchill: "Democracy
is a terrible system, except compared with all others." Interview
the man in the street; many of them. That's the important thing-
is to get a big sample.

Swent: If you get enough of them, maybe you "11--

Wiegel: It's like our committees on the National Research Council; you
want a variety of conflicts. If you get a big enough sample,
you're going to get a variety of opinions.

Swent: Then you'll get some good ideas.

185
Some International Conferences on Coastal Engineer ing /Councils

Wiegel: I think that's a sample there of--I should mention the names of
the people who worked on the fifth conference of coastal
engineering because it's nice to see the people that who did the
work get credit.

Swent: Oh, yes.

Wiegel: Pierre Danel, who was the French engineer and the head of the

research laboratory for the NEYRPIC--N-E-Y-R-P-I-C--which was the
biggest turbine manufacturer in Europe. He was a genius; he
really was. He made all of the engineers and scientists read,
read, read. I forget whether they had to read an article a week
and sign that they had read it--but also, in his information
retrieval system, he asked each person what other title, or what
other subjects should it be catalogued under. They had to write
it in, and then he'd have them put a hand-written card in the file
system; so the more it was used, the easier it was to retrieve it
from different ways.

Some person reading the article might say, "This footnote in
here is very important," or, "The fact that they used this type of
instrument is very important and one subject should be the name of
an instrument that was used." So every time anybody used it, you
increased the ability to get back to it from some other way of
looking at what the subject was. I don't know anyone else that
does that.

Swent: Good idea.

Wiegel: The other was Professor Kravchenko, who was a professor of
mathematics at the University of Grenoble. We've had close
contactswell, Pierre Danel died many years agobut even today,
Professor Weyhausen here had very close contacts with Professor
Kravchenko, until Kravchenko died recently; that's lasted now
sinceforty years. So these things are valuable.

I would like to mention one other thing, because I think
it's really important: as I said, I've always been interested in
international things, and when I was chairman of the Coastal
Engineering Research Council, I had a lot to do with having the
international conference in coastal engineering set up in Spain,
and then a few years later one in Italy, in Venice.

Swent: Let's get the dates on those.

186

Wiegel: The one in Venice would have been 1992. The one in Spain was
probably 1988.

Swent: It was. That was the twenty- first in Malaga, Costa del Sol.

Wiegel: A couple of years later, Doctor Palao, who was the head of the

local organizing committee, and was also director general for all
ports and coastal development in Spainhe was on a high level.
He was an engineer, but a high level official. He said that
holding that meeting in Spain was extremely important, because for
the first time, the high level government --i.e. , his minister of
public workssaid, "I didn't realize that the Spanish engineers
were this good internationally." So he said it was very
important.

Something somewhat similar was told me about two years later
after the one in Venice, by Professor Ugo Tomasicchio, that this
had done a tremendous good for Italy- -the Italian engineers and
scientiststo have the international conference there. So these
things can be very valuable.

Swent: You had them in wonderful places.

Wiegel: Yes.

Swent: Cape Town...

Wiegel: Cape Town.

Swent: Taipei.

Wiegel: The last one was in Orlando, but the one before was in Kobe

Swent: Kobe.

Wiegel: --and we were there in early November 1994, and in January two
months later was when the earthquake hit, and the hotel we were
all staying at and that's interesting coastal engineering- -I'd
been out in Japan thirty- five years ago as a member of the
U.S. /Japanese science exchange program. I was out twice, two
years in a row. There were only five people from each country:
one was on coastal; the next was on tsunamis. For the one on
coastal, we looked at all the various ports that were being
developed, and one of them was Kobe. They were bringing all this
soil and rock down from the mountains there, and filling a part of
the bay.

This is a huge bay; it's much bigger than San Francisco Bay.
It's not a closed bay; it's more of an open bay. So you have the

187

mountains coming downand Japan doesn't have much room; they have
got all kinds of mountains, but they don't have much usable space.
So the whole port area was built on fill, and it was obviously
unconsolidated fill. The same thing happened here in the San
Francisco area during the Loma Prieta earthquake, only it was much
worse in Kobe.

Wiegel: In 1989--that, because of liquefaction, there was a couple of

reasons, one of which was part of the port of Oakland liquefied
and settled. That's what caused such great damage to the port of
Kobe. The hotel we were at and the convention center was on a
man-made island connected by a causeway and bridge, just off
shore. That all settled--! didn't go out after, but friends of
mine who went out after said the hotel was there; it was on a
whole series of very deep piles, and all the land around it had
settled about a meter--i.e. , about three feet. So here was the
hotel, and you could see the piles underneath, reinforced--
concrete piles, of course.

Swent: So the hotel survived all right?

Wiegel: The hotel survived.

Swent: That's a tribute to the engineers, isn't it?

Wiegel: But it also was another example that you have to do a lot to the
fill on these things. The amount of engineering has got to be
great.

There's another thing that should fit in there, and that's
commissions, associations, council, and boards. This is opposed
to committees as such. The most long-lasting for me--and this
ties in with some of the other questions that you asked earlier,
and I'll get to it nowwas what was originally called the Council
on Wave Research formed about 1950 under the Engineering
Foundation.

Swent: Everything came out of that Long Beach conference.

Wiegel: That came out of the Long Beach conference; O'Brien and Johnson
thought of that. They organized it, and each paper was by
invitation; each was by invitation. After that, one of the people
who was a senior engineer in New York and a professor at Columbia
University (Boris A. Bakhmeteff) said, "You really need to have a
council to study waves and what they do." It was established at
that time, and Dean O'Brien was chairman of it, Joe Johnson was
secretary, and they asked me to be the executive engineer.

188

Later on- -because, you see, the Engineering Foundation will
only have a council for five years or ten years , but then it ' s
either disbanded or will have to find a home someplace else--and
the American Society of Civil Engineers said, "We think this has
got to stay in existence, but we think it should be broader." It
was transformed into the Coastal Engineering Research Council; and
at that time, O'Brien was chairman of it, Joe Johnson was
secretary, and I was vice chairman. I was active in it, and I
think it was 1978; it was in Hamburg, Germany that they asked me
to become chairman of it, and I was chairman of it until 1992 when
I knew that I didn't have the energy I had before. I didn't know
what was wrong with me then, but I knew I didn't have the energy.
So I chaired it from 1978 to 1992.

Swent: A long time, fourteen years.

Wiegel: It's quite a long time.

Swent: You retired at the meeting in Venice?

Wiegel: That's when I turned it over--

Swent: That was the last one that you chaired?

Wiegel: Yes, and Bob Dean became the new chair of it.

Swent: The meeting in Hamburg was when you--

Wiegel: That's when I--

Swent: --began.

Wiegel: It's still going. It has grown. You saw--the proceedings of the
first conference of coastal engineering would have been the same
size as this one on coastal engineering instruments- -say three
hundred pages or so. The last one which was just held will be
four volumes, but the last one published until now is Coastal
Engineering, 1994--this is the one that was held in Kobe, Japan.
It's in three thick volumes; it's over 3,500 pages of proceedings.

Swent : Oh , my .

Wiegel: This is what has happened: it is expanded, it is worldwide. One

of the reasons is that there's an awful lot of money in the world.
There's a lot of poor distribution of wealth, but there's a
tremendous amount of wealth. There's just all kinds of people
that have enough money and enough leisure time that they can go
places. Beaches are one of the places they like to go; certainly

189

if they have children they like to go to the beach. Kids love to
build sand castles.

I have to tell you a story: I was in Egypt, and I was
invited with a couple of other people for the United Nations
Development Agency. It's about the Nile Delta and some of the
problems they're having there. So we were there meeting, and we
met with the governor of Suez, the governor of Alexandria- -the
four governors along the Mediterranean coast at one time or
another. I was in this new area whichjust as in Spain, just as
in the south coast of Turkey, just as in Miami Beach--to the west
of Alexandria- -which was all desert and that leads into Libya-
condominiums going up; fine beaches.

So we're down looking at them, and I see these three
Egyptian kids building a sand stepped pyramid. I took a
photograph of them because kids the world over--. You get this
nice, wet sand, and you build something out of it; and of course,
being Egyptians, I guess, they're building a pyramid, not a sand
castle. [laughter] I thought that was wonderful.

Swent: [laughter] It is.

Wiegel: But the thing is that people like to be on the coast. There's

some very apparently deep psychological reason for it. People are
looking into this. It's a worldwide thing. A few years ago, I
was over in Thailand. I flew into Bangkok--! 'd been there several
times before, but I wanted to go see these new developments on
Phuket Island, which is on the southwest peninsula side of
Thailand. It's on the Andaman Sea. They have some of these new
hotel resorts which are the same type as the luxury ones out on
the Hawaiian Islandsones that cost three, four hundred million
dollars. A lot of Italian tourists go there, and big charter
flights come in from Hong Kong loaded with tourists; another one
from Tokyo loaded with tourists.

People like to go to the coast; they like beaches. From an
economic standpoint, this is very important because you can only
sell so much manufactured goods. How many pair of shoes can you
have? How many jackets can you have? There are some distribution
problems; we all know that. But in the developed countries,
there's other ways you have got to develop jobs. People have to
use what surplus money they have for other things . Tourism is one
of the great ones. I think you just went, or are just about to go
on a trip some place, I think you said. I know my wife and I are.
We just got back from Hawaii, and we'll be going to the UK.
People do this. Beaches are one of the great places people like
to go.

190

I did a study of Miami Beach- -on the beach nourishment
thereand it was published a couple of years ago. One of the
bits of information I got was the number of beach uses--i.e.,
numbers of people that went to the beach for a day in Miami Beach
since it had been renourished compared with before; it was
substantial. The increase in tourism income- -the number of
tourists who go to Florida and spend some of their time on the
beach--a lot of them go to Disney Worldbut a lot of them go to
Disney World and then to a beach. Or in winter, many, many of
them simply go to Florida from Europe, simply for the weather, and
stay on the beach.

Europe--f irst it was Spain, and then it was Italyand I
know much of both of the coasts and then Turkey--! 've been there
a couple of times, because the south coast of Turkey is
developing. It's not just tourists from Germany, but it's from
Europe in general going to the south coast of Turkey. The Arabs
moneyuses a lot of this area in Egypt that I have just mentioned
to you west of Alexandria. So all kinds of money from the Saudis
and not Lebanon, because Lebanon doesn't have much surplus, and
they have a marvelous climate in Lebanon anyway. So these are
developing.

Mombasa: this is down on the east central coast of Africa,
in Kenya big new resort areas on the beaches in Mombasa. Charter
flights from Frankfurt; charter flights from London and so forth.
So it's a worldwide development. South America of course-
Argentina and that area- -they make use of their beaches very
extensively. Rio de Janeiro--! think everybody's aware of the
fact like the Brazilians like their beaches. Australia, Japan,
Mexico. Maybe this answers it in part; the other part is sailing,
marinas, and surfing. Now, this gets you into conflict.

Sitting on the beach little kids want to go in the surf or
build sand castles, older ones want to surfboard, other people
want to fish. You build cities; they have got waste disposal. If
people want to drive to the beach, where are they going to park?
All of these things build conflicts. So more and more, what we as
engineers are working with, are the political people as to how do
you try to resolve these conflicts. We put in our technical
portion. That's what we're good at. Resolving the political
things--! 'm not sure they can always be resolved.

Swent: Maybe not.

Wiegel: Orville T. Magoon- -you've met Orville and Billy Edge have

organized a series of conferences that have been very helpful
though. Coastal zone management, and the ASCE published the

191

proceedings. Engineers are involved in this worldwide now, and
our students find it interesting and challenging.

I remember when I was acting dean, one of the bits of advice
I got from Banner Davis was the two classes of problem--! think I
mentioned this: some you could solve, others you simple cope with.
I'm afraid some of these are the type you cope with. When you
have great numbers of people and they all want to go to about the
same place- -whether it be Yosemite, or whether it be Santa Monica
Bay- -you 're a democracy, you say "yes," but then you say, "Gosh,
you're damaging what you want to go see." This is what we're
trying to work out today, isn't it? Lots of people are working on
that and it's worldwide; it's a worldwide problem.

I think I know about every mile of the Normandy, Brittany,
Atlantic, and Mediterranean coast of France because I've been
there a number of times the French love to sail, and they've got
new little towns, little developing places that never were
developed beforewith marinas. This is what they like to do.
This is one way of trying to absorb one of the problems in
France, as you know, is the big unemployment- -same in Germany.
You have got to develop new types of jobs, and these aren't in
manufacturing and so forth; it's in these various service types of
things .

So the Coastal Engineer Research Council we serve a very
good purpose. We had no intention of being an international
council; and it is a council of the American Society of Civil
Engineers. We appointed ASCE members in other countries to the
Council- -from Japan, The Netherlands, Australia. It's just there
was nothing else around, so everybody started to come to our
meetings, and it was successful. Well, if something's successful,
you continue it. It's still going. As I say, the next one will
be in Denmark next year.

Swent : You had one in Denmark long ago.
Wiegel: Yes. We're starting to repeat.
Swent: You're repeating now.

Wiegel: In the year 2000, it will be in Sydney, Australia, which will be a
repeat, and in the year 2002, it will be in south Wales. It was
kind of interesting, because the representative of the Institution
of Civil Engineers (London) said when he was making a
presentation "You've accepted the next in the year 2000 in
Sydney in New South Wales" he said, "Let's have the year 2002 in
Old South Wales." Of course, that wasn't why it was accepted;

192

they had made a very good presentation, and the Institution of
Civil Engineers is going to host it.

Swent: The conference was in Denmark in 197A.

Wiegel: Yes, and in next year, 1998, it will be in Copenhagen again.

Swent: What about Cape Town? You haven't mentioned Cape Town. You were
there in 1982.

Wiegel: I had all kinds of political problems with that one. It was going
to be in Venezuela, and I got a phone call that they couldn't get
it together because it required some money and this and that, and
at the last minute they couldn't get it together. I was on my way
to Australia for the conference there. I had to make the
announcement that the next one, which had been accepted for
Venezuela, couldn't be held. The representative from South Africa
said, "We can host it." But then we had problems.

I had to contact state department and all kinds of things.
This was all within a couple of days. So the South Africans got
an agreement from their government that anyone who is accepted by
an external review to give a paper would receive a visa--I mean,
unless they were criminalsyou know what I mean. That was one of
the things we insisted on: anyone who had a paper acceptedand
this was by an external review, no South Africans. That was
agreed to, and we had it in writing.

That was when there was so much pressure with respect to
South Africa. But our opinion was that we were engineers and
scientists and we all work together; we work closely with people.
It's not the engineers and scientists that cause these problems;
these are university people. So we decided to go ahead, and I got
in trouble with a number of people. But in hindsight, they said
it was the appropriate thing to do.

Swent: Who? What kinds of people?

Wiegel: I don't want to get into individual names.

Swent: But what? Were they from other countries?

Wiegel: Yes. One of them in particular--! said, "Well, can you explain

why your countryone of your biggest construction firms is doing
a major job in Cape Town right now?" That kind of took care of
that. That was money. Two different countries which were very
pious, but when you looked into it, found they were working with
South Africa because there was money in big construction
contracts.

193

An Innovative Sand Breakwater at a Namibian Diamond Project

Swent: Did you have any trouble getting your American permit to go there?

Wiegel: Nobody had any trouble. It's a beautiful location. I was able,
fortunately, to go up to Namibia to the diamond- -where they were
working along the coast.

Swent: Oh, yes, the west coast.

Wiegel: It's just north of the Orange River in Namibia. This is

interesting because the Orange River is the river that feeds
through the main diamond source in Africa. Sand comes down the
river and other sediments. A very small part of the gravel is
diamonds.

Swent : D i amond s .

Wiegel: For thousands of years the river has transported material to the

coast, and then what they call littoral driftthat is the current
along the coast right on the beach, driven by the wavesthis
moves sand and gravelthis is the so-called littoral transport of
material, and in that sand and gravel are these diamonds. So what
they've done: they've bulldozed the sand off the beach, because
diamonds are a little more dense, so they're on the bottom. They
didn't just start bulldozing sand off the beach; there was first
exploration by mining engineers, geologists. They found where the
diamonds were; they were in cracks surface cracks in the bedrock.
In other words, you took the sand off and got down to the bedrock,
then you got gravel out of the cracks of that bedrock there, and a
certain amount of that gravel is diamonds .

So they bulldozed the sand off the beach into the surf zone;
about a kilometer long, and then a cofferdam to shore. But in
order to maintain it out there and this is a true invention- -what
engineer thought to do this, don't ask mebut they decided if
they put a lot of horizontal wells they call them points from
the inside of the beach side of the sand and pump out the salt
water that penetrated from the ocean, that this sand breakwater
could be maintained. It worked. Who thought of that; why they
tried it- -I haven't any idea. It's lost, but a great idea.

The chief civil engineer of the whole diamond works there
was did his master's degree here at Berkeley in civil engineering
right after the end of World War II , and that ' s how I happened
to

Swent: Do you remember his name?

194

Wiegel: I can't remember his name. But I remember vividly him telling me
he had been shot by Germans during World War II and left for dead
--but he survived.

Swent: What company was working there?

Wiegel: Anglo American Corporation, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of
Debeers. But Anglo American Corporation is the actual mining
company for diamonds.

Swent: There were a lot of other people trying to get in there.

Wiegel: Yes, but this is the big operator. You don't just go in. You're
flown in by charter plane, and after you land, an escort is with
you the whole time. You just don't wander in this area, believe
me. So then they moved all the sand--

Swent :

So these were horizontal pipes were used to pump the water out?

Wiegel: Yes. They moved the sand off the beach out into the surf zone.
But now: how do you maintain it there with all the wave action?
Somebody thought about putting in horizontal wells and pumping the
salt water out, and somehow this would make it better, and it
does. Other people are now trying this concept out in different
parts of the world to try to maintain regular beaches by doing the
same thing. Back to Namibia- -then they get down to the bedrock,
and it's down there with men with whisk brooms. We said, "Why
don't you try this or that?"

"We've tried everything anybody has ever thought about.
Every kind of mechanical equipment, every kind of separator, every
kind of everything. There is nothing like a person with a whisk
broom and a pair of eyes to be able to segregate the 'most likely 1
from the 'obviously not.'"

This is taken in and it's washed, and put into a centrifugal
separator, and you can sort it out by densities. Then finally,
when you get the choice of the choice, it goes out on a black
velvet conveyor belt, and you can see clearly which are the
diamonds, and they're then picked out. Then they wash them in
kind of a weak acid, because if I looked at it, I would think it's
just another pebble. Then they wash them; then you can see the
color. But they come in all colors. My favorite were the yellow
ones. Of course, they don't say, "Here, have a sample." This is
all behind glass with a person right next to you. But it was
really interesting, and that was a very good opportunity. We were
there to see the beach operation primarily.

195

Swent :

Wiegel:

Swent :
Wiegel:

I'd been to South Africa before, at other places. They have
very good coastal people down there. They have had some work
published by the American Shore and Beach Preservation
Association, and I was a director and vice president of it for a
decade, and I was editor of Shore & Beach. I was asked to be
president of it, but that's when I didn't have the energy, and I
said no. I would serve as chair of a search committee for a
president, but I wouldn't be able to accept it myself. I'm still
kind of active in it; I attend their conferences.

There are two things that I wanted to bring in at some point: one
was your work in maintaining the high level of these papers --your
insistence on jury reviews for the papers. I'm sure sometimes you
were pressured to accept papers that you thought were not up to

snuff.

I think what it is: I'm old enough; I've been around enough; they
don't want to take a chance with me, so I was never pressured.

How did you get to that?

Oh, I sent them out for reviews,
three people to review.

Every paper was sent to at least

You were given credit for maintaining a very high level of papers
in these things.

Maybe it's because I'm a professor, and I'm used to looking at
student papers; I don't know. You're judging them all the time,
aren't you, and you're saying, "This isn't up to snuff; now you do
a better job." I look, and I know the kid had fallen asleep about
three in the morning; I knew what happened; I'd done the same
thing. I think being a professor is very useful from that
standpoint because you're used to judging things. You review a
paper for I think three reasons: one is that you are looking for
something interesting- -remember this journal is for a broad-based
group of people, and some of them are scientists or engineers, but
many of them are not. So I continued the policy of my
predecessor, Joe Johnson: that was, I didn't want any equations in
this journal. I wanted it stated in words or sketches,
photographs --we used a lot of photographs, and we used a lot of
sketches. I wouldn't rule it out completely, but basically, no
equations. So the first thing in the choice of papers is, do you
think this is of interest to a large number of people? That's the
first thing.

The second is that: are there factual problems? Very often
there are. There are things that are wrong, and with these expert
reviewers you can catch those kind of things. The third is: have

196

they just overlooked something? Because of course it may be
obvious to the person or persons who wrote it, but it isn't clear
to somebody else because they have another set of information in
their mind compared with the people who are reading it. If you
have three reviewers, you can pick up quite a bit of this. These
are three good reasons to review, and it makes for a better
journal. It's hard work, but I think very well worth while.

I came back from a trip--I had been up to Alaska in the
north slope, got backI knew something was wrongwent over to
Thailand and Japan, and then went to the doctors, and found out
what it was . Within about a month I was in the hospital for open-
heart surgery so

Wiegel: I have got most of my energy back, but it's not complete.

Swent: I don't think you've mentioned your and at some point, we must

get it on the record--! can't remember whether you mentioned your
surgery on the tape?

Wiegel: Maybe not. I've had two major
Swent: You've had some major health setbacks.

Wiegel: However, except for that, I've been very healthy. I almost never
get colds or illnesses of any sort. My daughters say that except
for my terrible problems, I'm very healthy. But I had acoustic
neuroma, this took over an eight-hour operation in the inner ear.
But then a little over two years ago, I had open-heart surgery
because they had to replace the aortic valve with they don't use
plastic; they tried plastic, but those don't last with either a
pig valve or a calf valve that they insert. Then, as they say,
once they got you open, they do lots of other things. So they
took the veins out of my leg and by-passed my arteries and so
forth.

Swent: So this is only two years ago?

Wiegel: That was a little over two years ago for that; the other was about
eight or nine years ago. I got most of my energy back, but still
I'm getting to the age where you don't have as much energy as you
used to have anyhow.

Swent : That ' s an awful lot .

197

Wiegel: But I'm not worried about flying any more, except that I won't go
anyplace that I can't get back on a non-stop flight to San
Francisco in case I have to.

Swent: Right.

Wiegel: But that did cause me to make some major changes in what I was
doing, of course.

California Advisory Commission on Marine and Coastal Resources

Wiegel: You've alluded to public service a couple of times, and we'd get

started a little bit and so forth, but I would like to spend a bit
of time on that. The commissions --and these are, I guess, legal
type of things--! served on two commissions in California: one was
the California Governor's Advisory Commission on Ocean Resources.
That was established by Pat Brown when he was governor. That was
changed, and it became the California Advisory Commission on
Marine and Coastal Resources. I was on the tail end of the first
commission and then I served on the second commission throughout
its entire existence, which is 1968 to 1974.

Swent: This was by the governor 's--
Wiegel: Yes, it was Governor Reagan.
Swent: --appointment.

Wiegel: It was established by act of the state legislature, however.

Thereby law--on the commission would be three members of the
state assembly, and three members of the state senate. I remember
[Senator] Dill being one of the senators, from Los Angeles. The
assemblyman that I remember was quite a young personable
assemblyman from San Diego by name of Pete Wilson.

Swent: We've heard of him.

Wiegel: Who later on became mayor of San Diego, and then United States
senator, and then governor. He always was interested in the
coast; he was really interested in it. When he was on the
commission, he wrote an act, but it wasn't accepted because he was
too young. That's when I learned some more about politics in the
state assembly. It would have had quite a bit in it which came in
the California Coastal Commission Act, which was by proposition-
initiative. But Pete Wilson had written something with much of
that in it as part of that.

198

Our commission went out of existence when the California
Coastal Commission came on. They were entirely different things:
ours was advisory; the California Coastal Commission is
regulatory. So there's all the difference in the world there.

Swent: Did you get to the point where you recommended regulations though?

Wiegel: We recommended a number of things. I was chairman of a couple of
its committees. One was on power plant citings, for example. You
need vast quantities of water to cool power plants, and we thought
it's better to use the ocean if you can, rather than fresh water
in California.

Swent: You did quite a little work down at Diablo Canyon.

Wiegel: That came later. I guess the reason I was asked to chair that

committee is because I was doing work on mixing processes; that's
my guess. So I was the one on the committee. Incidentally Jack
Bonner was on it. Jack eventually became president of PG&E; he
was a Cal graduate back in the early thirties. That was very
interesting. The persons that chaired that council were really
outstanding people.

The first was Bennie Schaefer, who was professor at Scripps
at UC San Diego and he was a fisheries expert. He had been
science advisor to Udall when Udall was secretary of the interior.
Fisheries people have to be very, very broad. They need all the
marine biology, marine chemistry- -but they need to know economics
and politics. Bennie was one of the ones working on setting up
these international fisheries agreements to try to have what you
call sustainable natural resources. Bennie was one of the people.
He died some years ago, but boy, he was a broad-based person.

Following Bennie was Wib (W.M. ) Chapman, also a fisheries
expert. He had been dean of the Fisheries School, University of
Washington. Then with the U.S. government as their representative
to the International Tuna Fisheries Commission, and was director
of Marine Resources of Ralston Purina Corporation while chairman.
Wib, like Bennie Schaefer, died while serving as the chair.

Another one was Dave Potter, who was a physicist; underwater
sound. He was the head of the General Motors defense lab in Santa
Barbara at that time, and he eventually became undersecretary of
the navy, and then General Motors brought him back as president of
Delco, and then he headed up, was group vice president for General
Motors for all heavy equipment . He ' s another extremely bright
guy.

199

These people who chaired the council all had the ability to
listento many inputs, all day long, and to sort out what were
the most important items and then to summarize that. They all had
this ability.

Robert "Bud" Krueger, who was in resources type of law and
things of that sort, followed Dave Potter as chair. You see, we
had two fisheries experts as chairs, then a physicist (underwater
sound) as a chair, and then a lawyer as chair. It was good to be
on these because you learn so much about these different things,
and you remain friends for the rest of your life, too. That was a
very, very interesting experience.

Swent: Is that when you got somehow involved with the Native Americans?

Wiegel: The only thing I can remember getting involved with the Native
Americans was not with them directly.

Swent: "Indians" as we used to call them.

Wiegel: Yes, certainly. It was indirectly, because I was asked to be a
consultant for the redevelopment agency of Crescent City after
they had the tsunami, a "tidal wave". This was thirty years ago.

Swent: We really haven't mentioned tsunamis yet; we'll have to do that.
Wiegel: I think we have a lot to cover next time.
Swent : Right .

Wiegel: So anyhow, I was looking into all the stuff that we do: the
technical literature in underwater earthquakes and what was
happening. We did do a lot of work on the Mendocino escarpment;
real good science. Out of that came an absolutely first-rate
Ph.D. thesis. One of the things that I ran intoyou may have got
that from Orville Magoon, because both of us have been interested
in tsunamis, as you know. Up in Crescent City, I wanted to find
out: did the Indians have any tribal knowledge? That is, oral
knowledge that's handed down, and most people like that are good
observers. So I found out that there was a person doing a Ph.D.
thesis in cultural anthropology at Cal.

So I got a hold of this person, and I said, "Did you find
out anything in what you're doing?" One of the things that he
told me about was that the Indians up in Crescent City had a
belief that if you put a ring of abalone shells around an area,
this would protect it from tsunamis, but you must put these around
an area up on a bluff. [laughter] This is what I liked. So you
had two things going for you: you had one which I could go along

200

with very well, and that's building on a higher elevation. That's

Swent :
Wiegel:

Swent :
Wiegel:
Swent :
Wiegel:

where the hospital is up at Crescent City,
referring to; I don't know.

I don't know.

Maybe that ' s what he ' s

I'd forgotten all about that. So we did a lot of interesting
things; we had a lot of meetings. If you look on top of my file
cabinet, you'll see two stacks of reports. Each one is an annual
report or a report of a meeting. In those, we made many
recommendations. A number of them did find their way into the
California Coastal Commission and things of this sort. I can't
tell you how much, but a number of them did.

Someone did listen.

Or read. You have to have patience. I'm not politically
oriented; I'm just not. That's a different sort of person, that's
all there is to it. They're very good in what they do, but I'm
science /engineering oriented, and hopefully I'm good in what I do,
but it's different.

It's very different; yes, it is.

Orville Magoon, you seewho you've met--he was one of the first
to recognize that people have got to stop fighting with one
another and work with one another. That's why he started that
Coastal Zone Conference. He did it; other people helped, Billy L.
Edge was a major collaborator. He's always been good at getting
people to help and he always had had good people to help. The
first meeting on the Coastal Zone was in 1978 or something like
that in San Francisco.

That was when he was working for the Corps?

He was still with the Corps.

Coastal Zone Management I think it was called?

Yes. Because that was the point: people have got to talk to each
other, and listen to each other. You don't resolve problems by
being antagonistic; they're not the ones that resolve things.
It's the other people who get together and say, "This is a good
point from you; this is a good point from you. I understand why
you want to go that way." Then you start resolving these things
and Orville is very good at this. That meeting grew into another
and another and another, and again, it became the worldwide
meeting on coastal zone management. In one way, this is what he's

201

doing in this one in March in San Diego, but it's a little
different, because that's got a lot of science base in it.

I just got a copy of the program with who's giving what
paper and there's a lot of scientific-based information going into
it as well as the management and the legal stuff. Broad: fish,
kelp, wetlands, beachesyou name it. Everything connected with
it.

Office of Naval Research Natural Hazards Review Board

Wiegel: Let me mention one little thing first, because I just ran across
something when I was going through my notes which is interesting.
It was just in existence for one year. It was the Office of Naval
Research Natural Hazards Review Board. This was 1973 to 1974, and
earthquakes had just caught their attention pretty strongly.
Bruce Bolt here at Berkeley was on it, I was on it, Harry Seed was
on it. The chair of the committee--! can't remember his name
right now, but he was at Caltech and a seismologist.

We wrote a report on earthquakes as far as naval bases were
concerned. This included Subic Bay in the Philippines and so
forth; overseas bases and bases in the U.S. I had forgotten all
about this until I was trying to get some background information.
Could I read you two sentences?

Swent: Please, yes, of course.

Wiegel: It's a letter from Admiral Tyrrell to the chief of naval research
dated 18 April 1980. It said: "Sometime ago, the Office Of Naval
Research undertook a study to help us determine the potential
vulnerability of a naval shore establishment to earthquake damage.
The results of the study were extremely useful and contributed to
a decision to fully investigate the earthquake safety of
activities located in areas of high seismic risk. The six-year
program of investigation funded at one million dollars per year is
under way. This will result in substantial operating of
facilities and improve earthquake safety which will enhance the
navy's ability to carry out its mission."

You do these things, and you're sometimes never sure whether
any action is taken, but here was a case where action was taken.
This triggers back what happened to the Port of Oakland, what
happened to Kobe--ef fects of earthquakes on filled areas. This is
what we were looking into and we made recommendations about that
very subject. This was over twenty years ago.

202

Swent: And you only worked for one year?

Wiegel: Yes, off and on. You make your recommendations. The next step
took money, because they had to do in-depth engineering studies.

Swent: But you recommended those studies?

Wiegel: We put in the recommendation, yes. I'd forgotten.

Swent: It was important.

Wiegel: That was important.

Swent: Yes, it was.

Wiegel: The Marine Boardwhich I referred to before, is part of the
National Research Council--! was on it for two terms of three
years each, the maximum you could servebut I was on its
predecessor, Ocean Engineering Committee of the National Academy
of Engineering. Later, I also was an ex officio member because I
was chairman of something or other. But I was on it for years.
Back in the late 1960s, the state department was interested in
getting cooperation on ocean engineering/science/resources/
operations amongst the countries; not just coastal, I'm talking
about oceans. This is marine transportation, fisheries, offshore
oil and gas, with Japan and European countries.

Engineering Committee on Ocean Resources

Wiegel: Because of some of the things I had donepeople knew me in Japan
because I'd been on two of these things with the Japanese and the
British and the Dutch knew me. So I was asked if I would look
into the establishment of an international organization to be
advisory to UNESCO on ocean resources, they called it. There was
a scientific SCOR: the Scientific Committee on Ocean Research;
which was a standing committee of UNESCO. The state department
wanted something similar with engineering, but they talked about
resources.

So I started to bounce back and forth to Europe. I'd give
lectures. I remember once flying all night and then chairing a
meeting at nine in the morning in Paris. I had energy in those
days.

Swent: I guess so.

203

Wiegel: I couldn't do it today.

Swent: You weren't flying on the Concorde, I don't suppose?

Wiegel: No. We flew what they called "sardine class." I did a lot of

this, and we eventually established ECOR- -Engineering Committee on
Ocean Resources. I guess because I had done much of the work in
getting it together, they asked me to serve as the founding
president; this was other people that requested this. So I served
as that, and I said that I wouldn't serve another term. I didn't
think it should be done; I thought a person should only serve for
a three-year term. It's still in existence. I forget who's the
secretariat; and I think it's in the U.K. right now. The
secretariat was here in the U.S. for sometime, but I think it's
now in the U.K.

Swent: This was also connected with UNESCO?

Wiegel: Yes. For a couple of the UNESCO meetings, I was the state
department of f icial- -whatever they call it--at meetings.

Swent: Delegate maybe?

Wiegel: No, delegates are voting. Official observer I think they called
it. So you could respond if they had questions. But it was
interesting.

Swent: It must have been.

Wiegel: I had to sit in over there in Paris and so forth. I got to

wondering: how many time have I been to Europe? I started to go
through, but I can't countbut I have made certainly more than
sixty trips. Of course, I've done all kinds of traveling to Asia
and so forth.

Swent: But sixty to Europe alone.
Wiegel: It's been more.
Swent: Oh, my.

