Public Interest an The Technological Revolution

PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATED UNIVERSITIES, INC.

THE idea of frankly discussing and analyzing the great social issues of our day is so novel in the present atmosphere of intellectual conformity that this opportunity presents a challenge to your speakers. The social thinking of today is pretty much confined by pseudoisms called "beliefs." A "belief" is a social, political, economic, or philosophical credo which, when imposed on society by the infinite repetition of a loud and zealous minority, is finally accepted or at least tolerated by the majority. Any good "belief," to be worth its salt, must be surrounded by a hard shell of emotional aura that ensures its unquestioned perpetuation - that engenders a deep sense of guilt when it is questioned. Therefore, it is refreshing to partake of the true university atmosphere that encourages the objective discussion and analysis of the great issues of our day without emotional attachments to confine our thinking. In discussing great issues, we may well follow the detached pattern of recent social anthropologists such as Clyde Kluckhohn in his Mirror forMan or Ruth Benedict in Patterns of Culture.

Do not misunderstand from these opening remarks that I advocate an anarchy of social behavior. The very word "society" implies some measure of common agreement among men concerning their behavior with respect to each other. This behavior at any time must be governed by generally accepted rules of conduct based on knowledge, experience, and some assumptions where our knowledge and experience do not penetrate. But as our comprehension of nature and society grows, our social philosophy should also grow with it. The dynamic growth of social relationships should not be stunted by a doctrinaire conformity of thought imposed by unreasoned emotional response to "beliefs" that could never withstand the penetrating light of free inquiry and experiment. In this most difficult area of inquiry, the university has acquired its deepest responsibilities.

We are at the beginning of a technological revolution, or perhaps better, a "technological explosion." With respect to the earlier revolutions, in its impact on society this technological revolution is destined to be as an H-bomb to a firecracker. Whether you like it or not, you men are of the generation that will feel its full impact. It is your generation that must devise the social adjustments to turn this revolution to man's benefit, or it will surely destroy him. The demands on your wisdom, on your ability to penetrate to the essential elements of the problem, places a respons ibility on you that is far beyond any that man has yet carried. From your ranks must rise the leaders who can recognize the false paths and dead ends; men whose devotion to all of knowledge qualifies them to choose courses and procedures that will retain man's control of his destiny in the face of violent change.

Let me first describe what I mean by the technological revolution. Then I shall turn to some critical aspects of its impact on society.

History 100 years hence may well represent the years 1920 to 1930 as really the beginning of a "technological revolution." It is true that the telephone, the electric light, the automobile, and a hundred other things that now commonly surround us had already come into being. But before 1930 these things had not become deeply engrained in the whole fabric of our existence. As late as the '20's life could still go on without any one of them. In the life time of most of us, we can remember when the first electric light was turned on in our vicinity, when modern sanitation with all its conveniences was introduced, and when the first automobile drove down the street. Even in the late '20's many of these things were still novelties. But by 1930, the telephone, the automobile, and all our principal modern technological devices had become essential to our society. They were no longer novelties. Our farms and urban communities had become deeply dependent on these new contrivances for transportation, communication, the supply of food, and other necessaries of life. We could no longer function without them. So that by 1930 the demand for new devices from technology to improve our standards of living was rising phenomenally.

With the onset of the technological revolution, the invention and development of these technological devices has become very directly dependent upon science for their creation. This direct dependence is relatively a recent social development. To quote from Dr. Henry De Wolf Smyth, former U.S. Atomic Energy Commissioner (and author of the famous Smyth Report on Atomic Energy), in his address at the spring meeting of the Graduate Council of Princeton University on May 1, 1953:

"So long as industrial technology involved mechanical laws, simple chemical operations, or a range Of temperatures and pressures not very different from those obtained with simple fuels under boilers, great industrial progress could be made by a step-wise extension of previous practical experience....

"By the beginning of this century, technology was moving into realms so far removed from ordinary experience that empirical progress became more difficult and more expensive. Industry's need of research was recognized by the foundation of such laboratories as the General Electric Research Laboratory in 1900 and the Western Electric Engineering Department which later became the Bell Telephone Laboratories.

