The Debate Among The Scientists

In the debate over SDI, as in the earlier controversy over ABM, opposition from scientists has played an important role in shaping legislation and public opinion. Disagreements over defense policy within the nation's scientific community have become commonplace since the end of World War II, when scientists and engineers began to play a regular and important role in the nation's defense effort. Many scientists and engineers are employed in defense work—25 to 30 percent by one rough estimate^[27]    —and even those who are primarily engaged in nondefense employment contribute indirectly to the defense effort because their work has military applications and because some consult for defense agencies. In view of the importance of their contributions, many have come to feel a special responsibility for taking part in policy debates. Some have gone further, either deciding to opt out of military work or out of all science on the ground that their work could be misused. A few have taken matters into their own hands and practiced resistance, particularly during the controversy over the Vietnam War. Generally, however, most members of the scientific community acknowledge that their expertise gives them no special knowledge of matters of foreign and defense policy. A leadership elite, however, has been very active. Those who generally seek to limit the arms race or openly oppose many new weapons tend to join such organizations as the Federation of American Scientists and the Union of Concerned Scientists. Those who generally support modernization tend to serve on official committees or

to work for government and industrial laboratories; they sometimes support candidates for office who favor a strong defense program.

SDI's most vocal promoters have been a small group of physicists who work at the two major weapons laboratories—Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore. There is also strong (though much dispersed) support in industry, "think tanks," and in the government. At Livermore, Edward Teller has been an inspiring leader of some of the key researchers in part as director of the Hertz Foundation, through which some of the most talented young physicists have been recruited to the laboratory.

The role is one to which Teller has grown accustomed. He has long been a believer in the exploitation of technology for military purposes without restraint. While the fission bomb was still under development, he agitated at Los Alamos for permission to work on the next stage, the thermonuclear bomb. This permission was granted by the laboratory director, J. Robert Oppenheimer, once the key theoretical task involved in the fission bomb was sufficiently accomplished. A few years later, when Oppenheimer chaired the GAC (which recommended against a crash program to develop the H-bomb), Teller criticized him passionately, accusing him not only of bad judgment (which, as he would later testify at Oppenheimer's security hearing, was ground for concluding that he was a "security risk") but also of interjecting political and moral views when asked his scientific opinions. He believes that the United States is in a life-and-death struggle with Soviet communism and that the best U.S. strategy would be the unrestrained pursuit of technological advantage.

Teller also believed in the virtues of defense, as we note in chapter 1. In the 1950s, he was an advocate of civil defense at a time when it was thought the Soviets were developing a bomber force that could strike at the U.S. mainland. As the Soviets developed a large ICBM force capable of devastating U.S. urban centers, most of those who had become interested in civil defense abandoned the cause, convinced that it would be a futile, tremendously expensive way to protect even a fraction of the population. Some also argued that building defenses would be interpreted as provocative because a commitment to do so could indicate willingness to contemplate a first strike. Teller disagreed and urged the adoption of a serious program to build shelters and to disperse industry and population.

Teller has remained consistent in his support for continuing improvements to defensive and offensive weapons. He has argued that some defense is better than none, and that all forms of defense, including both

passive and active measures, are desirable and even critical to the credibility of a deterrent posture. He opposed the limited test ban of 1963 because it would seriously interfere with U.S. development of an ABM (then always thought of as employing nuclear explosives). More generally, he has opposed the proposal for a comprehensive nuclear-test ban on the ground that it would inhibit research to develop newer atomic weapons of all kinds, including types that would produce less fallout and be configured for greater accuracy and thus less collateral damage. He also opposed the ABM Treaty on the ground that it would prevent the United States from developing new systems that might be more effective than those known in 1972 for intercepting nuclear attacks.

As we have noted, however, Teller did not endorse the Fletcher Committee's recommendation that a decision on deployment be deferred pending further research. He argued that elaborate space-based systems were vulnerable to countermeasures and were far too expensive as well as unlikely to provide a truly leakproof defense. For the same reason, he also declined to endorse High Frontier's space-based KEW system, arguing instead for terminal defenses, which were feasible and would provide affordable protection to some degree, and for a high-priority development program, mainly involving the X-ray laser.

