ESD 83

The Cold War and American Science: The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford Stuart W. Leslie

Introduction Is Michelangelo less of an artist because he was commissioned to paint the Sistine Chapel? This is the moral dilemma that Stuart Leslie presents in this book. The setting, however, is the Cold ar. The stor! is "big science# and high technolog!. The actors are the brightest research scientific and engineering minds from MIT and Stanford, the militar!, and industr!. $nd the drama is the race between two powers for technological and scientific supremac!. %ne infers from the book&s introduction that the author is a historian and professor at 'ohns (opkins )niversit!. This book was written with grants from the *S+ and *,(. The author&s strong effort towards thorough research is evident from the --./ footnotes. The histor! and events are well researched, but the book is also moral histor!. The author&s message is clear. There is no ambiguit! about his position, he writes0 +or better and for worse, the Cold ar redefined $merican Science. 1 the long term costs must be reckoned both in dollars and in sense, in terms of our scientific communit!&s diminished capacit! to comprehend and manipulate the world for other than militar! ends. 1 we begin to appreciate what was at risk in letting the militar! pla! such a crucial role in setting the academic agenda. 1 proved out fears of Cornell 2and later MIT3 ph!sicist 4hilip Morrison and others that the militar! would end up bu!ing $merican science on the "installment plan.# 1 the Silicon 5alle!s and 6oute -78s could not revitali9e $merica&s basic industries and sagging competitiveness.# 1 Stanford&s department fell comfortabl! into a pattern of appeasement toward militar!: industrial ph!sics 1

The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex $s the name implies, the "Militar!:Industrial:$cademic Comple;# is a tri:partite institutional configuration that is mutuall! beneficial to achieve a super ordinate goal. $s all comple; s!stems, this arrangement achieves its goals, but also produces emergent s!stem effects that the author argues are less than desirable. e are running ahead of ourselves at this point, more on this at the end of the report. <elow is a simplified sketch to illustrate our interpretation of the structural form of this comple;. e have limited the boundaries of this illustration in order to make the illustration is self: e;planator!.

page 1 4/16/14

ESD 83

*ational ?efence Technolog! 4olic!

critical technolog! problems scientific and engineering breakthroughs

Fgovernment organi9ations
compete to solve knowledge bid for contracts

$ )niversit!
knowledge

$ business

Summary of Key Research Pro rams and !a"s In this section we will present brief sketches of some of the ma=or research programs at MIT and Stanford to illustrate some of the militar!:industrial:universit! research programs domains. MIT 24entagon ,ast, S. Leslie3 Research Laboratory for Electronics (RLE) This lab is significant because it became the model for interdepartmental cooperation, as well as, the template for militar!:industrial:universit! research programs. Lincoln Lab (1950) 4rincipall! funded b! the $ir +orce it studied the integrated air defense of the )S. 4roduced the concept of a network of ground radar s!stems, antiaircraft s!stems all connected to computers. Led to the S$>, 2Semiautomatic ground environment3 s!stem and ?, line. Industr! partner included I<M. It was at the time the largest 6@? enterprise since the Manhattan pro=ect. ra!er Lab (195") +ounded b! the Charles Stark ?raper ?raper. 6esearch included instrumentation, guidance s!stems, infrared s!stems, effect of atomic blasts on missiles. 4artners included the *av!, and Sperr!. Two of its graduates became $ir +orce Secretaries. >eneral 'imm! ?oolittle was another illustrious graduate. In -ABA it had a budget of CDE million, which e;ceed the Institutes 2without Lincoln Lab3.

page 2 4/16/14

ESD 83

Laboratory of #uclear Science (19$%&1950's) $nother one of Slater&s man! contributions to MIT. ith funding from the $,C and the )S *av! to build a nuclear reactor on campus. 6ickover needed to shrink the si9e of a nuclear reactor and new special shielding in order to put them in submarines. ith %*6 developed the electron s!nchrotron. est, S. Leslie3

Stanfor( 24entagon

Micro)a*e Lab Supported b! the visionar! Terman and created b! (ansen. Leveraged kl!stron device and created 5arian $ssociates with Sperr! for radar tracking, microwave bombsights, etc. Later missioned to create a linear accelerator of unprecedented scale and to design and build powerful new microwave tubes to drive it. %*6 funded. +eronautical en,ineerin, ?urand, a naval architect begins research on airplane propeller designs. <uilds a wind tunnel. The Missile >ap debate makes Lockheed =oin the missile club. ins 4olaris contract and moves to Santa Clara to be close to Stanford. (off student of von Garman revitali9es Stanford&s aero engineering department. $ ver! productive partnership between government, Stanford and Lockheed develops. 4olaris is a success and wins follow on contracts for the 4oseidon and Trident submarines. Santa Clara Lockheed personnel sk!rocket from 7.. in -ADB to 7D,... b! -ABE. 6esearch e;pands to include orbital mechanics, space vehicle design, h!personic structures, and plasma ph!sics. <! -ADA Stanford&s aero status is on par with MIT and Caltech.

