Scholars and Secrecy--Classified Research Comes Under Criticism
Carlson, Elliot
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOUIRNAL Universities in growing numbers are spurning Government contracts that call. for secret research. Mounting opposition, by both professors...
...But a Stanford official says:NACIA NE W S L E T T E R Otober 67 - 6 Scholars & Secrecy THE ALL STREET JOURNAL "We're experiencing greater efforts by the Defense Department and other Federal agencies to insert 'right of review' provisions into research contracts that normally wouldn't be classified...
...After polling some 300 colleges and universities this summer, the federation found that "a good many" schools that previously had no policy covering secret contracts were beginning to restrict such research, Mr...
...Electronics Research Lablorator...
...The upshot: Some universities are scaling down or canceling such research projects...
...Stanford University, New York University and the University of Minnesota are tightening restrictions governing acceptance of classified research contracts from Federal agencies...
...leases a building at the university, although he Some faculty members say they became asserts that IDA isn't legally part of the uni- more receptive to such projects after Thomas versity and that its research is independent of Donahue, a professor of physics who is workthe school's...
...Says Mr...
...NYU recently declined to renew a $44,000 Defense Department contract to evaluate chemical warfare weapons systems...
...Administrators abandoned the $1 million projects-known as Spicerack and Summit-after a two-year campus dispute that reached its climax when some professors threatened to wear gas masks at commencement exercises...
...Moos' objection, the Air Force soon withdrew it, purportedly because of lack of funds...
...It might be a year before we start getting the same quality work from another contractor...
...4Amount of Classified Research In dollar terms, the total of classified research contracts is relatively small...
...In some cases, universities have attempted to get around the problems posed by secret contracts by forming off-campus affiliates or wholly-owned, but independent, laboratories where such research can be done...
...So, in effect, the very nature of the schools is being compromised to save the Government some money," he says...
...Adds David LIsdy, chair im of .Pittsburgh's anthropology department: "I object to classified research because it often gives the sponsoring agency a censorhsip function...
...But these efforts don't always satisfy an aroused faculty or student body...
...But there are more basic causes...
...canceled two classified Defense Department contracts for assessing the effectiveness of chemical-biological warfare...
...The proposal caller, for two Stanford professors to set up the program while, in exchange, several Argentine students attended Stanford...
...The controversy probably will prompt reassessment of university policy, observers say...
...Faculty committees at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of California's Berkeley campus are currently taking a new look at secret research...
...And earlier this fall the American Association of University Professors set up a committee to study the matter...
...Some secret projects at these schools have already been phased out...
...Moos says that later this month he will propose to regents a new research policy that would "make highly unlikely a recurrence" of the September episode...
...contract to start a graduate program in physic at an Argentine university...
...But just as significant is increasing faculty concern that classified contracts may curtail a scholar's traditional obligation to disseminate his research findings...
...Those opposed to secret research agree that anti-Vietnam feeling has brought the controversy to a head...
...Controversy developed this fall when it was learned the lab had a classified $1.5 million contract with the Defense Department to help plan counterinsurgency projects in Thailand...
...Mounting opposition, by both professors and students, to the Vietnam war and to war-related research is spurring the trend...
...However, the sponsoring agency usually reserves the right of review prior to publication, the officials concede...
...AID wanted to review all research performed by participant-, professors and students, with the right to bar publication if it chose...
...To keep secret contracts at a minimum...
...While the regents approved the project over Mr...
...Schools are starting to cut back on classified research, and they will continue to do so," says Jay Orear, chairman of the executive committee of the Federation of American Scientists, a professional group of 2,000 researchers on and off campus...
...He observes, however, that "spe- ing on a secret project of his own, argued that cially trained people in the (Princeton) en- "it isn't a question of good or evil...
...The school recently declined an Agency for International Development (AID...
...We're attempting to eliminate some problems by expediting declassification where it's reasonable to do so," says a Pentagon spokesman...
...Last spring, after the Penn controversy, trustees of New York University, on the recommendation of a faculty committee, adopted a policy requiring that all classified projects have the "written approval" of the president...
...And at a number of other schools around the country heated debate is under way...
...Debate at Michigan And just last week debate erupted at the University of Michigan when the Michigan Daily, 'the student newspaper, disclosed the existence of about $9 million in classified Defense Department projects at the school...
