When John Foster became director in May 1961, the Lab had some 4,300 employees and an annual budget of $93 million. These years were a time of major growth and expansion for the Lab. The moratorium ended in September 1961, and President Kennedy ordered the immediate resumption of testing. During this time the Limited Test Ban Treaty was negotiated, and all nuclear testing since then has been carried out underground. Foster led the Lab’s early work in small tactical nuclear weapons and was instrumental in increasing the emphasis placed on weapons safety and security.
During Foster’s years, the first evidence of fusion in a confined hot gas was obtained in a Project Sherwood test. In 1963, the Lab established the biomedical program to study the effects of fallout and the resulting dose to humans. Later that year the Department of Applied Science, administered by the College of Engineering at UC Davis, was founded at Livermore—the first in a long series of collaborative relationships between the Lab and the University of California. In 1965, Foster left the Lab for Washington and, following in the footsteps of Herb York and Harold Brown, became Director of Defense Research and Engineering.
Born September 18, 1922 in New Haven, Connecticut, Foster spent most of his early life in Montreal, Canada, receiving a B.Sc. with honors from McGill University in 1948. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1952.
During an interruption in his schooling because of World War II, Foster worked at Harvard on the development of radar counter-measures and in the European theater on the implementation of counter-measures to enemy radar.
He engaged in nuclear research after obtaining his degree and joining the staff of Livermore Laboratory soon after its establishment. He was an early researcher in the field of controlled thermonuclear reactions, and became involved in the design and development of nuclear explosives. He is credited with major contributions to the development of small nuclear weapons.
In 1952 Foster became a division leader in Experimental Physics at the Laboratory, and was promoted to associate director in 1958 before becoming director in 1961. He served on the Air Force Scientific Advisory Panel until 1956, the Army Scientific Advisory Panel until 1958, and was a panel consultant to the President’s Science Advisory Committee. In 1973 Foster joined TRW, where he served as vice president and a member of the board of directors.
Among his numerous honors are the Department of Defense Eugene Fubini Award (1998), the Founders Award from the National Academy of Engineering (1989), and the 1992 Enrico Fermi Award for his outstanding contributions to national security. He was one of the first recipients of the US Atomic Energy Commission’s Ernest Orlando Lawrence Memorial Award for his contributions to nuclear weapons development. Other awards include the Defense Department’s Distinguished Public Service Medals, Knight Commander’s Cross (Badge and Star) of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, and commander, Legion of Honor, republic of France.
Foster is a member of the American Defense Preparedness Association, National Advisory Board of the American Security Council, National Security Industrial Association, and the American Institute of Aeronautic and Astronautics.