"It was by no means accidental that the interest of these two laboratories should be in the field of electricity, since that was the area in which there was the greatest gap between common experience and industrial practice."

This direct dependence upon comprehensive scientific research for technological progress is now encountered by almost every industry as it finds that its progress can no longer depend upon the simple invention or improvement of devices by the man in the shop. We have reached the point where new industry depends on ideas so far removed from our common experience that they could never have sprung from practical experience alone. As an example, we could mention the discovery of nuclear fission by Hahn and Strassman in 1938, with the consequent spectacular nuclear development that both symbolizes and partakes of the general attributes of the technological revolution: the scale of technological effort, the complex technical quality of the research and of emergent development, the complete dependence of nuclear industry upon advanced research and development for their processes and procedures, and the revolutionary impact of the emergent technology on society and its social development.

Let me turn to a few other examples of technological progress that we may estimate the character of the spectacle that will soon engulf us. We have time to consider only isolated examples. For those who would pursue the matter further, I would recommend Professor Harrison Brown's great work entitled The Challenge of Man's Future, or Victor Cohn's "1999—Our Hopeful Future" featured in the Minneapolis Tribune last month, or a dozen other works by thoughtful men who grasp for the real implications of this oncoming technological explosion.

Consider biology and genetics. The twentieth century has brought an understanding of the processes of heredity with the chromosomes and genes that control the growth of the cell. Our elementary knowledge has already been applied to the development of improved and hybrid strains that greatly enhance our food supply. But let me tell you of a more recent experiment. It has long been known that when a plant is exposed to radioactive emanations, the rate of mutation or change of its heredity factors is increased. In this way we acquire a wider variety of biological samples from which to select favorable strains for further development. With a lot of radiation, we should produce a lot of mutations for subsequent selection. But, unfortunately, a lot of radiation severely damages or kills the plant. Recently, Dr. Singleton at Brookhaven discovered that the great majority of mutations were produced only during a few hours of the plant's total life. Therefore, if we permit the plant to grow normally, but submit it to intense radioactive emanations only during those few sensitive hours, the mutation rate is increased a hundred or a thousand times without damaging the plant at all.

Consequently, the variety of changes from which selection can be made is enormously enhanced. It is as though, for evolutionary purposes, we had collapsed a thousand years into one year. Using these principles in experimenting with oats, Dr. Singleton inoculated his mutations with a most damaging kind of rust. A few mutated stalks were found to be resistant to this rust. These were selected to provide a new rust-resistant variety of oats that is now becoming available in commercial quantities. We could talk all day about the consequences of this one new biological discovery. But let me summarize by quoting the statement of a leading biologist that "within reason, we can now produce new biological strains according to specification." Note the synthesis of physics, mathematics, biology, and genetics in this experiment.

Take another example from the field of medicine. We have learned that if certain compounds are injected into the blood, they will penetrate into certain tissues or organs more easily, or at a different rate, than into others. Some organs will be "hungry" for a compound while others will resist it. Yet if other compounds are simultaneously present, the hunger of one organ for the original compound can be made to diminish, while another organ now takes up the compound more readily. This differential hunger of a tissue or organ for a specific material, and the selective control of this hunger, has become known as "selective kinetics." It makes possible the specific direction of a compound directly to a specific organ at a controlled rate. Selective kinetics has plunged medical research into physics, chemistry, and mathematics, and more than one medical researcher is writing profound differential equations. You can readily understand the enormous implications of direct- ing pharmaceuticals selectively and at a controlled rate to the organ or tissue to be treated.