Wiegel: But for a while I think it was three or four a year. It was quite
interesting to establish something, and to do it by consensus, and
get it to go. We did give quite a bit of advice to UNESCO, but it
was broader than that.

Swent: What sorts of things?

204

Wiegel: Offshore oil had a lot to do with it. The only reason why there
hadn't been any real problem in the North Sea was that the
economic boundaries between the U.K. and Norway and so forth were
established before anybody had thought there was any oil or gas
there; it was all done for fisheries. When gas and then oil was
discovered, they had these international agreements already in
existence, and that was very fortunate.

Swent: But there has been trouble about establishing fisheries
boundaries.

Wiegel: Fisheries will always be a problem. It's a big problem today,
worldwide. There are other problems. One of the big problems
between China and Vietnam and the Philippinesthe threehas to
do with little, tiny islands out there in the South China Sea
region. Nobody could care who's sitting on them, but because of
the economic zones around them and this is an area that's
undoubtedly got oil and gas, they all claim them. These problems
exist today and they can trigger wars . I can get into that next
time; I've done so much international work because of those kinds
of things. Anyhow, it was interesting to be the one that really
put it together and it's still operational.

Swent: So you were looking just at the resources of the ocean?

Wiegel: This was mostly it.

Swent: So that would be fisheries, fish, pollution control, and

Wiegel: --oil.

Swent: --oil.

Wiegel: There's another organization I had to meet with, and it's the one
that sets the standards for safety for ships.

Swent: What did you call it?

Wiegel: IMO--International Maritime Organization.

Swent: But you used a word just a moment ago that I didn't quite catch.

Wiegel: I think I said that other organization that I had to then deal
withnot deal with, but learn from. That's a very formal
international group, and the U.S. member on it is the commandant
of the U.S. Coast Guard. That may have been what I said. But
that was this other organization that I had to interact with.
That got me into the safety of off-shore structures because the
coast guard would be in charge with the safety of floating

205

structures. There are a lot of floating structures. The Interior
Department with the U.S. Geological Survey is responsible for the
safety of fixed structures. That's interesting.

Swent: The Department of the Interior?

Wiegel: The Department of Interior. That came about very interestingly

because the so-called Santa Barbara oil spill was not an oil spill
at all in my terms. An oil spill is something that spills out of
a ship or when a pipeline breaks . In drilling for oil out in the
federal waters off Santa Barbara, they went through fracture
zones, and apparently there was this one segment that was down
maybe two thousand feet below the bottom--! don't know what the
distance is, but something like that.

There wasn't a casing installed in a long segment, so oil,
by the pressure of the gas, came up through this well, but part of
it wasn't cased, and it moved out into a fracture zone, and then
that got up into another fracture zone and that eventually got up
into the water. So it wasn't a spill; it was a geological
problem. So Congress said to the Geological Survey, "You've got
to be responsible for it." So here the Geological Survey had no
staff whatsoever that knew any thing- -even their own good
geologists they didn't know anything about the design of an
offshore oil platform that was fixed. But they were told to do
it. They had to build up technically qualified staff.

Eventually, I chaired the National Research Council
committee on the safety for those things, or the recommendations
for safety.

Swent: That would be safety not only of personnel--

Wiegel: Well, the Coast Guard was in charge of safety of personnel, but
then it became much broader because the Coast Guard was given a
lot of oil spill responsibilities--

Swent: --environmental responsibilities.

Wiegel: --environmental, and personal safety. With almost no additional
funds. They were told, "Do all this," but not given the funds to
build up the staffs. They had an impossible situation. They're
good people, but you can't do very much if you don't have the
money to build up your specialized staff.

Swent: That was a very explosive political issue too.

206

Wiegel: The next one, the last one I wanted to talk about was the Coastal
Engineering Research Board in the army, but that's going to take
some time.

Swent: Should we leave that? Okay.

Wiegel: I was on that for eleven years.

Swent: That was a big one.

Wiegel: That was a big one.

Swent: That's after they had moved to Vicksburg?

Wiegel: No, it was before. I was on it for two five-year terms, but I was
on it for eleven years, because that's when they moved to
Vicksburg. All the records were misplaced for a while, so I was
on for another year. I think that was what it was: that simple.
There's no way we could ever figure out how ten years became
eleven years. It occurred right when the move was made from
Washington, D.C., to Vicksburg. [laughter]

Swent: [laughter] Simple housekeeping mix-up.

Wiegel: I think they can count; I'm not worried about that. Maybe we
should do that.

Swent: It's already twelve o'clock.
Wiegel: I'm kind of tired too.

More on the Use of TV in the College of Engineering at Gal
[Interview 6: March 12, 1997] ##

Swent: When we ended last time, we were planning to talk about the
research board, but you had some other thoughts before that.

Wiegel: Once you're off, suddenly you think of something, and with respect
to the use of TV in the College of Engineering at Cal, I don't
remember whether I gave the name of the person who really did all
of the work on the hardwarethat is, the type of equipment for
televising and videotaping and things of this sort. Berkeley had
a television group which consisted of two people, but in
engineering, we had our own person that worked with them, but he
really did all of the planning for us. It was Dr. Jim Gumming.

207

Swent: I don't believe you have mentioned his name.

Wiegel: He did a great amount of work over several years, and when it
became operational, for the first couple of years he was the
engineer that really ran the thing. I thought that this was very
important.

Swent: Yes, that's good to mention.

Wiegel: I should also mention that I used myself as a guinea pig in one of
the early--

Swent: Did you?

Wiegel: --televised classes and gave a full graduate course in the early
days. That way, you could get other people to do it if they knew
that you had done it yourself. The other is about the Coastal
Engineering Research Council [CERC] . Tremendous amount of work
was done by Bob Dean, Billy Edge, Orville Magoon, Thorndike
Saville, Jr., and Ron Noble. These are always collaborative
efforts. These were the U.S. representatives on the Coastal
Engineering Research Council. In addition, we had a
representative from Japan, Kyoshi Horikawa, who was professor at
the University of Tokyo, and became president of the Japan Society
of Civil Engineers, and is currently president of a private
university in Japan. We had a representative from AustraliaDoug
Foster. Leonoardo Zeevaert was from Mexico. One from the
Netherlands was Professor Eco Bijker, for many years. Although it
was an American society of civil engineers, it became
international through no planning; it just occurred. When this
happened, we made sure to appoint people from other countries.
These were all members of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Swent: Is there also an international organization of civil engineers?
Wiegel: No, there's no international organization.
Swent: Congress of something?

Wiegel: No. That was one of the reasons that I was asked many years ago
to get something on ocean engineering- -ocean resources. But it's
not an organization like the American Society of Civil Engineers
or something like that; it's a very small organization with
representatives of each of the member countries. It becomes too
unwieldy. We have the International Union of Geodesy and
Geophysics; they no longer can hold a complete congress because
it's too big. They have to break it up into geophysics and
oceanography and seismology and other different portions of it.
The world's too big now.

208

Swent: It has gotten too big, hasn't it?
Wiegel: Yes, it has gotten too big.

Swent: You do have, however, this international consortium now on ocean
engineering.

Wiegel: It's a conference that's held every two years. We've tried to
restrict its size. It's gotten bigger and bigger, and we've
worked very hard to not allow it to get too big. But even so at
the last conference, which was last year, there were five sessions
simultaneously. So you spend your whole time wondering, "Which
session is the one I should be in, out of a choice of five."

Swent: That's difficult.

Wiegel: I don't care for those. I know they have to exist, but I prefer
smaller ones. The American Shore and Beach Preservation
Association, for example--our annual meeting that we held last
year was in Chicago and it was concentrated on the Great Lakes;
the equivalent of oceanography of the Great Lakes, and the coast,
and the geology of the local region and so forth. There, for the
two and a half days of conference, you could hear every paper that
was given and participate. I prefer that, but I know you can't do
it except rarely nowadays unless you have what you call a
workshop. I did mention one of the workshops we held: it was on
Hurricane Hugo.

Swent: Yes.

Wiegel: If you want to take it with you and look--

Swent: Thank you.

Wiegel: --just to have an idea about it.

Swent: This is the Shore & Beach issue from October, 1990. Thank you.

Wiegel: That gives an idea of what can be done in the workshop. Also, at
the last session, you asked about my activities in tsunamis.

Swent: Yes.

Wiegel: I've given a little bit, and it will fit in appropriately in a few
minutes from now--

Swent: All right. Just didn't want to skip it.

209

Wiegel: --when I can discuss it. Then you also asked me about the
definition of hindcast--

Swent : Yes .

Wiegel: --just as you were leaving.

Hindcasting Wave Conditions

Swent: I keep running into forecasting and hindcasting; and forecasting I
understand, I think, but hindcasting I'm not sure about.

Wiegel: That's a very good question. It's like in any trade or profession
you have your own jargon. When I speak of forecasting or
hindcasting, I'm talking about waves: water waves, ocean waves,
and surf, the waves breaking on beaches. This came about from the
World War II amphibious operations, having to forecast what would
be the surf conditions as a site for the military to plan on. A
great amount of research was done on relating the winds blowing
over the ocean to the waves that they generate, or even more
fundamentally, the atmospheric pressure distributions over the
ocean; from those forecasting what would be the winds generated by
them. I shouldn't say forecastrelating what winds would be
generated by those pressure distributions.

Then after calculating the winds through numerical models
(we call them now) , to calculate what would be the waves that
would be generated by these in the open ocean. Then with the
information and the physics, we were developing on what happened
to waves as they moved onto beaches; what would be the surf
conditions. Then through other work: how would these surf
conditions affect the operations of the landing craft and the
personnel. You probably know if you have ever seen anything like
the movie, "The Longest Day," great losses of life occurred; not
just enemy gunfire and so forth, but people drowning. There was
great loss of life.

So, you're trying to forecast the weather in advance, and
then from the forecast of the weather calculate what would be the
waves and surf caused by the conditions. Hindcast is what we use
for engineering purposes. We look at old weather systemsthese
aren't old forecast weather systems, but real measured weather
conditions, and then use the same procedures to calculate what
would be the characteristics of the waves and the surf generated
by those meteorological conditions. Those we call hindcast.

210

Swent: Is this an evaluation of a previous record?

Wiegel: Yes.

Swent: You had the winds, but did you have the wave conditions?

Wiegel: But then you see we would be measuring the waves so that we could
compare the calculations with the measurements to test the
numerical models. That's where the word "hindcast" came from. We
were hindcasting the waves, but from real measured meteorological
conditions, and then using those calculations to compare them with
measurements to check the validity of our theory. We also use it
now to build up statistics. For example, when we went to operate
in the North Sea, for the design of offshore oil platforms, we
made use of twenty or thirty years of previous meteorological
measurements in the North Sea to hindcast the waves that were
developed by those conditions, and then from that we got the
statistics that we used to design the offshore oil platform.

Now, since I did this type of work, they've developed a new
term, something called nowcast. We have forecast, hindcast, and
nowcast. Nowcast is where you use actually measured
meteorological conditions that come in from these weather buoys
and satellites andbecause of the high speed computing system
that we havewhen I say "we", the United States Navy hasthey
predict what will be the waves right now from information coming
in all over the world from various measurements. Those are called
nowcasts.

Swent: I have here the program for the ocean conference, "California and
the World Ocean 1997," that's going to be held later this month.
I noticed they gave a whole session on the CIS

Wiegel: That's really where you are.

Swent: But they're using that on a lot of the coasts.

Wiegel: Yes. To me, it's almost unbelievable what they can do nowadays.

Swent: Think of all those calculations that you made so painstakingly.

Wiegel: I prefer the system today.

Swent: It's certainly much easier, isn't it?

Wiegel: I much prefer today's systems. They've done a marvelous job.

Swent: It's taken a lot of the drudgery out of those kinds of
calculations.

211

Wiegel: And then improved the accuracies too. You can check so many
things. There's just no comparison. We don't have any new
physics, though; we are still working with the old physics. We
still include F=ma; maybe we got into e*mc 2 with some things.

So now I guess we can talk about the U.S. Army's Corps of
Engineers; the Coastal Engineering Research Board; the Coastal
Engineering Research Center. I think I mentioned earlier that the
Army Corps of Engineers goes back to George Washington, and
military engineersin fact, the word "civil engineers" came into
being a few hundred years ago to distinguish between what was done
in the civilian areanot just the United States, but in England
and France and every place else as opposed to military. This, of
course, was dams; bridge building has traditionally been civil the
world over.

The term "civil engineer"--at least in the English language
--started to be used only a couple of hundred years ago. It's a
relatively new term; less than three hundred years ago. It was at
about the same time that Admiral--! have to always tie things
togetherabout the same time that Admiral Nelson was growing up
as a boy in England and looking at a harbor down on the southeast
coast, Wells in Norfolk. There was a person doing a consulting
job in that same harbor, and as far as we know he's the first
person to use the title and call himself a civil engineer, John
Smeaton. It's a relatively new term.

So in the United States, the only engineers that existed
when the country came into existence were military engineers .
George Washington was an engineer and surveyor. The military
always needed to know where they were and where they were going,
and fields of firethis all required surveying. They were called
topographic engineers because they studied the topography.

Swent: West Point was established as an engineering school, wasn't it?

Wiegel: For the first many, many years, the superintendent of West Point
was always a military engineer. I like to think of --the first
coastal engineering project in the United States after it became
the United States- -was under the direction of President George
Washington, and it was a lighthouse up in Maine. There was
another one at Montauk Point on Long Island a few years later.
These were coastal structures for navigation purposes. The
military were always closely connected to harbors for defense. In
other words, navies historicallyin the Mediterranean going back
to the Phoenicians, and the Greeks, and the Romans, and so forth
they built navies, harbors, ports, and so forth. So the military
have always worked closely with ports and protection and coastal
defense works.

212

Swent :
Wiegel:

Swent :
Wiegel;

Swent :
Wiegel:

In the U.S. Constitution, there's something that people
refer to as the Interstate Commerce Clause. Well, there's no
clause that's the Interstate Commerce Clause. I don't know where
the term came from, but there is a clause in there that can be
construed, and has been construed, to give the federal government
certain power over the states, for interstate commerce. This is
the so-called Interstate Commerce Clause. The physical fact is
that a couple of hundred years ago, the only way you really could
get most materials from one part of the country to anotherfor
example, from Boston to New York or to Baltimore or to Charleston,
South Carolina- -was by shipping.

Congress said that it was a function of the federal
government to maintain navigation because it was between states;
not within states, but between states. You had to have certain
regulations as to navigation aids, certain depths of water
because it's no good having a ship with a certain draft that moves
in and out of one port that can't go into another port. So
somehow you've got to regulate these things. The Corps of
Engineers was given this responsibility. Then, at some later
date, in the early 1800s

I think we should try to move on up to the present a little more.

Yes, but that's how they got into it. Because of the effect of
these navigation structures on the contiguous beachessometimes
beneficial, but usually harmful, to the beach--in the early 1930s,
Congress agreed that the Corps of Engineers had some
responsibilities and they established by law what was called the
Beach Erosion Board.

That's what later, in 1963, became this

Correct. That was in existence for about thirty years, and then
they expanded itthis is again by law they disestablished the
Beach Erosion Board and established the Coastal Engineering
Research Board and at the same time, the Coastal Engineering
Research Center. Two separate entities, but very closely
connected.

The board and the center?

Yes. The board consists of four general officers and three
civilians.

213
Civilian Member on the Coastal Engineering Research Board

Swent: Did you have a connection with that?

Wiegel: I spent eleven years as one of the civilian members on the Coastal
Research Board.

Swent: How did that come about?

Wiegel: How did I get on it? I had had several small research contracts

with the Coastal Engineering Research Center to do research at the
University of California, and then when the coastal engineering
and the centerand when by law--I don't know by law or practice,
whateverthey had to have a certain turnover of both the military
members and the civilian members. One of the civilian members
died Professor Art Ippen of MIT they asked me if I would be
willing to serve as Professor Ippen 's replacement. I said, "Yes,
of course I would." So I was given a five-year appointment, and
then a second five-year appointment.

During that time, they moved from Washington to Vicksburg
and the records must have gotten mislaid or something, so I was on
for eleven years rather than the ten years. When I was on it, the
full board that is, with the generals and it was presided over
by the deputy chief of engineers the major general that is the
deputy chief of engineers for civil works. We had two full
meetings per year of the board, and these would be in different
areas of the United States coastal meetings. It might be the
Great Lakes, it might be the Gulf of Mexico, it could be New
England, it could be California, Washington. They made sure that
they went to different regions.

Then the three civilian members would meet on two other
occasions at the request of the full board to study certain
technical problems that they would like more attention given to.
For example, they might ask us to look at the proposed research
program two years in advance for the Coastal Engineering Research
Center. So we would spend a lot of time doing that, and of
course, prior to one of those meetings of the three civilians, you
did a lot of homework.

Swent : I'm sure .

Wiegel: You didn't just go to the meetings. You had many documents; you'd
look at the research plans, but you also kept yourself current
with the research activities that were being done by the Coastal
Engineering Research Center. At first that was at Fort Belvoir,
Virginia, but then it later moved it was in the early 1980s, 1983

214

or something like thatto the Waterways Experiment Station at
Vicksburg, Mississippi, which is a big army research establishment
that was formed originally to study the flooding of the
Mississippi River. Then during World War II, it expanded into all
kinds of military operationspavements, bridges, geotechnical
all kinds of real military engineering.

At my final meeting of the board, I was presented the army's
Outstanding Civilian Service Award. I appreciated this very much
and was very pleased to have been of service to them.

Swent: In the early days well, in the 1930s--Berkeley and MIT seemed to
be two of very few places that were doing this type of research,
and gradually more and more universities have gotten into this. I
wonder why the Vicksburg Station was there a point at which there
was a decision whether to continue this work only at universities
rather than setting up this government research facility?

Wiegel: I can't really tell you that. The reasons work was started at
Berkeley was because of one person

Swent: O'Brien.

Wiegel: --Mike O'Brien. It was that simple. There was some work also at
that time being done at Caltech.

Swent: And O'Brien, of course, came from MIT here.

Wiegel: Yes, but Caltech, I now said. There was some work being done at
Caltech. O'Brien got his engineering degree at MIT. Of course,
they've always had good people in any kind of engineering- -both
MIT and Caltech. But Caltech expanded during World War II into
ship motion and mooring of ships; why the ships behave as they do
in harbors. Ships, unfortunately, don't just remain stationary in
harbors, they move around because of waves, winds, tides, and
currents. Some of that was done there; some within the navy, of
course, was done. But the military- -you have to go back to World
War II, and that is the floating breakwaters they were looking at.
That's military. So the Corps was doing some of that.

Swent: I'm just wondering why they set up their own research facility
instead of continuing to use universities.

Wiegel: Well, when they first set up, it wasn't at Vicksburg. I'm talking
about coastal. It was in Washington, D.C., and it was a small
wave tank; just a small wave tank built in Washington, D.C. They
did some studies there, and O'Brien built a small wave tank at
Cal. A small wave tank was built at MIT, and there was a small
one built at Caltech. These were just little things for students

215

so they could use it, with one person helping them to do
something. These weren't anything elaborate whatsoever. Not much
was known about physical hydraulic modeling.

O'Brien had been a Freeman Scholar; I think he was the
second Freeman scholar. In those daysthat was the late 1920s--
he went to Europe and studied under a couple of the professors in
Europe; one in Germany and one in Sweden. This is where physical
hydraulic modeling was done. None of this was done in the United
States at that time. So O'Brien started it here, and as I said,
there was one at MIT and one at Caltech. The Army Corps of
Engineers built one in Washington, but during the war they--i.e.,
the army- -had to study some of these things which were strictly
military operations. I forgot, they also had one at Vicksburg.

Swent: I'm talking about your period on the board now when you got into
the scene: were you reviewing applications for research or
anything like that?

Wiegel: No.

Swent: How was the decision made to do research here or at Vicksburg or
at Fort Belvoir?

Wiegel: I can't tell you that. You mean, why did they decide to do more
and more internally, rather than to feed it out like ONR--Office
of Naval Research--does--

Swent: It just seems that there might be more duplication.

Wiegel: Sometime, before it was in Vicksburg, when it was still in
Washington, or they may have moved to--

Swent: Some place that began with "d." Dalla--

Wiegel: It was something or other reservoir in Washington, D.C. I never
remembered it because I would get in a taxi and--

Swent: --just go.

Wiegel: It was next to the Army Map Service, and they all knew where the
Army Map Service was . The building there was the one next to the
Army Map Service. At some stage, they moved to Fort Belvoir in
Virginia, which is very close to Washington, D.C. The Corps of
Engineers School is there and things like that.

Swent: Is this where you had your meetings?

216

Wiegel: No. When I would go to the one in Washington, D.C., that was

before I was on the board. This is when I had research contracts
with the Corps of Engineers like I had research contracts with the
Office of Naval Research; I had them with the Army Corps of
Engineers. (I did not do research for the Corps after I became a
member of the board, except to conclude our ongoing contract.) At
some stage at that timeit must have been in the 1960s--one of
the National Research Council's boards--! don't know the name
then, it would be called Ocean Affairs boards nowthat's the
oceanographers. They had made a strong recommendation that the
Army Corps of Engineers research activities in coastal engineering
be expanded dramatically.

That was made by a committee deliberating for a year or so.
These were the same ones that had been looking at underseas
warfare for the navy, or helicopters going over landing areas, and
things of this sort. I wasn't on that. But anyhow, they did make
recommendations that the research activities of the Army Corps of
Engineers be expanded dramatically in the coastal area. At that
time, they started to build some of their facilities, but also
they built a big wave tank. The first, what we call prototype
wave tanks. It was one in which you could generate a water wave
six or seven feet high, and two hundred feet long.

That was done to study the protection of the reservoir side
of earth-filled dams. Reservoirswinds blow over them, which
generate waves, and they had erosion problems how to protect the
dams? They didn't build it to study breakwaters; they built it to
study dams. The same facility it was obvious that you needed it
to study breakwaters. So this was the first of the worldwide
prototype-size facility. So it was almost by accident that some
of these things occurred. They got bigger and bigger and did less
research contracting out.

That is where I think they were wrong; I still think they
were wrong. I mentioned this to them when I was on the board.
I've mentioned this to them many times; this is no secret. I
think they have made a mistake by trying to do too much
internally. They need to do a certain amount internally, because
there are really military things that have to be done. Those are
better done on a military facility.

Swent: Why?

Wiegel: Some of the things you may want to have classified.

Swent: It's easier to classify the information there?

217

Wiegel: Yes. I think I mentioned just in closing on Monday that since the
collapse of the Russian Empirethe U.S.S.R.--the whole concept of
strategic planning by the United States, by NATO, and so forth,
has been undergoing tremendous changes. People are not really
sure what to do.

Swent: No, you had not mentioned this, Bob.

Wiegel: The Fleet Admiral Nimitz lecturer on national security affairs
last yearthat is, in 1996--was Harry Summers, Jr., a retired
Marine Corps officer--he is a member of the International
Institute for Strategic Affairs. He has taught at the Marine
Corps School, he has taught at the Army War College, and he has
written two bestseller books: one on the Gulf War and one on
Vietnam. These are considered to be the classic scholarly books.
Looking at these from the standpoint of military strategy, he
talked about military strategy in the twentieth century and where
it might be going in the future.

One of things he mentioned was that the United States Navy
currentlythis is last year is giving up its "bluewater"
strategy, which traditionally had been the very definition of the
navy that's your aircraft carriers, your submarines, your anti
submarine warfare for what they now are calling the "brownwater"
strategy that is, operation in the littoral in the shallow water
because you didn't know whether you were going to have land troops
in the Arabian Gulf, Somalia, Haiti. You don't know where it's
going to be.

There was a little note just recently in one of the issues
of the magazine Science, 3 January 1997. They were writing about
where the research was going to be done for the navy. If I may
quote: "But now, because of things like Somalia and Desert Storm,
the emphasis in on littoral, i.e., coastal warfare, and on getting
landing craft safely onto hostile shores." I think the person is
rather naive; the real problem is supply. You can get the
personnel on shore by helicopters and so forth. But still, there
is a big military thing, and the army and the navy work closely
together on some of these things. Some things you don't want
everybody to know about.

Swent: And yet, they were able to farm those things those out to
universities.

Wiegel: The basic research always. In the early days, we could do
classified work. Now it's close to impossible, the way
universities and faculty are today, to do classified research.

Swent: What's the difference?

218

Wiegel: Engineers don't mind doing it, but professors of history, and
English, and the liberal arts don't believe that universities
should do these things, and they've got a point. One of the
functions of a university is teaching; making knowledge available.
If you're working on classified information, you're not making
this available to your students, are you? Either that, or you're
doing something wrong with your classified results. So there are
some good points. There are things that are much better done in a
military establishment, and should be done there. With these two
things I just mentioned, I think more is being done at the present
time along those lines, but I don't know what it is.

Swent: So you were on the Coastal Engineering Research Board for eleven
years; mostly in the 1970s, right?

Wiegel: I must have served into the early 1980s.

Swent: Then you were chairman of the Coastal Engineering Research
Council.

Wiegel: That's entirely separate. I would like to mention about the army
and the Coastal Engineering Research Center and its predecessor,
the Beach Erosion Board. They developed two manuals; the second
one was called Shore Protection Manual. This book is still in
existence. It is used worldwide. This is a distillation of all
the information they got together two decades ago on coastal
processes. It's two thick big volumes, eight and a half by eleven
inches, printed by the US Government Printing Office. Well
illustrated, lots of tables, graphs for engineers to use. This
has become the worldwide design manual; period. It is also used
in teaching.

All over the world, they complain, and they say, "Why don't
you update it?" Well, the Corps of Engineers does put out the
Coastal Engineering Technical Notes--CETNs. These are small,
five- or six-page publications on individual types of subjects and
problems which are produced as needed; which provide all of these
updates. It is a U.S. government thing and sent to the Army Corps
of Engineers' operating districts, and libraries such as the Water
Resources Center Archives here at Berkeley. So they're generally
available. This keeps these things up to date. It stems from two
things: one is the navigation and the military portions; but then
the recognition that when you build these things, you can cause
damage to the beaches. I assume you've been to Santa Barbara?

Swent: Yes.

Wiegel: Santa Barbara is a completely artificial harbor. The people in

Santa Barbara wanted a harbor for commercial fishing and pleasure

219

boats, so they built a breakwater out into the ocean. Because of
the wave conditions down there, this immediately caused the
trapping of sand on the western side of the breakwater. The waves
were still impinging on the beach on the eastern side, and moved
the sand to the southeast. That's fine. But now, the sand that
normally replaced it coming from the west couldn't get there. It
built up against the breakwater and then filled in part of the
harbor, and the harbor was becoming non-operational. So this is
an example. Then it was decided to dredge the harbor, place the
sand to the east on the beach to replace the sand that was
deprived from it.

Swent: Is that bypassing?

Wiegel: That's called sand bypassing. That's an example; you've been

there. Oceanside, California, is another one. That was built by
the military during World War II at Oceanside for Marine Corps
training. It did the same thing as at Santa Barbara. Along the
east coast, you don't build these out into the ocean. What they
do is make use of the inland waters , and then modify the entrances
and build jetties to stabilize entrances. These structures cause
beach erosion very often. Beach erosion on one side and sand
deposition on the other. Congress recognized this and said, "You
have got to do a study." I think going back to the 1940s
sometime, you had to have the study of a reach of two miles on
either side of the entrances, to predict what would happen. Today
we would call it an environmental impact statement. They were
doing it then. There were some good reasons for this.

Swent: So there is a historic difference between the way the West Coast
and the East Coast have done these things?

Wiegel: It's a geologic, oceanography difference.
Swent: Yes, right.

Wiegel: On the West Coast here, we have a very narrow continental shelf.
On the East Coast and the Gulf Coast, we have a very wide
continental shelf.

Swent: So that's what makes the difference?

Wiegel: So the geology and everything is very different. The only thing
you can say is that there's sand, there's waves, and there's
tides, but the mix of these is very different.

Swent: Always different.

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Wiegel: Very different, yes. You have to do a lot of what they call site-
specific types of studies.

Photographs

Swent: I don't want to interrupt with this, but I was just wondering:

when you look at a picture like thatI'm looking at the cover of
the "California and World Ocean" conference program- -when you look
at that, what do you see?

Wiegel: I see a conflict of interest. I see two people with surfboards,
and they want the waves for themselves. I also see some people
down here on the beach. They probably just want to get out there
into the waves and don't want to be hit with a surfboard. I would
say this was middle of winter, and I would say that a good deal of
this had been covered with sand during the summer; the winter
storms had taken it offshore, and a few months later most of it
will be coming back on the shore. I could see kelp on the beach,
so I think there's been a storm just recently because it had torn
the kelp from its rock anchor. I see people with their homes on
the coast because they like to build their homes and look at the
beach and look at the waves .

Swent: Here are some rocks in the foreground.

Wiegel: That's why I'm saying- -those may have been mostly covered in the
summer and fall- -I think that looks like southern California some
place.

Swent: I presume it's around San Diego; I don't know.

Wiegel: I would think so. I can't spot it. I'm sorry, I thought I knew
every inch of coast in that region.

Swent: It doesn't say anywhere on the program where it was taken.

Wiegel: No, but I can't spot exactly where it is. It wouldn't be an old
picture because of the size of the surfboards; those are current-
day standards.

Swent: So you see a lot of things in that picture?

Wiegel: I take all kinds of photographs. I have somewhere in excess of
nine thousand 35-millimeter slides in that closet in the corner
there. Nearly everyone of them has a notation on itdate,
location, and perhaps some detail.

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Swent: All pictures of coasts?

Wiegel: Almost all coastal or hydraulic structures. Most of them are
mine; that is, I've taken them. There are slides that other
people have taken that have been given to me as a duplicate set.
If there had been a hurricane and somebody had gone out after and
taken a series of photographs, sometimes they were kind enough to
give me a set. This will be the project I'll continue right now.
I've got about 1,100 of them catalogued. I'm using a professional
program called "Papyrus" in order to catalogue them, and I look at
each one on this viewer, and I type on the computer the various
subject matters that these should be catalogued under. I stopped
when I got up to 1,100 because I was at the end of the amount of
information I could get on a disk. But now, you can get these new
disks and have a hundred megabytes. I just had one put in in
January. So I now have a hundred-megabyte storage disk, and
starting next week, I will get back to it. It will be about a
full year's work to catalogue those. When I'm finished, the whole
collection and computer catalog will be turned over to the Water
Resources Center Archives.

Swent: What form? Are they 35-millimeter slides?

Wiegel: Thirty-five millimeter. If you don't ask, somebody will ask, and
I will look into it again: "Why don't you put them on a disk?"
Because of two reasons: the scanning for color and the amount of
storage necessary for just one color photograph to have it good is
tremendous. The technology is not yet here.

Swent: It will be.

Wiegel: It will be. But that's no problem. If I have it all catalogued,
thenand every one of these is being numbered as I gothen, it
will be no difficulty whatsoever to scan them. That's what I'm
hoping for; not only to catalogue, but it will all be eventually
on a disk of some sort, at least a selection of the best ones.

Swent: Wonderful resource.

Wiegel: It's worldwide. I think it's very necessary. I think this is

important. Our Professor Einstein our Albert was professor here
at Berkeley for years, and his main field was sediment transport
in rivers, river flows, natural rivers, sediment transport in
rivers, and he did some of the early work in coastal sediment
transport. He had some wonderful 35-millimeter slides that he had
taken in different parts of the world. He labeled where he took
them and dates, but he hadn't written why he took them. When he
gave a lecture, he used these slides, and he'd tell these

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wonderful stories about what he saw, but he didn't write on the
slides what you should look for.

This is what I hope to be able to do: to make these
available so that they can be used technically by other people.
In other words, not just because it's a photograph or something,
but what it is you see there; what you should tell the students
that you see. That's what I'm working on. That will takeas I
said, I estimate from the work I've done so far that it will take
me at least one full year. By that I mean eight in the morning to
about three in the afternoon. It will take about a year's time to
finish it.

Swent: Where did your interest in photography come from?

Wiegel: In the early days when I got on this project, people did a lot of
photography. John Isaacs and Willard Bascom--we called him Bill
Bascom. Bill was a very good photographer just like he was a very
good writer. Not many scientists are good writers. Bill was a
mining engineer; maybe mining engineers are. But as a mining
engineer, his main field was tunnels. But then he got into
oceanography by chance. He did all kinds of work over the years.
Just working with people like that, you started to take photos,
that's all. So I took a lot.

Parker Trask, who was a geologist--! shared an office with
him when I first got on the faculty. He was the one who started
the study of geologic engineering here at Berkeley in the college.
He would always take photographs of things because in geology,
there's just no other way; you had to photograph something.
That's it; it's just the people I was working with and so I just
continued. Then I found out that the secret of getting some good
photographs is to take a lot of them. If you take a lot, you get
some good ones.

Swent: I just want to get these dates in here; I checked them. You were
on the Research Board from 1974 to 1985. Then you were chairman
of the Research Council from 1978 to 1992.

Wiegel: That's correct.

Swent: Were you a member before you were the chairman?

Wiegel: I was vice chairman for years. Before that, I was the executive
engineer of its predecessor. So I was on it from an operational
standpoint from its founding.

Swent: So as chairman of the council, what was your responsibility?

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Wiegel: To just get things going. The biggest responsibility, of course,
was every two years we had the international conference on coastal
engineering which would be in different places. I became chairman
at the conference in Hamburg in 1978, and then I was general
chairman of the next ones that were in Sydney, Australia, and Cape
Town

Swent: I think we covered that pretty carefully last time, didn't we? We
covered that adequately.

Wiegel: We covered all of that heavily. I think so. But also in the

ASCE, I was in many other things. At one stage, I was chairman of
the executive committee of thethey had major divisions:
structural engineering division, geo-tech, and then there was the
division on waterways, ports, coastal, and ocean (WPCO). This is
pretty broad. I was chairman of the executive committee of that
division (WPCO) some place in the mid-seventies I guess. I've
done a lot of committee work.

