William Baker, 90, Bell Labs Head, Advised Presidents

William O. Baker, who died Sunday at 90, was among the greatest organizers of scientific research of the 20th century.As the research director and then president of Bell Telephone Laboratories, he oversaw development of the transistor, the laser, fiber optics, and the UNIX computer operating system.After starting at Bell with a rudimentary laboratory in a former garage in Summit, N.J., Baker eventually took charge of a growing and far-flung network of 17 research facilities and 16,000 employees in what may have been the largest nongovernmental research effort in the world. Bell Labs garnered 11 Nobel Prizes with Baker at the helm.Bell Labs was eventually spun off and renamed Lucent, as a result of the breakup of the Bell system in the 1980s. Baker was an outspoken critic of the breakup, a detractor not above questioning the personal integrity of his opponents. He predicted, correctly, that it would lead to pressure for immediate results from research instead of long-term basic research.His concern went beyond the confines of the Bell system when he served as co-author of “A Nation at Risk,” a 1983 report on America’s educational systems that warned of a “tide of mediocrity” afflicting schools.A chemist and an inventor with 11 patents of his own, Baker made key contributions to the development of artificial rubber during World War II. He went on to play an important advisory role to presidents from Eisenhower to Reagan, especially in the areas of computers and intelligence-gathering technology. Loath to involve himself where he felt his talents were not suitable, Baker reportedly declined an invitation, delivered by Vice President Johnson, to head NASA under President Kennedy.Baker was raised on a 400-acre farm near the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, where his Brooklyn-born parents had moved in a fit of back-to-the-land idealism. His mother became famous for the turkeys she raised. Her “Baker’s Bronze Beauties” won prizes at poultry shows and went for $300 each as breeding stock; she wrote two books on raising turkeys that drew an international readership.Baker credited her interest in chemicals to combat parasites and his father’s collection of minerals as influential in his decision to study chemistry, at Washington College in Chestertown, Md. He received a Ph.D. from Princeton in 1938, for a thesis on the electrical properties of crystals, in the nascent science of solid-state physics. He immediately joined Bell as a research chemist and began researching a polymer dubbed “microgel” that was important in the development of synthetic rubber. It was later used in polyethylene coatings that replaced lead for wrapping electrical wires, as well as protective shields for missiles and satellites. It was also used in sneakers.Baker quickly ascended the administrative ladder at Bell, and in 1954, was named director of research in physical sciences. He became vice president, with responsibility for research in 1956, and president of Bell Labs from 1973-1980.The lab had been a hive of useful activity since the 1920s, when it developed synchronized sound movies and television; later came advances in number theory, computers, and the transistor. Under Baker’s leadership, innovation increased, as Bell Labs produced such basic science as the laser, the solar cell, and even synthesized music. During the 1960s, advances included light emitting diodes, developments in computer networking, and the discovery of the microwave background radiation that is considered the strongest evidence for the Big Bang.In applied research, Bell Labs produced the touch-tone phone, pagers, modern electret microphones, chip manufacturing techniques, and the C language for computer programming.Baker’s first important foray into government came with his 1958 “Baker Report,” in which he made recommendations for combining computers and remote sensing data produced by satellites for intelligence. He served on the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from 1957 to 1977 and then again from 1981 to 1990. He also served on a host of state and federal panels and commissions. He was chairman of the board of trustees of Rockefeller University, chairman of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the recipient of at least 25 honorary doctorates. He was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1988.Baker was an avid birder, and liked to hike in New Jersey’s Great Swamp, located near his Morristown home.For obvious reasons, Baker was a firm supporter of large-scale research efforts. In 1975, when the breakup of the phone system was still a gleam in the eyes of a few trust-busters, he assailed the idea in an interview with Forbes magazine. “What a way to dissipate the energies and interest of the country! You know, we might have gone to Russia for the laser if Bell Labs hadn’t had the opportunity and support to develop one. … I’m convinced that the attorney general [William B. Saxbe] spent maybe six minutes on his final decision in this suit, and he may have deprived the world of major scientific advances for the next century.”William Oliver BakerBorn July 15, 1915, in Chestertown, Md.; died October 31 in Chatham, N.J.; survived by his son, Joseph.

William Baker, 90, Bell Labs Head, Advised Presidents

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