Success #actors +rom the reading, we find that the productivit! and efficac! of the militar!:industrial:universit! research model can be attributed to si; dominant factors0 E-o,enous historical con(itions. The Cold ar began after II as a result of a realignment of the balance of power. The Soviet )nion, a former all! became an adversar! that was able to build nuclear weapons with unanticipated speed. The Gorean ar fomented b! the Soviet )nion Huickl! followed in the earl! -AD.s. In -ADI, the! shocked the world b! launching the first man:made satellite, Sputnik. $merican polic! makers became convinced that the )S could not afford to lose the technological race. .ar&si,hte( lea(ers. 5annevar <ush set the e;ample as chief architect of wartime science polic! and strong advocate of universit! research. (e was convinced that "the nation was not prepared for the scientific challenges of an! coming war and that even the militar!&s own laboratories were not up to the =ob.# (e convinced 6oosevelt to put him charge of the %ffice of Scientific 6esearch and ?evelopment 2%S6?3. %S6? spent CED. million on research and made man! scientific breakthroughs during the war. Slater, MIT ph!sics professor, not onl! elevated the ph!sics depart to one of the best research departments in the )S, but was the guiding hand in ke! MIT research laboratories. ?raper professor of $ero and $stro built a research organi9ation of such stature that its research budget rivaled MIT itself 2minus Lincoln Lab3. Stanford&s 4anofsk! had a vision of
page 3 4/16/14

ESD 83

building a D. billion ev linear accelerator. Terman of Stanford transformed its engineering school to an outstanding one b! methodicall! building facult! and =udiciousl! targeting areas of research. #e) /o(el of Research an( .un(in,. The militar!:industrial:universit! research model is shown in the previous page. Its salient features go be!ond the obvious partnership among the three parties. The armed forces and business became researchers and developers of scientific and engineering solutions at the universities. +or e;ample in -ABE, the MIT nuclear engineering graduated -A7 students. EB were from the militar!, --D from the *av!&s contractors. Lockheed was not onl! a source of ad=unct facult! for Stanford, but of students 2up to D. a !ear3 and an emplo!er of its graduates. The organi9ational model was elastic. hile MIT adopted the Laborator! model for its research, Stanford often opted to have its facult! run their own teams without necessaril! creating a new organi9ation. $nother ke! reason for the productive nature of the relationship was that the research was mission oriented. The problems to be solved had well defined goals. Inter(isci!linary research. Stanford&s Center for Material 6esearch emphasi9ed its strong ties with research programs in aeronautics and electronics. In the same manner, at MIT, the Center for Material Science and ,ngineering combined the domain disciplines of metallurg!, ceramics, solid: state ph!sics, chemistr! and electrical engineering. Stovepipe research could not compete with this interdisciplinar! approach to big problems. The ?%?:)niversit! +orum initiative spend C-7D million aimed at stimulating interdisciplinar! research. +n una/bi,uous *isible han(. In the reading, we can find no case where the government organi9ation is vague or ambiguous about the problem the! want to solve. The problems are mission oriented0 e.g., need to address air defense that culminated in S$>, at MIT, e;treme precise and accurate inertial navigational s!stems, behavior of materials at h!personic speeds, shrinking nuclear reactors for submarines, microwave counter measures, propeller designs for new aircraft, relativit! g!roscopes capable of measuring relativistic precessions, etc. Money an( lots of it. The government spent prodigious sums of mone!. +or e;ample, in -AE., the MIT 6adiation Lab 2later became the 6esearch Lab of ,lectronics3 had more people working there than the Manhattan pro=ect. The S$>, program cost the )S government C8 < over a decade. The $ir +orce spent C- < to develop a nuclear airplane. The bill to upgrade Stanford&s superconductor accelerator0 C77 M. $pinions The title of the book is "The Cold ar and $merican Science0 The Militar!:Industrial:$cademic Comple; at MIT and Stanford.# $ more appropriate title would have been0 JThe Militar!:Industrial: $cademic Comple; at MIT and Stanford during the Cold ar.# The work done at MIT and Stanford is well researched and the emergent undesirable emergent behavior of this comple; s!stem is passionatel! argued. )nfortunatel!, the author barel! discusses the historical conte;t that motivated the formulation of $merican technolog! policies that encouraged universities and brilliant scientists and engineers like Slater and Terman to partner with industr!. +or e;ample, the issues of national survival and hegemonic ambitions of $merica&s rivals and adversaries are barel! visible. e believe

page 4 4/16/14

ESD 83

that these conditions e;erted a powerful influence in the formation of national technolog! polic!, but Leslie sheds no light on this sub=ect. The book is prone to sermoni9ing. ,ver! chapter ends with a little editorial often using the voice of others b! Huoting them. To make sure the readers get the point, the last chapter is titled0 "The ?a!s of 6eckoning0 March E and $pril /.# 2The !ear is -ABA at the height of the 5ietnam war and student antiwar demonstrations in the )S.3 The following are e;amples0 <ut it cost them something too:if not their self:image, then their independence. 1their ver! success raised troubling, and enduring Huestions about the e;tent to which the militar! establishment set the rules and determined how the game would be pla!ed.# 1 perhaps there should be envisioned an aeronautical industr! without a militar! ob=ect. The Huestion arises, therefore, whether the restrictions imposed upon research sponsored b! government or industr! is likel! to lead to a loss of our academic ideals? Though bigness is of the essence of the research organi9ations, the thoughts the! produce fall into various small corners of the universities& range of knowledge. e

These are noble sentiments. e agree and respect them. <ut the author offers no alternatives. think that this is a serious omission.

page 5 4/16/14