The Final Year, 1962

Abstract

AbstractI.I. Rabi, President of Associated Universities, Inc in New York to Wild on 20 August 1962:On 26 January 1962, Pawsey began organising a 1-month stay in Green Bank for March, an orientation visit. After the US, he planned to go to Paris to visit his daughter Margaret and her family, then continue back to Sydney via India. He hoped to arrive back in Sydney by 24 April 1962, Hastings Pawsey’s 17th birthday. As expected, Pawsey arranged his trip to the US and Europe in order to meet colleagues. In Pasadena on the way to New York, Green Bank and Washington, he planned to meet Gordon Stanley and Otto Struve. Later he was to meet Rabi in Boston in early March, just before his visit to Green Bank, which was to start about 20 March. These plans were outlined in a letter to Rabi on 26 January 1962, explaining that his home base in the US would his brother-in-law’s (Ted Nicoll) house in Princeton, New Jersey. Pawsey wrote:On 31 January 1962, Rabi replied, again with a handwritten letter: “I have set the machinery in train to help with your visit to make you an [NRAO] employee during the period [March-April] … Your visit will come at a crucial time [for the 140-foot telescope].” On the same day, Charles Dunbar, Secretary of AUI, wrote Pawsey with the details of the temporary visa process, the filing of a petition for permission to import a non-immigrant alien. Since Pawsey was “an alien of distinguished merit and ability”, the expectation was that the process would go smoothly. In fact, within 2 weeks, the NSF reported to AUI (15 February 1961, Dunbar to Pawsey) that “our petition to import you from Australia has been granted by [Immigration and Naturalisation Service]”. Dunbar was surprised: “I had no idea that such rapid action could be secured.”