But consider another aspect of this development. Ordinary borax injected in the blood can, under certain conditions, be made to penetrate particular types of malignant brain tissue more readily than the normal brain tissue. About ten minutes after injection, the malignant tissue will have concentrated most of the borax within it. As time goes on, the borax slowly equalizes in all of the brain tissue. But because of the differential rate of absorption in the different tissues, the malignant tissue contains most of the borax for a few moments after injection. Borax contains the metallic element, boron. One isotope of boron, boron 10, has a high capture cross-section for neutrons. Upon capture of a neutron, 810B10 explodes to form a lithium atom and a helium atom or alpha particle that is very damaging to the tissue for about a tenth of a millimeter around the explosion. If, then, we inject borax containing boron 10 in a suitable patient, and in a few moments expose his malignant tumor to neutrons, we get about 25 explosions in malignant tissue to one in normal tissue. By controlling the neutron dosage, the malignant tissue can be killed without significant damage to the normal brain tissue. Since a nuclear reactor is a prolific source of neutrons, Dr. Farr at Brookhaven and Dr. Sweet at the Massachusetts General Hospital working with the Brookhaven reactor have been able to treat a number of otherwise incurable brain malignancies with very encouraging results.

So do the sciences work together to solve their problems.

We could cite discovery after discovery, and success following success in science that are the making of the technological revolution. Information theory, destined to completely revolutionize communications, is not yet ten years old. Propulsion and control for new means of transportation are at hand. Automatic control has just started to revolutionize our factories. This year Ford is producing more and better engines with 250 men than were produced last year with 2500 men. Chemistry, and the physics of the solid state, is producing new and novel materials to revolutionize our offices, our homes, and even our clothing. In releasing his Executive Order on the Administration of Scientific Research of the Federal Government on March 17, 1954, the President sums up the matter in the following words:

"Science has a vital role in our Nation's security and growth. During the past halfcentury, it has brought about a vast transformation in industry, in agriculture, in medicine, in transportation, and in communications. Military science has been revolutionized by technological development. The impact ofscience is increasingly felt in every field ofpublic policy including foreign affairs. All this has been brought about through a combina- tion of vision, initiative, business enterprise, a strong educational system, and the dedicated enthusiasm of the scientific community."

WHAT are the factors in science that underlie this revolution? I will name a few.

First, there is our recent ability to synthesize the power of all of the scientific disciplines to permit an organized attack that provides, in the hands of free, imaginative, and skillful scientists, a means to solve almost any problem that can be formulated. When a problem encounters fundamental natural limitation on one hand, the power of another scientific discipline can often be used to "end run" around that limitation.

Second, there is the ever-increasing capability of our science and industry, each reacting on the other, to provide intricate tools and materials for manipulation, control, and measurement in experimental science. Electronics, for instance, provides unbelievable means for measurement and experiment in every field of experimental science.

Third, there is the improved communication among scientists that our age provides. Rapid communication and transportation permit synthesis of scientific disciplines on a scale and at a rate heretofore impossible.

Fourth, there is the growth of the new physics stemming from Einstein's theories of relativity with his concept of identity of mass and energy. The development of this single concept, which may be the greatest scientific creation of all time, has come in our age. To those of you who are not physical scientists I might recommend Fritz Kahn's The Design of the Universe which interprets the new physics to the layman.

Finally, I would stress our more general application of the procedures of science to a wider range of both scientific and human problems.

Many people make the mistake of believing that the scientific process is wholly analytical in either the theoretical or the experimental sense. They suppose that in using certain facts, laws, or assumptions, these are combined through a rigid analytical process that subsequently discloses certain conclusions, which can then be tested and confirmed experimentally. It is true that much important science is done this way. But the greatest, the most creative and significant scientific progress seems to come from a somewhat different process. This process involves the formulation of a hypothesis by scientists familiar with pertinent facts or situations, in an endeavor to comprehend and express these facts or situations in terms of some simple central or very general idea. To find a hypothesis the scientist makes an intuitive or artistic approach to his information using an extreme exercise of imagination. This process of creative thinking involves reassociation of old ideas in entirely new and original ways to generate new concepts of very general meaning. The hypothesis, of course, is meaningless until its consequences are developed analytically and tested experimentally, but it is very useful in suggesting experiments of critical value to science that would not otherwise be obvious.

You will immediately recognize in these two processes the contrast of elements of the deductive with the inductive approach to problems. But beyond this, we cannot ignore the creative element of artistry and imagination in the generation of a useful hypothesis or concept. Einstein, with other great modern scientists, has repeatedly emphasized the imaginative as contrasted to the exact elements of successful scientific procedure. Both have their place in modern science.