The main political push for the president's program had come initially from the High Frontier organization, which was the brainchild of Lt. Gen. Daniel O. Graham, and which came to include a small group of relatively second-rank industrial military researchers. In 1984 a document marked "not for release" and apparently prepared under the auspices of the Heritage Foundation (though an official of that organization later attributed it to High Frontier) was obtained and widely circulated by SDI critics. It was seized upon with relish by these critics because it seemed to reveal a cynical and conspiratorial strategy for promoting SDI, which bore at least a superficial resemblance to actual events. The document, reportedly prepared by a consultant, set three goals for the campaign: to achieve "initial startup" of deployment during the second term of the Reagan administration, to develop sufficient momentum behind the project so that "it could not be turned off by a replacement or successor Democratic administration," and to foster the creation of "a broad political constituency favoring a new U.S. arms-control strategy featuring major BMD deployments at an early time." The strategy called for a unilateral U.S. effort to develop BMD to be couched as a "new approach to nuclear arms control" which "could be represented as a bilateral effort—one with Soviet reciprocation and participation." Among the virtues of this approach, the author argued, was that it could

"disarm BMD opponents either by stealing their language and cause (arms control), or … [put] them into a tough political corner through their explicit or de facto advocacy of classical anti-population war crimes." The author recommended that High Frontier enlist an "offshore" constituency among major allied governments and find some institutional "home" for the project outside its own ranks. This might be done by identifying a "forceful personality" who might champion the cause (Henry Kissinger was mentioned as a possible candidate), by inspiring the creation of a summer study group, or (in the author's opinion the best option) by organizing a group across the political spectrum in order to remove the perception that "BMD is primarily a 'right wing' cause." Earmarked for recruitment to the cause were conservative columnists, members of Congress, and defense analysts, "neutral" groups such as "pro-Israel political circles," financial and professional organizations, and—most ambitious of all—even such already committed groups as the FAS, SANE, freeze groups, and the Center for Defense Information.^[28]   

Graham did not succeed in enlisting nearly so broad a constituency, but he did find allies in Congress and in the White House. Defense Department officials turned a polite but deaf ear to High Frontier proposals until the president adopted the cause. From then on, the DOD reversed course until, in short order, its leaders were arguing that an intermediate deployment such as that advocated by High Frontier would make sense and that eventually beam weapons would be added to the system.

When critical reports began to appear, starting with the report for the Office of Technology Assessment prepared under commission by the physicist Ashton B. Carter^[29]    and a report prepared by the Union of Concerned Scientists,^[30]    under the direction of physicists Hans Bethe, Kurt Gottfried, and Richard Garwin, other defenders of SDI began to be heard from. One spokesman was Robert Jastrow, a professor at Dartmouth who had been director of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Using data supplied by the pro-SDI scientists at Los Alamos, Jastrow disputed the figures that the UCS used to show that an SDI system would be impossibly expensive.^[31]    The UCS had calculated that in order to achieve adequate coverage against the existing Soviet ICBM force, the United States would have to orbit a fleet of more than two hundred satellites. Jastrow claimed the real number was closer to one hundred. The UCS conceded that its original calculation was in error, pointing out that the mistake had been corrected before its testimony was presented to Congress, but it also argued that Jastrow's numbers rested on

unrealistic assumptions about the brightness that could be achieved by chemical lasers and other relevant parameters. This phase of the debate was soon superseded, when attention shifted away from chemical lasers based on battle satellites toward a combination of kinetic weapons parked in "garages" in space and beam weapons fired from ground-based systems such as the free-electron or excimer laser using presumably cheap mirrors capable of being proliferated at low cost.

The anti-SDI forces were spearheaded by the UCS and the FAS. The FAS maintained a resident space specialist, John E. Pike, to comment on the program and to study its various facets, including the relationship of SDI to the ABM Treaty, the pattern of contracting, and the relationship of SDI to arms control. Both the UCS and FAS issued a drumbeat of reports critical of the project.

A subsidiary theme in the quarrel over the SDI has long been the question of its applicability to the nation's civil industry. Supporters, notably Keyworth, argue that SDI would be a tonic for U.S. high-technology industry. Knowledgeable skeptics like Harvey Brooks complain that SDI is an altogether inadequate substitute for a national science policy. Brooks notes that military projects tend to be directed toward narrow objectives and to yield products and processes that are of limited value in the civil economy, partly because of security restrictions but also because of the growing incompatibility of military (especially space) technology and civil needs.^[32]    John P. Holdren and F. Bailey Green argue that far from promoting useful spin-offs, SDI is likely to divert critically needed talent and resources from the civil sector and make the country even less competitive in civil markets.^[33]   

