M.I.T. and the Pentagon

In the days when wars were simple --and considered just--the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was a proud developer of U.S. weaponry. As a patriotic duty in World War II, for instance, the school's electronics wizards perfected the radar that foiled Hitler's bombers. Now duty has become a Faustian dilemma. In the age of antiwar dissent, M.I.T. still gets more money from the Pentagon--$108 million last year --than any other U.S. university. The result has thrust M.I.T. to the forefront of a growing national debate: What role, if any, shall universities play in war research?

The dispute at M.I.T. only marginally involves the school's on-campus research, which received $17 million from the Pentagon last year. This is generally thought of as "clean" money, since it finances nonsecret research--into computer technology, for example. The issue, rather, is what to do about the off-campus Instrumentation and Lincoln labs, which get the lion's share of the Pentagon cash. They operate with so much independence that M.I.T. administrators exercise virtually no control over what projects they undertake. Although they do some civilian work on space projects, including Apollo moon flights, the "special labs" are mainly involved in military research, most of it classified.

Diverting Talent. The Lincoln Laboratory, for example, has developed a foliage-penetrating radar that detects Viet Cong hiding in the jungle. The Instrumentation Laboratory has designed a multiple-warhead guidance system for the Navy's Poseidon missile. Radical students, who staged a march at "I-lab" in April, insist that a university should totally shun research that is aimed at killing people. Moderate students and professors argue that the special labs' secrecy violates the academic principle of free inquiry, and more basically, that the growth of the special labs has diverted M.I.T. talent from domestic and social problems, such as housing, pollution and transportation. In fiscal 1969, the Instrumentation and Lincoln labs accounted for almost 70% of the $176 million that M.I.T. spent on all types of research.

Last spring a special faculty-student-administration panel recommended that the labs gradually start new programs in domestic and social research, while reducing secret military work and rejecting "projects involving the actual development of a prototype weapons system, except in times of grave national emergency." The panel also urged the university to set up a standing committee of faculty, students and lab staffers to advise M.I.T. President Howard W. Johnson on which projects the labs should accept or continue to pursue. The recommendations pleased the moderate majority of M.I.T.'s faculty, which last month voted 450 to 11 to put them into effect on a trial basis.

Unfortunately, the proposed screening committee is likely to have great trouble deciding which military projects are appropriate for the special labs. For example, all members of the special review panel judged the Poseidon program, now that it is out of the basic-research stage, improper for a university-connected lab. But they split sharply over the I-lab's work on Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) aircraft. The majority defended it on the grounds that VTOLs could be used to speed civilian intercity transit and the project is "far from the production-prototype stage." By contrast, antiwar Guru Noam Chomsky vehemently argued that VTOLs would be used mainly for "repressing domestic insurgency in countries subject to our influence or control." Another problem, not answered by the panel: Would there be time to develop a prototype weapons system during the "grave national emergency" that the panel majority agreed would justify such work? An even more fundamental question is whether the labs can raise enough money for domestic and social-research projects to shift significantly away from military work. Administrators agree that the money will have to come from Washington. With the Nixon Administration in a budget-cutting mood, there are grounds for doubt that it will be available.

Ready for Violence. If the labs cannot be redirected toward civilian work, says M.I.T. President Johnson, the university may divorce them, presumably by selling the labs to business or the government. Stanford and Cornell are trying that solution with their own special labs.* It might please moderate students and faculty who do not object to weapons research as such but consider it out of place in a university. It definitely would not please the radicals, who want to stop all war-related research at the special labs, whether or not M.I.T. operates them.

The November Action Coalition, a loose grouping of radical organizations in the Boston area, threatens a demonstration at the Instrumentation lab this week. The militants do not have much support on campus; the M.I.T. faculty gave President Johnson a standing ovation recently when he promised "to call upon the civil authorities for help" in stopping any violence. The undergraduate senate, which is the body most representative of student opinion, also endorsed Johnson's stand. Nevertheless, the special labs are taking no chances. Stout screens now cover the windows of the Instrumentation lab, and two-by-fours are on hand to bar the doors.

*With some unexpected difficulty in Cornell's case. The New York State attorney general has filed suit to block sale of the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory to EDP Technology, Inc., a Washington, D.C., company. The state contends that Cornell has no right to sell the lab to a private, profit-making company.

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