I have stressed the procedures of science since I believe they are generally applicable to a wider range of human problems than is generally realized. Too many people think of science in terms of its purely analytical processes, and ignore the more creative and significant methods of hypothesis that have met with such signal success. But do not mistake the assertion of an imaginative hypothesis in the social field, whose consequences have not been developed or tested, and which is defended only with emotion, for the scientific method.

These then are the ingredients—the fuel —of the technological revolution: the synthesis of science, magnificent new tools, improved communication, the new physics, and defined procedures for better comprehension, coupled with the confidence of scientists and engineers based on successful experience that no problem is too difficult to consider. The explosion has been detonated by man's curiosity about his environment and his demand for better living. Man cannot improve upon nature but he can command the controls that nature offers.

AT this point I must ask and answer two A questions. First, can our sources of energy support the continued and exponential growth of technology? Second, is the technological revolution a good thing for mankind, or is its impact so great that it should be stopped?

We all know that a technological civilization depends fundamentally on availability of controlled energy. The industrial revolution of the last century was started by James Watt, who with his steam engine contrived to make controlled energy abundant. With the coming of simple electrical transmission of energy over great distances with fixed conductors, the setting for the technological revolution was complete. Each person in America already has the equivalent of 200 slaves at his disposal.

But what of the future? We are a country uniquely rich in fossil fuels—coal, oil, and gas—compared to the rest of the earth. Yet the shortage of fossil fuels is at hand, and within a century they will near exhaustion. The shortage will be the more acute with the growing demands of the rest of the world for the benefits of the technological revolution. In a philosophical sense, man was provided easy access to a limited store of energy, the fossil fuels, to provide a few generations to demonstrate his mechanical ingenuity, and from this to develop new and relatively inexhaustible sources.

The source of future energy will unquestionably be found in nuclear energy, and controlled energy from the sun. You all know that controlled and economical nuclear energy is almost here. Within ten years, energy from nuclear sources will flow into our industrial arteries with increasing efficiency. Good grade ores of uranium and thorium will provide perhaps a hundred times the energy stored in the fossil fuels. Ultimately, low grade ores in ordinary granite can supply nuclear fuel with the equivalent of fifty tons of coal for each ton of granite reduced. So the supply of nuclear fuel is practically inexhaustible.

Likewise we shall learn to harness the tremendous energy of the sun, either directly or through intermediate biological or inorganic processes. We must not forget that the sun's energy received at the earth in one year is more than the total energy stored in all the fossil fuels of the earth throughout history.

Now to the second question—would it be desirable or possible to stop research and invention, so that no new problems would emerge to harass mankind? Let us examine this proposition closely.

The population of the world is now growing at an astronomical rate, for it is doubling about every lifetime. Had we not increased our rate of food production since 1900, we should be starving today. Yet the increases in food production have come about, not so much through increases of acreage, but through the great improvements in agricultural methods that have been achieved by our agricultural science. This increase in agricultural productivity is an essential requirement of our economy if we are to avoid starvation. With the continued growth in populations, we are under compulsion to use every scientific means at hand to produce the foodstuffs that are imperative for an adequate life.

As our populations have grown, our cities have increased in size. In this complex urban civilization the danger of epidemic disease is ever present. Moreover, the sources of disease, the bacteria and the viruses, are in a state of constant evolution, so that a cure this year may be no cure next year. Were an epidemic to spread in our present population, the plague of London in 1660 would be dwarfed by comparison. As our urban areas continue to grow, the problems of public health multiply. To avoid epidemic disease, we must strongly reinforce our programs of public health and preventive medicine with vigorous research efforts. Likewise, to conserve our skills, we must continue our attacks upon the non-epidemic killers - heart disease, cancer, arthritic disease, and mental illness. So we cannot stop medical research, or the research in the physical, chemical, and biological sciences on which medical progress so critically depends, without critically endangering civilization in other ways.