Swent: A lot of that. I guess we covered that pretty well last time.

Wiegel: I think we went into that. Public service is the one that we
haven 1 t- -maybe this is all public service.

Technical Advisory Council for Tsunami Protection for Hilo, Hawaii

Swent: Everything is, yes. So let's move on to more public service.

Wiegel: On tsunamis. I thought under public service, I would mention
doing something for a city or a county or a state or a foreign
government. These are all public service. One of the early ones:
I was a member of the Technical Advisory Council for Tsunami
Protection for Hilo, Hawaii. They were all Japanese professors,
except myself on it, but Doak Cox of the University of Hawaii was
the person who organized it. I was on it, and wethat is, our
council, met there a couple of times in Hawaii, and we came up
with the recommendations as to what Hilo should do for long-term
planning to protect themselves from tsunamis by set-backs,
elevations and modified structures (pile-supported). This is the
same sort of thing they talk about for hurricanes and so forth
now, but we did this back in 1962. That was thirty-five years
ago.

The advice was largely accepted: setbacks, bringing soil in,
increase the elevations. I remember one recommendation which was
mine which was accepted, and if you go to Hilo you can see it: if

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you wanted to build something like a hotel close to the ocean at a
low elevation, build it with structurally sound columns, but build
the first floor (ground floor) so it could just be wiped out. The
tsunami could come in one side and go out the other side; open.
You have the columns to support the hotel, which is really above
it. That's what the hotels are like in Hilo. Also, the insurance
companies took it over for other parts of the islands and used the
same sort of reasoning, and many small buildings are built on top
of piles, with a carport below on ground level. That's a type of
public service.

I think I should mention: tsunami is a Japanese word and it
simply means translated, "big wave in bay." In the early days we
didn't know too much quantitatively about how they were formed.
We now understand this very well. In 1946, there was an
earthquake up in the Aleutian Islands, and in hindsight, I'm
positive what happened: it triggered a massive underwater
landslide. Absolutely massive; miles long it had to be, and
broad. The motion of all that mass of material, of course,
displaces water. It generated the big waves which traveled across
the ocean. They travel at a speed which is equal to the square
root of gravity times the water depth. Which means in the open
ocean of the Pacific, they travel at about four hundred miles an
hour. If you were four thousand miles away from it, and it's
traveling four hundred miles an hour, that means that ten hours
after it was generated in the Aleutians, that tsunami would hit
that place. Or if it were eight thousand miles, that would give
you twenty hours. So you have some time there that you can do
things such as evacuations if you have ways of measuring it, if
you know these things--

Swent: We may have skipped just a tiny bit: Hilo is more vulnerable to
these--

Wiegel: The geography of Hilo, the offshore bathimetry--water depth. But
the details of the water depths, and the volcanic cliffs are such
that they trap and enhance. If you take a lens and put it in the
sunlight, you can concentrate the light waves and you can get a
very high density, and you can cause a piece of paper to start to
burn. If you have the inverse type of lens, you can disperse
light. The underwater bathimetry affects water waves in a similar
manner, and certain underwater configurations will cause the
concentration of waves . So the build-up can become high at some
places; at other places they'll become low.

Hilo is a place where the waves are built up. Hilo is very
interesting. It's at the confluence of the lava flows from Mauna

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Kea and Mauna Lea, so they suffer from lava flows historically
from two volcanoes. There's a river that goes down through them;
they have local earthquakes there associated with the volcanoes;
and then their configuration is such that they get hit by these
tsunamis. The one in 1946 was generated up in the Aleutians. The
one in 1961 was generated off Chile and caused a lot of damage and
loss of life. 1957--I think that one originated up in the
Aleutiansdidn't cause loss of life, but caused a lot of damage.
So Hilo is unfortunate in its situation.

Swent: How did you happen to be invited to be on this?

Wiegel: I had been doing this work going back to the Bikini test. At the
start, I said why I happen to be here. In 1960 or 1961, after the
Chilean event, I had looked into some of the effects of tsunamis
along the coast of California. So this is why I was asked to do
it. Then, in 1964 was that really great earthquake up in Alaska.
That was much bigger than the 1906 San Francisco quake. If one of
that size hit California, we'd have tremendous damage and loss of
life here. That was a huge one. The area near Valdez
incidentally, the oil spill at Valdez was--I hate to use the word
"trivial," but compared with what happened in 1964, it was
trivial. I'll get into that, because it kind of worries me as to
how much money is spent in some things and how almost zero money
is spent on other things.

Now with the advances in plate tectonics and all this, we
understand the relationship; but the reason why those mountains
come down right to the ocean- -if anybody has ever taken that
beautiful boat trip from Valdez across the soundif you happen to
have clear weather, it's magnificent with the glaciers and
everything. But the reason it's there, is that it is seismically
active, and land is moving up and down and sideways, and when it
goes fast, fracturing, you have an earthquake and your seismic
waves are set off; the earth quakes. A piece of property roughly
fifty miles wide and several hundred miles long moved! It moved
with the speed of sound in a fracture in the rock. I forget how
fast that is, but that's fast. One end to the other in minutes.
It's almost instantaneous. It moved up or down, some as much as
fifty feet vertically. This is the land, much of it underwater!

Going on, surveys were made after and compared with surveys
that were available from before, the permanent --no, nothing's
permanent up there- -but quasi-permanent along that several hundred
miles, and a lot of it was underwater. It's like moving a paddle
rapidly through water: you see waves generated; if that paddle is
several hundred miles long and it moves up to fifty feet, you
generate a series of big waves. Those hit the Hawaiian Islands

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too and they hit northern California, Crescent City--and there was
quite a bit of loss of life in Crescent City.

So I was asked by the redevelopment agency of Crescent City
if I would please give them advice. The tsunami was in 1964, so
in 1965, I know that I prepared a report for Crescent City. Then,
it was up to the Crescent City redevelopment agency to build or
have set-backs, and I came up with estimates of what might happen
in the future, and estimate of set-backs and elevations. I
described this a little bit, because I mentioned at that time
about the Indian legend. In engineering, we would call it a
redundant system: we'd have more than one way of doing it. The
abalone shells could be one, but the fact that the shells were put
up at maybe fifty feet above sea level was another part of it.
It's a redundant system which I believe in.

Then, because of that, I was asked to go to Japan where the
Pacific Science Conference was being held, to give the general
lecture on the protection of cities from tsunamis. Then at a
later date, I was on the National Academy of Engineering Committee
on it and so forth, and I chaired the part of the work on what
research should be done long-term on ports and cities and
infrastructures and things of this sort, in regard to tsunamis.

I'd like to go back to the Valdez area because this is
important. Many years later, there was an oil spill, and it was a
big one, and it caused a lot of damage on a short-term basis. It
did clear up. Everybody sued everybody. In fact, many scientists
believe with the things you're forced to do in clean-up, you're
better off if you wouldn't do them; you're better off just letting
nature take care of some of these things. But when you got this
tectonic displacement, and in parts of it now, and I've seen miles
in which all the tress are dead because the ground had gone down,
the salt water penetrationpart of it is flooded with salt water.
But aside from that, the ground water was displaced by salt water,
and so twenty or thirty years later, there are thousands of acres
of trees all dead because their roots were down in salt water.
These are really long-term effects. So nature--

Swent: You can't sue anybody for it.
Wiegel: Nature has got some big punches.
Swent: Yes, indeed.

Wiegel: So you spend all kinds of money for one thing, and I guess maybe
the other's just so massive--still these things worry me that we
over-react to some things, and then in my opinion, we under-react
in other things .

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Swent: Yes.

Wiegel: So those are some of the things on the tsunamis. I've done many
kinds of public service work.

Nature's Always Responding to the Last Major Event

Swent: I'd like to ask you a personal question: do you put any of these
things in a religious context?

Wiegel: No.

Swent: Do you have any religious motivation?

Wiegel: No. I guess the closest I come to religion is that I'm so

impressed with nature; with all the marvelous aspects--! like
flowers, I love trees, and waves, of course. I'm just always
impressed, that's all. But I don't worry particularly. Part of
this goes back to one person I worked with, John Isaacs. I think
I mentioned this several times before. He's the only person I
know of who I really think of as true genius . He read all kinds
of things. He didn't need much sleepalways working or reading--
and thinking. But he was able to put all kinds of things
together. He became a civil engineer, but he went to Scripps and
started his work on marine biology, and was elected to the
National Academy of Sciences for his advances in marine biology.
I understand he had never had one course in marine biology.

He came up with whole new ideas on fisheries , the food
chain, and things of that sort. There's histories of him because
he was a remarkable guy. He would shake his head over why people
would get so upset by, let's say, a cooling water system put in.
He said when he observed the warm water discharge from a cooling
plant, the fish all seem to like it; they prefer the warm water.
He said that for some reason people think that things in nature
are static and they're not. Nature is always changing, the mix
of the diversity varies. We're always recuperating from
something: the last flood; the last drought; the last hurricane;
the last no winds for a year; the last volcanic eruption; the last
earthquake; the last El Nino; that last whatever is the inverse of
the El Nino: La Nina?--just the opposite. Nature's always doing
this. I guess that's the closest I've come: nature's always doing
these things, and it's just absolutely remarkable how it responds,
and I just thoroughly enjoy observing what nature has been doing.
That's all. You might say that's my religion. I've got a lot of
confidence in nature. I'm the inverse of the worriers.

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Advising on the Coastal Construction Control Line in Florida

Wiegel: A few years ago I was asked to chair a committee in Florida to re-
look at what they call the coastal construction control line.
This had to do with hurricanes, and in northeastern Florida,
equally important for the beach are northeasters; the big
northeasters. That's the sort of storm we have here in coastal
California, only we wouldn't call them northeasters; they would be
our big storms coming from the Gulf of Alaska. So they had
established coastal construction control lines; that is setbacks
having to do with sand dune erosion and beach erosion and with
elevations. This is all based on hard data, but with predictions.
Any time you're taking a small data base with a few hurricanes or
northeasters and the little observations you have, and then you're
trying to estimate the likelihood for a big one that comes in the
future. That's getting pretty soft, but it's the best you can do.
It's done county by county in Florida.

They had been established in many places, but there were a
couple of counties where they hadn't been accepted yet, and one
was Palm Beach County. Palm Beach County has got some well-known
people who live on the coast: there are the Kennedys, Bush's
mother .

Swent : So the government has to protect their beaches .

Wiegel: No, not to protect the beaches--to establish a coastal

construction control line, to minimize damage to coastal
buildings . Somebody once said that the government hears
everybody, but some they hear more clearly than others. So they
wanted to re-look at their procedures. There was a group of about
five people that were asked to do it. I just expected to be on
it, but they asked me if I would chair it, which I did. I think
this served a good purpose. I can't go into them, but we made
certain recommendations. This hopefully gets into policy; so all
we can do is make recommendations based upon what we consider the
best science. You have got to update these things. This is
something that really worries me about so many of these rules and
regulations, whether it be air quality or water quality or set
backs. They're based upon conclusions that people reach at a
certain time based upon the information available then.

Twenty or thirty years later, you've got--I hope you've
got! --better information. Certainly I hope you have got better
ways of analyzing this information. There should be ways of
changing these things, but it's almost impossible. Once you get
into policy and law, and you have got a court decision and a court
case, it's terrible. People don't want to change; inertia. Here

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in Florida, they did, and so we made certain recommendations.
That's hopefully in the procedures now, but perhaps not; I don't
know much about what's being done. But that's a type of public
activity and public service.

Evaluating Orange County, California, Reports and Recommendations

Wiegel: The most recent study I have done--I just wrapped it upwas for
the Army Corps of Engineers and the County of Orange in southern
California. That was to look at a series of reports that are
about two foot higheight and a half by eleven inch, printed on
both sides of data and measurements and analyses for Orange
County in southern California. These will be used by the
Department of Beaches and Parks, Public Works of the county, to
come up with plans which will then go to the board of supervisors
for Orange County for the future. Now we get into conflicts.
Some people like a beach to sit on; some people like a beach to
walk on; some people like to walk their dogs; other people say,
"Get those dogs off my beach;" some people like to surf; some
people like to fish; some people like to sail; some like to
picnic; some like to play volleyball. There's all kinds of
things .

Orange County is highly populated along much of the coast.
It's Newport Beach, it's Huntington Beach, it's Laguna Beach.
This is expensive property if you're right on the beach. Anyhow,
I've gone through that.

Swent: We should add that some people like to drill for oil on it.

Wiegel: They've drilled a lot in the Huntington Beach and Seal Beach area,
and this is a problem because there's been a lot of subsidence.
They talk about global warming and sea level rise, and they get
upset about the sea level rise. I've been pointing out for a long
time, that they should look at a place like Long Beach, Huntington
Beach, along where there is recent substantial subsidence the
beach and the shore doesn't care whether the sea level went up or
the shore went down; it's where the ocean is relative to the land.

There's a big wetlands area in Huntington Beach: Bolsa
Chica. The Bolsa Chica wetlands are too wet. They've subsided
because that was the Huntington oil field, and it's all down
several feet. So they asked the engineers to develop gates,
weirs, and pumps and so forth so it wouldn't be as wet.
[laughter] I'm not joking. I understand. They wanted to go back
to about where it was and have some representative what I would

230

call a wet wetland; the other which is kind of a dry wetland.
There's good reasons. I shouldn't laugh. It's just that it's
kind of funny that the wetlands are too wet .

Again, if we didn't do it, nature would be doing something
because the only reason those wetlands were there was the Santa
Ana River was discharging in the region, and a few miles to the
northwest, the San Gabriel River, and then a little further up,
the Los Angeles River. These things change. Prior to about 1840,
the Los Angeles River was discharging into the ocean at about
where the Los Angeles International Airport is now; that was the
mouth of the L.A. River. That's why all those sand dunes are
there. That's why the property was vacant on which to build Los
Angeles Airport; there were sand dunes.

In about 1825, there was a big flood. We don't know much
about it, but there was a huge flood. The river jumped its banks
--this might not have been the first time, this might have been
the hundredth time it did it- -and wound its way down and
discharged into Wilmington Lagoon, which is where Long Beach is.
So the mouth of the Los Angeles River is now down there, whereas
150 years ago, it was some place else. Nature did that. There
was another flood in the 1860s or 1870s when the San Gabriel and
the L.A. River joined together. It just joined together down in
that area. Now they're separated. So the reasons the wetlands
are there- -all these kinds of things were going on, creating new
land at the ocean's edge. Now we have people living every place,
and we're going to have more people. People like southern
California.

Swent: Yes, they do.

Beach Nourishment Advisor in Barrow, Alaska

Wiegel: So that's the sort of thing. Another one I found interesting- -
because everybody wants to have their beaches nourished.

Three years ago I was asked to be a member of an advising
group and go up to Barrow, Alaska. This was by the North Shore
Borough, and Barrow is the largest Eskimo community there is.

Swent: I've been to Barrow; it's really the end of the world.

Wiegel: It's the end of the world. If you've been there, you'll remember
up to the north there's a sign that says: "Look out for Polar
Bears." The person I was with (he chaired our group) had been the

231

director of the naval research facility for that whole area, and
he said, "That's real. That's correct." He said they're a
dangerous animal. They will attack for reasons which we don't
completely understand; not being provoked.

Anyhow, they were having problems with the beaches and they
wanted advice, so we went up and we were on the committee and we
made certain recommendations and so forth. I don't knowbecause
that was not long enough ago- -whether or not it's being done.
They were worried about their beaches and they wanted nourishment.
They wanted a dredge to come in and put more sand on the beach.
It's not just your Miami Beaches that want beach rehabilitation.

Swent: They're not lolling around in the sun up there.

Wiegel: They're not lolling around in the sunthere were ice floes just
offshore, even in late July and early August but they want their
beach. It was interesting because from a geologic standpoint,
it's absolutely marvelous to see that area because it's all
permafrost. It's entirely different from anything that I was used
to. A couple of the people on the board were geologists who had
spent years studying the north slope. In other words, every
summer they would go up and spend their summer field trip doing
the geology of the region. They (the Eskimos) had the money
because of the North Slope oil, so there's money to do these
things.

Swent: What did you recommend?

Wiegel: We recommended that they dredge, and how far offshore they should
go to get the material and then bring that onto the beach. It was
tied in very closely with some of the recommendations that we made
in that National Research Council report because two of us were on
the National Research Council committee; I assumed that's why we
had been invited up there. That way they figured they'd get some
really independent opinions.

Examining the Nile Delta

Wiegel: I've gone to many different countries. I think I mentioned
earlier to Egypt for the Nile Delta erosion problem with the
beaches there, between Alexandria and the Suez Canal. There's
something interesting about that, because it's just been in the
last year that I've seen a couple of articles that appearedone
in Science, one in the American Scientist that mention a major
change in what has been a misconception. Prior to this last year

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in the technical pressyou would read about the Nile Delta
erosion, blaming it on the high dam at Aswan. A U.S. scientist
now blames it on the spreading of water and sediment in the farm
lands by irrigation. The high dam has helped modify it, and the
water spreading and sedimentation has modified it, but the main
reason for it is for years, there have been two river mouths, both
now dammed. There are only two branches of the Nile today; going
back two thousand years there were seven branches. That's why the
Nile Delta is big. But today there's only two branches. I think
for the last fourteen hundred years there's only been two
branches. A few kilometers upstream from each mouth, they had
builtdecades agowhat they call barrages. Those are low dams;
they use the French word. So the two mouths of the Nile, the
Damietta and the Rosetta, were dammed. I'm now quoting the
minister of irrigation: what he said when we met with him: "The
Egyptians either use, or misuse, or lose all of the water in the
Nile." Use: irrigation; misuse: maybe there's better ways; lose:
evaporation, percolation through the bottom and sides of the
irrigation system. Except for about one or two weeks each year
when they open the gates in the barrages to flush out the waste
that accumulated in the lower Nile, no water gets to sea; period.
It's gone: used, misused, or lost. So the Aswan has nothing
directly to do with it. The Aswan dam and the evaporation of the
reservoir and in the long term because you don't have floods, it
won't bring additional silt, but it was all done before. That is
a public service sort of thing.

Advising on a Port for Papua New Guinea

Wiegel: The Papua New Guinea work was public service I think. I made four
trips there in the mid-1970s. That was when Papua New Guinea was
to get its independence and the Australian government wanted to
make several gifts. They had, over decades, set up some pretty
good school systems; good hospitals. The Australians had done a
pretty good job. The Indonesians in West Irian had been terrible,
but the Australians did a very good job. One of the final gifts
was some way the country can earn money to do these things in the
future; and, they have tremendous hydroelectric capabilities. One
of the ones is the Purari River.

In the highlands of Papua New Guinea I think it just rains.
I don't think I ever saw the top of the mountains; I saw clouds.
The run of the river is such that you can get tremendous numbers
of megawatts of hydroelectric power out of it, but you have got to
use the electricity for something. The concept was to develop
aluminum mills because just across the Torres Strait is the York

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Peninsula of Australia and there are huge bauxite deposits.
Possibly the greatest deposits there are. It's easy to barge this
acrossgoing from bauxite, you have to first go to alumina, and
then the alumina to aluminum requires very high-energy processing.
Hydroelectric is the best because it's a batch- type process; you
want it to go on and off. So in hydro, you can open the valve,
start the turbines, generate the electricity. It's a good system.
They needed a port to go with it, and I was doing the third-party
advising on the port.

Swent: That must have been very interesting.

Wiegel: I thoroughly enjoyed it. Where we were is out in the boondocks.
But we went in and out of Port Moresby. I have to admit, when I
went through some notes, I found that I had given a lecture at the
noon meeting of the Rotary International in Port Moresby, Papua
New Guinea; it was interesting to me to recall that.

Swent: Are you a Rotarian?

Wiegel: No, I'm not a Rotary member but I was asked to speak to them.

Study of Sines. Portugal, Breakwater Disaster Led to Watershed

Changes

Swent: I enjoyed my visit with Orville Magoon; he certainly is an admirer
of yours.

Wiegel: We've worked together for thirty or forty years. It's been a long
time. We invite him regularly to give lectures here on
breakwaters and other sorts of coastal things. Our students
always enjoy his lectures--his enthusiasm. Going back to 1978,
there was a big storm in the north Atlantic off of France and
Portugal. The Portuguese had just finished a breakwater at Sines,
which is about a hundred kilometers south of Lisbon. This formed
a completely artificial harbor at that area, and it was the
biggest industrial complex development in Portugal. They had
spent huge sums of money because the big ships were to come in;
the ore carriers, the oil tankers, deep draft, and building plants
and shipyards of the new big industrial complex.

The breakwaterthe ocean end of itthe furthest end was
in the deepest water of any breakwater built any place in the
world. This sort of thing you extend yourself always. This
storm caused devastating damage. At that time, I think it was
estimated at something like eighty million dollars. Remember this

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is twenty years ago; eighty million dollars of damage done
overnight to the breakwater. We were in Hamburg at the Coastal
Engineering Conference, and Billy Edge and Orville Magoon had
received, from somebody in Portugal- -whether it was a government
minister I don't remember nowbut they would like to have an
independent look at it. So we talked about it and Mike O'Brien
was just going off as chair of the council, and I think I was on
the Marine Board at that time.

So we discussed it, and thought, "This is something that NSF
[National Science Foundation] might fund, to go over and, while
everything is fresh, look at it". So Billy Edge chaired that
group. Joe Caldwell, who had been the technical director of the
Beach Erosion Board, but I think at that time had the top civilian
position in the Army Corps of Engineershe had been the top non-
general, which means he would have the equivalent of a two- star
and a really bright guyagreed also to go, and then a couple of
others.

So they went and cooperated with the Portuguese, including
the Portuguese navy, and did diving. Both Orville Magoon and
Billy Edge are scuba divers, and they dove with the Portuguese and
collected all kinds of data on what happened. It wasn't to point
fingers, it was to collect data while it was still fresh. They
prepared a report called "Failure of the Breakwater at Port Sines,
Portugal." Three of us at Berkeley were asked by the American
Society of Civil Engineers to review the draft because everybody
was threatening to sue them if they published it. Not everybody,
but they were threatened to be sued if they published it. It was
O'Brien, Ben Gerwick, who was a professor of construction here,
but also a very well-known construction engineer worldwide and
myself. We reviewed it and said, "All they're doing is putting
the facts down."

The ASCE's advice by their lawyers was to publish; so they
did. It was a very good thing because that has been read and re
read by everybody in coastal engineering: Failure of the
Breakwater at Port Sines, Portugal, by Port Sines Investigating
Panel, ASCE, 1982, 278pp. But that was the start of a complete
change in our viewpoints worldwide on what was happening. It's
hard to believe, but the Americans, the Dutch, the British, the
Germans, the Japanese, the French, the Italians we were all
wrong; we missed something. It has to do with what we call scale
effect.

Some things behave very differently in small scale that is,
model sizethan they do when they're big. One of the things was
--let me show you something. [A small model unit was taken off
the shelf and displayed.] When you get into the deeper water, the

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waves that can hit a breakwater are bigger. For a breakwater in
shallow water, the biggest wave will have broken in deeper water.
So we find because of the characteristics of rock that comes out
of different quarries, that you can't get rock big enough in some
places to stand up to the size waves you're going to have in deep
water. Engineers had been designing breakwaters using cast
concrete units as armor. They started with a French design called
tetrapod. These were cast out of concrete. This is just an
example; there's many kinds of different ones: tetrapods,
hetrapods, acropods. Everybody's got their own name.

Swent: Tetrapod would mean four feet.
Wiegel: Probably, I would think so. Yes.
Swent: And it's a four-footed affair.

Wiegel: As long as they were less than a certain size they were quite

adequate, because people didn't want to put steel in them for a
couple of reasons: one, it cost a lot more; but secondly, any
cracks and you get corrosion. Remember you're in the ocean, and
it is a very corrosive environment. We asked one of the people
here, Bill Godden, who was professor of civil engineering at
Berkeley, and had done a lot of work on the earthquake resistance
design of structures, both theory and making models shaking
tables shake highway overpasses and shake bridges. He said,
"Well, of course you have got this scale effect as you're making
your model out of the same material or approximately the same
material as the prototype."

Here is the simplest way of putting it: if something gets
bigger, it gets bigger as the cube of the size, and the weight
goes up then with the cube of the size. But the ability to
withstand the stress goes up as the cross-sectional area, which is
the square; it's the ratio of the weight to the area that is
important. As it gets bigger and bigger- -if you got it big
enough, it wouldn't even be able to stand on those four feet, it
would just break. That's the static effect. Now dynamicif it's
moving- -somebody said, "You don't see an elephant jumping around
like a grasshopper." If an elephant tried to jump, an elephant
would break the bones in its legs. So you see, there are both
static and dynamic effects.

This is hard to believe, but this had been overlooked.
Everybody's tests of these big things had been looking at the
movement and displacement; not the breaking, because none of the
model units would break. Godden said, "If you model this down to
have the correct strength characteristics in your model, it would
be so delicate you would have to treat it as if you were placing

236

raw eggs in there." Then he came up with a way of modeling a
material that would have those characteristics and would break in
the model if it was going to break in the prototype. So that
group did a worldwide public service, and I wanted to mention
because I knew you had talked with Orville Magoon and he was
instrumental in much of these changes.

Swent: He used the word "dollos."

Wiegel: Dollos. It is another type of cast concrete armor units, and the
one used at Sines; they were 42 metric tons each. I'm afraid my
sample of the dollos is over at the library as a part of the Water
Resources Center Archives exhibit over there. That was the type
that was used at Sines. That happened to be the particular type
that was used at Sines, but I can't show it to you because it's in
an exhibit.

Swent: That's the one that did not hold up?

Wiegel: None of them would hold up. They are okay in relatively small
sizes, but not when they are very big.

Swent : No .

Wiegel: Since then there's been another one that's been developed, but

it's not yet been used in prototype. The Army Corps of Engineers
developed that and it's called the "cor-loc". That's a trade name
patented by the Corps of Engineers. Nowadays with numerical
models, they've done very extensive calculations on the computer
of the stresses and all of these things. They've done hydraulic
model studies. Most people think that this will be the way that
we'll go in the future, because now that we understand what has
happened, as engineers you can develop better ways of doing these
things .

Swent: They are sort of interlocking.

Wiegel: They interlock.

Swent: It's sort of like jacks, is what I was thinking.

Wiegel: Pierre Danel! That was his whole idea: he said it's a child's
jack. Exactly; they interlock. That way they have hydraulic
stability because they interlock, but the problem was the stress
in the material due to the gradually settling of the static load,
but also then the dynamic load. If you've ever been in the ocean
when a wave hits you--. You ought to be there when they're twenty
feet high or thirty feet high and they hit something. They exert
tremendous forces. That's what some other people have done. Our

237

input was to encourage it, to help them do it, and then to review
the report.

I wonder if that would be enough on the public services? My
consulting I barely got into. Both public service and consulting
are very useful when you teach; to bring to the students the real
problems. We talk about engineering and science, and there's an
awful lot of overlap. Certainly engineers use an awful lot of
science, and a lot of scientists are very good engineers. It's a
spectrum. In addition, you have to deal with the economics, and
then you have to deal with political realities of these things.

The O'Shaughnessy Seawall; A Lesson in Good Engineering

Wiegel: If you work in public service and then in consulting, you can

bring this to the students' attention. Then you can take photos;
you can show them slides of these kinds of things. For example, I
was trying to think yesterday of a good example I could give,
because I would like the students to go out locally and see
something close by. We could go down to the Marina at Berkeley,
and you can see a breakwater, you can see small craft moored and
this and that. Go over to Ocean Beach, San Francisco, and along
one part of it you have the seawall called the 0' Shaughnessy
Seawall, which was put in back in the middle 1920s and it is still
there despite the fact that you read articles that say seawalls
don't last, by certain well-known people in the state of
California. I tell them, "Will you please go out and just look at
the O'Shaughnessy Seawall and then retract your statement?" What
don't last are usually things that haven't even been designed,
just built, or if they have been, they haven't been designed well.
Also, they probably have not been maintained.

But usually what people call seawalls: somebody's contractor
has just gone in and put a few posts down and a few rocks or
something and doesn't know what they're doing and they don't last.
But they can last. Of course, I used the O'Shaughnessy and so
forth to show how things change. Mr. O'Shaughnessy was city
engineer and he's also the one that built- -with Hetch Hetchy--the
whole San Francisco water supply system. As you know, the city of
San Francisco is very conservationist-oriented except when it was
suggested that the dam be taken down and their water supply would
disappear, and they suddenly had second thoughts. People aren't
always consistent.

238

Swent: That's right. I should say we're looking at a cover photo of an
issue of Shore & Beach which is a beautiful aerial photo of Ocean
Beach in San Francisco.

Wiegel: --and O'Shaughnessy Seawall. What I love: the name Great Highway.

Swent: The Great Highway, yes.

Wiegel: I do like it, though, because I like sand dunes.

Swent: Those dunes don't stay in place, do they?

Wiegel: No, dunes move. All the dune grass is natural, but natural to

South Africa, I think, not to here. What's wrong with jacaranda
trees and African violets? The world is filled with these good
plants from other places. Anyhow, the point is that I wanted to
show that. Then what I want the students to do is to go just a
little bit down the along the street adjacent to the Great Highway
down to Taravel Street. In those days there was the Taravel
Tunnel, so you parked your car and you could walk under the dunes
to the beach. Now it's all redone since they put in the big sewer
outfall and you have got to go up and walk over the top of the
highway and dunes to go to the beach. I say, "Take a look at the
Taravel Seawall. You won't see it." The Taravel wall was built
in about the early 1940s, and it's only about one city block long
--it consists of a series of sheet piles tied together, and then a
concrete cap.

Swent: What kind of piles?

Wiegel: Sheet piles. In other words, they're not circular, they're three
inches by eighteen inches, and many feet long and then they
interlock so you build a wall out of them. You won't see it
because the idea was to build a seawall that if you have a series
of severe winter storms--and the sand of Ocean Beach is moved by
the waves out into the surf zone during stormsthat you'll
protect your sand dunes and your highway because the wall will be
there. Then when the beach recovers naturally, the wall will be
covered ; and that ' s what happens .

It was completely covered up for decades up until the great
El Nino winter of 1982-1983, when it was exposed again. Then one
year later it was completely covered. If you go there you won't
see anything that looks like a wall because it's all covered with
sand. There's an article in this same issue of Shore & Beach--

Swent: Which issue is this? What's the date on that?

239

Wiegel: The date is January, 1985, by Paul Berrigan. It goes into the
history of it. It's kind of interesting, because when it was
exposed during those storms; but the corporate memory of the
Public Works Department of the City of San Francisco--nobody was
left that even knew it was there. Fortunately, Professor Joe
Johnson at Berkeley said, "I know all about it." He told them
about it. I use this because you can do things, and you can
protect valuable propertythis is one thing I try to teach my
students. There are sometimeslike if you have got a big
pipeline and you have got to make sure that pipelinethe sewer
outfall going along underneath the Great Highway is not exposed
somehow. You want to protect something, but you may not want to
look at what protects it. You'd like it to be there, but not seen
except every twenty, thirty, forty years or so when you need it.
So there are things you can do.

I think something that is similar to the Taraval Seawall, on
a larger scale and I hope it will completely cover with sand-
it's mostly covered now is up at Bolinas Bay at Seadrift. They
put in the riprap- -not riprap, but a very carefully placed stone
revetment on a sand slope and geotextile base, built during that
same winter in 1982-83 after severe beach erosion. There's been
all kinds of problems between the coastal commission and the
county and the property owners about this. But fortunately, the
wind gradually blows the sand off the beach and it's gradually
covering the rock. I think originally, the owners wanted to bull
doze sand up and cover it, but were not prmitted to do so. But
it's kind of interesting. Some of the owners are putting in dune
grass where the sand now is. One of these days, my guess is that
it's going to be a dune- -much of it is already. But if they have
another El Nino winter like they did in '82- '83, the revetment is
there to protect things.

Swent: --when they need it.

Wiegel: Yes. So there are things that can be done. You don't have to
have ugly things. You can do things that are better than that.
That's why I like my students to go look. From this standpoint,
consulting, public serviceall, I think, makes for better
teaching.

Swent: I know the students feel the same way because when they write

things about you, they always comment about that sort of thing. A
couple of things that I do want to get into the record: one of the
things that you're known for was your dedication to your students,
and the fact that although you did all this enormous amount of
public service and consulting and so on, that you made sure that
you got back for your classes; and at tremendous personal cost at
times. I know you were doing a lot of red-eye flying, but you

240

were not just the kind of teacher who went away for weeks and left
your classes. You always put your teaching first.

Wiegel: Yes, always. There was one other thing, too: Professor Joe
Johnson. On many of the subjects we could jointly lecture.

Swent: You helped each other?

Wiegel: Yes. We would make sure that one of us was always here; always.

Swent: Your students appreciated that; they were aware of that and
appreciated it.

Wiegel: Yes. They also were aware of the fact that they wanted to hear
about real engineering; not just the theory of engineering. We
use all kinds of theory, but there are still many things that are
still not what you call theory.

Adjudicating a Dispute over a Breakwater in the Strait of Hormuz

Swent: You have to adjust sometimes.

Wiegel: You have to adjust. So there are many of these things. I was

going back through some of them. One was in Bandar Abbas in Iran
--that's right on the coast down at the Strait of Hormuz --that's
the little, narrow strait between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran.

Swent: We know now where that is.

Wiegel: Yes. I was there. There was a problem with the breakwater they
were building. German engineers designed it. There was an
Italian contractor; Iranian owners. I flew all the way over
there. That's a long flight; I had to go from here to New York,
New York to London, London to Teheran, Teheran to Bandar Abbas.

Swent: Half way around the world.

Wiegel: That was a red-eye red-eye. I remember going from New York from
London and then on down; they sent me first class and that was a
Boeing 747, and my seat was up in the bubble and they had great
containers full of the absolutely marvelous nuts--

Swent: Pistachio?

