George Hampton 1920-2004
George Hampton, who died recently, was CERN's director of administration in the 1960s and an important member of the team who managed the growth of CERN as it left the construction period and became a world-class physics laboratory.
To be a good director of administration at CERN is not easy. This was doubly so in the 1960s when the laboratory was just starting its main research activities after the intense period of construction of the big accelerator, the Proton Synchrotron (PS). CERN was passing through a major budget crisis and the new director-general, Viki Weisskopf, was faced with a completely new structure that was set up by his predecessor John Adams, and which included 12 divisions for running the laboratory, all reporting directly to him, and four directors. In addition, the CERN staff were proud of their success in building the PS in their own way, in the planned time and close to the forecast cost. They were therefore anxious not to be subjected to the kind of bureaucracy that administrators in their home countries might well want to set up in the face of such self-sufficiency.
With the renewal of the position of director of administration in 1963, Weisskopf selected George Hampton from the candidates from the member states. George came from the UK Atomic Energy Authority, but had earlier worked as a delegate to the International Civil Aviation Organization. Viki, I believe, picked him for his character rather than his administrative experience. Indeed, Viki himself when being chosen as director-general was asked if he had any administrative experience, to which he firmly replied "No", adding that he considered that to be an advantage.
George's position at the start was to help the director-general with foreign affairs and general administrative policy, but in 1965 the new director-general, Bernard Gregory, gave his directors direct authority over the appropriate divisions. In George's case, these were finance, personnel, site and buildings, and the directorate services, whose leaders previously had direct access to the director-general.
George met these challenges remarkably well. For example, although he naturally represented CERN administration in discussions with the finance committee, he gave me a free hand in writing the long-term budget papers and presenting them to the committee, which involved my routinely invading the territories of finance and personnel.
Henri Laporte, then head of site and buildings, recalls: "On the face of it, we weren't exactly made to get along with each other, given that we had such different origins and professional and academic backgrounds. But in spite of everything, we did get along and never failed to respect each other or provide mutual support. George had his feet firmly on the ground and knew where his limits lay. When we first met, he told me that he didn't want to interfere with the technical matters handled by my division, but he did ask me to advise him as to which issues I thought I should consult him on, in particular those relating to the proper administration of CERN. He was quite comfortable if I let weeks go by without consulting him if there was no reason to do so, and was never offended by the direct contacts I sometimes enjoyed with other directors, outside authorities or member-state delegations."
This summarizes well George's way of working inside CERN with his collaborators. His contacts with the scientific and technical divisions were less direct, instead going through finance and personnel, but his good humour and pragmatism were known and appreciated. His particularly British sense of humour was illustrated by a memo he sent to division leaders during discussion of a reorganization: "It seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be disbanded. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization. Petronius Arbiter 57 AD."
In dealing with the outside world, George had to be more active, and was a strong defender of the laboratory. Laporte again recalls: "I remember on one occasion there had been a serious accident on the site and certain sections of the Swiss media were trying to aggravate the situation. As soon as George found out about this he went straight down to Geneva and, using his good contacts with the political authorities and newspaper editors, made sure that the whole business was dealt with correctly. As far as I'm concerned, George Hampton had true nobility, and I have good memories of the many years we worked together."
George was equally strong in dealing with the CERN Council and finance committee members. Towards the end of his period as director, when the finance committee no longer had members with the same enthusiasm for CERN as in the early days, his directness annoyed some people, which was a pity. He was a very effective director of administration, a good man to work with, and in my view the best CERN has ever had.
Mervyn Hine, Founex, Switzerland.