The anti-SDI forces also gained strength from the circulation of a variety of petitions and opinion surveys. A petition circulated by a group of physicists at Cornell University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign among physics departments in the nation's universities was signed by some 6,500 faculty members and graduate students, who pledged not to accept funds for research on SDI. The signers included majorities of the faculties at the nation's twenty leading departments.^[34]    In response to a questionnaire sent to members of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences (NAS) a large majority of respondents declared SDI's goals neither feasible nor desirable.^[35]    Another petition, initiated at AT&T Bell Laboratories and circulated among researchers employed in government and industrial laboratories, called for a curb on appropriations for SDI (but did not commit the signatories to boycott SDI-related projects). This petition, which had 1,600 signatures, took the form of an open letter to Congress urging that support for SDI

be limited "to a scale appropriate to exploratory research."^[36]    A poll taken by the UCS of 549 randomly selected members of the American Physical Society found that SDI was criticized as "a step in the wrong direction" by 54 percent of the respondents who did not oppose other military R&D; 29 percent were in favor.^[37]   

A counterpetition was circulated by a group of eighty scientists and engineers led by Frederick Seitz, a former NAS president. This petition chided those who opposed SDI for being unfaithful to the scientific method. Instead of condemning the project in advance, "hastily, unscientifically, or ideologically," the petitioners urged their fellow scientists to allow it to continue until the prospects for strategic defense could be fairly evaluated.^[38]   

Conflict over SDI also flared dramatically into the open in 1988 when Roy D. Woodruff, associate director of defense systems at Livermore, made public his complaint that Teller and others at the laboratory were passing on their own overoptimistic assessments of progress on the X-ray laser to senior officials, including Nitze and McFarlane, as though they reflected the views of the laboratory. In October 1985 Woodruff had resigned his position in protest, charging that he had been put in an "untenable position" because he had been denied an opportunity to show that Teller and Wood were "overselling" the program. Although Woodruff was subsequently reassigned to a new post, and a General Accounting Office inquiry found that several Livermore officials, including Woodruff himself, had made statements about the X-ray laser that had been no less optimistic than Teller's, it was also reported that Woodruff had specifically taken issue with Teller's claim, as early as December 1983, that research had been so successful that the laser was ready "for engineering." Woodruff eventually decided to file a personal grievance with the president of the University of California (which operates the laboratory under contract to the Department of Energy) that he had been "constructively demoted" because Teller and Wood "undercut my management responsibility for the X-ray laser program and conveyed both orally and in writing overly optimistic, technically incorrect statements regarding this research to the nation's highest policy makers."^[39]   

Scientific Judgment And Political Commitment

What significance should be attached to the expressions of dissent among scientists not at work on SDI is an intriguing and difficult question. In what proportions does the controversy among the scientists and

engineers reflect scientific judgment or political commitment? Many of the physicists who signed the Cornell-Illinois petition are probably not directly conversant with defense research and receive their research support from the National Science Foundation and other nonmilitary agencies. Strong opposition at the universities has not prevented SDIO from placing a large number of projects with university scientists. SDIO officials even claimed to have set up university-industry consortia, though this claim aroused protests from university administrators who noted that contracts accepted by individual researchers did not imply institutional endorsement. Some of the opposition among scientists clearly does not arise solely from scientific judgment. Many university physicists were apt to oppose the Reagan administration and its policies, including SDI, on political grounds. Even many of the critics agree, moreover, that some level of expenditure on strategic-defense research is warranted as a hedge against the possibility that the Soviets might stage a breakout from the ABM Treaty and might deploy certain space-based defensive technologies. Some also suggest that the United States might profitably consider the deployment of defenses aimed at protecting retaliatory capacity and command and control.

A similar division of scientific opinion was expressed in congressional hearings on the proposed deployment of ABMs in the 1960s. Then, too, as Harvey Brooks notes, policy views were couched in the form of technical judgments to suit political purposes:

Many of the technical witnesses, on both sides, were really motivated by strategic policy considerations, or their personal evaluations of the international situation, or the supposed intentions of the Soviets, but their political allies found it more politic for them to couch their arguments in narrow technical terms, partly because technical experts are often automatically regarded as having nothing useful to say on policy matters. Furthermore, technical testimony appears more "objective" and politically neutral, and it is thus thought to carry more weight with those politicians who have not yet made up their minds.^[40]   

Professional and personal interests are also at play. Some of those who do military R&D are no doubt committed to SDI because they see it as a source of continued funding, especially if the need for research on offensive weapons tapers off. In view of the many technical problems that remain to be addressed in order to perfect offensive systems, however, such self-interest seems an unlikely explanation for the attitudes of researchers—although industrial laboratories and firms may have their eyes on the vast potential represented by defensive procurement contracts.