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Wiegel: --pistachio nuts. That may have been what caused my heart problem
later on, I don't know. I think I read they have the richest fat
content of any nut. [laughter]

Swent: [laughter] Oh, really?

Wiegel: But anyhow, I got there and I found that I had really not been
told the whole thing. They wanted me there to adjudicate a
dispute. I think what I did was correct. I did tell the students
about that, too; what sort of thing you get into as an engineer.
It had to do with the quality of the rock at the quarry, high
percentage of fines. It's the thing that engineers get into, too.
You get to a place and you don't have the quality of material
available you would like to have; but they still want the project
built. You have to build roads, you have got to open a new
quarry. You come from a mining background; you can take cores and
everything, but you really don't know what the rock is going to be
like until you open the quarry because it has to do a lot with the
residual stresses it, and when you are now blowing it up and so
forth it may all fragment; you may not get big blocks-- just all
kinds of complications.

But the interesting thing was that almost everyone I talked
to said, "You'd better get out of here pretty fast because there's
going to be a revolution." I did my work and I got back. I had
to get back fast because I was teaching. Two weeks later, or
maybe three weeks or maybe a month is when the revolution came.
This has always gotten to me. I told people about it. For some
reason, our government --with all of their resources seemed to
have been surprised, and yet everybody I was in contact with out
there whether they were the Germans, or the Italians, or the
Iranians, told me there was a revolution coming. So I've just
been really worried about our intelligence ever since; how they
could have missed it when everybody there seemed to have known.

Swent: What were you adjudicating?

Wiegel: The contractor wanted to use a lot of sand in the core of the

breakwater, and what percentage could they use because it would be
a lot cheaper to get, a lot easier to get, but nobody had really
tested it; they just wanted to do it. I said you don't just start
something untested in a remote place like this, because where once
you go you won't be able to come back and do maintenance on it.
That was the sort of thing. Of course, nothing happened because
the revolution came and the whole project--

Swent: --wasn't even built.

242

Wiegel: Everybody walked away. I have no idea as to whether it was ever
even completed; I don't know. I've never been back.

Kittimat, Canada; Local Tsunami

Wiegel: Kittimat was up in AlaskaI'm sorry, Canadathe Alaskan Project
was another one. That's one of those long fjordsdeep water.
That's where the big aluminum plant is, and that's where the
underground hydroelectric power plant is at Kittimat. It's a
really interesting engineering thing. They were putting in some
piles to modify the small fishing port there, and it triggered off
a landslide in the underwater terminus of one of the creeks and
that generated a tsunami.

Ocean-wide, it would be nothing; locally, it caused a lot of
damage. Right across the fjord was an Indian village. This is
another of my experiences with tsunamis and so forth. The biggest
wave went right up on over the top of the bank into the village
and caused a lot of damage. No loss of life, fortunately. That's
consulting. But again, is that consulting or it public service?
You're doing it as a consulting, but really it's combined.

On the Board of Engineers of the Mica Dam, World's Second Biggest
Earthfill Dam

Wiegel: Mica Dam, on the Columbia River, is in what they call the Big Bend
area of the Columbia. At that time it was the second biggest
earth dam in the world. The biggest was some place in the
U.S.S.R. This was certainly the highest earth dam. The geology
of the region was such that they were worried about the
possibility of a high speed landslide coming down in a known area
of landslides and generating tsunamis which would over-top the
dam. So I worked with them, and then recommended tests to be done
at a hydraulic laboratory at Vancouver. I made a number of trips
up there and--

Swent: You said that this was in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Wiegel: That's where the hydraulics laboratory was.
Swent: Where the laboratory was.

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Wiegel: They then appointed me to the board of engineers of the dam.

Hunter Rouse from Iowa State Universitythis is what's called a
treaty dam, because the Columbia River originates in the United
States, flows north into Canada and then makes what they call the
Big Bend-- 180 degree and comes back down to the south. Because it
originates in the United States, and then in Canada, and then
comes back into the United States, it's called a treaty dam. You
don't just build a dam. Years ago, people had the good sense to
say the Columbia River has to be looked at as an entire river.
This was probably in the 1930s based upon the Tennessee Valley
Author ity--TVA is my guess. You have got to look at the whole
basin.

So this dam was built, not to be used to generate
hydroelectric power at that dam at that time, but to adjust the
flows down the Columbia River so that it would hold flows and work
in conjunction with the Grand Coulee dam. You could make higher
use of the hydroelectric generating capacity of the Grand Coulee
by holding a lot of this water up at Mica, and discharging it on a
scheduled basis. But because of other things that were occurring
at that timein the first place, the tunnels were being built for
the hydro thing and the intake so that everything would be ready.
So when they wanted to build a hydro, all they would have to do is
come up with the generators--! shouldn't say "all." You're
talking about a huge engineering project.

It turned out that because of development in Canada and so
forthand then this Pacific electric power grid system that was
coming and going all the way down to L.A., San Diego

Swent: --for the power.

Wiegel: --for the power. They started to put these in almost immediately.
They were worried about the possibility of overtopping of the dam
and the geologists that were working with it, because this board
of engineers were the tops no question about it. They had worked
on dams all over the world. Because of what we found and the
possibility, as an insurance, they modified the design and
increased the elevation of the dam. Well, you don't just increase
the elevation of a dam; you increase everything.

Swent : Everything .

Wiegel: You're talking about huge quantities of rock. That was really
very interesting work.

Swent: It was because of your knowledge of overtopping--

244

Wiegel: --that they had brought me aboard. And I recommended that a

hydraulic model be built, which was accepted and the work done in
Vancouver. We witnessed some of the tests, and reviewed the
reports and findings.

Swent: --that you came in?

Wiegel: Yes. They knew what they were doing, and had other people for

most aspects, but they put me on the board of engineers for this
portion. I stayed on it for three years.

Swent: Was it particularly because of the overtopping prediction?
Wiegel: Yes. That I was on the board?
Swent: Yes.

Wiegel: Yes. The others were on the board because they were geologists
and specialists in soil mechanics, or spillways and tunnels and
things of that sort. That was interesting, because it gave me the
opportunity to work with the five or six top dam people on a
worldwide basis. They were the ones that had been to India,
Pakistanall of these places. I learned much from them.

Swent: And dams were something you had not been particularly involved
with?

Wiegel: Except way back in the early days with spillways. When I taught
advanced hydraulic structures, I would teach the design of
spillways.

Swent: So you had the knowledge?

Wiegel: Yes. I could have designed one of those, functionally; not as
well as they did, but at least I knew how to design a spillway.

Designing Steel Platforms in the Forties Field. North Sea

Wiegel: Another onecompletely differentthe Highland platforms in what
they call the Forties Field of the North Sea. That was in British
water, and I was consultant for quite a while on the wave- loading
part of the design of that steel platform. That was one of the
real big platforms on the wave-loading of it you have got to be
careful. There's all kinds of things connected to the design of
it, but the loading by waves on the platform which is the crucial
design load.

245

I remember talking to the chief engineer of it after they
launched it, and they fitted it, and they got it up to the site
with the flotation and they started to fill it with water so it
would settle to the bottom. He said, "That's when you get
ulcers." Is every calculation correct? Is it going to roll over,
or is it going to down like it's supposed to? It went down like
it was supposed to.

Swent: Where was it built?

Wiegel: It was built in the north of England on the North Sea; I can't
remember the town--Teeside, I think. They've built a series of
them since then. That was the first one they built; I can't
remember the name of it.

Helping to Design the Cognac Platform in the Gulf of Mexico

Wiegel: Another oil platform that I did work on was called the Cognac

platform in the Gulf of Mexico. Shell Oil Company was the lead
and operator, and at that time, it was in the deepest water ever.
It was in a little over a thousand feet of water. This is a
platform. It was taken to the site by barge during two successive
summers, was taken in three different parts and put together at
the site. We all got one of these nice, little plastic cubes from
the first production.

Swent: This is a plexi-glass cube: "First production, September 14, 1979;
water depth, 1025 feet." There's a little capsule in there with a
little bit of oil in it.

Wiegel: We used to joke about the Cognac field that Shell Oil must really
have expected Cognac because the cost of this platform was so
great, we wondered if they could ever get enough oil out to pay
for it. Well, it turned out that you could.

Swent: They did.

Wiegel: They did. But nobody up till then thought you could ever do

anything in that depth of water. Now, of course, they do it in
deeper water. It's unbelievable what they can do now.

Swent: What has made the difference? Why are they able to do it now when
they weren't before?

Wiegel: They learn something from each one. The newestand that will be
built shortly; I don't think it's finished--! think it's going to

246

be in the Neptune field in the Gulf of Mexico, but it will be in
several thousand feet of water, and it's called a spar buoy
platform. A spar buoy is like a long pipe; long, relatively small
diameter, compared with its length. If you put a pipe out in the
ocean, and you balance it properly by floating tanks positioned
inside the spar, it will remain almost vertical. Depending upon
its size and the wave characteristics, it's going to move, but it
might be normal to the wave surface, or it might be vertical, but
you can do it so it's vertical by proper design. It will be in
almost two thousand feet water depth, and moored to the bottom. I
notice that the offshore technology conference this yearwhich is
always held in May in Houston, Texas the big technology award is
going to be to Ed Horton, whose company developed that concept.

A Tension-Leg Platform, a New Technique

Wiegel: Incidentally, Randy Paulling, a retired professor here in naval

architecture, has done a lot of consulting on that. So there are
new techniques. I did a little work on what is called a tension-
leg platform, and Paulling has done a lot. Tension-leg. What
that concept is: you have a big buoyant structure, and it's
connected bythe simplest concept is with cables, just moored to
the bottom and the cables are kept in tension because of the
large positive buoyancy of the structure. You can expand on this;
and get into deep water, but then you don't use cables; you use
big risers that are hollow .like pipes. Only much thicker walls.
So it's kept under high tension, and moored to the ocean bottom,
and then you drill down through it.

I remember Bill Bascom and Ed Horton, who did most of the
basic development of this concept they had formed a company [Deep
Oil Technology, Inc.] in Long Beach together with a major
construction firm [Fluor Corporation and Ocean Science and
Engineering, a joint venture] --they were at our house for dinner
many years ago. They said that there were about a half dozen oil
companies interested in building the second one, but none
interested in being first. Eventually Conoco had one designed and
built (by others), for the North Sea's Button Field, in about
1980. Incidentally, Ed Horton 's uncle was the famous Hollywood
comedian, Edward Everet Horton.

They've come up with these things. They're marvelous what
they do. I remember when we did this Cognac platform, they joked
that it was like a box to put the Empire State Building in, to
give you an idea. The size of it is such that the Empire State
Building would nearly fit inside it; except you have all of the

247

cross braces, but that gives you an idea of the size. These are
marvelous; nowadays they're multi-billion dollar structures.

Pipelines: Patagonia/Alaskan North Slope

Wiegel: I was just looking for some interesting projects, and one of them
was when a French engineer who phoned me up once, and I had to
come back from a trip and meet him because his company, ETAP, had
installed a submarine pipeline down at Patagonia from the Tierra
del Fuego Gas Field, which is in Argentina going across the--

Swent: Magellan Strait?

Wiegel: Yes, the Straits of Magellan. They were having a problem with the
pipeline where it came ashore through a cobble beach. So I worked
with him on that as to how they might repair it. I mention that
because at the other geographical extreme, I did engineering for
Santa Fe International on a pipeline up on the North Slope of
Alaska. So I've worked on pipelines across the Magellan Straits
and on the North Slope of Alaska. This is a pipeline up in the
air, parallel to the ground, with wind blowing across it and
possibly causing substantial vibrations and so forth--how energy
from the wind might cause it to vibrate and how to dampen it and
things of that sort, the purpose was to design it so it wouldn't
vibrate enough to cause damage. Those were interesting.

A Breakwater for Manfredonia. Italy

Wiegel: Another one is in Italy on the Adriatic Sea in a city called

Manfredonia. Don't ask me to spell Manfredonia. That was rather
novel. The engineers, because of the soil conditions and the
depth of water, wanted to make a breakwater by putting in piles
and then use precast, prestressed concrete slabs and mount them on
the piles vertically. So it was just a vertical wall. I did the
estimate of the waves and the calculation of wave-induced forces
on it. It was built. In 1992, I was in Venice and my wife and I
decided we were going to drive down along the Adriatic, so we
rented a car for a couple of weeks and went all the way down to
the boot.

Anyhow, at Manfredonia--this was in October, after the
tourist seasonthere was a nice hotel there, and my wife went in,
and I double-parked the car, and we wanted a room for a night.

248

She got the manager- -"Fine, no problem whatsoever." My wife came
out and she said [he had asked), "Why do you want to stay here?"
She said, "My husband was a consultant on this harbor twenty- five
years ago, and he wants to look at it." Then they could
understand, but, "Why are you here?" [laughter]

Swent: How funny.

Wiegel: So I remember that.

Another one was down in Australia, Bass Straits. That's off
the southeast coast of Australia down towards--

Swent: Tasmania?

Wiegel: --Tasmania. There are gasfields off there, and one pipeline came
to shore and they wanted a second one. This gas was transmitted
up to Sydney, and this was all the gas in Australia at that time.
I guess another pipeline went over to Melbourne, but they wanted a
second one from the platforms to shore, and it had to go through
the surf. So I was asked to go down and I spent some time down
there working with them to try to get the information and to
estimate how deep to bury it; beaches and offshore sand bottoms
are variable with time. It's a place called Ninety-Mile Beach and
it really is ninety miles long. There's one little, small town.
This was out in nowhere. That was for Esso Australia which is
part of Exxon Corporation. I just thought I'd mention a number of
these kind of projects worldwidethese different places to give
an idea. As I said all of these fit in. I guess another thing
that I should mention: I'm a great believer in written
information.

You Absolutely Have to Read; the Importance of Archives

Swent: I was going to say we haven't mentioned your reading, and you're
known as an avid reader.

Wiegel: I read. I'm almost like Bill Gates in that way. He said he reads
everything including the labels on ketchup bottles. This is very
important.

Swent: I don't know how you find time to do all that.

Wiegel: You have got to read; you just absolutely have to read. On all of
these jobs, whether it's public service, or commissions, or
consulting, I get reports and papers. I'm always cataloguing. I

249

turn them over to the Water Resources Center Archives. There are
probably on the order of twenty- five thousand of these. These are
all available to the students. When I was still teaching, I made
the students go in and learn how to use these things, because I
said as engineers, the first thing you want to do is find out what
data are available, what information is available, and look it up.
This is the way you do Ph.D. theses: you do surveys first; then
you home in and find out, "This isn't known. This is something
about which 1, as a graduate student, can learn something new."
You'll find out what is known first. It's the same when you're
designing something.

So this is all in there, and my students got used to using
them. I think they'll tell you in the archives that they still
come back and they may work for an oil company or a consulting
firm or the California Coastal Commission staff or the state of
California or the Corps of Engineers. It's a very good source and
it still continues to be built up.

Swent: You have your own cataloguing system, I understand.

Wiegel: I'm cataloguing it. I'm just sorry it's not on computer, but it's
cards. I thought about putting it on computer; there's no way.
That's for somebody else. This putting on the computer and
indexing my 35mm slides I'll do, because nobody else can do that.
It's in my mind; I have to look at those slides. I labeled every
one when I took them. I don't mean they're a whole bunch of
slides with no labels, but I have got to put other information in.
This otherthe Archives, anybody can go and put that on a
computer eventually. I think this pretty well covers the--

Swent: I think your archives are very important. I'm glad we mentioned
that.

Wiegel: At the end, I thought something else was coming through my mind.

Swent: I was going to ask you if you wanted to comment on one little

thing I saw here. This was about the Shore and Beach Preservation
Association; its goals. It seemed to me these are very broad
goals, and in a way--

Wiegel: I'm sure it is very broad.

Swent: They may have changed through time. "Coastal preservation,

enhancement of coastal recreation opportunities, and wide use and
development of the coastline." Some of those, I think, may have
changed with time. Have they always had those goals?

Wiegel: Those were the original goals.

250

Swent :
Wiegel:
Swent :
Wiegel:

Swent :
Wiegel:

Were the original goals?

Yes. The background of that was

That was from 1926. That's seventy years ago.

The state of New Jersey was the first where you really had
development of the coast for tourists. This goes back to the
Civil War.

But preservation, enhancement, wise use, and development? That's
a big, big order.

That's right. The conflicts get more severe all the time because
there's more people. On the New Jersey coast in summer, you had
people from the population of New York and the population of
Philadelphia. The first big development was at Cape May and
people from Philadelphia came out by railroad. The governor of
New Jersey was really worried about it, and there was one very
perceptive person there, and at the same time in New YorkI'm
trying to think of the person who's responsible for Central Park
and Jones Beach- -the famous person of New York with the
development of all these public parks and everything in New York
City. He was part of itRobert Moses. These were long-vision
people.

How do you think we can balance those things now?

The numbers of people are huge. I say it about Miami Beach, and I
say it about Honolulu, Waikiki. "Thank goodness for these high-
rises, thank goodness for all these people here." The more people
you get in the few places like this, then you can keep other
places; the ones that I like to go to that don't have people,
[laughter] But seriously, lots of people like to be with other
people. They're people watchers. Everybody's different. I like
to walk along a beach, I like it pristine and this and that.
That's great. Other peoplethat's the last thing in the world
they want to do. They like to go, and they like to see people.

Where the crowds are.

Where the crowds are, and that's great.

251
The Southern Swell

Wiegel: One other thing that I was going to bring up because you had
asked, and that is: what is this term "southern swell?" In
southern Californiait affects the Orange County study, it
affects the Bolsa Chica wetlands, it af fects--remember the picture
with those fellows with their surfboards?

Swent: Yes.

Wiegel: Well, southern swell is swellnot waves within a storm--but the

swell that has moved out from a storm, coming from the south. The
term was coined in southern California. These waves are generated
in the southern ocean. That is the ocean that circumvents
Antarctica in the south forty and south fifty latitude. In other
words, you might say the south, south Pacific; the south, south,
Atlantic; and the south, south Indian Ocean. Some people call it
the Southern Ocean.

These are the roaring forties and furious fifties. The
storms are immense, they are frequent, and they generate huge
waves. These waves travel across the ocean. They move northerly,
between New Zealand and Australia, past Tahiti, across the
equator, past the Hawaiian Islands, come into southern California,
and they go all the way up to the Aleutians. They've been tracked
by installing wave recorders. There was a marvelous U.S. study of
these waves from where they were generated all the way up to the
Aleutians. It's one of the big projects. Frank Snodgrass was the
leader of it at Scripps, with Walter Munk. Walter is still
active; he has received a National Medal of Science.

They call it the southern swell in southern California.
It's from the south. These are the best surfing waves in southern
California. Surf's up! That's what they like, and they come in
the summer. You can have them any time of the year; I have got to
be careful. But in the summer, when you don't have local storms
and especially in July, August, September- - that ' s the height of
the southern hemisphere winter. It's when our local waves are
minimal, so it's much more noticeable when the southern swell
comes. The good thing is it's this marvelous surf. However,
another think about is that it changes the direction of sand
transport along the coast. Instead of going from north to south,
or rather west to eastsouthern California is twisted, as you
know. So I should say instead of coming from the northwest to the
southeast, when the southern swell is breaking, it transports sand
in the other direction, so the sand kind of moves in many areas
back and forth in that part of southern California.

252

That's the main reason I've been looking at it recently. I
did some of the first studies in fact I wrote a paper on it in
1950, I guess. That's when I was doing that work at the Marine
Corps base at Camp Pendleton, and I would go swimming, and
everybody "knew" that sand drifts from northwest to southeast
there, and I'd go swimming out there in the surf, and I drifted
from southeast to northwest. I thought, "Something's wrong here
in the general concept." That got me interested in it, so I
talked to Walter Munk--he was at Scripps--and Frank Snodgrass. We
had a wave recorder in there for the Marine Corps as part of the
operational conditionswe were trying to find out what were the
wave characteristics, how these affected the landing craft and so
forth.

Walter had written a paper on the gradual shift of the mean
period of waves with time. These waves, as they were moving
across the Pacific, would stretch out; become lower as they
stretch out, and they become very long. It's pretty complicated
what occurs. It's wave dispersion, but that's essentially what
you see: longer and lower swell, and more nearly periodic. By
looking at the shift of wave period with time, you can calculate
how far they may have come, using the theory in Munk's paper. I
did this. The calculation indicated they were coming from about
four to five thousand miles away. I wrote a paper--! think this
was my third or fourth or whatever- -this was probably a landmark
paper.

It wasn't until much later that more information became
availableespecially Frank Snodgrass, Walter Munk, and their
colleagues did the big definitive study, and they had a movie made
of it. Walter's wife's brother was one of the Hollywood motion
picture stars. I can't remember the name now; I'm sorry, I
should. So with these kind of contacts, they had somebody that
could really do a good job on the movie documentation. I still
have a print of it, and I used to show it to my students. It got
awfully brittle, but we got it on video. I told Walter about that
and he said, "Thank goodness," because it was well done, and is
now preserved. It shows all of these stations: the one down south
of the south island of New Zealand. Walter was at western Samoa.
Then there was Hawaii, with a tripartite station.

Then there was a spar buoy. Remember I told you about a
buoy spar? Sometime previous to this study, someone at Scripps
had come up with the concept of a floating structure which you
could build like a long ship and take it to a site then flood the
stern so it would up-end and act as a spar buoy in the ocean.
That was a wave recorder station in the middle of the north
Pacific and that was part of it. Walter used to joke he said of
course I was the director of this, so I was at Samoa, and Frank

253

Snodgrass, who had thought of the concepthe was in the Hawaii
Islands because that's at the tripartite station and control
center, and a recent Ph.D. had the one up in the Aleutians,
[laughter] That was one of the great oceanography studies; the
one that they did. That was on southern swell.

Swent: But you did a landmark paper?

Wiegel: Early. The one I did--at that time when I did it--it showed, with
data and calculations, that the swell came from four to five
thousand miles away. That's what made it important. This other
one, by Snodgrass et al was the classic study, a great study--
Snodgrass and Munk--and Klaus Hasselman, who was over from Germany
worked on it; and others. That's about it, I think- -

254

VIII MENTORING AND ADVISING GRADUATE STUDENTS

Match a Problem with a Student, Encourage, and Wrap it Up

Wiegel:

Swent :

Mentoring is really to get them interested in doing something, I
think. I think so. I had better look up that word. I usually
look up words in dictionaries.

Well, it's the current buzzword,
mentor.

A good teacher has always been a

Wiegel: My hope is show them examples of how you do something,
it?

Isn't that

Swent: I think so. And be a role model.

Wiegel: We could wrap it up by talking about Ph.D. theses, because this is
mentoring.

Swent: Yes.

Wiegel: I told this to students many times: "There's only a few things

that a professor does. Every student has a different combination
of abilities, and there's all kinds of problems. To solve each
problem requires a different set of capabilities. So the first
thing the professor does with a student on a Ph.D. thesis, is to
match a problem with that student." Is it do-able? I've seen
some pretty bad examples where things haven't been do-able. It
wasn't the student's fault; it was the professor who had not done
a--I've inherited- -not from here, but from other universities--
I've inherited a couple, and then was able to straighten it out
and get the person working on something that could be done. So
part of it is to match.

The second thing, of course, is to help in making equipment
and things available, and talking to the student and discussing

255

where the student is. To continue to encourage the student;
that's the important thing, because boy, it's hard to do a Ph.D
thesis. It's hard work. Then the third thing is to get the
student to stop, and finish writing up the work, and get the
degree! [laughter] If you're really good, you're always going to
think of something else that should be done. So wrap it up.

So you do three things: you match, you encourage, and you
get them to stop and get his or her degree. Maybe that's
mentoring.

Swent: It is.

Wiegel: I'll end with it there.

Swent: You've advised a lot of Ph.D. students in your time--

Wiegel: A lot, yes.

Swent: --and they're all very grateful to you.

Wiegel: It's always been fun. I'm sure you've heard this before. It is
fun.

Swent: I've talked to some of your former students and they all just
adore you.

Wiegel: I'm glad to hear that, because that's the other thing: I've had a
lot of good students, too. That's why I really never worry about
the future, [laughter]

Swent: You've seen the best of the best.

Wiegel: You name it, there's good people working on it.

Swent: The world's in good hands with those--

Wiegel: Some good. There's some pretty bad hands around, I'm afraid. But
there's a lot of good hands.

Swent: But some of your student s--

Wiegel: No, I didn't mean that type. I think of the ones that start wars
and things of that sort. There's an awful lot of really highly
competent, qualified, ethical people.

Swent: You've worked with the cream of the crop.
Wiegel: They are. Okay, well that should about do it.

256

Swent: I think so, Bob. We have to know when to stop.
Wiegel: I didn't know it was going to be this much work.
Swent: Yes, it is.

Wiegel: I had to go back and look up stuff.
Swent: Because you've done it so well, that's why. Thank you very much.

Thoughts on the Political Aspects of Coastal Engineering
[Interview 7: March 31, 1997] #f

Swent: We're doing a little supplemental interview here with some things
we thought we hadn't talked about enough in the previous
interviews. You had a couple of items that you wanted to give
more attention to. I thought you might want to just make a few
general comments on the politicization of coastal engineering. I
suggested that it was something new, but you think it isn't.

Wiegel: No, I think it's been political for a long time.
Swent: Always was political.

Wiegel: I'll tell you why. I'll give you one example. This review of the
very large study for Orange County, California, coast by the Corps
of Engineers, the County of Orange, and several small consulting
firms that worked with them- -I was asked to review the study and
make comments where there were gaps and so forth--

Swent: When was this?

Wiegel: I handed in my report a few months ago.

Swent: It's very recent.

Wiegel: Essentially, 1996.

Swent: Okay, recently.

Wiegel: But once I get interested in something, I never let go of it.

Formally, I have nothing to do with it any more, but informally, I
can never stop because I find things so interesting. As a part of
it, I wanted to see or learn as much as I could about what is
known as a littoral sediment cell, which I have defined earlier
and so forth, at San Pedro Bay. Part of it is in Los Angeles

257

County; part of it is in Orange County. The coastal processes do
not know there's a county boundary there. So politically this
study is made for a county, but scientifically, in engineering,
you have to look at the physical boundaries.

This got me interested in what was happening in that area
before the big ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles were developed.
Fortunately, because of the Water Resources Center Archives here
in the university, I was able to go back and relatively easily
find documents that were written a 120, 110 years ago; several of
these being reports to Congress. Reading the various documents of
the proposed port of Los Angeles--one proposal to be built where
it is today at Wilmington, San Pedro next to Long Beach--the other
was in Santa Monica Baythe big fights between Southern Pacific
Railroad Company and others , and all of the work that was done in
Washington, D.C, and the presentations made and so forth. So that
part of coastal engineering was well politicized 120 years ago.
So it's not new.

Swent : No .

Wiegel: That had to do with navigation, and ports, and commercial

activities. Of course, what has happened in southern California,
in Florida, New Jersey, the Carolinas: more and more people have
wanted to go and make use of the beaches. A hundred years ago or
so, there weren't that many people; there wasn't that much money;
there wasn't that much leisure time. But then the numbers of
people increased; the amount of money that's available to so many
people have increased. For many reasons, people like to look at
bodies of waters: ocean, rivers, lakes. This is very often the
most expensive property.

I saw this article; it was in the Friday issue of the Wall
Street Journal. That was the twenty-eighth of March 1997; the
section is on real estate. They have a section of real estate
every Friday, and they were talking about this relatively new
development in Orange County by the Irvine Company that's down
towards Laguna Beach, not in Laguna Beach, north of it. I forget
the name of the particular place. These are rather large
individual parcels of land. I think you have to buy two or three
acres per house. They have no trouble whatsoever of selling the
ones for two and three million dollars that have an uninterrupted
ocean view over the golf course. There are a few that are going
at "bargain basement prices" for around six hundred thousand
dollars. This isn't the house, this is the parcel; but without a
dedicated view. So from several millions down to six hundred
thousand dollars. That's what people place on a view.

It's not just people with lots of money; most people like
views. They go and they stay in a hotel or a condominium or a

Swent :
Wiegel:

258

motel. You'll find that the prices that they can charge for ocean
views or lake views and so forthin particular if it's ocean
front or lake front or river front- -they' re high. This is
worldwide nowadays. So you have people that just want to see
these things, to make use of these things; but other people want
to fish, other people want to surf, other people want to sail.
What's appropriate and what isn't appropriate? Everyone has their
own point of view. This gets into political issues; there's no
other way to resolve these things. Partially, you can resolve
them by economics. If you want the view, you pay twice as much or
three times as much.

That's what's resolving it.

But the other way is through different sorts of political action,
so it is politicized and it should be. I don't know any other way
of resolving some of these things. So it's not new.

Swent: No, it isn't.

More on the California Coastal Commission

Wiegel: You mentioned the California Coastal Commission, which is highly
political, and there's no alternative to it being highly
political. I was on the commission that was in existence prior to
the Coastal Commission. I discussed it [previously] ; it was
called the California Advisory Commission on Marine and Coastal
Resources, and I was on it throughout the entire length of its
time. I did touch on that, and I'd like just to make a one-
sentence quote. This is the fifth annual report, 1972 "A Summary
of Marine Commission Activities." In the covering letter, the
chairman of the commission, who was Robert B. Krueger, Bud
Krueger, a lawyer. He's an attorney in the Los Angeles area. The
previous chairs were scientists; Bud Krueger was a lawyer. In his
covering letter of the final report, he says: "The fact that CMC's
recommendations on the subject during the years 1969-1972 were not
acted upon by either of the entities creating it, points up the
futility of establishing advisory commissions with political
responsibility, and provides some historical background relevant
to the enactment of Proposition 20, the California Coastal Zone
Conservation Act of 1972." The entities creating it that Bud
Krueger was referring to were jointly an act of the state
legislature of California and the governor of the state.

Swent: Executive and legislative.

259

Wiegel:

Swent :
Wiegel:

Swent :

By law, three commissioners were assemblymen, three commissioners
were state senators. One--I think I mentioned of the assemblymen
was Pete Wilson. But most people on the commission, except for
the political ones, were scientists or engineers and we had study
after study with recommendations. You noticed Mr. Krueger said
none of them was implemented. I'll leave this with you. I think
it's--

All right. Maybe we could just include this as an appendix.

I think so. So that was the immediate predecessor. I know that
Pete Wilson had written an act which he had presented to the state
assembly and it got buried. He was too junior at that time. I
think this is rather interesting because last week there was this
big meeting in San Diego

Orville Magoon's conference,
it.

Not his, but he was co-chairman of

Wiegel:

Swent :
Wiegel:

Orville Magoon did an awful lot of the work to get it going. It
was a conference that the state of California and the director of
resources pushed, and Governor Wilson pushed heavily. You look at
Governor Wilson who was assemblyman, but then he became mayor of
San Diego. He was very early and very active in the coastal
things because the people in the San Diego areathey love their
coast. He's always been active in it.

There was a couple of articles in the San Francisco
Chronicle last week, and an editorial in the San Francisco
Chronicle about this meeting. I have a copy of the program and
there's--! believe over two hundred papers scheduled to be
presented, almost all of them technical: that is, scientific or
engineering studies. So there will be a lot of good technical
information if it's published. I hope that the proceedings will
be published, but they didn't mention it in the brochure, but I
hope they will be.

The next step is the political. This commission they don't
really have much money. There's also a California Conservancy
that does get money each year from the state legislature. They're
the ones that can buy pieces of property or help fund the building
of a pier, because so many people like to walk on a pier or sit on
a pier.

That's the Coastal Conservancy.

The Coastal Conservancy. These are two independent entities. The
Coastal Commission is the political one because they're the ones
that finally make decisions as to what can be built or what can't
be built. On that commission and other regulatory bodies, I know

260

that we need many of them, but I worry. So many times politicians
who have not been reelected--or in California and other places
they can't run again because of the term limitstheir friends in
the various state and federal things appoint them to commissions.
You see this happening time after time. So often, regulatory
agencies are made up of people who I think are definitely second-
rate; obviously, they've lost an election or something.

Swent: Second-rate in power anyway.

Wiegel: Yes. This worries me. Another thing that worries me is the fact
that almost none of them have any background at all in science of
any type. I remember three or four years ago attending a national
meeting, and the person who was chairing a session had been a
congresswoman from New England and lost the second or third
election--! don't know whichand was appointed to one of these
federal regulatory, or some other post in Washington, D.C., after
she had lost an election. Something came up and there were
questions, and I was asked to comment. I said, "It's really a
very complicated issue."

She shut me up and said, "That's the trouble with you
engineers and scientists: you're always saying it's complicated."

How do you respond to that? Since then, I have every once
in a while thought, "Is there some way we can get some of our
findings on two-minute TV bits?"

Thinking about that time, thinking of other times when I was
on the Marine Board--! can remember the board had put a lot of
time and effort into having the results of one of one of their
main studies presented in Washington D.C. We knew there wouldn't
be congresspeople attending, but we were hoping to have a good
number of staff of congresspeople; but the turn-out was very
small. This was a study done partially at the request of
Congress. You can't give up, but it's very, very difficult. I
don't see any way except by these two-minute video bits; I really
don't. But I can't figure out how to do it myself. I'm leaving
this for somebody else to do.

Swent: The information is there but...

Wiegel: It has to be presented in a Walt Disney and that is not

derogatory, because I wish I could do it, but somehow it's got to
be presented in that manner or people will pay attention to it,
and limit it to their attention span. I guess to wrap it up: I
think the Coastal Commission is necessary. It is political; I see
no other way for it to exist unless it's political.

Swent: But if they had more informed decisions, it would be better.

261

Wiegel: Part of the problem is they really need more money for more
scientific staff, I think. I think that would be helpful.

A Particularly Interesting Trip to Russia in 1971

Swent: Does that lead us into the other topics?