Ironically, an effective public health brings with it another kind of danger. In countries like India and China the death rates from disease are so high that life expectancy is about 30 years compared to our own life expectancy of nearly 70. These populations have been maintained approximately in balance by the tremendous death rate that compensates for the high birth rate. Within the next decade, effective public health services will be introduced into these countries. When this happens, India and China will experience the "population explosion" that automatically accompanies a sudden decrease in the death rate in the face of an uncontrolled birth rate. This gross increase in population will pose a social problem the like of which the world has never seen before. Society will be forced to look to new applications of science to forestall an otherwise incredible disaster.

We could go on to cite case after case where progress in science critically underlies our future survival. Science has become so much a part of our civilization that we could not stop it if we would. The alternative is mass suicide by exposure of civilization to the dangers from which science can shield it.

CAN we not then enjoy the benefits of science, with its technological revolution, without suffering from the problems that accompany this revolution ? This, of course, is the crux of our whole discussion today.

Inherent in all scientific discovery is the potential for either good or evil. The very processes that yield the atomic bomb also hold the promise for our future supplies of energy. The methods of chemical and agricultural research that enhance our supply of food can also provide effective means for destroying that supply. The same medical research that can save millions of lives can also be turned to production of the deadly agents of biological warfare against man. In providing better means for living, the applications of science can produce unemployment and economic unrest. In the very process of saving lives, we produce the population explosion that enormously complicates society's problems.

We must conclude that science is amoral. A scientific discovery can be turned to man's benefit or to his detriment, but its reactions on society are beyond the immediate control of the scientist who makes the discovery. The elementof morality that ensures the application ofscientific discovery for man's benefit canonly be injected by society as a whole. We cannot solve the problem by limiting research to problems directed toward man's good, for in the very act of doing such research we inevitably disclose new knowledge that can react, or can be employed, to man's detriment. Therefore, the disadvantages that may accrue from research cannot be escaped by an attempt to impose a control on research - those disadvantages can only be escaped by society's intelligent recognition and employment of the consequences of scientific research.

With the onset of the technological revolution, society's problems are multiplied astronomically. Even during the centuries of slow social evolution, the world had great difficulty in assimilating new elements of its culture. The violent struggle during social adjustment to the industrial revolution of the last century is well known to every sociologist. But by comparison, the forces of the technological revolution are destined to dwarf the social forces of the last century. Centuries of experience are no longer available to guide solutions to questions of the greatest political, economic, and moral impact. Decisions can only be based on reason and comprehension. The rules of conduct that govern relationships among men, and among nations, must be evolved quickly, effectively, and with few guide lines of experience to meet the environmental changes that condition man's behavior.

As scientific discovery proceeds apace, problem piles upon problem. How shall we handle the atomic bomb—will it save us or destroy us? Will the products of the technological revolution fall under the control of a few monopolies to whom we shall all be slaves, or can it be channelled for the development of innumerable competitive enterprises that permit each of us a continued freedom of choice in our affairs? Will science in the hands of government prove so powerful that we lose our individualities to become mere cogs in the bureaucratic machine of state, or can we relegate government to the regulation of powerful affairs without giving it absolute control over us? How can we retain the freedom and rights of minorities in the face of powerful influences toward centralized control? How can we deal with the problem of changing employment and the need for higher and rapidly changing skills? I leave it to you to formulate a hundred other questions.

But in essence: Can we retain the enormous benefits of the technological revolution by recognizing the false philosophies or panaceas that are offered to cope with violent social upheavals that it is destined to produce? Can we, in the face of economic eruption, escape the hypnotism of false leaders who direct our attention from the real issues only to deprive us of the dignity and freedom that is our priceless and hard-won possession? Can we avoid philosophies of hate, brutality and jealousy that have been temporized by uncivilized leaders throughout history only to engulf their nations in disaster?

I have faith that our society can rise to this challenge if it is provided with full information and a real opportunity for freedom of debate. Diversity in the free expression of views and opinions has been the keystone to the extraordinary success of our democratic system. The convergence of opinion on sound policy arises only after full debate of divergent views. The maturity of the American citizen seems equal to the job.

