Page 170 - Neutrons for Sciences and Society

Neutrons for Science
Successive amendments of 1981 and 1993 only relate to the extension of the life of the company. An obsolete reference to the Land of Berlin was removed.
It is important to note that Mitchell, who had been the chief proponent of the British reactor was always flawless in his dealings with the ILL, and only for domestic reasons could he not accept nomination to be the first British Director. In fact, he took responsibility in the early months between January and May 1973 awaiting the arrival of Lomer. Mitchell helped decide on the first scientists recruited coming from Britain (in particular Sax Mason, Julia Higgins, Jo Zaccai, Stephen Lovesey, Alan Hewat, Bill Stirling etc, who arrived in Grenoble between June and November 1973). These decisions were taken in meetings with him and Mössbauer, one of which took place in a brasserie in the Latin Quarter in Paris (Le Balzar). This was a reminder of the tradition of the first meetings of the Scientific Council in the time of Maier- Leibnitz where at least one took place at the station in Geneva.
It is certain that the arrival of the British who had a dominant position in the use of neutrons in various fields of research, was a considerable asset to the scientific life of the ILL; they introduced and developed the use of neutrons in chemistry and the study
of polymers. The arrival of the British researchers was warmly accepted by the staff of the ILL.
It could have been hoped that the protracted negotiations would have led to a stable state which would never be challenged.
This was the case for nearly 20 years. We shall see later that, unfortunately, this was not always to be.
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