Wiegel: I'd like to go back to something that's much more pleasure to me,
and that is the fact that I had the opportunity of having some
really interesting trips. As I mentioned, in 1971, I had been
invited to give a presentation at the World Petroleum Congress--
which in 1971 was held in Russia, in Moscow. The World Petroleum
Congress is in two different levels: there's a level that I was in
which is the science /engineering level which you make
presentations of various technical things; but then there's the
political level, because the chairmen of the board of three or
four major worldwide oil companies attended. The minister of
resources for Iran, the minister of resources for Algeria, the
minister of resources for Russia, etc. Because of that, those of
us at the working level got to attend things that normally we
wouldn't.

They had just built a new ballet theater in the Kremlin.
The Bolshoi was giving their premiere performance in the Kremlin,
and it was at the time our group was there, and unless you were
invited officially, there was no way you could see it. That was
one of the nicest things that ever happened to me.

Swent: How exciting.

Wiegel: That was exciting.

Swent: What did they present?

Wiegel: I couldn't tell you.

Swent: But it was good?

Wiegel: It was absolutely magnificent; I know that. Afterwards, I had

plannedbecause it was less expensive to take a full week's tour
of Central Asiaor maybe two weeks, I don't knowthis was during
the summer it was cheaper to do that than to simply go to the
meeting and then back. So the American Petroleum Institute, who
was funding me, said, "Go right ahead. We don't care. If you can
save us money, book the thing that's the least expensive." So I
booked a tour of central Asia and I went to Samarkand and Tashkent
and up into Frunze, which is up in the Himalayas, and then into

262

Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and spent several nights at what was
then called locally, Amaty. I now know though the Russians all
said it was Alma Ata, but nobody called it that, but I noticed now
that it's an independent country that is now known as Amalty,
which is right at the base of the west side of the Tian Shan
Mountains .

Swent: The "roof of the world?"

Wiegel: The "roof of the world." I asked if I could go up into the

mountains. They said there were almost no roads, but they were
building a dam and they could take me up to see the dam. It was
located such that behind it was a large mountain with glaciers on
it; spectacular. But the interesting part of the dam is that it's
not to store water. They've had problems there with- -during
certain types of thaws and melting conditions and rains, they have
high-speed mudflows, and there have been several disastrous
occasions where villages have been buried and loss of life. So
this rock- filled earth dam was constructed to prevent the
mudflows, not to store water. I lectured about this to my
students when I returned, with color slides, so they would think
about it when they became practicing engineers.

The other part that was so interesting was that it was not
being built in a traditional manner of moving everything by
quarrying, and moving the rock, and so forth. It was done with
spaced charges in the rock of the canyon walls. They would space
the location and timing of the charges so that the rock blown from
the walls fell to construct the dam. I don't know if I remember
the statistics correctly, but something like 80 percent of the
bulk of the rock in the dam was placed by these spaced charges.
That shows an extremely high level of knowledge of rock mechanics
and explosives and everything else. An extremely high level.
That was fascinating. I found it unbelievable that they would
take me there and they would show me this and explain. That was
interesting.

I got to see a good deal of central Asia. On the other
side, the east side of the Tian Shan Mountains, is the segment of
China which is really Turkoman, and it's the part between the Tian
Shan Mountains and the Gobi Desert. Then it was known as Sin
Kiang Province. It's not called that now. I can't remember just
what it is, but it's just been in all the newspapers on the last
few months. These are all Turkoman

Swent: At that time it was Sin Kiang?

Wiegel: [spells] Sing Rang. I'm now spelling what I think I heard, I--

Swent: They keep changing the spelling.

263

Wiegel: They keep changing, yes. It is Xinjiang now, or Uygur Autonomous
Region.

Swent: That must have been very interesting.

Wiegel: I had been in China in 1987 as the invited main lecturer at an
international conference on coastal engineering and port design
for developing countries. I was invited to give the opening at
the meeting. My wife went with me, and we had a nice tour of
China afterwards. We wanted to go back, so in 1989, we were
scheduled- -we bought all our tickets and everything- -to go on the
Silk Route, all the way to Kashgar or Kotan. We were in Beijing
in May of 1989, and that's when the Tienanmen Square event
occurred. We couldn't see any of the normal things in Beijing,
but we'd been there before. We were interested in the other part,
but you had to go Beijing first.

So we flew to Xian, which is where those famous terra cotta
soldiers are. We were scheduled to go from there into the West,
and we got to the airport the second night at about ten at night,
and the plane didn't come, and the plane didn't come, and the
plane didn't come. Finally, a worried Chinese woman who was a
local tour person came and said, "Come back to the hotel; you
won't be able to get out tonight and probably not tomorrow." So
the next day we're trying to find out what was going on because we
didn't get out then; the trainwe'd miss it--it wasn't simple.
Well, there had been problems. It started to filter down, and we
found out a little bit what happened.

The Chinese military- -because the airlines are all run by
the militarythat was the end. Everything was cancelled, all the
flights. They were using them to transport troops into Beijing.
We were finally able to get a flight out to Shanghai because the
whole thing was aborted at that stage obviously. But I wanted to
see the other side of the Tian Shan Mountains. Now I realize it's
too late. I can't take trips like that anymore. I can't do it.
But I've had some very interesting trips: the one to Malaysia and
Indonesia; the ones to the Philippines; South Africa and up in the
diamond area of Namibia; Iran; several to Egypt- -

Swent: You've seen a lot.

Wiegel: I've thoroughly enjoyed it. My wife doesn't care as much for the
out-of-the-way ones as I do, but most of them we both thoroughly
enjoy. Now, I'm afraid, we more likely go to Hawaii or Europe or
something like that.

Swent: That's all right, too.

Wiegel: Yes. I think that's what I wanted to say about that.

Swent :

264

The Coastal Engineering Research Center

You wanted to say a little bit more about the Corps of Engineers
Laboratory.

Wiegel: Yes. I won't go into the background again; I already have. But
the original Corps of Engineers coastal work was navigation; its
major work still is navigation.

Swent: But then you wanted to expand

Wiegel: But because of the effect of navigation such as harbor entrances,
artificial harbors with breakwaters such as Santa Barbara or the
ones at Long Beach--these affect the contiguous coast. Although
the federal government never has to take responsibility for any
damage done to other things, occasionally they, through acts of
Congress and so forth, will try to mitigate or rectify

Swent: --about a hundred years ago.

Wiegel: Some of the Corps of Engineerspeople recognize the fact that

these navigation works were sometimes causing deleterious actions
to adjacent bits of the coast. I won't go intobecause I
discussed it the Beach Erosion Board was formed and so forth.

Swent: That's all on the record.

Wiegel: In order to study these things, you really need to use hydraulic
models, and in the 1930s, the use of hydraulic models for rivers
and dams was imported to the United States from the work that was
being done in Europe, specifically in Germany: the great German
fluid mechanics people. We've all heard of Von Karman and Prandtl
and these people in aerodynamics, but the people working on
rivers especially the Rhine and so forth were doing work with
large hydraulic models.

O'Brien was one of the first to go over there, in 1928, and
studied with these people and learned about it and then came back,
was hired at the University of California at Berkeley, and did
some of the first studies making use of hydraulic models. He also
was appointed to the Beach Erosion Board shortly after it was
founded, not at the start. He was hired by them as a consultant
in the summer.

Swent: That's all in his oral history.

265

Wiegel: That's all in. Now they thought they should have a small model at
the Beach Erosion Board because you have got to try things out;
you don't go moving nature around, but you can try things on a
small scale in a laboratory. So that's how it started. Then at
the Waterways Experiment Station at Vicksburg where they were
studying the Mississippi, they built a few facilities too. Then
during World War II, these facilities were used as a part of their
testing and planning for some military operations on amphibious
landings. So when World War II ended, they had these facilities
and they developed some larger ones because it was found that it
was a very useful tool, both for research and also for checking
plansproposed plans for a breakwater or a jetty entrance and so
forth.

It was quite logical that the Corps of Engineers would have
some of these facilities. There were only small facilities at
Berkeley, CalTech, and MIT. That's all that existed. The Army
Corps of Engineers Beach Erosion Board let research contracts at
that time, just like the Office of Naval Research does.

Swent: I think this is all pretty well documented.

Wiegel: It may be. So that kind of started it, but then in the 1960s, one
of the committees of the National Academy of Sciences was called
the Committee on Oceanography. This was in the 1960s. They made
a study of coastal science and what should be done to improve our
knowledge. A good deal of this had to do with amphibious
operations.

Swent: Were you on this committee?

Wiegel: No, I was not on that committee. One of recommendations was that
the Army Corps of Engineers Beach Erosion Board be expanded to do
a lot more research. Just at that same time, the federal
government decided to disestablish the Beach Erosion Board and
establish the Coastal Engineering Research BoardBeach
Erosion/Coastal Engineer ing- -much broaderand the Coastal
Engineering Research Center. It was no longer just a board with a
few small facilities; it was now a board that kind of set policy,
and then a center that was going to develop. This developed, and
they had much more money. They still gave research contracts to
universities, of which we were one. But at some time, mostly
after they moved to Vicksburg, which was in 1983 in 1973, they
moved to Fort Belvoir and expanded a bit, but in 1983 they moved
to Vicksburg, Mississippi, where the big waterways experiment
station was.

I don't have any data to document it, but it certainly seems
quite evident that a much smaller percentage of the funds that
they had available were used for funding research outside of the

266

Corps. In other words, funding research at universities. More
and more and more was done in-house. This was similar, in many
ways, to what was happening at the same time in England at the
hydraulic research station, which was first in irrigation and
water supply, but then into coastal engineering. It was wholly
funded by the British government. In the Netherlands, the Delft
Hydraulics Laboratory was the same thing. They expanded very
dramatically because after the big storms in the North Sea in
1953, and the flooding with thousand of acres inundated, and
hundreds and hundreds of people killed, this was a major effort on
the behalf of the Dutch government. So they expanded the Delft
Hydraulics Laboratory into all kinds of coastal work. In Denmark,
the Danish Hydraulic Institute also expanded because they had much
coastline at Denmark, but also, they saw an opportunity to get
engineering jobs on an international basis, and they could see you
needed hydraulic studies at the same time.

So it was in the United State, in England, in the
Netherlands, in Denmark, France--in the Electricite de France,
because of their work on tidal electric generation mostlybut
also in Japan in their Ministry of Transport is Port and Harbour
Research Institute, were doing all kinds of government-sponsored
research and development. So this was done worldwide, not just
the United States. There's some real problems there in the fact
that the Corps of Engineers have operating districts: the San
Francisco District, the Los Angeles District, the Philadelphia
District, the Jacksonville District, and so forth. These are
employees of these districts.

So here you have your facility of Vicksburg, Mississippi,
but it's pretty expensive for people to go back and forth. People
don't want to leave their family and spend a year at Vicksburg and
then come back. I think the Corps has been looking at this, but
there has to be changes made, I think.

Swent: They also depend on the universities still to train the people
that they have.

Wiegel: They always have. That's another real problem: when you cut back
on the research, then you don't have the people being trained.
The only thing is, counterbalancing that, is the fact that not
much engineering can be done any more on the coast in the United
States. So there is not much work being done except the
maintenance/ rehabilitation type of thing. The British privatized
their laboratory about a decade ago; the Dutch privatized their
laboratory; the Danish privatized their laboratory; the Japanese
did not. So those three European laboratories are out on the
international market trying to get as much funding as they can get
and they work closely with their engineering firms to try to get
contracts in Indonesia or Malaysia and so forth, to do

267

engineering, including the hydraulic laboratory studies. In
principle, we can do it here in the United States. A private
company can contract with the Corps of Engineers, but- -and here
it's only hearsay, but I understand the overhead cost is so high
that the companies tend not to do it.

All of these things have affected our ability to do research
here, and at other universities, where hydraulic laboratory
facilities are needed.

Swent: So the Corps does its own work.

Wiegel: It does essentially all its own--yes. I attended a meeting of the
Coastal Engineering Research Board in July of 1996. It was held
in San Diego. At that time, one of the things they were
discussing was what is the future for the Corps in coastal
engineering, because President Clinton's policy was that they
shouldn't do beach work and so forthnot completely, no, but
certainly not much, and I forget the details.

If the president tells you not to do thatnow, Congress
disagreed with the president on many individual issues, so written
into law are a number of projects, and they were essentially
budgetizing the proof against veto, because it's a big budget.
Nobody really knows what this line- item veto that's now in
existence is going to do, because again, our presidentwhen he
line-item vetoes something is losing political ground with the
local people and in some cases, two senators may be Democrats in
that state, like in Virginia. That gets into politics again; but
it is politics.

Anyhow, at that meeting, I recommended that the whole way of
funding research in coastal engineering should be looked into, and
that much more of it should be funded via the National Science
Foundation and so forth. I've made my feelings known to the
Marine Board. There is some movement. This may be looked into; I
don't know. This is all current type of things. That would
require a complete look at how this research is done for coastal
science and coastal engineering in the United States. But at the
same time and I've mentioned this before the U.S. Navy is now
doing more of their planning on coastal activities because they
see they're asked to go in to support the troops in the Gulf, in
Bosnia who knows where next time.

So right now you have got the navy and the army Corps
working together on some of these things. I think things are in a
state of flux at the present time. I think that's about what I
wanted to say there about that.

Swent: It offers lots of new areas of thought, doesn't it?

268
Wiegel: But it has to be looked at right now. And I am hoping it will be.

Swent: Right. And you're in a position now where you can be the sage
advisor from Mount Olympus.

Wiegel: I can stir people up and try to get them to do something.

Swent: Okay, Bob. The only other question I have is: did you say enough
about your own archives? Would you like to say any more about
your own archives? You mentioned the Water Resources Center
Archives a lot, but you have your own personal--

Wiegel: --which are in the Water Resources Center Archives, but completely
separate. What I do is: I now make sure the archives have
whatever they would like first, and then if they find it isn't
sufficiently in their purview, then I put it in my own. To give
you an example: when I was preparing for one of the recent
interviews, I went back and I found my whole set of reports of the
California Advisory Commission on Marine and Coastal Resources,
and so I took them into them, and they had many of them but others
they didn't. So they took out the ones that would make their set
completealso the Governor's Commission on Marine Resources,
which was prior to that.

Over the weekend, I was looking at some old things, and I
found a rather large publication that I must have bought in a
museum or something some time, that was the works that Leonardo da
Vinci had done on different hydraulic things, both water supply
and pumps and things of this sort. This morning I gave that to
the archives, saying, "I think it is more important that you keep
it. The author is well known: Leonardo da Vinci."

Swent: I understand that it's a very valuable resource.

Wiegel: What I'm doing now and will be doing for the next six months to a
year is: I've started to catalogue the nine thousand or so 35-
millimeter slides that I have.

Swent: You had mentioned that.

Wiegel: I got back and started it again. It's extremely boring to do it,

but I know of no other way. Each slide is already labeled as far

as date and where it was taken, but what I'm doing is looking at
each one to recall: why did I take that?

Swent: Making the annotation.

Wiegel: Then I put in all this on a professional computer program that I
bought called Papyrus, and this allows me to put in subject
matters and things of this sort. When this is finished, then I

269

will turn over the entire collection to the Water Resources Center
Archives so that they will be available.

Swent: It's going to be a very valuable archive. It already is.

Wiegel: I hope so.

Swent: Well, I guess that pretty well wraps it up, Bob.

Wiegel: I think so.

Swent: Thank you very much again.

Wiegel: I'm sorry to be so negative about the political thing because I

see no other way; they are political. It's so difficult. You had
mentioned something you had just read.

Final Thoughts on Balancing Coastal Uses

Swent: Yes. This was something that I read in an environmental

publication and it's talking about a particular area up in Oregon;
"A bay and its uplands that still depend primarily on harvesting
natural resources from private land rather than using them in a
NEW WEST WAY as a scenic back drop for tourists and those fleeing
urban life. .. .environmentalists have come in who think they can
create ecological sustainability through a different form of
economic development." This is pulled out of context, but the
unspoken assumption is that harvesting natural resources from
private landthat, in this case, means loggingis bad, and the
NEW WEST WAY, a "scenic backdrop for tourists and those fleeing
urban life" tourists and vacationers is that's good. I thought
it was interesting.

Wiegel: Yes. I'm a tourist myself very often.

Swent: We all love to be tourists and vacationists.

Wiegel: Dealing with the coastal things and the demands --

Swent: This was a coastal project.

Wiegel: Willapa Bay, I believe you said it was. That's just a little bit
south of the

Swent: --Columbia.

Wiegel: --Columbia River. Willapa Bay.

270
Swent: That's what it was, yes.

Wiegel: I know that area fairly well. It all drains locally there. When
you have many tourists, you put other pressures on your
environment. I'm not saying that tourists aren't better than
logging, but they're both pressures. This is the multiple use.
How do you sort out whether it's better to build a hotel where you
have a change over every week or so forth, so many more people can
use that place to get a look at the coast and so forth. Or you
permit a house there. A house is going to be less intrusive, but
on the other hand, many fewer people can take advantage of looking
at the coast. So you have got that balance.

I don't play golf, but I'm so appreciative of people who do,
because there's so many areas where the coast has been put into
golf courses, and it always looks nice, and you could see across
it and things of this sort. So there are other ways you can use
your coast. I think that this is one of things that the
California Coastal Commission tries to sort out: to try to have
maximum availability of the coast to people. They recognize these
different demands. How do you sort out whether a beach should be
completely safe so little children can go in the water and this
and that, or can somebody use a surfboard? In southern
California, as you may know, there are stretches of beach where
you can use surfboards at certain times of the day, but then you
can't use them at other times of the day. So they're gradually
learning how to sort these things out. But again, it has to be
balanced.

So tourism certainly may be better than logging, but it's
got its own class of problems associated with it. That's about
all I can think.

Swent: I think that's a good place to stop, Bob. So thanks very much.
Wiegel: Thank you very much.

Transcribed by Estevan Sifuentes
Final Typed by Caroline Sears

271

TAPE GUIDE- -Robert Wiegel

Interview 1: January 8, 1997

Tape 1, Side A

Tape 1, Side B

Tape 2, Side A

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Interview 2;
Tape 3,
Tape 3,
Tape A,

February 4, 1997
Side A
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Interview 3: February 12, 1997

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Interview 4: February 19, 1997
Tape 8, Side A
Tape 8, Side B
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Tape 10, Side B not recorded

Interview 5: March 10, 1997

Tape 11, Side A

Tape 11, Side B

Tape 12, Side A

Tape 12, Side B

Tape 13, Side A

Tape 13, Side B not recorded

Interview 6: March 12, 1997

Tape 14, Side A

Tape 14, Side B

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Interview 7: March 31, 1997
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264

APPENDIX

A Guest Editorial, "The Coast and Professor Robert L.
Wiegel," Thomas R. Kendall, Shore and Beach,
July 1994. 272

B "Keynote Address," Ben C. Gerwick, Jr., Shore and Beach.

July 1994. 274

C "Professor Wiegel 's Legacy," Choule J. Sonu, Shore and

Beach. July 1994. 276

D Robert L. Wiegel, Curriculum Vitae. 279

E Robert L. Wiegel, Publications, as of 31 December 1996. 287
F University History Series List. 299

272

GUEST EDITORIAL

APPENDIX A

f ron

The Coast and Professor Robert L. Wiegel

By
Thomas R. Kendall

July 1994

ACCORDING TO STEPHEN ROBBINS, author of
Organizational Behavior, the profession with the
highest job satisfaction is that of the urban university
professor. I would like to discuss a certain professor, from that
urban setting known as Berkeley, who normally edits this
journal. During his career, this coastal engineering pioneer has
demonstrated a kind of job satisfaction that is contagious and
has infected many. This issue of Shore &. Beach is in honor of
that Professor, Robert L. Wiegel.

This "Wiegel Issue" is the first of two issues that draw
from material presented at the California Shore and Beach
Preservation Association (CSBPA) conference held in Profes
sor Wiegel' s honor. The conference, entitled The Coast and
Professor Robert L. Wiegel," was held on 9-10 November 1993
at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco.

Among the presenters acknowledging Professor Wiegel's
contributions to coastal engineering in California and beyond

were several of coastal engineering' s senior statesmen, Willard
N. Bascom, Richard G. Folsom, Cyril J. Galvin, BenC. Gerwick,
Douglas L. Inman, Joe W. Johnson, Omar J. Lille vang, Orvillc
T. Magoon, Morgan Noble, Fredric Raichlen, and Warren C.
Thompson. Inddendy, Dr. Folsom' s title is President Emeritus
of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute but he also spent much of his
academic career at the University of California at Berkeley
where his long list of accomplishments included carrying out
the first instrumented measurement of waves in the Pacific and
hiring a young engineer named Robert L. WiegeL

The next generation of coastal engineers was also well
represented at the conference with presentations being made by
such individuals as the present Director of the Coastal Engi
neering Research Center, Dr. James R. Houston. Professor
Wiegel's contributions to industry were also recognized by
Barton W. Shackleford, Retired President of Pacific, Gas, and
Electric Company. And while the conference tended to have a

"Senior Statesmen" at The Coast and Professor Robert L Wiegel Conference, held 9-10 November 1993 in San Francisco, (toft to right)
Omar J. LJHevang, Ben C. Gerwick, Willard N. Bascom, Morgan Noble. Warren C. Thompson. Robert L Wiegel, Barton W. ShackMord,
and Douglas L Inman. (Photo by Craig B. Leideradort)

SHORE AND BEACH

California focus, a slight international flavor was given to the
gathering by Dr. Choule J. Sonu's delivery of a message from
Chancellor Horikawa of Japan and by a presentation from A.W.
Sam Smith of Australia.

Professor Wiegel was presented with the Professor Joe
W. Johnson Outstanding Beach Preservation Award. The
award was recently named after this founding father of CSBPA.
Professor Johnson himself was physically unable to attend the
conference but gave a talk via video tape. This video tape is now
archived at the University of California at Berkeley's Water
Resource Center Archives. For a good biographical sketch of
Joe W. Johnson, the reader is referred to Robert L. Wiegel' s
article in the October 1988 issue of Shore A Beach.

Professor Wiegel has meant so much to so many. To me,
he has been instructor, mentor, and employer and he continues
to be someone I learn from. Dr. Richard J. Seymour remarked
in his conference message that he has always credited Professor
Wiegel with single-handedly creating the discipline of ocean
engineering with his extraordinary text book (Oceanographical
Engineering, 1964). Dr. Sonu recently commented that Profes
sor Wiegel has been carrying the empirical torch for coastal
engineering first lit by Morrough P. O'Brien and Joe W.
Johnson. Professor Wiegel has never hesitated to acknowledge
the many mysteries that still remain in this field, to place a high
value on non-synthetic data, and to challenge his pupils and
associates to observe coastal processes first hand.

While he recently retired from active teaching and from
his role as General Chairman of the International Conference on

273

Coastal Engineering, Professor Wiegel remains active in a
variety of ways with his profession, including as an advisor to
students. At least that is my perception because I still get calls
from students who have been referred by him. One of his more
significant ongoing responsibilities is, of course, his role as
Editorof Shore < Beach, where he not only edits but also writes
(witness his thorough treatise on beach nourishment on the
U.S.'s Pacific Coast in the January 1994 issue).

This current issue of Shore &. Beach contains reflections
on Professor Wiegel by Ben C. Gerwick (the conference key
note speaker) and Choule J. Sonu, Joe W. Johnson's address on
the beginnings of coastal engineering at the University of
California or what he likes to refer to as the "Berkeley mafia,"
and four varied but excellent technical entries. The only
common theme in the technical articles is that the topics are all
of special interest to our honoree, who's interests are as broad
as his enthusiasm is great. Again, this is only the first of two
issues that will be derived from presentations made at the Coast
and Professor Robert L. Wiegel Conference. With the excep
tion of some observations from the Gold Coast of Australia, the
next issue will be more regionally focussed on the shorelines
near San Francisco.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge all those who have
assisted thus far in the review of manuscripts, Robert G. Dean,
George W. Domurat, Craig H. Everts, Reinhand E. Flick, Joe
W. Johnson, Craig B. Leidersdorf, Jim McGrath, Robert M.
Norris, and last but not least, Robert L. Wiegel.

Some participants at The Coast and Robert L Wiegel Conference, CSBPA, held 9-10 November 1993 in San Francisco. (Photo by Craig B.

JULY 1994

274

APPENDIX B

Keynote Address

By
Ben C. Gerwick, Jr.

Professor Emeritus,
University of California at Berkeley

THIS SYMPOSIUM HAS BEEN assembled to honor
a great Coastal Engineer, Professor Robert Wiegel. It' s
indeed very fitting that this be carried out at this Coastal
Conference and at the time of his retirement from active
teaching, although I think we all know that Bob can never retire
from his interest and involvement in Coastal Engineering.

The respect with which he is held by his associates and
peers is shown by the prestige of the speakers and participants
who have gathered to honor him. The titles of the presentations
cover the many professional aspects of his career.

Since I don't want to anticipate the material of the other
speakers, I will address some facets of his life that may not be
known to all of you, which illustrate his remarkable breath of
interests and activities.

Although I had met Bob before, I first got to know him
well when I joined the University. I initiated a course in the
construction of offshore structures. He attended every class,
sitting well to the back, to evaluate this newcomer and to judge
whether or not he should encourage his students to take my
course. Fortunately, I passed his rigorous examination.

Bob is faithful in his support of other teachers, not only
his fellow professors, but our guest speakers, especially those
in our Ocean Engineering Symposium, in which many of you
have participated. He was instrumental in the founding of this
graduate seminar in Ocean Engineering and has been by far the
best attendee of all of us. This wouldn'tbesoremarkableexcept
as one tries to imagine how he managed to fit it into his schedule
of trips to Washington for the National Academy of Engineer
ing, overseas trips to chair the International Conference on
Coastal Engineering, service on the Coastal Engineering Re
search Board, and a busy teaching and research schedule.

Bob has been active on the Marine Board of the National
Academies and the National Research Council for as long as I
can remember an energetic participant, willing worker, but
most importantly, one who continually examined and ad
dressed the future needs of our country and society.

In the 1970' s Bob participated in the founding of a very
idealistic international organization, ECOR, the Engineering
Commission for Ocean Resources, to be under the auspices of
the UN. It was a noble attempt and for awhile motivated many
outstanding ocean engineers in both developed and less devel
oped nations worldwide: several excellent conferences were
held throughout the world. I attended two in Argentina at which
all the South American coastal nations were well represented.

Unfortunately ECOR has diminished as an effective organiza
tion, not because of lack of interest at the academic and research
level but because it was radicallyupstaged by the development
of offshore oil activity in the 1970* s and 80' s and taken over by
the Offshore Conferences, and by ASME's Offshore Mechan
ics Group and ASCE's Ocean Engineering Section. Everyone
wanted to get into the act

Bob, of course, is known for his pioneering efforts in the
quantification of wave energy spectra. When the North Sea
offshore concrete platforms first emerged, there was a great
divergence as to which spectra to adopt Bob developed a
modification of the Scott spectrum, which was adopted for all
the early North Sea platforms and, as far as I know, is still used.
Similarly, when interest developed in the Gulf of Alaska, Bob
integrated the Japanese data with those of the Naval Oceano-
graphic Center at Monterey to produce spectra applicable to the
Gulf of Alaska. He was one of the first to recognize the
existence of significant energy in the long period range in the
Pacific- 20 to 22 seconds and the distances to which this low
frequency energy could propagate.

Bob produced his epic, Oceanographical Engineering, in
1964 and it is still the bible. I can visualize the long nights be
put in writing such a comprehensive book and the pains he must
have taken to review, evaluate, and reference every credible
source.

That brings us to the matter of references. Bob is the
terror of doctoral students, although eventually they realize that
a great teacher must be demanding. Bob will not tolerate un
referenced statements and opinions unless they are backed by
appropriate data and argument Loose assertions will not pass
his scrutiny.

My next venture with Bob was in connection with the
effect of earthquakes on massive offshore structures such as the
concrete platforms in the North Sea, and later, those proposed
for the Gulf of Alaska. Bob recognized the inapplicability of the
conventional assumptions as to the added mass coefficient
With one of bis brilliant doctoral students, Bob Byrd, and
interaction with the rest of the dissertation committee, which
included Professor Joe Penzien and myself, be confirmed the
previous analytical work by Professor Jim Garrison, which had
postulated coefficients approaching 0.5 for large structures, as
opposed to the conventional 1.0. The results of this research are
still in use in the North Sea and more recently, offshore
Newfoundland.

SHORE AND BEACH

Bob was interested early on in tsunamis and solitary
waves formed by landslides into bodies of water, such as those
which have caused such catastrophic failures in Italy. The
possibility that a massive underwater explosion could generate
a tsunami led to Bob's initial employment at the University.
The Navy was about to conduct the nuclear explosion test at
Bikini atoll. They were worried that a landslide down the
underwater slopes could lead to a tsunami such as that which
had caused such a loss of life in Hilo in 1946.

This led to his being appointed as one of the members of
the Hilo Technical Tsunami Advisory Council in 1965. Bob
has been a leader in alerting our profession to the dominant role
played by episodic events which impact our coasts: tsunamis,
great storms and great floods with their massive discharge of
sediments.

His chapter on tsunamis in the volume "Earthquake
Engineering" is a classic exposition of the subject This work
led him to the coasts of Canada and Alaska, where the impact
of landslides initiated by earthquakes has been more devastat
ing in terms of loss of life and property than those due to
earthquakes themselves.

Bob was one of the organizers of the week-long short
course on Earthquake Engineering in 1965. He had organized
this through University Extension, the first such short course
ever held at Berkeley. It was a tremendous success: they had
so many enrollees that they gave it twice. At its conclusion, Bob
was asked if he would assemble and edit the papers: thus arose
the classic volume "Earthquake Engineering".

His enterprise with the University led later to a similar
conference, also highly successful, in Ocean Engineering. As
a result. Bob was appointed Chairman of the University-wide
Committee on University Extension the next year and has
continued a strong interest and involvement in this means of
continued interaction with the practicing profession.

Bob in yet another activity was Director of the State
Technical Services Program from 1965 to 1968, working with
the Governor's office and an advisory committee of leading
industrialists such as David Packard to investigate means of
transferring new ideas from the research community to indus
try, a pioneering effort in technology transfer that still is a key
theme of the National Academy of Engineering.

Have you noticed how many activities occurred in 1965?
That must have been a very productive year!

Bob has had a long term love affair with coastal develop
ment, especially marinas and breakwaters. His ideal vacation
is to drive along 1 ,000 miles of beaches in Italy or California or
Florida with his wife Anne, looking at the efficacy, or more
often, lack of efficacy, of breakwaters, jetties and groins and the
positive and negative aspects of intensive coastal development.

Often on these trips he is diverted by another interest, that
of marine archeology, especially as it relates to ancient harbors

275

in the Mediterranean where so much information concerning
the early empires has been uncovered in recent years. This
interest extends to more recent history: a few weeks ago he sent
me an article on John Smeaton, the designer-builder of the
Eddystone Lighthouse on the coast of England. As a result of
his several remarkable successes, Smeaton became the first
Engineering Consultant, for the article goes on to say," Thus we
can picture Smeaton, travelling around the country to various
sites, working on reports and scientific investigations, making
designs for and advising on all kinds of projects, and giving
evidence to parliamentary committees, proud to call himself an
Engineer, conscious of the obligations of his exalted position in
the profession."

Does not this also describe Robert Wiegel?

Incidently it was Smeaton who, in 1750, first recognized
the tremendous upward forces exerted by waves impacting an
overhanging structure, in his case, the Eddystone lighthouse
cornice, which had been broken off by the course. Two hundred
and thirty five years later. Bob recognized that the initial design
of the Fisherman's Wharf breakwater would experience similar
excessive upward wave forces on the horizontal overhang, and
demonstrated this in the wave tank at Berkeley. The overhang
ing concrete ledge was modified to give a 10 slope, thus
minimizing the momentum change.

Bob's interest in and identification with history never
ceases. On his last trip, just a few weeks ago, to Genoa, Italy he
discovered that the ancient mole had been totally destroyed in
the great storm of February, 1495. The investigation, the first
recorded oceanographical study, was carried out by one Leonardo
da Vinci.

Addressing yet another aspect of his career, Bob has been
intensely devoted to education and the University. He has
served many years on committees of the Academic Senate at
Berkeley. He continues to devote time to the Committee on
ROTC, carrying forward his own career in the ROTC and the
Army of almost 50 years ago. He served his country in World
War II, returning to work with Dean Morrough O'Brien in
perfecting landing craft and techniques for landing in the surf.
That's especially dear to me because I spent much of World
War II careening in the surf in landing craft and attempting to
get off to safety under the exigencies of enemy fire and breaking
waves. Needless to say, there was ample room for improvement
in equipment and technique, as well as the forecasting of surf
conditions.

What constitutes engineering genius? I think it's the gift
of intense interest in all aspects of his own discipline, in related
disciplines, in all natural phenomena. But most of all, it's the
priceless gift of enthusiasm which is contagious and makes us
all perform better. So, thank you Bob Wiegel, and don't stop.

JULY 1994

276

APPENDIX C

Robert L Wtogel in hi* office )u*t bster* rwtfremn t from the IMvmfy
of CaMbmfe, Ifay 1987. (Photo by Anon.)

Bob and Anne Wegel on the Great wal of China, 9 Spl 1965 (Photo
by Jarry Efeen berg.)

Uorrough P. O*Brfn, Jo* W. Johnson and Robert l_ Wlege* t the
O-Brten Sympoelum-, 23-24Uarcn 1 987. (Ptioloby Anon.)

Professor Wiegel's Legacy

Choule J. Sonu
President, Techmarine, Inc.

THE CSBPA MEETING HELD in San Francisco last
November in which Professor Bob Wiegel's contribu
tions to coastal engineering were the featured topic of
discussion, gave me an occasion to reminisce about the impor
tance of this man to my career of some 30 years as a coastal
engineer in this country. When Jim Houston, Director of
CERC, confessed at the meeting that in his professional work
he relied more heavily on Bob's 1964 book "Oceanographical
Engineering" than on the CERC manual, I cried to myself
"welcome to the club" and felt that like Jim, I also owe him a
confession.