But there is one outstanding obstacle in the way—that obstacle is technological secrecy. Widespread restriction of free discussion of technological ideas is a relatively new phenomenon in our democratic society; it is a product of the technological revolution at its very inception. This is no accident, for as society generally became deeply dependent on technological development, so too did the military organization increase its dependence on science and technology. On the surface, it appeared reasonable that the military should restrict the exchange of ideas having military implication, on the ground that to permit the free flow of information would hand the enemy our developmental achievements "on a platter."

However, since all important areas of science have military implications, they must, under our present policies, go further and further under the cloak of secrecy.

With the major elements of scientific discovery withheld from society, how is society to exercise its responsibility for the wise application of scientific discovery? The effects of restrictions on freedom of scientific information, and the technological development maturing from it, are fully apparent in the lack of public activity concerning atomic energy and atomic bombs. If there was ever an area of scientific development in which full public participation was needed to permit social adjustment to a new environment, this is it. Actually, a great deal of information in this field is available to him who will search. But there has been so much furtiveness about, that respectable people hesitate to delve.

Under these circumstances, our futures are in the hands of the few men who are both privy to the facts and have the power to act. Their decisions and actions are not tempered by the diversity of opinion that is the integral element of sound debate.

Unfortunately, restriction of information eventually breaks down the necessary flow of communications within our government itself, for the officials of a democratic state must have the benefit of public debate before they can evaluate the information, or even realize what information merits their attention.

The extent of this breakdown has been discussed recently by Commissioner Thomas E. Murray of the Atomic Energy Commission in his talk at Marquette University on December 5, 1953. He says:

"Prudent men tend to stay away from thinking about subjects, the facts of which are not accessible to them, and an assumption by many high government officials that they have but a limited need to know the facts of atomic life, has encouraged a willingness on their part to leave such matters to the experts. ... But this leaving of atomic energy problems to the experts has not been without its great disadvantages. It has tended to make of atomic energy a thing apart - a thing which has been and continues to be, to most government administrators 'none of their business.' " Mr. Murray then cites specific examples of serious errors in administration of government that arose from ignorance or misevaluation of vital information on atomic energy as "the tragic price paid for this segregating of atomic consideration from the main stream of governmental activity."

But even if our public officials had all of the information, there is doubt that they could evaluate it completely, adequately, and correctly in the absence of the diversity of opinion and the broad range of experience represented in public debate. The strength of democracy lies in the perspective and proportion that the diversity of public opinion can provide for the guidance of our public officers. This guidance is now entirely lacking with respect to many of our most critical problems, because fundamental information is either completely restricted, or because public opinion is influenced by inspired or controlled "leaks" of information that support some special interest or view.

In broad areas of secret technology society is now forced to depend wholly upon the judgment of a few men, selected by the idiosyncracies of politics, for decisions of the most far-reaching social importance. The judgment of these men is no longer rendered under the guidance of public experience and debate. Can we not then expect some really colossal blunders whose adverse effect on our lives and safety and well-being will completely overshadow any minor advantage that we might hope to acquire from restriction on information.

One can cite many examples of situations engendered by the policy of secrecy that raise serious question of its effectiveness and desirability.

Really serious secrecy applied to military technology seems to have emerged coincident with the discovery of radar about 1930. During the ensuing decade, the record is not impressive. Secrecy seriously delayed radar development, and neither technical nor tactical progress was very appreciable. As a consequence, radar failed to prevent Pearl Harbor, although it then was technically and demonstratably adequate to have done this relatively simple job. Pearl Harbor was a tactical failure born of military ignorance growing out of secrecy since the warning of the radar was ignored. Had we advertised our radar protection of Pearl Harbor, it is doubtful that the Japanese would have attempted a surprise. In any event, our own commanders would not have been ignorant of the powerful tools at their command.

The development of airborne radar applications awaited the war, for at its commencement we had no anti-submarine radar, no night fighters, no means for extensive sea search. The lack of such weapons is directly attributable to the technological delays consequent to secrecy. Had airborne radar been developed and advertised openly, the consequent great progress in these developments might have so weakened the German confidence in their submarine supremacy, or ability for strategic air attack, that World War II might never have been precipitated.

