SPOKESMAN BOOKS
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Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation
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Catalogue
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How to Lose a War
The Spokesman, 90
Andrew
Brown, J. D. Bernal – The Sage of Science, Oxford University Press,
Desmond
Bernal earned a reputation as a Titan among British scientists, and a
distinguished boffin for the British armed forces in the Second World War.
His
biographer tells us that Bernal’s ‘pièce de résistance was the
planning of D-Day: a contribution that has given rise to some controversy’.
He earned the nickname ‘Sage’ because he was believed to know everything.
But this belief was an exaggeration, even if he did know a great many things.
Among Communist scientists, Joseph Needham knew a great deal more, and carried
his knowledge with a great deal less dogmatic assurance.
This
is a fine biography, and it is not averse to painting at least some of the
warts as well as the achievements of its subject. Desmond Bernal was a pioneer
of X-ray crystallography, and laid the foundation of molecular biology. He was
a generalist, and wrote stimulating analyses of the social functions of
science. He was also an Irish rebel brought up under the shadow of the Easter
Uprising, and became a committed Communist with a strong tendency to piety.
Bernal
was one of the core group of British scientists who attended the Second
International Congress of the History of Science and Technology in London.
This was ‘galvanised by the unexpected arrival of a delegation from the
Soviet Union’. Eight contributors were led by Nikolai Bukharin, and his team
included the distinguished geneticist, Vavilov. At the time the most powerful
contribution of the group was esteemed to be a lecture by Boris Hessen, on the
social and economic roots of Newton’s Principia.
The
unique flavour of the Russian contribution was described in The Spectator by
Bernal, who had a female connection with the journal. (Bernal had several
female connections, so much so that his archive of six boxes of his love
letters is sealed, we are informed, until 2021, by which time, we may
anticipate, at least some of the passion contained in them may be spent.)
We
might wish that the archive could have included the Sage’s thoughts about
Bukharin and Vavilov, both of whom perished in Stalin’s witch-hunts. In
fact, Bernal gave his support to the charlatan academician Lysenko, who wrote
perhaps the most dismal page in the history of Soviet Science.
Of
course, by this time, Bernal was a luminary of the World Peace Committee, and
one of the most distinguished sycophants of Stalin. There is a revealing
description of a visit to China, which shows how the affection for Stalin
carried over into support for Khrushchev. During a firework display at the
Gate of Heavenly Peace, Bernal was approached by a tall Russian who said
‘Nikita Sergeyevich wants to speak to you’. Bernal also met Zhou Enlai,
who promised him an interview. But after the meeting with Khrushchev, Zhou
sent ‘an undiplomatic message … saying that he did not see any value in
seeing him’.
Here
was a man celebrated by Francis Crick as ‘a genius’ and by Linus Pauling
as ‘one of the greatest intellectuals of the twentieth century’ and
variously described as ‘one of the best, if not the best, scientific minds
in the world’, and ‘the pioneer who pushed the frontier forward’, who
could nonetheless embrace with all the fervour of a Moonie, a political creed
of remarkable vacuity.
How
could it all happen? Andrew Brown gives us an honest portrait, and shows us
how very clever ‘Sage’ really was. But he does not hide the grosser lapses
of the political man.
For
this reason, although this is a very good book, it will not be the last. Quite
aside from any indiscretions which may await us in the six sealed boxes of
love letters, the circle of Sage’s brilliance and incomprehension remains to
be squared.
Ken Coates