I ha ve not had the fortune to attend Berkeley nor any other
U.S. schools, yet I have profited as handsomely by being a loyal

student of Bob's writings. Aside from providing practical
knowledge, Bob's writings have always reminded me of what
the main stream of coastal engineering is all about - the respect
of facts and experience, rather than of boldness and deductions.
It was always inspiring to learn through his papers how little,
rather than bow much, we know abut Nature's processes. We
would never succeed in outguessing the Mother Nature, yet
advancements in coastal engineering will still come in steps
with our ability to digest the lessons handed down by her. Bob' s
work is the hallmark of this basic principle of main stream
coastal engineering, and for this reason many of his contribu
tions will stand the test of time, as has his 1964 book.

SHORE AND BEACH

277

J.M.Wwgel and Robert LWiegeJ in front of the Cathedral in Le Mans,
France,about1 July 1945. (Photo by Anon.)

R. L Wiogel, R. Adm. Doy te and M.P. O'Brien at Testa of Amphibious
Vehicle*, FortOrd, California, February 1950.

yejunn" ~-

CM. Snyder, R L Wiegel, H.A. Einstein and Joe W. Johnson, in front
of Sponger* Fwh Restaurant, Berkeley, Oct 1967. (Photo by Anon.)

Demolition of the Old Hydraulics Laboratory (Mechanics Building).
University of California, 1965. (Photo by Anon.)

Robert L Wiegel in Papua New Guinea, 20 July 1975

any L Edge and R.L Wiegel at the 16th ICCE, Hamburg, Germany,
Sept 1978. (Photo by Anon.)

JULY 1994

278

Coartal Engineering Raaarcn Board, U.S. Army Corp* of Engl-
naara, about 1 980. Left to right: B. a Robinson, Rl_ Wlagat, U Q
LMrta, M G Heib erg, R.O. Daan, BO WaUa (Photo courtesy Corp.
Of Engineer*, U.S. Army)

Coaatal Engineering Rinaroh CouncU Maaflng In Nw York, NY.
Stainflng, Ml to right Om, Magoon, BattfM. SwAad: BIJkar, Nobta,
SavOia^Wlagd.29Sapt1fl8& (Photo by Anon.)

Raid tMtoat Diablo Canyon Nuctear Power Plant, PaeMcQaa&ElacMe
C0.196& (Photo, courtesy PQAE)

Opening Caramony, 22 ICC,Dm,TnNe1hc1an<J. Left to right
Egb1Prin, wiknown, PrinoaKIaua, RJ_\Mgt, unknown, unknown.
2July199a (Photo courte^.lCCE Organizing Committee)

Opwilng day, 23rd ICCE, Venice, Italy, 5Ocobar1 982 Vanloefloodod. (Photobyltallan Organizing Commltlaa)

SHORE AND BEACH

279

Biodata for:

ROBERT L. WIEGEL

Professor of Civil Engineering, Emeritus APPENDIX D

University of California
Berkeley, California 94720

Born: October 17, 1922, San Francisco, California
Education:

B.S. Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, 1943
M.S. Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, 1949

Professional Experience:

1942-46 U.S. Army, Ordnance Corps, to 1st Lieutenant

1 946-60 Assistant and Associate Research Engineer, University of California, Berkeley

1957-60 Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering, UC Berkeley

1 960-63 Associate Professor of Civil Engineering, UC Berkeley

1 963-87 Professor of Civil Engineering, UC Berkeley

1 963-72 Assistant Dean, College of Engineering, UC Berkeley

1 965-68 Director, State Technical Services Program for California, UC, University-
wide

1972-73 Acting Dean, College of Engineering, UC Berkeley

1987-present Professor Emeritus

Professional Registration:

Registered Professional Engineer in the State of California

Professional and Scientific Societies:

Member, National Academy of Engineering (Elected 1975)

Member, Committee on Membership, 1978-83

President (Founding), International Engineering Committee on Oceanic Resources (ECOR),
1972-75. Honorary Member, 1987-
Honorary Member and Fellow, American Society of Civil Engineers

Chairman, Executive Committee, Waterways, Harbors and Coastal Engineering Division

(1974-75); Member, 1971-76

Chairman, Coastal Engineering Research Council, 1978-1992

Chairman, Project Steering Committee, U.S. /Japan Exchange Program of Eminent Civil

Engineers-Underwater, 1977-78

Chairman, Task Committee on Wave Forces on Structures, 1 963-64

Member, Task Committee on Sand Bypassing, 1 964-65

Member, Task Committee on Water Resources (previously)

Member, Committee on Oceanographic and Hydrographic Surveying and Charting

(previously)

Member, Committee on Reliability of Offshore Structures (previously)

Member, American Shore and Beach Preservation Association, Vice President and Director,
1988-1995. Director Emeritus 1995-

Member, Permanent International Association of Navigation Congresses
Member, Sigma Xi
Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science

280

Robert L. Wiegel Page 2

Service to Professional Societies and Government Agencies:

Chairman, First Conference on Coastal Engineering Instruments, Council on Wave

Research, The Engineering Foundation, held in Berkeley, CA, 1 955

Hilo Technical Advisory Council, Board of Supervisors, Hawaii County, Hawaii, 1 962

Vice Chairman, Local Organizing Committee, 13th General Assembly, International Union of

Geodesy and Geophysics, Berkeley, California, 1963

Member, Papers Committee and Wave Forces Committee, Permanent International

Association of Navigation Congresses (PIANC), 1963-65

Member, U.S. -Japan Cooperative Science Program: Participant Coastal Engineering

Seminar in Japan, March 1964; Tsunami Seminar in Japan, 1965

Consultant, Redevelopment Agency of Crescent City, CA, protection from tsunamis,

1 964-65

Member, American Society of Engineering Education; member Executive Committee,

Pacific Section, 1965-66

Member, San Francisco Bay Area Relations with Industry Committee, 1963-64

Visiting Professor, National University of Mexico, Mexico DF, July/August 1965

Member, Panel on Research Education and Information Dissemination, Committee on

Ocean Engineering, National Academy of Engineering, 1966-69

Commissioner, California Governor's Advisory Commission on Ocean Resources (GACOR),

1967-68

Member, Committee on Earthquake Engineering, National Academy of Engineering,

1967-69, Chairman, Panel on Coastal Engineering and Inland Waters

Invited Lecture: "Protection of Populated Areas from Tsunamis," Pacific Science Congress,

Tokyo, Japan, 1966

Commissioner, California Advisory Commission on Marine and Coastal Resources (CMC),

1968-74

Chairman, Committee on Marine Transportation, Non-living Resources and Power Plants

Chairman, Committee on Transportation and Trade

Member, Steering Committee: International Decade of Ocean Exploration, National
Academy of Science and National Academy of Engineering, 1968-69

Chairman, Ad Hoc Panel on the International Working Group, Committee on Ocean
Engineering (Ex-officio Member, National Academy of Engineering) 1968-70
Lecture on tsunamis at San Francisco Meeting of Office of Emergency Preparedness,
Geological Hazards and Public Problems, Executive Office of the President, May 1969
Reporter-General, XXII International Navigation Congress, Paris, France, June 1969
Official U.S. Department of State Observer to Meeting of UNESCO's Intergovernmental
Oceanographic Commission, 1969

U.C. Representative, Consortium Committee, Kanpur Indo-American Program, 1969-71
Invited Lecture, 8th World Petroleum Congress, Moscow, USSR, 1971
Member, Editorial Board, Journal of Coastal Marine Science, Academic Press, Inc., Ltd.,
London, from founding in 1971 until 1988

Member, Editorial Board, International Association for Hydraulic Research, 1971-75
Member, Editorial Board, Ocean Citation Journal, Ocean Index, 1971-77
Ex-Officio Member, Marine Board of National Academy of Engineering, 1971-75
Member, U.S. Navy, Office of Naval Research, Natural Hazards Review Board, 1973-74
Member, Honorary Committee for the International Ocean Development Conference, Japan,
1973-74
Member, Coastal Engineering Research Board, Chief of Engineers, U.S. Army, 1974-85

281

Robert L. Wiegel Page 3

Member, Marine Board, National Academy of Engineering, National Research Council

1975-81

Chairman, Panel on Harbor/Port Entrance Design, 1980-81

Chairman, Panel on Verification Guidelines for Offshore Structures, 1977-78

Member, Advisory Panel on the International Decade of Ocean Exploration (IDOE), National

Science Foundation

Consultant to US. Committee on International Ocean Affairs (CIOA) and Panel on

International Programs and Cooperation in Ocean Affairs (PIPICO), U.S. Department of

State, 1976-80

Lecture Series, Design of Small Harbors, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay,

India, January 1980

General Chairman, Seventeenth International Conference on Coastal Engineering, Sydney,

Australia, 23-28 March 1980

General Chairman, Symposium on Problems and Opportunities on the Design of Entrances

to Ports and Harbors, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., August 1980

Chairman, International Conference on Directional Wave Spectra Applications,

ECOR/Marine Board/ASCE, 1982

Member, National Research Council, Panel of the Committee on Earthquake Engineering,

1981-82

U.S. Representative, UNESCO/IOC/ECOR Workshop on Advanced University Curricula in

Ocean Engineering and Related Fields, 1982

General Chairman, Eighteenth International Conference on Coastal Engineering, Cape Town,

Republic of South Africa, 14-19 November 1982

Chairman, Committee on Assessment of the Maritime Administration's Computer-Aided

Operations Research Facility (CAORF), National Research Council, 1983

Member, Advisory Council of the Permanent Secretariat of the International Conferences on

Coastal and Port Engineering in Developing Countries, 1984-1995

Member, Ad Hoc Committee on Natural Hazards and Research Needs in Coastal and Ocean

Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering Division, National Science Foundation, and

the Office of Naval Research, 1 984

General Chairman, Nineteenth International Conference on Coastal Engineering, Houston,

Texas, 3-7 September 1 984

Member, National Research Council Committee on Engineering Implications of Changes in

Relative Mean Sea Level, 1984-87

Member, Monterey Bay Shoreline Study: Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee,

State of California Resources Agency, Department of Boating and Waterways, 1985-86

Member (University of California Representative), Marine Division, National Association of

State Universities and Land-grant Colleges, 1985-

Member, Planning Committee on International Conference on Measuring Techniques of

Hydraulic Phenomena in Offshore Coastal and Inland Waters, London, England, 9-1 1 April

1986

General Chairman, Twentieth International Conference on Coastal Engineering, Taipei,

Taiwan, Republic of China, 9-14 November 1986

General Chairman, Symposium to Honor Morrough P. O'Brien: Working Solutions : Shore

and Beach, University of California, Berkeley, California, sponsored jointly by the American

Shore and Beach Preservation Association, the ASCE Coastal Engineering Research

Council, the ASCE Waterway, Port, Coastal and Ocean Engineering Division, and the

University of California at Berkeley College of Engineering, 23-24 March 1987

Member, Technical Review Committee for Bolsa Chica Bay, City of Huntington Beach,

California, 1988-91

Member, Committee on Coastal Erosion Zone Management, National Research Council,

1988-89

282

Robert L. Wiegd Page 4

General Chairman, Twenty-first International Conference on Coastal Engineering,

Torremolinos, Spain, 20-25 June 1988

Editor Shore & Beach, The Journal of the American Shore and Beach Preservation

Association, 1988-January 1996

Member, Steering Committee: Hurricane Hugo Workshop, ASBPA, 21-22 May 1990, Folly

Beach, North Carolina

General Chairman, Twenty-second International Conference on Coastal Engineering, Delft,

The Netherlands, 2-6 July 1990

Adviser, City of Redondo Beach, California on Redondo (King) Harbor, 1991

Adviser, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Coastal Engineering Research Center, on Yaquina

Jetty, Oregon, 1990-91

General Chairman, Twenty-third International Conference on Coastal Engineering, Venice,

Italy, 4-9 October 1 992

Member, Committee on Beach Nourishment and Protection, National Research Council

(Marine Board), 1992-1994

Reviewer, "Shoreline Erosion Assessment and Atlas of the San Diego Region" for the San

Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), 1993

Member, Advisory Committee, HYDRO-PORT '94, Yokosuka, Japan, October 1994

Chairman, Peer Review Group: Assessment of the State of Florida's Coastal Construction

Control Line (CCCL) Program, for the University of Florida and the State of Florida's

Department of Environmental Protection, 1993-1995

Member, Review Committee, Barrow Beach Nourishment Project, North Slope Borough,

Alaska, Science Advisory Committee, July-August 1994

Consultant, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Los Angeles District, Coast of California Storm

and Tidal Waves Study, South Coast Region (Orange County), 1996

Honors and Awards

1962 Research Prize, American Society of Civil Engineers for relating oceanography to the

practice of civil engineering
1965 Special Lecture, Strategic Industries Association, Los Angeles, California

1 968 Listed in Who's Who

1969 General Lecture, Symposium to Dedicate the Delft Hydraulics Laboratory Facilities,
Delft, The Netherlands

1969 U.S. Department of State Observer to UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic
Commission

1971 Participant, White House and NATO sponsored "International Meeting on
Earthquakes"

1972 General Lecture, Symposium on Flow-induced Structural Vibrations, IUTAM-IAHR,
Karlsruhe, Germany

1973 USC-TRW Distinguished Lecturer

1974 Listed in "Engineers of Distinction: A Who's Who in Engineering," The Engineers
Joint Council

1975 Elected Member, National Academy of Engineering

1975-77 Adviser to the Secretary of Minerals and Energy, Papua New Guinea

1976 Theme Lecture, Symposium on Present-Day Challenge of the Sea, Wageningen, The
Netherlands

1976 Visiting Professor, Polish Academy of Science

1976 Participant, National Meeting on Science, Technology and Development, Chaired by
the Secretary of State

1977 Senior Queens Fellow in Marine Science, Australia

283

Robert L Wiegel

PageS

1977 Keynote Lecture, 6th Australasian Conference on Hydrualics and Fluid Mechanics,
Adelaide, SA, Australia

1 978 Lecture to Directors of the Suez Canal Authority, Egypt
1 978 Visiting Professor, University of Cairo, Egypt

1 978 Moffatt-Nichol Harbor and Coastal Engineering Award, ASCE

1 979 Elected Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science

1979 Special Lecture, National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, India, 31 December

1980 General Lecture, Ocean Engineering IV, Tainan, R.O.C.

1981 General Lecture, XIX Congress, IAHR, New Delhi, India

1983 Special Advisor to Egypt and UN Development Program on the Coastal Protection
Plan for the Nile Delta, 1983-85

1984 Keynote Address, ECOR International Conference-1984: Ocean Energy, Its
Potentialities for Developing Countries, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2-5 October 1984

1985 Outstanding Civilian Service Medal, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

1 985 International Coastal Engineering Award, American Society of Civil Engineers

1986 Keynote Address, International Conference on Measuring Techniques of Hydraulic
Phenomena in Offshore, Coastal and Inland Waters, London, England, 9-1 1 April
1986

1986 Luncheon Talk, Hawaii Conference on Beach Erosion, Honolulu, 27 June 1986
1 987 Berkeley Citation, University of California at Berkeley

1 987 Theme Lecture, Second International Conference on Coastal and Port Engineering in
Developing Countries, Beijing, China, September 1987

1987 Honorary Member, International Engineering Committee on Oceanic Resources.
Elected 19 October 1987, London, England

1988 General Lecture, Giornate Di Studio Sullo Stato DeH'Arte Nell'lngegneria Delia Coste,
Bari, Italy, 24-25 March 1988

1988 Keynote Address, Beach Preservation Technology 88: Problems and Advances in

Beach Nourishment, Gainesville, Florida 23-25 March 1988
1 988 Visiting Professor, Polish Academy of Sciences, 29-June-8 July 1988
1988 Honorary Member, American Society of Civil Engineers

1992 Coastal Engineering 1992. Proceedings of the Twenty-third International
Conference, October 4-9, 1992, Venice, Italy. Dedicated to Professor
Robert L. Wiegel, ASCE, 3 volumes, 3,516 pages

1993 The Second International Symposium on Ocean Wave Measurement and Analysis.
Honoring: Professor Robert L. Wiegel, July 25-28, 1993, New Orleans, Louisiana,
USA. ASCE Specialty Conference

1993 Coastal Zone Foundation Award. Professor Robert L. Wiegel - in recognition of his

leadership and inspiration in ocean wave measurement, theory and application at

WAVES 93, New Orleans, LA, July 26-29, 1993
1993 ASCE Special Award. "In recognition of his pioneering contributions to coastal and

ocean engineering research and for inspiration provided to his students and

colleagues - presented to Professor Robert L. Wiegel, July 1 993
1993 Giornate Italiane di Ingegneria Costera, held in Genoa, Italy, 28-29 October 1993;

opened the conference and gave opening remarks, by invitation
1 993 The Coast and Professor Robert L. Wiegel, CSBPA Annual Conference, November 9-

10, 1993, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, California American Shore and Beach

Preservation Association/California Section

1993 Joe W. Johnson Outstanding Beach Preservation Award, California Shore & Beach
Preservation Association

1994 Conference Room at Coastal Engineering Research Center, U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, Vicksburg, MS, named the Robert L. Wiegel Conference Room

284

Robert L. Wiegel Page 6

1994 Two issues of the journal Shore & Beach were dedicated to Robert L. Wiegel,
publishing the papers given at the conference held in his honor in November 1993.
The issues were: Vol. 62, No. 3, July 1994, pp. 2-52 and Vol. 62, No. 4, October
1994, pp. 1-36.

1995 Morrough P. O'Brien Award, American Shore and Beach Preservation Association

1996 Keynote Address, 25th International Conference on Coastal Engineering, Orlando, FL,
2-6 September 1 996

1 996 Honorary Member, Japan Society of Civil Engineers

285

Robert L Wiegel Page 7

Publications:

More than 155 publications and 100 technical reports on various phases of ocean engineering,
including the book Oceanographical Engineering and editor of the books Coastal Engineering
Instruments, Earthquake Engineering, and Directional Wave Spectra Applications. Also, a
number of consulting reports. In addition, supervised 26 Ph.D. theses.

Note: In addition to the work presented in publications, hydraulic model tests (towing tank)
were performed in 1 954 as a part of the pre-feasibility studies of the underwater launching of
the Polaris missile for the U.S. Navy.

Main Fields of Interest:

Nearly all areas of coastal engineering, including: cooling water systems for power plants,
wave forces on offshore structures and pipelines, beach erosion control, harbor arrangements
(breakwaters, wave and currents, entrances, etc.), tsunamis, ocean wave spectra.

Major University of California Committee Memberships:

Office of the President

Executive Committee, Institute of Marine Resources, 1966-72

Task Committee on the Extended University, 1969-72

Chairman, Study Group One, 1970 All-University Faculty Conference, 1969-70

U.C. Representative to the Kanpur Indo-American Program, 1969-72

Sea Grant Coordinating Council, 1970-74

Chairman, Search Committee, Director of IMR, 1970-71

Universitywide Council on Engineering Education, 1972-73

Coordinating Board, Water Resources Center, 1982-87

Chairman, Search Committee, Director of the Water Resources Center, 1986

Chairman, Institute of Marine Resources 5-Year Review Committee, 1987

Chancellor

Advisory Committee to the Student and Alumni Placement Center, 1 964-70; Chairman,

1968-70

Committee for Professional Education, 1 969-73

Executive Committee, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, 1970-74

Chairman, Ad Hoc Review Committee, Center for Research in Management Science,

1976

Advisory Committee to the Military Officers' Education Program, 1978- ; Chairman,

1987-88, 1992-93. Member, Committee on Fleet Admiral Nimitz Memorial Lectureship

on National Security Affairs, 1

Faculty Club

Board of Directors, 1971-73
President, 1973

286

Robert L. Wiegel Page 8

Academic Senate

University Extension, Chairman, 1965-67

Chairman, Universitywide Committee on University Extension, 1966-67, 1969-72

Chairman, Rules and Jurisdiction, 1968-70, 1976-77, 1978-81

Universitywide Committee on Rules and Jurisdiction, 1976-77, 1978-81

Parliamentarian, 1978-79

Committee on Committees, 1982-84

Committee on Privilege and Tenure, 1986-87

Secretary, 1988-89

College of Engineering

Dean's Coordinating and Advisory Council, 1964-73

Committee on Engineering in the Ocean Environment, 1964-70, 1971-72, 1975- ;

Chairman 1984-87

Committee on TV, 1973-74

Executive Committee, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, 1 975-80

Interdisciplinary Studies Advisory Committee, 1984-87

Collegewide Working Group on Fluid Mechanics, 1987-88

Department of Civil Engineering
Executive Committee, 1975-77

Committee on Alumni and Professional Relations, 1978-85
Graduate Affairs Committee, 1981-85
Numerous other committees

287 APPENDIX E

ROBERT L. WIEGEL - PUBLICATIONS AS OF 31 DECEMBER 1996
1 thesis, 157 published books and papers, 97 technical reports

A. Thesis

1. Some Studies of Surface Waves in Shoaling Water, M.S. Thesis in Mechanical
Engineering, December 1948.

B. Published Papers and Books

1. "Oscillatory Waves: Diagrams and Tables of Relationships Commonly Used in
Investigations of Surface Waves," Bulletin of Beach Erosion Board, Corps of
Engineers, U. S. Army, Special Issue No. 1, July 1948, by R. L. Wiegel.

2. "The Measurement of Wave Heights by Means of a Float in an Open-End Pipe,"
Trans. Amer. Geophys. Union vol. 30, no. 4, pp. 501-506, Aug. 1949, by J. D.
Isaacs and R. L. Wiegel.

3. "An Analysis of Data from Wave Recorders on the Pacific Coast of the United
States," Trans. Amer. Geophys. Union, vol. 30, no. 5, pp. 700-704, Oct. 1949, by
R. L. Wiegel.

4. "Experimental Study of Surface Waves in Shoaling Water," Trans. Amer. Geophys.
Union, vol. 31, no. 3, pp. 377-385, June 1950, by R. L. Wiegel.

5. The Thermopile Wave Meter," Trans. Amer. Geophys. Union, vol. 31, no. 5,
pp. 71-716, Oct. 1950, by J. D. Isaacs and R. L. Wiegel.

6. "Southern Swell Observed at Oceanside, California," Trans. Amer. Geophys. Union,
vol. 31, no. 5, pp. 717-722, Oct. 1950, by R. L. Wiegel and H.L. Kimberley.

7. "Elements of Wave Theory," Proc. First Conf. on Coastal Engineering, Council on
Wave Research, The Engineering Foundation, Ch. 2, pp. 5-21, 1951, by R. L. Wiegel
and J. W. Johnson.

8. Manual of Amphibious Oceanography, Pentagon Printing Office, 1750 pp.,
R. L. Wiegel, Project Engineer and Editor.

9. "Near-Coastal Storms and Associated Waves," Trans. Amer. Geophys. Union, vol.
33, no. 2, pp. 217-225, April 1952, by D. K. Todd and R. L. Wiegel.

10. Waves, Tides, Currents and Beaches: Glossary of Terms and List of Standard
Symbols, Council on Wave Research, The Engineering Foundation, 113 pp., July
1953, by R. L Wiegel.

1 1 . Gravity Waves, Tables of Functions, Council on Wave Research, The Engineering
Foundation, 30 pp., Feb. 1954, by R. L. Wiegel.

12. "Wave, Longshore Current, and Beach Profile Records for Santa Margarita River
Beach, Oceanside, California, 1949," Trans. Amer. Geophys. Union, vol. 35, no. 6,
pp. 887-896, Dec. 1954, by R. L. Wiegel, D. A. Patrick and H. L. Kimberley.

288

Robert L. Wiegel - 2 - Publications

13. "Amphibian Tractors in the Surf," Proc. First Conf. on Ships and Waves, Council on
Wave Research, The Engineering Foundation, and the Society of Naval Architects
and Marine Engineers, pp. 397-422, 1955, by D. A. Patrick and R. L. Wiegel.

14. "Laboratory Studies of Gravity Waves Generated by the Movement of a Submerged
Body," A.I.O.P., Proc. - verb. no. 6, pp. 246-247, 1955, (see No. 15 for full paper
on subject), by R. L. Wiegel.

15. "Laboratory Studies of Gravity Waves Generated by the Movement of a Submerged
Body," Trans. Amer. Geophy. Union, vol. 36, no. 5, pp. 759-774, Oct. 1955, by
R. L. Wiegel.

16. "Wave Transformation in Shoaling Water," Trans. Amer. Geophys. Union, vol. 36,
no. 6, pp. 975-984, Dec. 1955, by R. L. Wiegel and R. A. Fuchs.

17. Proceedings of the First Conference on Coastal Engineering Instruments, Council on
Coastal Engineering Instruments, Council on Wave Research, The Engineering
Foundation, 302 pp., 1956. R. L. Wiegel, Conference Organizer and Editor.

18. "Thermopile Water Meter," Proc. First Conf. on Coastal Engineering Instruments,
Council on Wave Research, The Engineering Foundation, pp. 101-110, 1956, by
R. L. Wiegel and J. D. Isaacs.

19. "Parallel Wire Resistance Wave Meter," Proc. First Conf. on Coastal Engineering
Instruments, Council on Wave Research, The Engineering Foundation, pp. 39-43,
1956, by R. L. Wiegel.

20. "The Design Wave in Shallow Water," Proc. ASCE, vol. 82, Rep. no. 910, 21 pp.,
March 1956, by R. L. Wiegel and K. E. Beebe.

21 "A Laboratory Study of Short-Crested Wind Waves," U. S. Army, Corps of
Engineers, Beach Erosion Board, Tech. Memo. 140, 81, 28 pp., June 1956, by
G. C. Rails, Jr., and R. L. Wiegel.

22. "Ocean Wave Forces on Circular Cylindrical Piles," Jour. Hyd. Div., ASCE, vol. 83,
no. 1199, 35 pp., April 1957, by R. L. Wiegel, K. E. Beebe and James Moon. Also
issued in Transactions of the ASCE, vol. 124, pp. 89-1 16, 1959.

23. "Many Companies Now Considering Moored Ships Rather Than Fixed Platforms,"
Offshore Drilling, vol., 4, no. 4, p. 28, April 1957, by R. L. Wiegel.

24. "Model Study of Floating Drydock Mooring Force," Proc. Symposium on the
Behavior of Ships in a Seaway, Wagoningen, Netherlands, pp. 563-583, Sept. 1957,
by R. L. Wiegel, R. W. Clough, R. A. Dilley, and J. B. Williams. Also published in
International Shipbuilding Progress, vol. 6, no. 56, pp. 147-159, April 1959.

25. "Wave Measurements along the California Coast," Trans. Amer. Geophys. Union,
vol. 38, no. 5, pp. 667-674, Oct. 1957, by R. L. Wiegel and J. Kukk.

26. Discussion of "Properties of Shoaling Waves by Theory and Experiment," Trans.
Amer. Geophys. Union, vol. 38, no. 5, pp. 760-761, Oct. 1957, by R. L. Wiegel.

289

Robert L. Wiegel - 3 - Publications

27. "Model Study of Wave Refraction," Beach Erosion Board, U. S. Army, Corps of
Engineers, Tech. Memo. No. 103, 31 pp., Dec. 1957, by R. L. Wiegel and
A. L. Arnold.

28. "Breaking Wave Force Prediction," Jour. Waterways and Harbors Div., ASCE,
vol. 84, Paper no. 1573, 14 pp, March 1958, by R. L. Wiegel and R. E. Skjei.

29. "Water Gravity Waves Generated by a Moving Low Pressure Area," Trans. Amer.
Geophys. Union, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 224-236, April 1958, by R. L. Wiegel,
C. M. Snyder and J. B. Williams.

30. "Model Studies on the Dynamics of an LSM Moored in Waves," Proc. 6th Conf. on
Coastal Engineering, pp. 844-877, June 1958, by R. L. Wiegel, K. E. Beebe and
R. A. Dilley.

31. "Laboratory Facilities for Studying Water Gravity Wave Phenomena, 'Proc. 6th Conf.
on Coastal Engineering, pp. 231-251, June 1958, by C. M. Snyder, R. L. Wiegel and
K. J. Bermel.

32. "Model Study of Floating Drydock Mooring Forces," International Shipbuilding
Progress, Vol. 6, No. 56, April 1959, pp. 147-159, by R. L. Wiegel, R. W. Clough,
R. A. Dilley, and J. E. Williams.

33. "Sand Bypassing at Santa Barbara, California," Jour. Waterways and Harbors
Division, ASCE, vol. 85, no. WW2, Paper no. 2066, pp. 1-30, June 1959, by

R. L. Wiegel.

34. "Model Study of Mooring Forces on Docked Ship," Jour. Waterways and Harbors
Divisin, ASCE, vol. 85, no. WW2, Paper no. 2071, pp. 115-134, June 1959, by
R. L. Wiegel, R. A. Dilley and J. B. Williams.

35. Investigation of Current Measurement in Estuarine and Coastal Waters, State of
California, State Water Pollution Control Board, Sacramento, California, Publication
no. 19, 132 pp., 1959, by J. W. Johnson and R. L. Wiegel.

36. "A Presentation of Cnoidal Wave Theory for Practical Application," Jour, of Fluid
Mechanics, vol. 7, part 2, pp. 273-286, 1960, by R. L. Wiegel.

37. "Transmission of Waves Past a Rigid Vertical Thin Barrier," Jour. Waterways and
Harbors Div., Proc. ASCE, vol. 86, no. WW1, Paper no. 2413, pp. 1-12, March
1960, by R. L. Wiegel.

38. "Ocean Currents: Measurement and Analysis of Data," Waste Disposal in the
Marine Environment, Pergamon Press, pp. 175-245, 1960, by R. L. Wiegel and
J. W. Johnson.

39. "Wind Waves and Swell," Proc. 7th Conf. on Coastal Engineering, Council on Wave
Research, The Engineering Foundation, pp. 1-40, 1961, by R. L. Wiegel.

40. Cnoidal Waves: Tables of Functions, Council on Wave Research, The Engineering
Foundation, 129 pp., March 1961, by Frank D. Masch and R. L. Wiegel.

290

Robert L. Wiegel - 4 - Publications

41. "Closely Spaced Piles as a Breakwater," The Dock & Harbour Authority (London),
vol. 42, no. 491, p. 150, Sept. 1961, by R. L. Wiegel.

42. "Diffraction of Waves by Semi-infinite Breakwater," Jour. Hyd. Div., Proc. ASCE,
vol. 88, no. HY1, pp. 27-44, Jan. 1962, by R. L. Wiegel.

43. "Model Study of Oscillations of Hebgen Lake," Bull. Seismological Society of
America, vol. 52, no. 2, pp. 273-277, April 1962, by R. L. Wiegel and
Data Camotim.

44. Protection of Hilo from Tsunamis, for the Board of Supervisors, Hawaii County,
Hawaii, by the Hilo Technical Tsunami Advisory Council, 17 pp., April 1962, by
D. Cox, M. Homma, M. Suzuki, R. Takahasi and R. L. Wiegel.

45. "Hovering Breakwater," Jour. Waterways and Harbors Div., Proc. ASCE, vol. 88,
no. WW2, pp. 23-50, May 1962, by R. L. Wiegel, H. W. Shen, and J. D. Gumming.

46. "Solitary Wave Behavior at Concave Barriers," The Port Engineer, Calcutta, India,
pp. 4-8, October 1962, by R. L. Wiegel and Gunnar Sigurdsson.

47. "Research Related to Tsunamis Performed at the Hydraulic Laboratory, University of
California, Berkeley," Proc. of the Tsunami Meetings Associated with the Tenth
Pacific Science Congress, International Assoc. of Geodesy and Geophysics,
Monograph No. 24, pp. 174-197, July 1963.

48. "Some Engineering Aspects of Wave Spectra," Conference on Ocean Wave Spectra,
Easton, Md., May 1-4, 1961, National Academy of Sciences, National Research
Council, Prentice-Hall, Inc., pp. 309-321, 1963.

49. "Attenuation of Wind Waves by a Hydraulic Breakwater," Proc. 8th Conf. on Coastal
Engineering, Council on Wave Research, The Engineering Foundation, pp. 500-520,
1963, by J. A. Williams and R. L. Wiegel.

50. "Water Wave Equivalent of Mach-Reflection," Proc. 9th Conf. on Coastal
Engineering, ASCE, pp. 82-102, 1964, by R. L. Wiegel.

51. Oceanographical Engineering, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 532 pp. ,1964, by R. L. Wiegel.

52. "Waves of Destruction," manuscript of radio program - University Explorer,
University of California, 1 7 May 1 964, by R. L. Wiegel.

53. "Coastal Engineering in Japan," Civil Engineering, vol. 34, no. 12, pp. 76-77,
December 1 964, by R. L. Wiegel and Kiyoshi Horikawa.

54. Possibility of Tsunamis at Bodega Head, and Forces Exerted by Such Tsunamis,
Consulting report to the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, 30 pp., September 1964,
by R. L. Wiegel.

55. Protection of Crescent City, California, from Tsunami Waves, Consulting Report to
The Redevelopment Agency of the City of Crescent City, 114 pp., 5 March 1965,
by R. L. Wiegel.

291

Robert L. Wiegel - 5 - Publications

56. "Discharge of Warm Water Jet Over Sloping Bottom," Proc. of the Golden Jubilee
Symposia - Central Water and Power Research Station, Poona, India, 1966, by
R. L. Wiegel, I. Mobarek and Yuan Jen.

57. "Surface Discharge of Horizontal Warm-Water Jet," Jour. Power Div., Proc. ASCE,
vol. 92, no. P02, April 1966, by Yuan Jen, R. L. Wiegel, and I. Mobarek.

