By 1 April 1969, John Adams was ready to take up his new role, as Director of CERN’s 300 GeV project, full-time. This photo shows him presenting plans for the new accelerator a few months earlier – you can read the minutes of the 16 January 1969 Committee of Council meeting, largely devoted to discussion of the project, here.

At this time it was not even clear in which country the new machine would be built. By showing that it made most financial and technological sense to build the Super Proton Synchrotron next to the existing CERN site, Adams was able to break the deadlock between member states.