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+---
+tags:
+  - Person
+  - Scientist
+  - Chemist
+---
+Herman F. Mark was an Austrian chemist who became an eminent figure in polymer science. He was a colleague of [[Ernst David Bergmann]] at the Emil Fischer Institute of the University of Berlin in the early 1920s, where they worked together and published joint papers on the chemical structure of rubber, paint, and adhesives.[^1]
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+Mark was driven out of Europe in 1938 by the Nazis and eventually became dean of faculty at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, turning it into a haven for Jewish refugees, including [[Chaim Weizmann]]. He remained a close friend and colleague of [[Ernst David Bergmann]], sharing Bergmann's view on the inevitability of Israeli nuclear weapons research. Mark believed that whether it was for desalination, power, or a bomb, nuclear energy still involved fission, and that [[Israel]] needed to be fully cognizant of nuclear physics.[^1]
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+Mark became a constant commuter between Brooklyn and [[Israel]] after World War II, serving on planning boards and as a scientific adviser to the fledgling [[Weizmann Institute of Science]]. He insisted that without Bergmann, there would have been no Israeli bomb, stating that Bergmann was in charge of every kind of nuclear activity in [[Israel]] and completely understood nuclear fission.[^1]
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+His son, [[Hans M. Mark]], served as secretary of the Air Force in the [[Jimmy Carter|Carter]] administration and was head of the executive committee of the [[National Reconnaissance Office]] (NRO), responsible for the development, procurement, and targeting of America's intelligence satellites. Hans Mark also worked at the [[Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory]], a main U.S. nuclear weapons facility.[^1]
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+### Footnotes
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+[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 2.