58. "Generation of Wind Waves," Jour. Waterways and Harbors Div., Proc. ASCE,
vol. 92, no. WW2, May 1966, by R. L. Wiegel and R. H. Cross.

59. Physically Feasible Means for Protecting Hilo from Tsunamis, for the Board of
Supervisors, Hawaii County, Hawaii, by the Hilo Technical Tsunami Advisory
Council, 38 pp., 31 December 1965, by D. Cox, M. Homma, M. Suzuki,
R. Takahasi, and R. L. Wiegel.

60. "Wave Theory," The Encyclopedia of Oceanography, Reinhold Publishing Corp.,
New York, pp. 977-986, 1966, by R. L. Wiegel.

61. "Diffraction of Wind Generated Water Wave," Proc. 10th Conf. on Coastal
Engineering, ASCE, vol. 1, pp. 185-206, 1966, by I. E. Mobarek and R. L. Wiegel.

62. "Discharge of Warm Water Jet Over Sloping Bottom," Proc. of the Golden Jubilee
Symposia, Central Water and Power Research Station, Poona, India, vol. 2,
pp. 144-163, January 1966, by R. L. Wiegel, I. Mobarek and Y. Jen.

63. "Surface Discharge of Horizontal Warm Water Jet," Jour. Power Div., Proc. ASCE,
vol. 92, no. P02, pp. 1-30, April 1966, by Y. Jen, R. L. Wiegel and I. Mobarek.

64. "Generation of Wind Waves," Jour. Waterways and Harbors Div., Proc. ASCE,
vol. 92, no. WW2, pp. 1-26, May 1966, by R. L. Wiegel and R. H. Cross.

65. "Diffraction of Wind Generated Water Waves," Proc. Tenth Conf. on Coastal
Engineering, ASCE, vol. 1, pp. 185-206, 1966, by I. E. Mobarek and R. L. Wiegel.

66. Preliminary Seiche and Tsunami Study in Regard to the Proposed Construction of an
Isthmain Sea Level Canal by Nuclear Methods, Report to AEC via John A. Blume and
Associates, 57 pp., December 1967, by R. L. Wiegel.

67. "Waves and Their Effects on Pile-Supported Structures," Symposium: Research on
Waves, Delft Hydraulics Laboratory, pp. 1-43, March 1969, by R. L. Wiegel.

68. "Model Study of a Submerged Buoyant Tank in Waves," 1969 Offshore Technology
Conference, pp. 695-712, 1969, by R. L. Wiegel, R. A. Dilley, S. F. Whisenand and
J. B. Williams.

69. General Report - Methods for Deciding Limiting Design Conditions ... Marine
Structures, XXII International Navigation Congress, Paris, France, 23 pp., June
1969, by R. L. Wiegel.

292

Robert L. Wiegel - 6 - Publications

70. "Seismic Sea Waves," Geologic Hazards and Public Problems, May 27-28, 1969,
Conference Proceedings, Edited by Robert A. Olson and Mildred M. Wallace, Office
of Emergency Preparedness, Region Seven, Superintendent of Documents,
pp. 53-75, 1969, by R. L. Wiegel.

71. "Coastal and Inland Waters," Earthquake Engineering Research, National Academy
of Sciences, Washington, D. C., pp. 233-265, 1969, by R. L. Wiegel et al.

72. "Horizontal Surface Discharge of Warm Water Jets," Jour. Power Div., Proc. ASCE,
vol. 95, no. P02, pp. 253-276, October 1969, by Nobuyuki Tamai, Robert L.
Wiegel, and Gordon F. Tornberg.

73. "Tsunamis," Chapter 11 of Earthquake Engineering, edited by Robert L. Wiegel,
Prentice-Hall, Inc., pp. 253-306, 1970, by R. L. Wiegel.

74. Earthquake Engineering, Robert L. Wiegel-Coordinating Editor, Prentice-Hall, Inc.,
518 pp., 1970.

75. "Water Waves Generated by Landslides in Reservoirs," Jour. Waterways and
Harbors Div., Proc. ASCE, vol. 96, no. WW2, pp. 307-333, May 1970, by Robert L.
Wiegel, Edward K. Noda, Edward M. Kuba, Dennis M. Gee, and Gordon T. Tornberg.

76. "Some Aspects of Coastal Engineering," Proc. of Seminar on Coastal Engineering,
May 29-30, 1970, Vancouver, B. C., Vancouver Branch of The Engineering Institute
of Canada and The University of British Columbia, pp. 1-91, May 1970, by
R. L. Wiegel.

77. "Ocean Dynamics," Chapter 3 of Hydronautics, edited by H. E. Sheets and
V. T. Boatwright, Jr., Academic Press, pp. 123-228, 1970, by R. L. Wiegel.

78. "Floating Breakwater for Reservoir Marinas" (with Kenneth Chen), Proc. of the
Twelfth Int. Coastal Eng. Conf., ASCE, vol. Ill, Chap. 100, 1970, pp. 1647-1966.

79. "Characterization of the New Situation Constituted by Great Water Depths and the
Severe Conditions of Marine Environment: Evaluation of the Corresponding
Constraints," Proc. of the Eighth World Petroleum Congress, Elsevier Publishing
Company, Ltd., England, Panel Discussion 3, 1971, pp. 1-20.

80. "Waves and Their Effects on Pile Supported Structures," Seminar Proc.: Topics in
Ocean Engineering, Circular No. 41, Engineering Experiment Station, Oregon State
University, Corvallis, Oregon, 1971, pp. 113-159.

81. "International Engineering Committee on Oceanic Resources," Shore and Beach,
vol. 39, no. 1, 1971, pp. 32-34.

82. "Waves Generated by Horizontal Motion of a Wall" (with M. M. Das), Jour.
Waterways, Harbors and Coastal Engineering Div., Proc. ASCE, vol. 98, no. WW1,
1972, pp. 49-65.

293

Robert L. Wiegel - 7 - Publications

83. Closure to "Water Waves Generated by Landslides in Reservoirs," Jour. Waterways,
Harbors and Coastal Engineering Div., Proc. ASCE, vol. 98, no. WW1, 1972,
pp. 72-74.

84. "Velocity and Temperature in Buoyant Jet" (with Richard Dornhelm and
Manuel Nouel), Jour. Power Div., Proc. ASCE, vol. 98, no. P01, 1972, pp. 29-48.

85. "Research, Education and Information Dissemination" (with coauthors), Toward
Fulfillment of a National Ocean Commitment, National Academy of Engineering,
1972, pp. 233-253.

86. Engineering Design to Prevent Abuse of the Ocean (with coauthors), U. S. National
Committee for ECOR, National Academy of Engineering, First General Assembly of
ECOR, London, England, 16-18 March 1972.

87. "Excitation of Waves Inside a Bottomless Harbor" (with coauthors), Proc. 13th
Coastal Engineering Conf., July 10-14, 1972, Vancouver, B. C., Canada, ASCE,
vol. Ill, 1973, pp. 2005-2023.

88. General Review of the Seismic Hazard to Selected U. S. Navy installations, by the
ONR Natural Hazards Review Board (C. R. Allen, P. C. Jennings, H. B. Seed and
R. L. Wiegel), 30 December 1973.

89. "Some Comments on Structures," Proc. MacArthur Workshop on the Feasibility of
Extracting Usable Energy from the Florida Current, Palm Beach Shores, Florida, 27
February-1 March 1974, ed. by Harris B. Stewart, Jr., 1974, pp. 202-213.

90. "Ocean Wave Spectra, Eddies and Structural Response: General Lecture,"
Flow-Induced Structural Vibrations: IUTAM-IAHR Symposium, Karlsruhe, 1972, ed.
by Eduard Naudascher, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1974, pp. 531-586.

91. "Wave-Induced Eddies and 'Lift' Forces on Circular Cylinders" (with R. C. Delmonte),
Proc. Ninth Symposium on Naval Hydrodynamics, Paris, France, August 20-25,
1 972, vol. 1 : Unconventional Ships and Ocean Engineering, ed. by R. Brard and A.
Castera, ACR-203, Office of Naval Research, Dept. of Navy, 1974, U. S.
Government Printing Office, pp. 761-791.

92. "Engineers' Concern with Waves, and Their Measurement," Proc. Int. Symposium on
Ocean Wave Measurement and Analysis, September 9-11, 1974, New Orleans,
Louisiana, vol. II, ASCE, New York, New York, 1974, pp. 1-21.

93. Marine Pipelines: Annotated Bibliography, (with George L. Bowie), prepared for
Short Course, Harbors, Ports, and Offshore Terminals, January 27-31, 1975,
Continuing Education in Engineering, University Extension and College of
Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, 1975, 61 pp.

94. "Design of Offshore Structures Using Wave Spectra," Oceanology International 75,
16/21 March 1975, Brighton, England, Conference Papers, 1975 BPS Exhibitions
Limited, Society for Underwater Technology, London, England, 1975, pp. 233-243.

294

Robert L. Wiegel - 8 - Publication!

95. "The Significance of Harbors," Chapter III, Symposium on the Present-Day Challenge
of the Sea, Wageningen, The Netherlands, May 13 and 14, 1976, Netherlands Ship
Model Basin, The Netherlands, 1976, pp. 111,1-111,16.

96. "The Use of Environmental Data in the Design of Ocean Structures," Proc. Conf. on
Marine and Freshwater Research in Southern Africa, 5-1 July 1 976, S.1 22, Council
for Scientific and Industrial Research, South Africa, entire proceedings on
microfische, Microfische Card 3, 22 pp.

97. "Tsunamis," Chapter 7, Seismic Risk and Engineering Decisions, ed. by C. Lomnitz
and E. Rosenblueth, Elsevier Scientific Publishing Co., Amsterdam, Netherlands,
1976, pp. 225-286.

98. Report on Model Study of Cooling Water System of Pacific Gas and Electric
Company Nuclear Power Plant Located at Diablo Canyon, California (with
V. W. Harms, B. Safaie, J. D. Gumming, R. P. Delia, C. B. Leidersdorf and
C. Young), Technical Report No. HEL 27-2, Hydraulic Engineering Laboratory,
University of California, Berkeley, Calif., January 1976, 113 pp. Also published as
Supplement Nol. 8 to the Diablo Canyon Environmental Report (Docket Nos.
50-275-OL and 50-323-OL), 4 February 1976, to the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.

99. "3-D Hydraulic Model of Waves Generated by Displacement" (with Shin-Lin Liu),
Proc. Fifteenth Conf. on Coastal Engineering, 11-17 July 1976, Honolulu, Hawaii,
ASCE, Chapter 63, 1976, pp. 1060-1078.

1 00. Possibility of Tsunamis along the Bataan Coast, Between Entrance to Manila Bay and
Subic Bay, Republic of the Philippines, Report to Ebasco Services, Inc., June 1976,
63 pp.

101 . Hydraulic Laboratory Studies of Mixing of Buoyant Liquid Waste in the Ocean: Final
Report, Report to the Water Resources Center of the University of California,
Technical Report No. HEL 23-6, Hydraulic Engineering Laboratory, University of
California, Berkeley, Calif., July 1977, 25 pp.

102. Nearshore Currents in the Vicinity in Diablo Canyon, California, 1967 and 1972-76
(with Joan Gosink), Report to the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Technical
Report No. HEL 27-3, Hydraulic Engineering Laboratory, University of California,
Berkeley, Calif., August 1977, 155 pp.; also, in Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

103. "Fluid Mechanics of the Nearshore Zone," Preprints of the Sixth Australasian
Hydraulics and Fluid Mechanics Conference, Adelaide, South Australia, 5-9
December 1977, The Institution of Engineers, Australia, Part 1, 1977, pp. 145-154.

104. Port Considerations, Purari Project, Papua New Guinea, Report IV, Report to the
Office of Minerals and Energy, Papua New Guinea, 31 March 1977, 9 pp.

105. Marine Pipelines: An Annotated Bibliography (with George L. Bowie), U. S. Army
Corps of Engineers Coastal Engineering Research Center, Miscellaneous Report
No. 77-2, March 1977, 58 pp.

295

Robert L. Wiegel - 9 - Publications

106. "Mixing of Liquid Wastes at Sea," Forefront, College of Engineering, Univ. of
California, Berkeley, 1977, pp. 2-5. 106.

107. Report of Civilian Advisers on the Corps of Engineers South Pacific Division,
California Coastal Data Collection Program (with M. P. O'Brien and Robert G. Dean),
Report to the Director, Civil Works, Chief of Engineers, U. S. Army, May 1 978.

108. "Waves and Wave Spectra Design Estimates," Notes for University Extension Short
Course, Deep-Sea Oil-Production Structures, 23-27 January 1978, Berkeley, 81 pp.

109. "Wind-generated Wave Diffraction by Breakwater Gap" (with Hooshang Raissi),
Proc. 16th Int. Conf. on Coastal Engineering, August 27-September 3, 1979,
Hamburg, Germany, ASCE, vol. 1, Chapter 34, pp. 609-627.

110. Beach Erosion, Seadrift, California. Coastal Engineering Data and Analysis:
Summary of Problem and Remedial Action, a report to Seadrift Property Owners
Association, 8 January 1979, 68 pp. plus appendices.

111. Recommendations Concerning Waves and Wave-Induced Forces, Trestle and
Unloading Pier, Hadera Offshore Coal Unloading Terminal, a report to S. Yaron-J.
Shimon! Consulting Engineers, Ltd., Tel Aviv, Israel, containing a detailed review of
their design, and all other reports. May 1979, 52 pp.

112. "Tsunamis along the West Coast of Luzon, Philippines," Proc. 17th Coastal Eng.
Conf., 23 to 28 March 1980, Sydney, Australia, ASCE, vol. I, Chapter 41,
pp. 652-671.

113. "Engineering Aspects of Beach and Nearshore Bottom Changes," Proc. 4th Conf. on
Ocean Eng. in Republic of China, September 1980, Chinese Institute of Civil and
Hydraulic Engineering, Taiwan, ROC, pp. 1-24.

114. "Near Seafloor Characteristics of Waves," Notebook for Recent Developments in
Ocean Engineering, Univ. of California Extension, Berkeley, Calif., 24-27 Feb. 1981,
65 pp.

115. "An Engineer's Concern with Beach and Nearshore Bottom Changes," Proc. XIX
IAHR Congress, New Delhi, India, 1-7 Feb. 1981, International Association for
Hydraulic Research, vol. VI, pp. 56-85. The General Lecture.

116. "Introduction," Problems and Opportunities in the Design of Entrances to Ports and
Harbors: Proc. of a Conference, August 13-15, 1980, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, Panel
on Harbor/Port Entrances (R. L. Wiegel, Chairman), Marine Board, National Research
Council, National Academy Press, Washington, D. C., 1981, pp. 1-7.

117. Directional Wave Spectra Applications '81 Proceedings, R. L. Wiegel editor, ASCE,
550 pp., April 1982.

118. Breakwater Damage by Severe Storm Waves and Tsunami Waves, Report to the
Pacific Gas & Electric Company. This was a formal submitta! to the U. S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, 5 March 1982, 73 pp.

296

Robert L. Wiegel -10- Publications

119. Pipeline Oscillation in Wind, and Its Prevention. Report to Santa Fe Engineering
Services Company, June 1982, 1 18 pp.

120. "Opposing Wave Effect on Momentum Jets Spreading Rate" (with Nabil M. Ismail),
Jour. Waterway, Port, Coastal and Ocean Division, Proc. ASCE, vol. 1-09, no.
WW4, November 1 983, pp. 465-483.

121. "Development of Ocean Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley: A
Case Study," 20 pp. Reproduced by UNESCO as the position paper for developed
countries, UNESCO/IOC/ECOR Workshop on Advanced University Curricula in Ocean
Engineering and Related Fields, UNESCO, Paris, 11-16 October 1982.

122. "Forces Induced by Breakers on Piles," Proc. 18th Coastal Engineering Conf., 14-19
Nov. 1982, Cape Town, Republic of South Africa, ed. by Billy L. Edge, ASCE, vol. II,
ch. 102, pp. 1699-1715.

1 23. Report of the Committee to Assess the Computer Aided Operations Research Facility
(CAORFJ, National Research Council, October 1983, 23 pp. (with others,
R. L. Wiegel Chairman).

124. "Water Wave Forces," Proc. CCNAA-AIT Joint Seminar on Research for Multiple
Hazards Mitigation, National Cheng-Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan,
January 16-19, 1984, National Cheng-Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, March
1984, pp. 337-367.

125. "Cooling Water Recirculation in the Ocean" (with John T. Wells and Michele A.
Murdoch), Twentieth Coastal Engineering Conference, Proceedings of the
International Conference, November 9-14, 1986, Taipei, Taiwan, ed. by Billy L.
Edge, ASCE, vol. Ill, pp. 2694-2705.

126. Responding to Changes in Sea Level. Engineering Implications, by Committee on
Engineering Implications of Changes in Relative Mean Sea Level (Robert L. Wiegel,
committee member), Marine Board, National Research Council, National Academy
Press, Washington, D.C., 1987, 147 pp.

127. "Trends in Coastal Erosion Management," Shore & Beach, vol. 55, no. 1, January
1987, pp. 3-11.

128. "Biographical Sketch of Morrough Parker O'Brien," Shore & Beach, vol. 55,
nos. 3/4, July/October 1987, pp. 6-14.

129. "Cooling of Ocean Water: Model/Field Comparison" (with M. J. Doyle, Jr.,), Shore
& Beach, vol. 55, nos. 3/4, July/October 1987, pp. 38-53.

130. "Physical Model Verification of a Coastal Discharge" (with P. J. Ryan, S.W. Tu, and
N. M. Ismail), Hydraulic Engineering, Proceedings of the 1987 National Conference
on Hydraulic Engineering, Williamsburg, Virginia, August 3-7, 1987, ASCE,
pp. 1106-1111.

297

Robert L. Wiegel - 11 - Publications

131. "Current Trends in Coastal Engineering," The General Lecture, 1987 Proceedings of
Coastal & Port Engineering in Developing Countries. Beijing, China, September 7-11,

1987, China Ocean Press, China, Vol. I, pp. 46-57.

132. "Keynote Address: Some Notes on Beach Nourishment," Beach Preservation
Technology 88. Problems and Advancements in Beach Nourishment, Proceedings,
Florida Shore & Beach Preservation Association, Tallahassee, Florida 32301, 1988,
pp. 1-18.

133. "Mixing of Thermal Discharges in Coastal Waters" (with N. M. Ismail, P. J. Ryan and
S. W. Tu), Twenty-First Coastal Engineering Conference, Proceedings of the
International Conference, June 20-25, 1988, Costa del Sol - Malaga, Spain, ed. by
Billy L. Edge, ASCE, vol. 3, pp. 2521-2535.

134. "Coastal Engineering Trends and Research Needs," Twenty-First Coastal Engineering
Conference, Proceedings of the International Conference, June 20-25, 1 988,
Costa del Sol, Malaga, Spain, ed. by Billy L. Edge, ASCE, Vol. 1, pp. 1-13.

135. "Biographical Sketch of Joe W. Johnson," Shore & Beach, vol. 56, no. 4, October

1988, pp. 7-12.

136. "Global Warming, Sea Level Rise and Coastal Impact" (with Stephen Leatherman),
Proceedings, 6th Terminal Operations Conference, 1 990, Amsterdam, The
Netherlands, The Journal of ICHCA, Cargo Systems International, U.K., pp. 13-17.

137. Managing Coastal Erosion by Committee on Coastal Erosion Zone Management
(Robert L. Wiegel, committee member), Water Science and Technology Board/Marine
Board, National Research Council, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.,
1990, 182 pp.

138. "Coastal Forum: Transformation of Swell Over a Reef" Shore & Beach, vol. 58,
no. 2, April 1990, p. 30 plus color cover.

139. "Editorial. Beach Nourishment: The Need for a Detailed Scientific and Engineering
Evaluation of Coastal Processes, Environmental Data and Project Performance,"
Shore & Beach, vol. 59, no. 3, July 1991, p. 2.

140. "Coastal Engineering Research Needs," by Ad Hoc Committee on Coastal
Engineering Needs (Robert L. Wiegel, Chairman), ASCE Coastal Engineering Research
Council, Shore & Beach, vol. 59, no. 4, October 1991, pp. 4-7.

141. "Some Complexities of Coastal Waves, Currents, Sand and Structures," Shore &
Beach, vol. 60, no. 1, January 1992, pp. 21-33.

142. "Editorial. Beach Nourishment, Sand By-passing, Artificial Beaches: Bibliography of
Articles in the ASBPA Journal Shore & Beach," Shore & Beach, vol. 60, no. 3, July
1992, pp. 3-5.

143. "Dade County, Florida, Beach Nourishment and Hurricane Surge Protection," Shore
& Beach, vol. 60, no. 4, October 1992, pp. 2-28.

298

Robert L. Wiegel -12- Publications

145. "Hurricane and Coastal Storm Surge Barriers in New England," Shore & Beach,
vol. 61, no. 2, April 1993, pp. 30-49.

146. "Dana Point Harbor, California," Shore & Beach, vol. 61, no. 3, July 1993,
pp. 37-55.

147. "Shore & Beach Observations: Artificial Beach Construction with Sand/Gravel Made
by Crushing Rock," Shore & Beach, Vol. 61, No. 4, October 1993, pp. 28-29 plus
cover.

148. "Ocean Beach Nourishment on the USA Pacific Coast," Shore & Beach, Vol. 62,
No. 1, January 1994, pp. 11-35.

149. "Review of the Barrow Beach Nourishment Project," by North Slope Borrough
Science Advisory Committee, 1-3 August 1994, NSB-SAC-OR-130, 23 pages plus 8
appendices. Meeting at Barrow, Alaska. Science Advisory Committee for the
Barrow Beach Nourishment Project: John Kelly (Chair), Max Brewer, Jack Colonell,
Robert G. Dean, John Goering, John B. Herbich, David L. Kriebel, A. Sathy Naidu,
Jesse Walker and Robert L. Wiegel.

150. "Learning from Success - A History of Beach Nourishment in America," Preprint of
Luncheon Talk, Annual Conference, American Shore and Beach Preservation
Association, Virginia Beach, Virginia, 5 October 1994, 25 pp.

151. "Editorial: Time for a Change," Shore & Beach, Vol. 63, No. 4, October 1995, p. 2
and color cover.

152. "A Bit of History, Waikiki Beach, Hawaii," Shore & Beach, Vol. 63, No. 4, October

1995, pp. 34-36.

153. Sea Level and Coastal Areas Panel Report for: Engineering Response to Global
Climate Change-A Workshop for Planning a Research and Development Agenda,
organized by the U.S. National Institute for Global Change, Report of Univ. of
Florida/COEL/MP-95/01, November 1995, 36 pp., by Ashish J. Mehta (Chair),
Robert G. Dean, Hans Kunz, Victor J. Law, Zal S. Tarapore, Robert L. Wiegel.

154. Beach Nourishment and Protection, by Committee on Beach Nourishment and
Protection (Robert L. Wiegel, Member), Marine Baord, National Research Council,
National Academy Press, December 1 995, 336 pp.

155. "History of Coastal Engineering in the USA," by Robert L. Wiegel and Throndike
Saville, Jr., History and Heritage of Coastal Engineering (ed. by Nicholas C. Kraus),
ASCE, 1996, pp. 513-600.

156. "Nile Delta Erosion," Letter to the Editor, Science, Vol. 272, No. 5260, 19 April

1996, p. 337, byR. L Wiegel.

1 57. Final Letter Report: Coast of California Storm and Tidal Waves Study, South Coast
Region (Orange County), report to U.S. Army, Corps of Engineers, Los Angeles
District, 1 1 November 1 996, 33 pp.

299

APPENDIX F

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

BERKELEY DAVIS IRVINE LOS ANGELES RIVERSIDE SAN DIEGO SAN FRANCISCO

REGIONAL ORAL HISTORY OFFICE
THE BANCROFT LIBRARY

(510)642-7395

SANTA BARBARA SANTA CRUZ

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA 94720-6000
October 1997

INTERVIEWS ON THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

Documenting the history of the University of California has been a
responsibility of the Regional Oral History Office since the Office was
established in 1954. Oral history memoirs with University-related persons
are listed below. They have been underwritten by the UC Berkeley
Foundation, the Chancellor's Office, University departments, or by
extramural funding for special projects. The oral histories, both tapes
and transcripts, are open to scholarly use in The Bancroft Library.
Bound, indexed copies of the transcripts are available at cost to
manuscript libraries.

UNIVERSITY FACULTY, ADMINISTRATORS, AND REGENTS

Adams, Frank. Irrigation, Reclamation, and Water Administration. 1956,
491 pp.

Amerine, Maynard A. The University of California and the State's Wine
Industry. 1971, 142 pp. (UC Davis professor.)

Amerine, Maynard A. Vine Bibliographies and Taste Perception Studies.
1988, 91 pp. (UC Davis professor.)

Bierman, Jessie. Maternal and Child Health in Montana, California, the
U.S. Children's Bureau and WHO, 1926-1967. 1987, 246 pp.

Bird, Grace. Leader in Junior College Education at Bakers field and the
University of California. Two volumes, 1978, 342 pp.

Birge, Raymond Thayer. Raymond Thayer Birge, Physicist. 1960, 395 pp.

Blaisdell, Allen C. Foreign Students and the Berkeley International
House, 1928-1961. 1968, 419 pp.

Blaisdell, Thomas C., Jr. India and China in the World War I Era; New
Deal and Marshall Plan; and University of California, Berkeley.
1991, 373 pp.

Blum, Henrik. (In process.) Professor Emeritus, Health Policy &
Planning.

Bowker, Albert. Sixth Chancellor, University of California, Berkeley,
1971-1980; Statistician, and National Leader in the Policies and
Politics of Higher Education. 1995, 274 pp.

300

Brown, Delmer M. (In process.) Professor of Japanese history, 1946-
1977.

Chaney, Ralph Works. Paleobotanist, Conservationist. 1960, 277 pp.

Chao, Yuen Ren. Chinese Linguist, Phonologist, Composer, and Author.
1977, 242 pp.

Constance, Lincoln. Versatile Berkeley Botanist: Plant Taxonomy and
University Governance. 1987, 362 pp.

Corley, James V. Serving the University in Sacramento. 1969, 143 pp.
Cross, Ira Brown. Portrait of an Economics Professor. 1967, 128 pp.

Cruess, William V. A Half Century in Food and Wine Technology. 1967,
122 pp.

Davidson, Mary Blossom. The Dean of Women and the Importance of
Students. 1967, 79 pp.

Davis, Banner. Founder of the Institute of Transportation and Traffic
Engineering. 1997, 173 pp.

DeMars, Vernon. A Life in Architecture: Indian Dancing, Migrant

Housing, Telesis, Design for Urban Living, Theater, Teaching.
1992, 592 pp.

Dennes, William R. Philosophy and the University Since 1915. 1970,
162 pp.

Donnelly, Ruth. The University's Role in Housing Services. 1970,
129 pp.

Ebright, Carroll "Ky". California V.arsity and Olympics Crew Coach.
1968, 74 pp.

Eckbo, Garrett. Landscape Architecture: The Profession in California,
1935-1940, and Telesis. 1993, 103 pp.

Elberg, Sanford S. Graduate Education and Microbiology at the

University of California, Berkeley, 1930-1989. 1990, 269 pp.

Erdman, Henry E. Agricultural Economics: Teaching, Research, and
Writing, University of California, Berkeley, 1922-1969. 1971,
252 pp.

Esherick, Joseph. An Architectural Practice in the San Francisco Bay
Area, 1938-1996. 1996, 800 pp.

Evans, Clinton W. California Athlete, Coach, Administrator,
Ambassador. 1968, 106 pp.

Foster, Herbert B. The Role of the Engineer's Office in the Development
of the University of California Campuses. 1960, 134 pp.

301

Gardner, David Pierpont. A Life in Higher Education: Fifteenth

President of the University of California, 1983-1992. 1997,
810 pp.

Grether, Ewald T. Dean of the UC Berkeley Schools of Business

Administration, 1943-1961; Leader in Campus Administration, Public
Service, and Marketing Studies; and Forever a Teacher. 1993,
1069 pp.

Hagar, Ella Barrows. Continuing Memoirs : Family, Community,

University. (Class of 1919, daughter of University President David
P. Barrows.) 1974, 272 pp.

Hamilton, Brutus. Student Athletics and the Voluntary Discipline.
1967, 50 pp.

Harding, Sidney T. A Life in Western Water Development. 1967, 524 pp.

Harris, Joseph P. Professor and Practitioner: Government, Election
Reform, and the Votomatic. 1983, 155 pp.

Hays, William Charles. Order, Taste, and Grace in Architecture. 1968,
241 pp.

Heller, Elinor Raas. A Volunteer in Politics, in Higher Education, and
on Governing Boards. Two volumes, 1984, 851 pp.

Helmholz, A. Carl. Physics and Faculty Governance at the University of
California Berkeley, 1937-1990. 1993, 387 pp.

Heyman, Ira Michael. (In process.) Professor of Law and Berkeley
Chancellor, 1980-1990.

Heyns, Roger W. Berkeley Chancellor, 1965-1971: The University in a
Turbulent Society. 1987, 180 pp.

Hildebrand, Joel H. Chemistry, Education, and the University of
California. 1962, 196 pp.

Huff, Elizabeth. Teacher and Founding Curator of the East Asiatic

Library: from Urbana to Berkeley by Way of Peking. 1977, 278 pp.

Huntington, Emily. A Career in Consumer Economics and Social Insurance.
1971, 111 pp.

Hutchison, Claude B. The College of Agriculture, University of
California, 1922-1952. 1962, 524 pp.

Jenny, Hans. Soil Scientist, Teacher, and Scholar. 1989, 364 pp.

Johnston, Marguerite Kulp, and Joseph R. Mixer. Student Housing,
Welfare, and the ASUC. 1970, 157 pp.

Jones, Mary C. Harold S. Jones and Mary C. Jones, Partners in
Longitudinal Studies. 1983, 154 pp.

302

Joslyn, Maynard A. A Technologist Views the California Wine Industry.
1974, 151 pp.

Kasimatis, Amandus N. A Career in California Viticulture. 1988, 54 pp.
(UC Davis professor.)

Kendrick, James B. Jr. From Plant Pathologist to Vice President for
Agricultural and Natural Resources, University of California,
1947-1986. 1989, 392 pp.

Kingman, Harry L. Citizenship in a Democracy. (Stiles Hall, University
YMCA.) 1973, 292 pp.

Roll, Michael J. The Lair of the Bear and the Alumni Association, 1949-
1993. 1993, 387 pp.

Kragen, Adrian A. A Law Professor's Career: Teaching, Private Practice,
and Legislative Representation, 1934 to 1989. 1991, 333 pp.

Kroeber-Quinn, Theodora. Timeless Woman, Writer and Interpreter of the
California Indian World. 1982, 453 pp.

Landreth, Catherine. The Nursery School of the Institute of Child

Welfare of the University of California, Berkeley. 1983, 51 pp.

Langelier, Wilfred E. Teaching, Research, and Consultation in Water
Purification and Sewage Treatment, University of California at
Berkeley, 1916-1955. 1982, 81 pp.

Lehman, Benjamin H. Recollections and Reminiscences of Life in the Bay
Area from 1920 Onward. 1969, 367 pp.

Lenzen, Victor F. Physics and Philosophy. 1965, 206 pp.

Leopold, Luna. Hydrology, Geomorphology, and Environmental Policy: U.S.
Geological Survey, 1950-1972, and the UC Berkeley, 1972-1987.
1993, 309 pp.

Lessing, Ferdinand D. Early Years. (Professor of Oriental Languages.)
1963, 70 pp.

McGauhey, Percy H. The Sanitary Engineering Research Laboratory:
Administration, Research, and Consultation, 1950-1972. 1974,
259 pp.

McCaskill, June. Herbarium Scientist, 1/niversity of California, Davis.
1989, 83 pp. (UC Davis professor.)

McLaughlin, Donald. Careers in Mining Geology and Management,
University Governance and Teaching. 1975, 318 pp.

Merritt, Ralph P. After We Cometh a Builder, the Recollections of Ralph
Palmer Merritt. 1962, 137 pp. (UC Rice and Raisin Marketing.)

Metcalf, Woodbridge. Extension Forester, 1926-1956. 1969, 138 pp.

303

Meyer, Karl F. Medical Research and Public Health. 1976, 439 pp.
Miles, Josephine. Poetry, Teaching, and Scholarship. 1980, 344 pp.
Mitchell, Lucy Sprague. Pioneering in Education. 1962, 174 pp.

Morgan, Elmo. Physical Planning and Management: Los Alamos, University
of Utah, University of California, and AID, 1942-1976. 1992,
274 pp.

Neuhaus, Eugen. Reminiscences: Bay Area Art and the University of
California Art Department. 1961, 48 pp.

Newell, Pete. UC Berkeley Athletics and a Life in Basketball: Coaching
Collegiate and Olympic Champions; Managing, Teaching, and
Consulting in the NBA, 1935-1995. 1997, 470 pp.

Newman, Frank. Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley,

1946-present, Justice, California Supreme Court, 1977-1983. 1994,
336 pp. (Available through California State Archives.)

Neylan, John Francis. Politics, Law, and the University of California.
1962, 319 pp.

Nyswander, Dorothy B. Professor and Activist for Public Health
Education in the Americas and Asia. 1994, 318 pp.

O'Brien, Morrough P. Dean of the College of Engineering, Pioneer in
Coastal Engineering, and Consultant to General Electric. 1989,
313 pp.

Olrao, Harold P. Plant Genetics and New Grape Varieties. 1976, 183 pp.
(UC Davis professor.)

Ough, Cornelius. Recollections of an Enologist, University of
California, Davis, 1950-1990. 1990, 66 pp.

Pepper, Stephen C. Art and Philosophy at the University of California,
1919-1962. 1963, 471 pp.

Pitzer, Kenneth. (In process.) Professor, College of Chemistry.

Porter, Robert Langley. Physician, Teacher and Guardian of the Public
Health. 1960, 102 pp. (UC San Francisco professor.)

