William O. Baker, 90; Chemist Was Bell Labs’ Chief in 1970s, Advisor to Several Presidents

Former Bell Labs president William O. Baker, 90, died Monday at a nursing home in Chatham, N.J., Lucent Technologies Inc. announced. Bell Labs is Lucent’s research arm.

Baker headed Bell Labs from 1973 to 1979, when its scientists won two Nobel Prizes in physics. In 1977, the lab’s Phillip W. Anderson was a co-winner with two other scientists for theoretical research involving the electronic structure of magnetic systems. The following year, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson shared the Nobel for discovering faint background radiation in space believed to be left over from the Big Bang.

Earlier in his career, Baker advised several presidents on science and foreign intelligence. At President Eisenhower’s request, he created a plan to set up the Defense Communications Agency, which was implemented under President Kennedy in 1961. Baker also was a member of the President’s Science Advisory Committee and the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board for decades.

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., he earned a doctorate in chemistry from Princeton University and joined the Bell Labs technical staff in 1938. He became vice president of research in 1955.