Ronald Richter
Encyclopedia
Ronald Richter was an Austrian, later Argentine
, scientist who became famous in connection with the Huemul Project
and the National Atomic Energy Commission
. This was intended to generate energy from nuclear fusion
in the 1950s in Argentina
, during the presidency of Juan Perón
. Richter's project would deliver — according to Perón's 1951 announcements — cheap energy in containers of two sizes: half liter and one liter, not unlike the milk bottles then in use.
in 1948), Bohemia
during the Austrian
rule of the Czech Sudetenland
. Richter's original nationality remains uncertain, it not being known whether he was Austrian or German. He was eventually naturalized Argentine in the early 1950s when President
Juan Perón
overrode Argentine law.
According to Gambini , Richter was awarded a doctorate in natural sciences in 1955. However, another source claims that he was not awarded a doctoral degree because he had misinterpreted his research results. He had concluded that he had discovered delta rays being emitted by the earth, but in fact he had been detecting X-rays scattered by the ground.
According to his recollection, Santos Mayo had personally heard Richard Gans
say:
Kurt Sitte's recollections of Richter's research under Prof. Furth differed. He recalled:
, his only known jobs were a six-month stint working on explosives and a few commercial contracts. He met the aeronautical engineer Kurt Tank
in London; Tank later later emigrated to Argentina, hired by Perón
's government under the cover name of Pedro Matthies. http://www.groene.nl/2002/0205/rz_bariloch.html
, Richter moved to Argentina and was received, according to Gambini (1999, v.1, p. 396), by the German industrialist August Siebrecht, ex-nazi spy. He took Richter to Córdoba
, where Kurt Tank
was developing aircraft, having been hired by Perón. Tank was interested in Richter's proposal to use nuclear energy for aircraft propulsion. Richter continued to address Tank as Prof. Dr. Pedro Matthies in his correspondence about the Huemul Project.
In 1949 Perón hired Richter who had convinced Peron that he could produce controlled nuclear fusion using cheap materials in a process that could supply cheap energy in enormous quantities, a program that eventually became known as the Huemul Project
. Perón's reasons for backing Richter were in line with the ideology of modernization underlying his concept of the "New Argentina"; he was not interested in the military applications of atomic energy but rather saw it as a way to expand iron and steel production.
Perón believed that any project undertaken by a German scientist was bound to be successful. Due to his political disagreements with true Argentine scientists of the stature of, for example, Enrique Gaviola
, Perón was reluctant to seek their advice on Richter's proposal and he gave Richter an effective blank check and appointed him as his personal representative in the Bariloche area. The total cost of the project was estimated at 300 million USD (2003 value) http://stills.nap.edu/html/biomems/lfalicov.html
In 1951 Richter announced that he had achieved controlled nuclear fusion under laboratory conditions; a claim that was later proven false, it transpiring that Richer had simply exploded hydrogen in an electric arc.
After it became evident that Richter's project was spurious, Perón appointed a technical committee which included José Balseiro, a former faculty member at the La Plata Institute of Physics, which was to report directly to him whether Richter's project should be discontinued. The committee analyzed Richter's work and concluded that the actual temperature reached in his experiments was far too low to produce a true thermonuclear reaction. They reported their findings to Perón in September 1952 and soon after that project was terminated.
After the termination of the Huemul Project in 1952, Richter appears to have spent periods of time abroad including some time in Libya
. Eventually he returned to Argentina, where he died in 1991. A short announcement of Richter's death appeared in an obituary published by Microsemanario.
and Eva Perón
and the relevance of nuclear physics for the international scene, the sources cover a wide spectrum. They range from works about the Argentine government of the time to international evaluations of the Huemul Project in the context of the Cold War
and its aftermath.
The following are quotations from books and articles published since then by journalists, biographers, physicists, and historians. Their respective sources are fully referenced below:
From Eva Perón (Alicia Dujovne Ortiz, 1996):
From Juan G. Roederer (2003):
The plot develops poetically framed between the ever present Patagonian winds of the roaring forties
and the recurrent breaking of the waves of the lake on the shores of the island... until the peace is shattered by German utterances and acoustic bangs.
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, scientist who became famous in connection with the Huemul Project
Huemul Project
The Huemul Project was a secret project proposed by the German scientist of Austrian origin Ronald Richter to the government of Argentina during the first presidency of Juan Domingo Perón....
and the National Atomic Energy Commission
National Atomic Energy Commission
The National Atomic Energy Commission is the Argentine government agency in charge of nuclear energy research and development.The agency was created on May 31, 1950 with the mission of developing and controlling nuclear energy for peaceful purposes in the country.CNEA's facilities include the...