Reeves, William. Arbovirologist and Professor, UC Berkeley School of
Public Health. 1993, 686 pp.

Revelle, Roger. Oceanography, Population Resources and the World.
1988. (UC San Diego professor.) (Available through Archives,
Scripps Institute of Oceanography, University of California, San
Diego, La Jolla, California 92093.)

Riasanovsky, Nicholas V. (In process.) Professor of Russian and

European Intellectual History, University of California, Berkeley,
1957-1997.

304

Richardson, Leon J. Berkeley Culture, University of California

Highlights, and University Extension, 1892-1960. 1962, 248 pp.

Robb, Agnes Roddy. Robert Gordon Sproul and the University of
California. 1976, 134 pp.

Rossbach, Charles Edwin. Artist, Mentor, Professor, Writer. 1987,
157 pp.

Schnier, Jacques. A Sculptor's Odyssey. 1987, 304 pp.

Schorske, Carl E. (In process.) Professor, Department of History.

Scott, Geraldine Knight. A Woman in Landscape Architecture in
California, 1926-1989. 1990, 235 pp.

Shields, Peter J. Reminiscences of the Father of the Davis Campus.
1954, 107 pp.

Sproul, Ida Wittschen. The President's Wife. 1981, 347 pp.

Stampp, Kenneth M. (In process.) Historian of Slavery, the Civil War,
and Reconstruction, University of California, Berkeley, 1946-1983.

Stern, Milton. The Learning Society: Continuing Education at NYU,
Michigan, and UC Berkeley, 1946-1991. 1993, 292 pp.

Stevens, Frank C. Forty Years in the Office of the President,
University of California, 1905-1945. 1959, 175 pp.

Stewart, George R. A Little of Myself. (Author and UC Professor of
English.) 1972, 319 pp.

Stripp, Fred S. Jr. University Debate Coach, Berkeley Civic Leader,
and Pastor. 1990, 75 pp.

Strong, Edward W. Philosopher, Professor, and Berkeley Chancellor,
1961-1965. 1992, 530 pp.

Struve, Gleb. (In process.) Professor of Slavic Languages and
Literature.

Taylor, Paul Schuster.

Volume I: Education, Field Research, and Family, 1973, 342 pp.
Volume II and Volume III: California Water and Agricultural Labor,
1975, 519 pp.

Thygeson, Phillips. External Eye Disease and the Proctor Foundation.
1988, 321 pp. (UC San Francisco professor.)

Tien, Chang-Lin. (In process.) Berkeley Chancellor, 1990-1997.
Towle, Katherine A. Administration and Leadership. 1970, 369 pp.

305

Townes, Charles H. A Life In Physics: Bell Telephone Laboratories and
WWII, Columbia University and the Laser, MIT and Government
Service; California and Research in Astrophysics. 1994, 691 pp.

Underbill, Robert M. University of California: Lands, Finances, and
Investments. 1968, 446 pp.

Vaux, Henry J. Forestry in the Public Interest: Education, Economics,
State Policy, 1933-1983. 1987, 337 pp.

Wada, Yori. Working for Youth and Social Justice: The YMCA, the

University of California, and the Stulsaft Foundation. 1991,
203 pp.

Waring, Henry C. Henry C. Waring on University Extension. 1960,
130 pp.

Wellman, Harry. Teaching, Research and Administration, University of
California, 1925-1968. 1976, 259 pp.

Wessels, Glenn A. Education of an Artist. 1967, 326 pp.

Westphal, Katherine. Artist and Professor. 1988, 190 pp. (UC Davis
professor. )

Whinnery, John. Researcher and Educator in Electromagnetics,

Microwaves, and Optoelectronics, 1935-1995; Dean of the College of
Engineering, UC Berkeley, 1950-1963. 1996, 273 pp.

Wiegel, Robert L. (In process.) Coastal Engineering: Research,
Consulting, and Teaching, 1946-1997.

Williams, Arleigh. Dean of Students Arleigh Williams: The Free Speech
Movement and the Six Years' War, 1964-1970. 1990, 329 pp.

Williams, Arleigh and Betty H. Neely. Disabled Students' Residence
Program. 1987, 41 pp.

Wilson, Garff B. The Invisible Man, or, Public Ceremonies Chairman at
Berkeley for Thirty-Five Years. 1981, 442 pp.

Winkler, Albert J. Vltlcultural Research at UC Davis, 1921-1971. 1973,
144 pp.

Woods, Baldwin M. University of California Extension. 1957, 102 pp.

Wurster, William Wilson. College of Environmental Design, University of
California, Campus Planning, and Architectural Practice. 1964,
339 pp.

306

MULTI- INTERVIEWEE PROJECTS

Blake Estate Oral History Project. 1988, 582 pp.

Architects landscape architects, gardeners, presidents of UC
document the history of the UC presidential residence. Includes
interviews with Mai Arbegast, Igor Blake, Ron and Myra Brocchini,
Toichi Domoto, Eliot Evans, Tony Hail, Linda Haymaker, Charles
Hitch, Flo Holmes, Clark and Kay Kerr, Gerry Scott, George and
Helena Thacher, Walter Vodden, and Norma Wilier.

Centennial History Project, 1954-1960. 329 pp.

Includes interviews with George P. Adams, Anson Stiles Blake,
Walter C. Blasdale, Joel H. Hildebrand, Samuel J. Holmes, Alfred L.
Kroeber, Ivan M. Linforth, George D. Louderback, Agnes Fay Morgan,
and William Popper. (Bancroft Library use only.)

Thomas D. Church, Landscape Architect. Two volumes, 1978, 803 pp.

Volume I: Includes interviews with Theodore Bernardi, Lucy Butler,
June Meehan Campbell, Louis De Monte, Walter Doty, Bonn Emmons,
Floyd Gerow, Harriet Henderson, Joseph Howland, Ruth Jaffe, Burton
Litton, Germano Milano, Miriam Pierce, George Rockrise, Robert
Royston, Geraldine Knight Scott, Roger Sturtevant, Francis Violich,
and Harold Watkin.

Volume II: Includes interviews with Maggie Baylis, Elizabeth
Roberts Church, Robert Glasner, Grace Hall, Lawrence Halprin,
Proctor Mellquist, Everitt Miller, Harry Sanders, Lou Schenone,
Jack Stafford, Goodwin Steinberg, and Jack Wagstaff.

Interviews with Dentists. CDental History Project, University of

California, San Francisco.) 1969, 1114 pp. Includes interviews
with Dickson Bell, Reuben L. Blake, Willard C. Fleming, George A.
Hughes, Leland D. Jones, George F. McGee, C. E. Rutledge, William
B. Ryder, Jr., Herbert J. Samuels, Joseph Sciutto, William S.
Smith, Harvey Stallard, George E. Steninger, and Abraham W. Ward.
(Bancroft Library use only.)

Julia Morgan Architectural History Project. Two volumes, 1976, 621 pp.
Volume I: The Work of Walter Steilberg and Julia Morgan, and the
Department of Architecture, UCB, 1904-1954. Includes interviews
with Walter T. Steilberg, Robert Ratcliff, Evelyn Paine Ratcliff,
Norman L. Jensen, John E. Wagstaff, George C. Hodges, Edward B.
Hussey, and Warren Charles Perry.

Volume II: Julia Morgan, Her Office, and a House. Includes
interviews with Mary Grace Barren, Kirk 0. Rowlands, Norma Wilier,
Quintilla Williams, Catherine Freeman Nimitz, Polly Lawrence
McNaught, Hettie Belle Marcus, Bjarne Dahl, Bjarne Dahl, Jr.,
Morgan North, Dorothy Wormser Coblentz, and Flora d'llle North.

The Prytaneans: An Oral History of the Prytanean Society and its
Members. (Order from Prytanean Society.)
Volume I: 1901-1920, 1970, 307 pp.
Volume II: 1921-1930, 1977, 313 pp.
Volume III: 1931-1935, 1990, 343 pp.

307

Six Weeks in Spring, 1985: Managing Student Protest at UC Berkeley.

887 pp. Transcripts of sixteen interviews conducted during July-
August 1985 documenting events on the UC Berkeley campus in April-
May 1985 and administration response to student activities
protesting university policy on investments in South Africa.
Interviews with: Ira Michael Heyman, chancellor; Watson Laetsch,
vice chancellor; Roderic Park, vice chancellor; Ronald Wright, vice
chancellor; Richard Hafner, public affairs officer; John Cummins
and Michael R. Smith, chancellor's staff; Patrick Hayashi and B.
Thomas Travers, undergraduate affairs; Mary Jacobs, Hal Reynolds,
and Michelle Woods, student affairs; Derry Bowles, William Foley,
Joseph Johnson, and Ellen Stetson, campus police. (Bancroft
Library use only.)

Robert Gordon Sproul Oral History Project. Two volumes, 1986, 904 pp.
Includes interviews with Horace Albright, Stuart LeRoy Anderson,
Katherine Bradley, Dyke Brown, Natalie Cohen, Paul A. Dodd, May
Dornin, Richard E. Erickson, Walter S. Frederick, David P. Gardner,
Vernon Goodin, Marion Sproul Goodin, Louis Heilbron, Clark Kerr,
Adrian Kragen, Robert S. Johnson, Mary Blumer Lawrence, Donald
McLaughlin, Dean McHenry, Stanley E. McCaffrey, Kendric and Marion
Morrish, William Penn Mott, Jr., Herman Phleger, John B. deC. M.
Saunders, Carl Sharsmith, John Sproul, Robert Gordon Sproul, Jr.,
Wallace Sterling, Wakefield Taylor, Robert Underbill, Garff Wilson,
and Pete L. Yzaquirre.

The University of California during the Presidency of David P. Gardner,
1983-1992. (In process.) Interviews with members of the
university community and state government officials.

The Women's Faculty Club of the University of California at Berkeley,
1919-1982. 1983, 312 pp. Includes interviews with Josephine
Smith, Margaret Murdock, Agnes Robb, May Dornin, Josephine Miles,
Gudveig Gordon-Britland, Elizabeth Scott, Marian Diamond, Mary Ann
Johnson, Eleanor Van Horn, and Katherine Van Valer Williams.

UC BERKELEY BLACK ALUMNI ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Broussard, Allen. A California Supreme Court Justice Looks at Law and
Society, 1969-1996. 1997, 266 pp.

Gordon, Walter A. Athlete, Officer in Law Enforcement and

Administration, Governor of the Virgin Islands. Two volumes, 1980,
621 pp.

Jackson, Ida. Overcoming Barriers in Education. 1990, 80 pp.

Patterson, Charles, forking for Civic Unity In Government, Business,
and Philanthropy. 1994, 220 pp.

308

Pittman, Tarea Hall. NAACP Official and Civil Rights Worker. 1974,
159 pp.

Poston, Marvin. Making Opportunities in Vision Care. 1989, 90 pp.

Rice, Emmett J. Education of an Economist: From Fulbright Scholar to
the Federal Reserve Board, 1951-1979. 1991, 92 pp.

Rumford, William Byron. Legislator for Fair Employment, Fair Housing,
and Public Health. 1973, 152 pp.

Williams, Archie. The Joy of Flying: Olympic Gold, Air Force Colonel,
and Teacher. 1993, 85 pp.

Wilson, Lionel. Attorney, Judge, Oakland Mayor. 1992, 104 pp.

UC BERKELEY CLASS OF 1931 ENDOWMENT SERIES, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA,
SOURCE OF COMMUNITY LEADERS (OUTSTANDING ALUMNI)

Bennett, Mary Woods (class of 1931). A Career in Higher Education:
Mills College 1935-1974. 1987, 278 pp.

Bridges, Robert L. (class of 1930). (In process.) Career in Law

Browne, Alan K. (class of 1931). "Mr. Municipal Bond": Bond Investment
Management, Bank of America, 1929-1971. 1990, 325 pp.

Dettner, Ann Degruchy Low-Beer (class of 1926). A Woman's Place in
Science and Public Affairs, 1932-1973. 1996, 260 pp.

Devlin, Marion (class of 1931). Women's News Editor: Vallejo Times-
Herald, 1931-1978. 1991, 157 pp.

Hassard, H. Howard (class of 1931). The California Medical Association,
Medical Insurance, and the Law, 1935-1992. 1993, 228 pp.

Heilbron, Louis (class of 1928). Most of a Century: Law and Public
Service, 1930s to 1990s. 1995, 397 pp.

Kay, Harold (class of 1931). A Berkeley Boy's Service to the Medical
Community of Alameda County, 1935-1994. 1994, 104 pp.

Kragen, Adrian A. (class of 1931). A Law Professor's Career: Teaching,
Private Practice, and Legislative Representative, 1934 to 1989.
1991, 333 pp.

Peterson, Rudolph (class of 1925). A Career in International Banking
with the Bank of America, 1936-1970, and the United Nations
Development Program, 1971-1975. 1994, 408 pp.

309

Stripp, Fred S. Jr. (class of 1932). University Debate Coach, Berkeley
Civic Leader, and Pastor. 1990, 75 pp.

Trefethen, Eugene (class of 1930). Kaiser Industries, Trefethen

Vineyards, the University of California, and Mills College, 1926-
1997. 1997, 189 pp.

UC BERKELEY ALUMNI DISCUSS THE UNIVERSITY

Griffiths, Farnham P. (class of 1906). The University of California and
the California Bar. 1954, 46 pp.

Ogg, Robert Danforth (class of 1941). Business and Pleasure:

Electronics, Anchors, and the University of California. 1989,
157 pp.

Olney, Mary McLean (class of 1895). Oakland, Berkeley, and the
University of California, 1880-1895. 1963, 173 pp.

Selvin, Herman F. (class of 1924). The University of California and
California Law and Lawyers, 1920-1978. 1979, 217 pp.

Shurtleff, Roy L. (class of 1912). The University's Class of 1912,

Investment Banking, and the Shurtleff Family History. 1982, 69 pp.

Stewart, Jessie Harris (class of 1914). Memories of Girlhood and the
University. 1978, 70 pp.

Witter, Jean C. (class of 1916). The University, the Community, and the
Lifeblood of Business. 1968, 109 pp.

DONATED ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION

Almy, Millie. Reflections of Early Childhood Education: 1934-1994.
1997, 89 pp.

Cal Band Oral History Project. An ongoing series of interviews with Cal
Band members and supporters of Cal spirit groups. (University
Archives, Bancroft Library use only.)

Crooks, Afton E. On Balance, One Woman's Life and View of University of
California Management, 1954-1990: An Oral History Memoir of the
Life of Afton E. Crooks. 1994, 211 pp.

Weaver, Harold F. Harold F. Weaver, California Astronomer. 1993,
165 pp.

310

INDEX- -Robert Wiegel

academic schedules, 86
Academic Senate, secretary, 147
Academic Senate committee service,

148, 149

acoustic neuroma, 196
Acting Dean, 1972-1973, 153
advising to government, 228-232
Alaska, North Slope, pipeline,

247
Alaska, Barrow, beach nourishment,

230

Alaska, Valdez oil spill, 226
Alaska, Prince William Sound

earthquake of 1964, 226
alongshore sediment transport, 69
alumni network, 97
American Shore and Beach

Preservation Association, 176,

195, 208, 250
amphibious oceanography, 52, 57,

217
amphibious operations, 39, 54,

217
archives, collection of reports

and papers, 249
archives, coastal photos (35 mm

slides), 249
archives, 248, 268
Argentina, Patagonia, pipeline,

247

ASCE WPCO EXCOM, 223
Australia, Bass Strait, pipeline,

248

Bakhmeteff, Boris A., 187
Barnes, Thomas G., Ill
Barry, Richard, 61
Bascom, Willard [Bill], 43, 46,

54, 174, 222, 246-247
Bauer, Robert, 55
beach, use, 189

Beach Erosion Board

research contract, 58, 214

USAGE, 263

beach nourishment, 168, 181, 230
Beach Nourishment and Protection,

178

beach traff icability, 44
Bechtel Corporation, 79, 95, 113-

114, 115, 117
Beebe, Kenneth, 61, 95
Bermel, Karl, 123
Berrigan, Paul, 239
Bijker, Eco, 207

Bjerknes, , 58

Blackwelder, , 161

Blume, John, 106
Boelter, L. M. K. , 23
Bolt, Bruce, 105-106, 201
Bonner, Jack, 198
Bowker, Albert, 146, 153-156
Bradley, Philip, 140-141
breaker- induced forces, 65, 116
breakwater, Iran, Bandar Abas,

240
breakwater disaster, Portugal,

Sines, 233

breakwaters, portable, 56
Bretschneider, Charles, 67
Brooks, Norman, 109, 117
Brown, David, 153
Brown, Edmund G. "Pat", 132
Buck, , 23

Caldwell, Joseph M. , 69, 234
Caldwell equation, 69
California, Crescent City, tsunami

consulting, 199
California, Orange County coastal

study, 229
California, San Francisco Ocean

Beach

O'Shaughnessy Seawall, 237

Taraval Seawall, 238

311

California, Santa Barbara Harbor,

218
California, Seadrift, rock

revetment, 239
California, southern, wave

climate, 251
California Advisory Commission on

Marine and Coastal Resources

[California Coastal

Commission], 197-201, 258-261
California and Use of the Ocean,

119
California Coastal Commission,

258
California Coastal Conservancy,

259
California Coordinating Council

for Higher Education, 136
California Governor's Advisory

Commission on Ocean Resources

[GACOR] , 197
California State Technical

Services Program, 131-134,

158-163

Camp Pendleton, 52, 71
Canada

Kittimat, 242

Mica Dam, 242

Carothers, Sarah Elizabeth, 2
Carruthers, J. N., 174
Chancellor's Advisory Committee on

Education of Military Officers

[ROTC], 110
Chapman, W. M. , 198
China, conference in 1987, 263
China, Sing Rang, 262
Chorin, A. J. , 66
Christ, Carol, 146
Christopher, Marion Wiegel

[sister], 8

civil engineer, first use, 211
classes, 81

Clough, Ray (R. W. ) , 60, 106
coastal engineering, 63

analysis, 99

conference, fifth, 174, 184

instruments, 173
Coastal Engineering Research

Board, member, 206, 211, 216

Coastal Engineering Research

Center, USAGE, 265
Coastal Engineering Research

Council, chair, 188, 222
coastal resorts, 189
coastal uses, balancing, 269
College Avenue Pool, 48
Committee of Rules and

Jurisdiction, 149
Committee on Committees, 152
Committee on University Extension,

149
computer science, in one

department, 156
Condit, Philip, 95
Conference of Coastal Engineering,

first, 1950, 187
Connick, Robert, 171
consulting, benefits of, 76
consulting projects, 24, 77, 79,

115, 232, 240, 242, 244, 245,

247, 248, 249
cooling water, power plant, 79,

116
Council on Wave Research, 187,

222

Crooke, R. Curtis, 55
Gumming, James D., 173
current meters, 183

Danel, Pierre, 185, 236
Davenport Cement Company, 60
Davenport pier, California, 60
Davis, Harmer E., 25, 127, 154,

191
Dean, Robert G. , 176, 178, 188,

207

Degenkalb, Henry J., 106
Depression, the, 11-12
design

functional, 50

structural, 50
Diablo Canyon, California, power

plant, 117
diamonds

beach mining, 193

surf zone, 194

312

Dickey, Barbara Wiegel [sister],

Dilley, R. A., 60
Dills, Ralph C., 184
dollos, 236
Doolittle, James, 161
Dubridge, Lee, 162

earthquake engineering, 1965 short

course, 105-106
Earthquake Engineering, textbook,

106

earthquakes, 201
Eaton, Richard 0., 113
Eberhart, Frances, 170
Edge, Billy L., 176, 190, 200,

207, 234
editor, 106, 107, 173, 176, 195,

208

Egypt, Nile Delta, 189, 231
Egypt, students, 118
Einstein, Hans Albert, 51, 66,

84, 86, 89, 92, 221-222
engineering/science, 49
Engineering Advisory Council, 139
Engineering Committee on Ocean

Resources [ECOR] , 202
Engineering Foundation, 173, 188,

222
Engineering Master Plan Study for

the University of California,

140

entrepreneurs, 133
environmental engineering,

tradeoffs, 90, 183
environmental events, 226
environmental program monitoring,

180

Etcheverry, Bernard, 121
Eustis, William, 19
Everhart, Thomas, 154, 156, 180

Faculty Club, 85
faculty socializing, 84
field studies, 49
Fischer, Hugo B., 109, 117
fisheries, 141

Fleet Admiral Nimitz Memorial

Lectures in National Security

Affairs, 110, 146
Florida, coastal construction

control line, 228
fluid mechanics studies at UC

Berkeley

in the 1940s, 23-24

in the 1950s, 92-93
flying, 203

Folsom, Richard, 23, 32-34
Foda, Mustafa, 118
France, Grenoble, ICCE in 1954,

174, 185

Fuchs, Robert, 55
Fulbright scholar at UC Berkeley,

167
functional design, 50

Galvin, John, 147

General Electric Corporation [GE] ,

74, 79, 114, 117
George, Steve, 67
German P.O.W. 's, Stockton, CA,

31-32

Gerwick, Ben C., Jr., 108, 234
Godden, William, 235
Goodwin, Peter, 109
Gould, William, 132, 134, 160
governance, university, 138
grade inflation, 103
graduate student advising, 112,

254
Gulf of Mexico, Cognac Platform,

245

Hagan, Robert, 84

Hall, Michael, 61

Harleman, Donald, 117

Harvey, J. Downey, 5

Hasselman, Klaus, 253

Hawaii, Hilo, tsunamis, 224

Hawaii, Technical Advisory Council

for Tsunami Protection, 223
Hilaly, Nabil, 115
History of Coastal Engineering in

the USA, 175

313

Horikawa, Kyoshi, 95, 207

Horonjeff, , 45

Horton, Edward, 246-247
Howe, Everett, 21, 23
Hudson, Robert, 4
Huntington, Samuel, 146
hydraulic laboratory class, 93
hydraulic model basin, 48

India, Tarapur power plant, 79
information age, 163
information dissemination, 62
information retrieval, computer,

160

Inman, Bobby, 147
Institute of Marine Resources, UC

Berkeley, 141-144
instruments, ocean, 101, 183
International Conferences on

Coastal Engineering, 174, 185
international students, 118, 167
international trips, 203
interstate commerce clause, 212
inventors, 133
Ippen, Arthur, 213
Iran, Bandar Abas, 240
Irrigation 117, teaching, 75, 85
Isaacs, John D., 39-40, 43, 45-

46, 47, 67-68, 143, 174, 222,

227
Italy, Manfredonia, breakwater,

247

Italy, Venice, ICCE in 1992, 186
Iverson, Harold, 54, 84
Iwamoto, Mabel, 153-154

Japan, Kobe, ICCE in 1994, 186

jet mixing, 64, 116

Johnson, Robert, 132-133

Johnson, Joe W. , 39, 46, 51, 54,
62, 69, 77, 78, 81-82, 86, 89,
92, 98, 118, 121, 174-175, 187-
188, 195, 239, 240

Johnston, Homer, 126

Kaplan, Paul, 116

Kerr, Clark, 122, 132, 137, 139-

140, 142, 153, 170
Kimberley, Harold, 52-53
Kravchenko, Julien, 185
Krueger, Robert B., 199, 258-259

Laird, A. D. K. , 92

Laitone, Edmund V., 68

landing craft, seakeeping, 54

Lehman, John, 110, 146

Levy, Hans, 55

libraries, computer use, 160

library, specialized, 128, 247,

268

Lin, T. Y., 106
liquefaction, earthquake, 187
Liu, Phil L.-F., 68
Lockheed Corporation, 63, 124
Longuet-Higgins, Michael, 166-167
Lund, William, 52

MacCamy, Richard A., 55

Mach- reflection, waves, 68

Magel, Lyn, 165-166

Magoon, Orville T. , Introduction,

120, 135, 190, 199-200, 207,

233-234, 236, 259
Managing Coastal Erosion, 177
manual of amphibious oceanography,

Marine Corps project, 52
Mark, Hans, 147
Maslach, George, 90, 132, 147,

171

Master of Engineering degree, 96
McGauhey, Percy, 182-183
mechanical engineering laboratory,

Mei, C. C., 68
Melville, W. K., 68
mentoring students, 112, 254
meteorologists (wartime officers),

training, 58
Mica Dam, Canada, 242
Middlekauff, Robert L., Ill
Miles, Charles, 18
Miles, John, 18-19, 68

314

military research, 38

mixing processes, 64, 79, 116

Mobarek, Ismail, 80, 97, 118

model study, Bikini, 34

monitoring projects, 180

Moon, James, 61

moored ship motions, 59

Morison, J. R. (Jack), 55-56

Morison equation, 55

Morris, Wilma Wiegel [sister], 8,

Mosher, Samuel, 60
Munk, Walter H. , 251-253

Namibia, diamonds, 193
National Research Council

committees, 177, 178, 179, 184
National Science Foundation, 80,

113
National University of Mexico,

teaching, 98

Nature's always responding, 227
Netherlands, Delft, ICCE in 1980,

185

Netherlands, storm disaster, 168
Newmark, Nathan M. , 106
Neyman, Jerzy, 47
Nierenberg, William, 142
Nile Delta, 189
Noble, Ronald, 207
North Sea, Forties Field oil

platform, 244
North Sea storm, 1953, 169

O'Brien, Morrough P., 9, 21, 23,
35, 39, 42, 45, 46, 49, 51, 54,
55, 58, 67, 71, 99, 102, 121,
147, 155-156, 174, 187-188,
214-215, 234, 264
O'Brien, Morison, Johnson, Schaaf

equation, 56

ocean engineering, 63, 108
Ocean Shore Railroad, 1905, 4
ocean waste disposal, 91, 183
Oceanographical Engineering

[book], 128
oceanographical engineering, 128

Office of Naval Research [ONR] ,

51, 56, 57-58

ONR Natural Hazards Review

Board, 201
offshore engineering, 63, 244,

245
offshore oil and gas, 204, 244,

245, 246

oil spill, 204, 225
Olken, Hyman, 134, 159, 165, 170
open heart surgery, 196
Operation Crossroads [Bikini

test], 34-40
Operation MIKI, 54
oral presentations, students, 126
Outstanding Civilian Service

Award, USAGE, 214

Pacific Gas & Electric Company,

117

Packard, David, 132, 160
Palao Toboada, Luis Fernando, 186
Papua New Guinea, Purari project,

232

Parker, Earl, 154
Parliamentarian: Academic Senate,

150

Patrick, Donald A. , 43, 52-53, 54
Paulling, John Randolph, 60, 108,

246

Pearson, Erman, 182-183
Pederson, Donald 0., 156-157
Pelton wheel, 88
Penzien, Joseph, 106
Pettit, Joseph, 171
Ph.D. advising, 254
Ph.D. theses

matching students and problems,
112

supervision, 254
Philippines, Subic Bay, 76
photographs

coastal, 220

35 mm slide collection, 221,

249
pier, wave- induced forces, 65,

116
Pilkey, Orrin, 168, 178

315

Pingree, Douglas, 19

pipelines, 247, 248

Polaris missile research, 63,

124-125
political aspects, coastal

engineering, 256
pollution control, 204, 205
pollution, coastal, 183
Portugal, Sines breakwater

disaster, 233
Potter, David, 198-199
power plant cooling water, 79,

116

Prins, Egbert, 95, 167
Pritchard, Donald, 174
probabilistic models, 50
professorship, full, 90
public misinformation, 179
public service, 173
publications, 172

value of, 62
pumps , 89
Putz, Robert A., 47, 55, 67, 167

rapid deployment, navy, 56

Reagan, Ronald W. , 197

Reed, Herman, 84

report writing, student, 126

research, military, 38

research contract, 57

Research and Development Reviews,

162

resorts, coastal, 189
Revelle, Roger, 35, 101, 141-142
revetment, 239
Richmond Field Station, 60, 73,

122

Rinne, John E., 106
risk analysis, 50
Rosenblath, Emilio, 98
ROTC, 111, 146
Rouse, Hunter, 243

sand bypassing, 219
Sarver, Mort, 19
Saunders, Robert, 83

Saville, Thorndike, Jr., 55, 99,

175, 207

Schaaf, Samuel A., 56
Schade, Henry ["Packy"], 48, 54
Schaefer, Milner B. ["Benny"],

142-143, 198

Schurman, Glenn, 174-175
Sea Grant: University Coordinating

Council, 145
Seaborg, Glenn, 109-110
seakeeping, landing craft, 54
seawall, 237, 238
security clearance, 43
Seed, H. Bolton ["Harry"], 45,

106, 201

Seiwell, H. R. , 166
semester to quarter system, 86
Sharp, Henry, 99
ship motion, 59
Shore & Beach, editor, 107, 176,

195, 208
Shore Protection Manual, USAGE,

218
short courses, extension, 104,

108

Signal Oil and Gas Company, 60
Smith, Ed, 19
Smith, Leighton W. , Jr.

["Snuffy"], 147
South Africa, Cape Town, ICCE in

1984, 185, 192
southern swell, 251
Snodgrass, Frank, 47, 55, 61, 67,

101, 167, 174, 251-253
Snyder, Mac, 123
Sobey, Rodney J., Introduction
Spaght, Monroe, 33
Spain, Malaga, ICCE in 1988, 186
Sproul, Robert Gordon, 139
State Technical Services Program,

1965-1968, 131, 158
Steinbrugge, Karl V., 105, 106
students, 95, 254

Egypt, 118

international, 118, 167
Summers, Harry, Jr., 217
surf forecasting, 46
surfing, 126
Sverdrup, H. U. , 58-59

316

Sverdrup-Munk-Bretschneider wave

forecasting curves, 67
synergy, 45

Talbot, Lawrence, 92

Tarapur, India, power plant, 79-

81, 113-114

Taylor, Sir Geoffrey I., 64
teaching

consulting benefits, 76

first course, 85

textbook development, 106
technical assessment, 179
technology transfer, 131, 165
television instruction,

engineering, 171, 206
Tension-leg platform, 246
Terman, Fred, 154, 160-161
Texas, Houston, ICCE in 1986, 185
thesis subjects, 113, 254
Thijsse, J. Th., 169
Tomasicchio, Ugo, 186
towing tank, 48
Trask, Parker, 51-52, 222
tsunami, 34, 199, 223, 225, 226,

242, 243

Tucker, M. J. ["Tommy"], 174
turbulent motion, 65-66
Tyrrell, Admiral, 201

undergraduate course, fluid

mechanics, 92
understanding the "simplest

things," 65

underwater explosions, 39, 46
UNESCO, ECOR, 202
University of California, Berkeley
earthquake engineering, 1965

short course, 105-106
Engineering Advisory Council,

139

Faculty Club, 85
fluid mechanics in the 1940s,
23-24

in the 1950s, 92-94
Institute of Marine Resources,
141-144

University of California, Berkeley

(cont'd. )

Richmond Field Station, 74,
80, 122-123

ROTC, 110-111

university extension, 104

Water Resources Center and
Archives, 120

work-study program, 101-102
University of California, Davis,

Irrigation 117, 75-76
University of California, Irvine,

engineering, 82
University of California, Los

Angeles, war training, 58
university extension, 104, 171
Universitywide Committee on

Engineering Education, 82
universitywide extension, 108
university governance, 138
USAGE Coastal Engineering Research

Board, 206, 211, 214, 267
USSR, Central Asia trip in 1971,

261

Walker, John R. ["Kimo"], 126
waste disposal, ocean, 91, 183
Waste Disposal in the Marine

Environment, 183
water quality, 64, 79, 116
Water Resources Center and

Archives, UC Berkeley, 120,

121, 249, 268

wave climate, California, 251
wave forecasts, 209

World War II, 58
wave gauges, 101
wave generator, ship model towing

tank, 123

wave generator, spectral, 123
wave generators, hydraulic

laboratory, 123
wave height distributions, 166
wave hindcasts, 209
wave measurement, 35-36, 38, 42-

47, 53

wave nowcasts, 210
wave record analysis, 47

317

wave-induced forces, 55, 60
waves, Mach-ref lection, 68
Webster, William, 60
Wehausen, John, 60
Wellman, Harry, 132, 142-143,

145, 170

Wheelock, Charles, 142
Whinnery, John, 44, 47, 49, 83,

90, 147, 152

White, Robert, 145, 180
Wiegel, Anne Pearce [wife], 29,

37, 40, 44, 52, 71-72, 189,

247-248, 263

Wiegel, Carol [daughter], 40
Wiegel, Diana [daughter], 40
Wiegel, John Mansfield [son], 40-

41
Wiegel, John Mason [brother], 8,

21, 29
Wiegel, Robert

education at University of
California, Berkeley, WWII
army service, 1944-1946,
27-32

family background: Decker,

Carothers, 3
Williams, J. E., 60
Wilson, Pete, 197, 259
WOBS [Wave Observations, Bureau of

Ships], 42
Wood, William, 182
work-study program, 101
workshops, 173, 176, 208
writing and speaking effectively,

126

Yates, Perry, 139

Zarem, Abe, 132
Zeevaert, Leonardo, 207

Eleanor Herz Swent

Born in Lead, South Dakota, where her father became chief
metallurgist for the Homes take Mining Company. Her
mother was a high school geology teacher before marriage.

Attended schools in Lead, South Dakota, Dana Hall School,
and We lies ley College, Massachusetts. Phi Beta Kappa.
M.A. in English, University of Denver. Assistant to the
President, Elmira College, New York. Married to Langan
Waterman Swent, mining engineer.

Since marriage has lived in Tayoltita, Durango, Mexico;
Lead, South Dakota; Grants, New Mexico; Piedmont,
California.

Teacher of English as a Second Language to adults in the
Oakland, California public schools. Author of an
independent oral history project, Newcomers to the East
Bay, interviews with Asian refugees and immigrants. Oral
historian for the Oakland Neighborhood History Project.

Interviewer, Regional Oral History Office since 1985,
specializing in mining history.

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