More recently, the years of delay in initiating a continental defense to clothe our bareness to modern bombs arose from the cover that secrecy afforded to the recalcitrance of a few arrogant men. Is it necessary to cite more examples?

So you can see that the record of our administration of secrecy is un-impressive. Yet the need for widespread secrecy has become a sacred cow, a belief hedged by the deepest emotions and accepted without question by many Americans. In the present atmosphere, one is supposed to feel a sense of guilt in questioning our security policies. Yet the record shows that a little less secrecy, and more comprehension, might well have altered events enormously in our benefit.

Moreover, the policy of extreme and widespread secrecy leads to abuses that have no place in a democratic state. The removal of security clearance, with its inevitable disgrace and loss of employment, has been used as a threat to force conformance of cleared individuals to current policy. The recent denial (New YorkTimes, November 16) to military and naval academy cadets of freedom to debate diplomatic recognition of Red China stems, not so much from direct efforts at "thought control," as from the fear that proponents of Red Chinese recognition in a college debate could not subsequently be "cleared" under security regulations. Thus their usefulness would be lost to the government. Precisely the same sword hangs over the head of anyone whose employment requires access to secret material by sharply restricting his thoughts on any controversial subject. To quote Vannevar Bush, "It is. .. sadly true that we do have thought control in our midst." (New YorkTimes, June 13, 1954.)

Above all, secrecy permits a flood of propaganda, sometimes officially inspired, that is as vicious and misleading as any drivel that the Russians could hope to produce. Concerning the recent book, TheHydrogen Bomb by Shepley and Blair, the former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Gordon Dean, writes: "This is a vicious book. And it is an untrue book.

... The publisher has noted quite accurately that the book was 'manufactured in the United States of America.' Believe me, it was."

The lies, distortions, misrepresentations, and innuendos contained in such propaganda cannot be judged and evaluated publicly when the evidence is buried in secret files. The Soviet Government has demonstrated how under a secret government a people can be misled by selective disclosure of information that serves its ends in the organization of its propaganda.

As an aside, one is led to remark that the reactions of these abuses on the scientific community, taken together with losses arising from restrictions on communications among scientists, has greatly affected our capability to compete successfully with the Soviets on weapon superiority. This gives point to the remarks of John J. McCloy, testifying before the Gray Board on the Oppenheimer case concerning the "relative character of security." McCloy proposed that real security has two aspects, namely the aspect of preventing the loss of secrets, and the aspect of making sure that we have a continuous supply of effective secrets to protect.

Obviously, it would be foolish to advocate complete abandonment of technological secrecy in military matters. Certainly much is to be gained by careful protection of a few very vital secrets that need be known only to a few and that warrant the very special precautions that ensure their protection. Thus, restriction on the specific design of a particular weapon may have real military value, and at the same time have no immediate significance to society. The cover of secrecy is justified in such cases for it yields substantial advantage with no overshadowing disadvantage. But the restrictions placed on scientific and technical information have gone far beyond this sort of thing.

The present laws place our government officials under strong compulsion to suppress information, and provide no counteracting incentive for its release. Consequently, free discussion among Americans is restricted on many subjects that are common knowledge abroad. Anyone can impose the stamp of secrecy, but it is then beyond his control to remove it, for the restricted information falls under control of the "security" machine. There is no impartial tribunal to weigh the whole public interest in considering its release. Judgment must rest with a military officer who may be censured or worse if in the opinion of his superiors he releases improper information. But he is under no penalty for improperly keeping information from the public that might have the most beneficial influence on the future of our affairs.

Many responsible government officials recognize the defects of the present laws that encourage or often require restrictions on information that they are powerless to lift. The Atomic Energy Commission has been reasonably effective in releasing information up to the very restrictive provisions of the law and under very severe political scrutiny. But the law, and the atmosphere of the time, emphasize the application of secrecy of information with little or no counter-recognition of the advantages of its release.