. This was intended to generate energy from nuclear fusion
Nuclear fusion
Nuclear fusion is the process by which two or more atomic nuclei join together, or "fuse", to form a single heavier nucleus. This is usually accompanied by the release or absorption of large quantities of energy...
in the 1950s in Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, during the presidency of Juan Perón
Juan Perón
Juan Domingo Perón was an Argentine military officer, and politician. Perón was three times elected as President of Argentina though he only managed to serve one full term, after serving in several government positions, including the Secretary of Labor and the Vice Presidency...
. Richter's project would deliver — according to Perón's 1951 announcements — cheap energy in containers of two sizes: half liter and one liter, not unlike the milk bottles then in use.
Nationality
Of German origin, Richter was born in Falkenau an der Eger (renamed SokolovSokolov (Sokolov District)
Sokolov , Falknov nad Ohří until 1948 is a town in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic, located to the north-east of Cheb. It has about 28,000 inhabitants....
in 1948), Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
during the Austrian
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
rule of the Czech Sudetenland
Sudetenland
Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...
. Richter's original nationality remains uncertain, it not being known whether he was Austrian or German. He was eventually naturalized Argentine in the early 1950s when President
President of Argentina
The President of the Argentine Nation , usually known as the President of Argentina, is the head of state of Argentina. Under the national Constitution, the President is also the chief executive of the federal government and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.Through Argentine history, the...
Juan Perón
Juan Perón
Juan Domingo Perón was an Argentine military officer, and politician. Perón was three times elected as President of Argentina though he only managed to serve one full term, after serving in several government positions, including the Secretary of Labor and the Vice Presidency...
overrode Argentine law.
Education
Richter attended the German University of Prague, graduating in 1935. Sources provide variant narratives about his studies as a doctoral candidate.According to Gambini , Richter was awarded a doctorate in natural sciences in 1955. However, another source claims that he was not awarded a doctoral degree because he had misinterpreted his research results. He had concluded that he had discovered delta rays being emitted by the earth, but in fact he had been detecting X-rays scattered by the ground.
According to his recollection, Santos Mayo had personally heard Richard Gans
Richard Gans
Richard Martin Gans , German of Jewish origin, born in Hamburg, was the physicist who founded the Physics Institute of the National University of La Plata, Argentina...
say:
Kurt Sitte's recollections of Richter's research under Prof. Furth differed. He recalled:
Europe
Richter worked in Germany, England and France. Following the end of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, his only known jobs were a six-month stint working on explosives and a few commercial contracts. He met the aeronautical engineer Kurt Tank
Kurt Tank
Kurt Waldemar Tank was a German aeronautical engineer and test pilot, heading the design department at Focke-Wulf from 1931-45. He designed several important aircraft of World War II, including the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter aircraft.-Early life:Tank was born in Bromberg , Province of Posen...
in London; Tank later later emigrated to Argentina, hired by Perón
Juan Perón
Juan Domingo Perón was an Argentine military officer, and politician. Perón was three times elected as President of Argentina though he only managed to serve one full term, after serving in several government positions, including the Secretary of Labor and the Vice Presidency...
's government under the cover name of Pedro Matthies. http://www.groene.nl/2002/0205/rz_bariloch.html
Argentina
Recommended to Perón by Kurt TankKurt Tank
Kurt Waldemar Tank was a German aeronautical engineer and test pilot, heading the design department at Focke-Wulf from 1931-45. He designed several important aircraft of World War II, including the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter aircraft.-Early life:Tank was born in Bromberg , Province of Posen...
, Richter moved to Argentina and was received, according to Gambini (1999, v.1, p. 396), by the German industrialist August Siebrecht, ex-nazi spy. He took Richter to Córdoba
Córdoba, Argentina
Córdoba is a city located near the geographical center of Argentina, in the foothills of the Sierras Chicas on the Suquía River, about northwest of Buenos Aires. It is the capital of Córdoba Province. Córdoba is the second-largest city in Argentina after the federal capital Buenos Aires, with...
, where Kurt Tank
Kurt Tank
Kurt Waldemar Tank was a German aeronautical engineer and test pilot, heading the design department at Focke-Wulf from 1931-45. He designed several important aircraft of World War II, including the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter aircraft.-Early life:Tank was born in Bromberg , Province of Posen...
was developing aircraft, having been hired by Perón. Tank was interested in Richter's proposal to use nuclear energy for aircraft propulsion. Richter continued to address Tank as Prof. Dr. Pedro Matthies in his correspondence about the Huemul Project.
In 1949 Perón hired Richter who had convinced Peron that he could produce controlled nuclear fusion using cheap materials in a process that could supply cheap energy in enormous quantities, a program that eventually became known as the Huemul Project
Huemul Project
The Huemul Project was a secret project proposed by the German scientist of Austrian origin Ronald Richter to the government of Argentina during the first presidency of Juan Domingo Perón....
. Perón's reasons for backing Richter were in line with the ideology of modernization underlying his concept of the "New Argentina"; he was not interested in the military applications of atomic energy but rather saw it as a way to expand iron and steel production.
