Happy birthday, Victor Reis!

On February 11, 2025, former assistant secretary for Defense Programs at the Department of Energy, Victor Reis, celebrated his 90th birthday. In addition to commemorating this milestone birthday, many across the nuclear security enterprise recognized more than three decades of Reis’ biggest contribution: science-based stockpile stewardship.

The United States stopped testing nuclear weapons in 1992. In August 1993, Reis assumed responsibility for developing a new way for the United States to maintain its aging nuclear stockpile. Reis was instrumental in creating a science-based stockpile stewardship program, which uses dynamic experiments, computing simulations, and historical test data to evaluate the health and extend the lifetimes of America’s nuclear weapons.

During an interview for the forthcoming Los Alamos National Laboratory documentary Clouds, Craters, and Codes, Reis reflected on the beginning of stockpile stewardship.

“The Cold War’s over,” Reis said, “but we’ve still got nuclear weapons, and the Russians still have nuclear weapons, as do the Chinese. I used to joke that the president really has two things that only he has to deal with. One is the nuclear button, and the second is the Marine Band.”

It turned out that the “nuclear button” was a bit more complicated than the United States Marine Band, but Reis had an idea. “How do we challenge the laboratories to maintain the weapons without testing?” he asked. “That’s got to be a really difficult scientific challenge. I said, the Cold War’s over, but we’re going to need those laboratories. The most important thing you can do is keep those laboratories engaged.”

Before long, the science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program was born. “If you set it up as a science program, I knew the laboratories would come in and figure out what that program really meant,” said Reis, who became known as “the architect of stockpile stewardship.”

Siegfried Hecker, retired Los Alamos National Laboratory director, also commented on the beginnings of stockpile stewardship when interviewed for Clouds, Craters, and Codes. Hecker described the decisions behind Reis’ plan. “As part of Vic’s overall game plan for science-based stockpile stewardship, we all agreed that it would take a huge increase in computing. We actually had the nuclear weapons and computer codes people get together and lay out what we needed to do to create the sort of modeling and simulation needed in the absence of nuclear testing to help us keep confidence in the stockpile.”

Another aspect of Reis’ plan was developing world-class experimental facilities. Hecker explained, “Vic also realized that each of the laboratories ought to have a Nordstroms—like in the mall, an anchor facility. And so for Lawrence Livermore, it was lasers and the National Ignition Facility. For Los Alamos, it was DARHT.”

In the end, the government embraced Reis’ ideas for stockpile stewardship, and his vision has shaped how the complex has operated for more than three decades. According to Associate Laboratory Director for Weapons Physics Charlie Nakhleh, “Stockpile stewardship has succeeded beyond the wildest expectations of even the most ardent advocates in those days.” ★

Article by Jill Gibson & Whitney Spivey, National Security Science magazine writers

In 2020, Reis sat down with National Security Science magazine to talk about the creation of stockpile stewardship—specifically, how he was able to bridge the gap between scientists and policymakers. Read the article here.