Dr. James G. Beckerly, former Director of the Classification Office of the AEC is recently quoted (New York Times, March '17, 1954) as stating before a group of industrialists in New York: "It is time to stop 'kidding' ourselves about atomic 'secrets,' and time to stop believing that Soviet scientists are incompetent... . The atom bomb and the hydrogen bomb were not stolen from us by spies.... Espionage played a minor role in the attainment of successful weapons by the Soviets The requirements of secrecy in atomic affairs imposed by law should be reviewed."

In emphasizing the unimportance of spying in nuclear physics, Dr. Beckerly pointed out what was widely expressed in sworn testimony before Congress in 1945 by authorities on the matter, that "atom bombs and hydrogen bombs are not matters that can be stolen and transmitted in the form of information." The Congressional hearings on the Fuchs case show that our restrictions on atomic energy information have probably cost more in terms of our own progress than the Russians could possibly have gained from access to the information.

The point is this: For any scientifically advanced nation, and there is every evidence that the Soviet Union is such a nation, there are few if any technological secrets. The only real secret is that you can do something at all, and this you cannot hide. Tell science that someone can do something, and with the industrial and scientific potential at hand, it can, with no further information, equal and even better that accomplishment. This is no boast; it is but the fact of modern technology. Widespread technological secrecy does not deter an enemy so much as it denies our citizens the opportunity to administer properly their own affairs.

This, then, is the dilemma. On one horn of the dilemma, the technological revolution has developed the most critical need in man's history for wisdom and judgment in controlling the intricacies of this revolution, and in directing man's social adjustment to the consequent environment. But on the other horn, the same technological revolution has denied him the most basic information on which that wisdom and judgment must rely.

If, then, our penchant for secrecy does not provide the protection that we have been led to believe, but only insulates us from the wise supervision of our affairs during most critical times, should we not question sharply the wisdom of our present practices?

A deep and searching inquiry into the restrictions on information is needed to find where best lies the public interest. It should be an unfettered inquiry initiated at the highest level of our government. Such an inquiry would stand as a major milestone in our development of public policy and our social maturity. Such an inquiry could dispel the blind faith that more and more "secrecy" can somehow save us. It can define the extent and limitations of legitimate restrictions of information.

In the long view the public interest requires the freedom of substantially all scientific and technological information as well as the potential nature and implications of its application. The exception must be unusual and clearly defined. The application of technology for man's benefit needs the penetrating critique that the diverse interests of our citizens can offer. Our government must have this critique to maintain our adjustment to the rapid social change now promised during the technological revolution. It is in freedom and progress, not restriction, that America finds its power.

AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY'S FINAL BICENTENNIAL CONVOCATION, President Dickey (third from right, second row) received the honorary LL.D. degree as oneof 48 outstanding citizens from this country and abroad. In the first row can be seenQueen Mother Elizabeth, West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, Foreign MinisterPaul Henri Spaak of Belgium and Chief Justice Earl Warren of the U. S. Supreme Court,with President Grayson Kirk of Columbia.

LLOYD V. BERKNER, shown above as he spoke to the seniors in 105 Dartmouth, has permitted the publication here of the Great Issues lecture he gave November 22 under the title "Social Adjustment to the Technological Revolution." Mr. Berkner since 1951 has been president of Associated Universities, Inc., which operates the Brookhaven National Laboratory. In his varied and distinguished career as scientist, he served as engineer with the National Bureau of Standards and with the First Byrd Antarctic Expedition; as head of the Radar Section of the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics., 1941-43, director of its Electronics Material Branch, 1943-45, and Technical Planning Officer aboard the USS Enterprise, 1945-46; and, from 1947 to 1951, as head of the section on exploratory geophysics of the atmosphere for the Department of Terrest rial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution, with which he has long been associated. In 1949 Mr. Berkner served for a time as Special Assistant to the Secretary of State and Director of the Foreign Military Assistance Program in the State Department, and was author of the State Department document Science and Foreign Relations. He has received numerous decorations and citations from the U.S. and British governments and has led American delegations at several international conferences on radio and geophysics.

"If our penchant for secrecy does not provide the protection that we have been led to believe, but only insulates us from the wise supervision of our affairs during most critical times, should we not question sharply the wisdom of our present practices?"