Perón believed that any project undertaken by a German scientist was bound to be successful. Due to his political disagreements with true Argentine scientists of the stature of, for example, Enrique Gaviola
Enrique Gaviola
Ramón Enrique Gaviola ). Born and died in Mendoza, Argentina was an Argentine astrophysicist of worldwide renown. Student of Richard Gans at the Universidad de La Plata went in 1922 to Germany where he continued his studies...
, Perón was reluctant to seek their advice on Richter's proposal and he gave Richter an effective blank check and appointed him as his personal representative in the Bariloche area. The total cost of the project was estimated at 300 million USD (2003 value) http://stills.nap.edu/html/biomems/lfalicov.html
In 1951 Richter announced that he had achieved controlled nuclear fusion under laboratory conditions; a claim that was later proven false, it transpiring that Richer had simply exploded hydrogen in an electric arc.
After it became evident that Richter's project was spurious, Perón appointed a technical committee which included José Balseiro, a former faculty member at the La Plata Institute of Physics, which was to report directly to him whether Richter's project should be discontinued. The committee analyzed Richter's work and concluded that the actual temperature reached in his experiments was far too low to produce a true thermonuclear reaction. They reported their findings to Perón in September 1952 and soon after that project was terminated.
After the termination of the Huemul Project in 1952, Richter appears to have spent periods of time abroad including some time in Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
. Eventually he returned to Argentina, where he died in 1991. A short announcement of Richter's death appeared in an obituary published by Microsemanario.
Portrait
An emergent characterization of Ronald Richter continues to evolve throughout the examination of multiple biographic sources that describe and/or comment on Richter and his project. Due to Richter's close association with Juan PerónJuan Perón
Juan Domingo Perón was an Argentine military officer, and politician. Perón was three times elected as President of Argentina though he only managed to serve one full term, after serving in several government positions, including the Secretary of Labor and the Vice Presidency...
and Eva Perón
Eva Perón
María Eva Duarte de Perón was the second wife of President Juan Perón and served as the First Lady of Argentina from 1946 until her death in 1952. She is often referred to as simply Eva Perón, or by the affectionate Spanish language diminutive Evita.She was born in the village of Los Toldos in...
and the relevance of nuclear physics for the international scene, the sources cover a wide spectrum. They range from works about the Argentine government of the time to international evaluations of the Huemul Project in the context of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
and its aftermath.
The following are quotations from books and articles published since then by journalists, biographers, physicists, and historians. Their respective sources are fully referenced below:
From Eva Perón (Alicia Dujovne Ortiz, 1996):
From Juan G. Roederer (2003):
Richter, The Opera: A Musical Documentary
Ronald Richter inspired an opera which contains both passionate and erratic expressions together with his references to the spectacular experiments. It has been performed both in Argentina (Teatro Colón) and in France (Théâtre Paris-Villete). Authored by Mario Lorenzo and Esteban Buch, its title is Richter: Ópera Documental de Cámara.The plot develops poetically framed between the ever present Patagonian winds of the roaring forties
Roaring Forties
The Roaring Forties is the name given to strong westerly winds found in the Southern Hemisphere, generally between the latitudes of 40 and 49 degrees. Air displaced from the Equator towards the South Pole, which travels close to the surface between the latitudes of 30 and 60 degrees south, combines...
and the recurrent breaking of the waves of the lake on the shores of the island... until the peace is shattered by German utterances and acoustic bangs.
- Summary and critique. Casullo, Eduardo. La Aventura de la Isla de la Mula: Richter.
- Spectacles. Richter: Opéra documentaire de Mario Lorenzo.
Translated excerpts
* From Gambini (1999, Vol.1, p. 398):
"While in a state of delirious enthusiasm [Perón] said [just] anything --recalled Richter-- and ventured to prognosticate that I would obtain for him bottled electric energy. As a consequence of those exaggerations the plan to expand the CADE [main source of electric power for the greater Buenos Aires] was dropped, giving rise to an energy setback."
- From Gambini (1999, Vol.1, p. 401):
"[From t]he writer Tomás Eloy MartínezTomás Eloy MartínezTomás Eloy Martínez was an Argentine journalist and writer.-Life and work:Born in San Miguel de Tucumán, Martínez obtained a degree in Spanish and Latin American literature from the University of Tucumán, and an MA at the University of Paris...
(1996, p.182): ...Perón] was clumsy in announcing the false finding in a resounding manner, assuring that from that moment Argentina would sell nuclear energy for domestic use in bottles of one litre and half a litre. Naturally, this caused what in Argentina has been known [since then as] a 'historical embarrassment.'"
NOTE: Eloy Martinez cites the origin of his quotation to be Confalonieri (1956, p.214) who took it from its original source:
the newspaper Clarin, Buenos Aires, issue of October 7, 1955.