Acid Test: The AD-X2 Affair and the Political Awakening of American Science

Abstract: In March 1953, Allen Astin, director of the National Bureau of Standards, lost his job. He was fired by Sinclair Weeks, President Dwight D. Eisenhower's newly confirmed secretary of commerce. The bureau had concluded that AD-X2, an aftermarket additive advertised as extending the life of automotive batteries, was ineffective. Weeks regarded the condemnation as an attack on small business and sought to install friendlier leadership at the bureau. American scientists were outraged. A frenetic mobilization quickly organized censures by dozens of scientific organizations and forced Weeks to back down; Astin would lead the bureau until his retirement in 1969. Attention to this episode clarifies how the American scientific community translated the attention that nuclear weapons brought into concrete political influence—not through leveraging the power of the bomb, but by brandishing their apolitical credentials to exert control over key institutions and by emphasizing the centrality of routine scientific practice to national priorities.