Tribute to V. P. Guinn

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, Vol. 262, No. 1 (2004) 27–28

0236–5731/2004/USD 20.00 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest© 2004 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht

Tribute to V. P. GuinnG. Miller

Vince GUINN and I began a long association in 1969. I first met him in his office at General Atomic in San Diego.UCI was finalizing the installation of the reactor under my supervision and had allowed funds for equipmentpurchases. Since Vince, by this time, was scheduled to join UCI faculty it was suggested that I consult with himregarding orders for gamma-ray spectrometry equipment. His staff had good ideas about the latest developments andso UCI became equipped to carry out “state of the art” neutron activation analysis.

I was in the process of slowly moving from work in hot atom chemistry that I had been doing as a post-doctoralassociate with Sherry ROWLAND to applications of activation analysis. Soon after Vince arrived at UCI, we began toacquire students interested in radiochemistry and agreed on a joint group seminar program. Eventually this metroutinely off campus at my house, where we all enjoyed a relaxed atmosphere with refreshments and many usefulscientific discussions. These meetings continued until he left Irvine for Maryland after his retirement. Wecollaborated on a number of publications in environmental applications, and jointly with several visiting scientists,especially Professor Alexis VOLBORTH, with whom we did extensive and significant work using 14 MeV neutronactivation to determine oxygen content of geological samples.

Vince GUINN began work applying radioisotopes to solve problems in industry after attending an Oak RidgeInstitute that promoted their use and first published in 1953. At Shell Development Company in Richmond,California, he pioneered uses of radioactive tracers that survive to this day. While Vince was not the first to applyNAA to crime scene investigations, he did extensive work in the early 1960’s at General Atomic Division of GeneralDynamics under AEC contracts before coming to UCI, and he first published on forensic applications in 1962.

Vince GUINN had a special enthusiasm and unique talent for working with lawyers and the courts in following upon the scientific analysis. He was extremely proud of his ability to “hold-up” under aggressive cross examination.One of his favorite stories (and he had many!) reported how a lawyer had challenged his credentials as a chemist byasking him to reproduce the Schroedinger Equation, on the basis that “any good chemist should be able to quotethat”! Unfortunately for the lawyer, Vince’s training as a physical chemist meant that he held the Equation in highregard and he made a flawless response.

I and his students were fascinated by the contacts Vince had developed in the world of crime scene investigationand we were delighted to listen to him recount his involvement with cases. He described the first major case relyingon NAA in his section of the 1964 NATO Advanced Study Institute held in Glasgow under the direction of JohnLENIHAN who became a life-long friend of both Vince and myself, visiting UCI many times. This case involved thematching of minute samples of paints on a jack handle with both a car and a “forced” door and high lit theextraordinarily unique sensitivity of NAA at that time.

At the same Institute, shortly after President John F. KENNEDY’s death, Vince was able to describe backgroundmeasurements that he was making on the gun-shot residues left by the type of weapon used in the assassination incomparison to samples removed from Lee Harvey OSWALD’s hands and cheek. These were inconclusive, however,because samples were obviously contaminated later or while they were being taken. Much later, he analyzed bulletsamples and fragments and testified about these measurements to the House Select Committee on Assassinationsformed to reexamine the Warren Commission’s earlier findings. As he described this work in our meetings, we wereprivileged to see from my home movie projector, a copy of the famous Zapruder film on loan to Vince – the onlydirect record made of the actual shooting of the President.

Attentive viewers will have seen Vince in testimony action in November 2003, as Court TV screened a program(A Medstar Television Production) in its Forensic Files series titled “The Assassination of JFK: InvestigationReopened”. I was extremely honored to be seen for a few seconds in this program demonstrating how Vince did theanalyses of the bullet fragments in 1977. The only part that we did not reenact was the presence of the fully armedsecurity guard from the National Archives who doggedly followed Vince to make sure no specimens were divertedand that all fragments could be returned to safe-keeping.

My association with Vince GUINN led to my making acquaintance with most key senior figures in the activationanalysis world, though my first contact with the technique was under the tutelage of A. E. SMALES at Harwell while Iwas still a doctoral student in Oxford, quite a few years before I realized what a powerful method it was and metVince GUINN.

G. MILLER: TRIBUTE TO V. P. GUINN

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Vince was the model for the fully-rounded application scientist. He encouraged his students to pay close attentionto how their work was to be used as well as to the results. He was always looking for a good excuse for a partywhether at home or at the many conferences that he attended, and was generous with both his time and energy. Heloved good food and wines – though some were impatient at his reliance on a few specific brands! In short, VinceGUINN lived live to the full and those of us who knew him well will miss him, but continue to be inspired by theintegrity of his approach to scientific investigation and its application in the “real world”.