The Case for Secret Research

In addition to Dow and the CIA, a tempting target for antiwar protesters is Government-sponsored secret research carried out on many university campuses. In response to faculty protests, the University of Pennsylvania recently canceled its contracts with the Defense Department to study chemical and biological warfare. The Universities of Pittsburgh and Minnesota are debating similar action; Stanford and N.Y.U. have applied severe restrictions to such work. Last week there were sit-ins and teach-ins at Michigan, protesting military research at the university. At Princeton, students have been bitterly protesting the use of university land for a government-founded Institute for Defense Analyses.

Most of the anti-research pressure comes from professors in the liberal arts, who rarely land even an unclassified Government contract and thus can easily afford to complain that secret research is academically immoral. In addition to the argument that such research commits the university to aiding what they consider an unjust war, the anti-secrecy professors contend that classified contracts violate the spirit of free inquiry on which scholarship depends and that they make professors agents of the Government.

Small Price. So far, the debate has been largely one-sided, since the scientists and technicians engaged in secret research have been unable to ex plain what they do. But professors in a position to speak out argue that much of the advanced work in their fields-whether they like it or not--is related to defense programs. Stanford Electronics Laboratories Director William R.

Rambo says that the irritating secrecy provisions are "a small price to pay" to stay on top of recent developments in his field. "To cut us off from classified research is to cut us off from the state of the art," says Michigan's Electrical Engineering Chairman Hansford W. Farris.

Stanford Electrical Engineer Oswald Garrison Villard Jr., who considers himself almost as ardent a pacifist as his father, the famed former editor of the Nation, has long been engaged in secret work related to rocket propulsion and guidance in order to keep abreast of his main scholarly interest: upper-atmosphere engineering. "To know what is important in this field, you have to be in on the classified aspect of it," he says.

Despite the irritation of security and government red tape, many of the results of secret research eventually do get published, the professors insist. They also point out that most such projects have many nonclassified aspects that provide valuable training for Ph.D. candidates. At Michigan, for example, classified electronics research has produced at least 30 doctorates. There is also considerable nonmilitary fallout from secret work. A 26-acre antenna built at Stanford to help the U.S. learn how to detect enemy missile launches was used by Stanford Electrical Engineer Von R. Eshleman to bounce the first radar signals off the sun.* Classified research at Michigan helped Emmett N. Leith develop the new science of holography (see SCIENCE), which uses laser light to produce three-dimensional images with potential uses in art, television and industry. Says Leith: "The idea that you can close yourself off to these programs is pure ignorance."

Ignorance Is Stupid. Antiwar humanities professors tend to see Government-imposed secrecy on research as a clear violation of academic freedom. Scientists argue that university regulations forbidding them to undertake such work are equally a violation. Pittsburgh's John Horty, who directed a classified project to collect U.S. treaties and documents affecting defense agreements with other nations--and found the techniques equally applicable to the assembling of nonsecret documents--believes that academic freedom is supposed to "guard against emotionalism." He thinks "temporarily unpopular research" should be protected against the "emotionalism" of those who oppose the war.

Many scientists point out that very little secret university research is applicable in Viet Nam. Protesting classified projects because of the war, contends Stanford's Villard, "is about as logical as objecting to paying your taxes by kicking the postman who brings the tax form." Even less is such research directly involved with the development of new weapons. The canceled secret projects at Pennsylvania on chemical and biological warfare, for example, were primarily designed to find out how to protect U.S. civilians against attack from an enemy using them. "It is not safe for the U.S. to be ignorant of these powerful weapons," argues Penn Biochemist Knut A. Krieger, who directed the studies. Villard points out that secret anti-missile work is intended to help maintain the nuclear stalemate--which is the present best guarantee for peace.

* Indicating another way that military projects can help academic research, the State University of New York last week bought two $8,500,000 surplus Atlas missile silos for $667 each. SUNY will use the silos to study the effects of cosmic rays on the aging of fruit flies and white rats. The Government has sold eight other surplus missile sites to educational institutions including Kansas State and Colorado State universities.

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