John B. Adams' first departure from CERN

In 1953 John B. Adams joined CERN as director of the Proton Synchrotron division. He left the Organization on 1 August 1961 to become director of the Culham plasma physics laboratory of the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority. He was originally to have left a year earlier, but following the death of Prof. Bakker in April 1960, his stay was prolonged by his appointment as Director-General of CERN. Returning to CERN in 1971 as Director-General of Laboratory II, he led the design of the Super Proton Synchrotron. He split the duties of CERN Director General with Willibald Jentschke and then Léon van Hove during the 1970s. With the reorganisation of CERN in 1976, he became the executive Director-General, working on obtaining funding for the LEP collider.