Some scientists may believe, as David L. Parnas has charged, that even if nothing militarily useful can come of SDI, something beneficial can come for the specialties in which they work.^[41]    In that sense professional curiosity and self-interest may be a motivating factor for some of the scientists. In the case of some of the younger scientists, it is also possible that a desire to do something new and better than their elders is at play. Some of the scientists who work on military projects generally, including SDI, believe they have a duty to contribute to the national security of the United States and the security of the West generally, because, generally speaking, the United States has used its power for benign purposes whereas the Soviet Union is an aggressive, expansionist power whose leaders cannot be trusted. Still others view the world as a system of sovereign states with little law and no law enforcement governing the relations among them, and they argue that even if they did not do the research, someone else would. Motives are undoubtedly as varied and complex in this area as they are in others.

On the side of the critics, there seems to be a more explicit political motivation. Generally, those who are ready to renounce funding for SDI and are otherwise dubious about the motivations behind SDI argue that the political forces promoting it are eager to avoid arms control because they do not fear nuclear war as much as they fear Soviet superiority. In their view, the aim of SDI is not the president's benign goal of making nuclear weapons "impotent and obsolete" (because that is widely recognized to be unattainable) but a panoply of much less benign motivations: to challenge the Soviets to an expensive race in high-technology weapons development that they would lose, to establish a military presence in space for offensive as well as defensive purposes, and to sustain the military-industrial complex by promoting a new phase in the military competition between the superpowers. Whatever the goal, they argue, the result of the competition would be to make the world less stable and to promote the chances of nuclear war, because the Soviet response would include the development of a stronger offensive force and resistance to any proposals for arms control. In general, they perceived the Reagan administration to be guided by an obsessive anticommunism and mistrust of arms control, ironically at a time when, because of a major change in the Soviet leadership, the U.S.S.R. is more open than ever to the possibility of serious arms reduction and a renewal of détente with the West. If SDI had not been deliberately contrived for aggressive purposes, they suggest, the administration should have been willing to trade it away as a bargaining chip in negotiations.

The report prepared by a panel appointed by the American Physical Society (APS) suggests that despite these very real political differences—which produce powerful effects in promoting policy commitments—the structure of scientific evidence and thinking is such that consensus is possible on a good many, if not all, of the main technical points. Scientists are apt to disagree about what can be accomplished over what span of time and at what level of effort, but they do not disagree much about what is known and what is yet to be accomplished. The APS report makes it clear that some of the proposed technologies are at least theoretically conceivable, but it also points out that the most important of them are still orders of magnitude away from producing the energies or power necessary to be useful in defensive systems. Even if the technical parameters are met, the report cautions, it remains to be seen whether the devices will prove feasible as weapons or will be less expensive to deploy than offensive systems that could overwhelm or evade them.

In political terms, the APS report was widely considered hostile to SDI. Journalistic accounts emphasized the report's conclusion that it would be many years before the feasibility of space-based beam weapons could be demonstrated. That much was correct, and insofar as SDI has been perceived as a program that promises a quick answer to the question, the report was properly considered critical. If SDI is perceived as a research program, however, the report is not so much a critique as a status report. Nevertheless, it did not satisfy enthusiasts for SDI. In a presentation to the House Republican Research Committee in May 1987, two active SDI researchers, Lowell Wood and Gregory Canavan, criticized both the press coverage of the APS report and the report itself.^[42]    As we note in chapter 3, their charges provoked a rebuttal that left the report's findings undisturbed.

The SDI is only the latest chapter in a division among physicists that opened once the atomic bomb was developed and used against Japan. Until then, disagreements had been muted for the sake of winning the war against Nazi Germany. Once the war was over, a split developed that reflected differing appraisals of the need to gain control over atomic warfare and the possibility of rapprochement with the Soviets. Scientists took different views of defense policy, first with respect to containment, then with respect to the strategy of deterrence and arms control. Many have continued to work on weapons even though they may have disagreed with various aspects of government policy. They do so partly to continue to have some access to policymakers and thus to have influence over policy, partly because they are fascinated by the technology, but in

general because they are committed both to the design of military technology and to the effort to achieve their different policy goals. When Hans Bethe came to Livermore and acknowledged that the idea behind the X-ray laser was scientifically sound, Teller felt vindicated. In an open letter to Bethe in 1986, Teller criticized the scientists who had opposed SDI in the NAS poll, lamenting that the "World War II unanimity of the scientific community" in developing nuclear weapons had been lost. "I am writing this letter," Teller asserted, "in the hope that you and others may find some way to move from polemic debate and confrontation toward technical criticism, understanding, and cooperation."^[43]    Behind the show of indignation, however, lies a reluctance to acknowledge that more is at stake than the accuracy of a scientific theory or line of work. Teller and Bethe—and the scientists who align themselves with both—disagree about what is to be done with such weapons and how their use can be prevented. Both sides are inevitably enmeshed in a political struggle to organize constituencies for and against SDI.