...Says William F. Baxter, professor of law, who headed a group that recently proposed tougher restrictions on such research: "We want to head off the contracts that make you lie about the kind of research you're doing...
...Many schools tend to discourage secret research but permit exceptions when the particular interests of their professors touch on areas related to national defense...
...The contracts range from counterinsurgency projects in Thailand to research on a new intercontinental ballistic missile...
...Orear says...
...Co!unlbia officials say the new corporation, called the Riverside Research Institute, will have no corporate or financial connection with the university...
...un may De- m I poi-o to -es m In -tb n ne .y n o m ean...
...AID also wanted the right to demand recall of Stanford professors on the project if it chose to do so...
...A university should be an open community of scholars devoted to advancing knowledge," says Gabriel Kolko, associate professor of history at Penn, who fought projects Spicerack and Summit...
...In August, the federation urged universities not to "accept funds that impose restrictions on the publication of research findings...
...A New Policy "We were asked to approve it 'on faith,' " recalls Mr...
...is aimed at killing people, much of it is defenPerhaps to head off such troubles, Columbia sive...
...Nonetheless, the Pentagon official asserts "it would be adverse to the national interest" should more schools cancel classified grants...
...Cornell's Center for International Studies, which has a research team of its own in Thailand, charges that the lab's project "may inflict irreparable damage on the university's teaching and research throughout the world...
...He adds: "There have been cases where the Central Intelligence Agency has attempted to negotiate contracts here that would have made us deny the existence of the project...
...The stu- classified contracts, but now I see this issue is dents, members of Students for a Democratic complicated beyond all expectations...
...Despite such cases, some Federal agencies claim they're trying to ease contract restrictions...
...The Defense Department likes universities because they do high class work very inexpensively...
...The Defense Department provides the bulk of classified contracts, although some come from other agencies like the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Atomic Energy Commission...
...Stanford University's faculty early this year inaugurated continuous, case-by-case review of new proposals for classified research...
...At first, I wanted to abolish all search for the Defense Department...
...Faculty concern about secrecy has already prompted Stanford to refuse some Government contracts...
...And there are circumstances where it University earlier this fall turned over to a must be done in a university...
...The resolutions range from a suggested ban on all secret research to a proposal that each department frame its own policy...
...This month faculty members at Cornell University voted to recommend that the school sever ties with the Cornell Aeronautical Lboratol y, an autonomous Cornell-owned facility that does a good deal of secret military research...
...Some schools, however, are making fewer exceptions than in the past...
...Moos knew next to nothing about the project, though a newspaper story subsequently disclosed it was concerned with methods of prisoner-of-war interrogation...
...Harvard and some other universities ban all classified research, although even Harvard allows individual scholars-to work on secret projects outside the university on a consulting basis...
...Just this Monday 30 Princeton students "We couldn't agree on a enite recwere arrested for blocking entrance to a cam- ommendation," admits Richard Tobias, an Enpus building housing a university-affiliated cor- glish professor who is co-chairman of the poration that specializes in secret military re- committee...
...Prior to that move, approval of such contracts was left to individual department heads...
...At the University of Pennsylvania we lost a very experienced research source," he explains...
...This is sort of the backdoor approach to classification...
...Last month, for example, a University of Minnesota vice president urged the regents and newly selected President Malcolm Moos, a political scientist who served as a speech-writer for President Eisenhower, to approve a classified contract with the Pentagon even though details of the contract couldn't be revealed...
...Society, a New Left organization, were protest- The Pittsburgh committee was formed after ing Princeton's role as one of 12 university disclosures of classified projects ranging from sponsors of the corporation, the Instituto for rewriting of technical reports on weapons Defense Analyses (IDA), headquai'eerdain Ar- development to work on quality-control procelington, Va...
...Drawing the Line How to draw the line between justified and unjustified classified research for weeks has Reprinted with the plagued a faculty committee at the University peni ission of of Pittsburgh, whose faculty senate later this month will consider several possible resolu- THE WALL STRE JOURNAL tions suggested by the committee...
...The work at Penn was transferred to the research subsidiary of Booz, Allen & Hamilton Inc., a Chicago-based management consultant firm...
...Unless we were on the verge of World War III, I don't think I'd favor secret research at a university...
...These terms simply were unacceptable," says a Stanford official...
...Early this year the American Anthropological Association, a professional group, came out against classified research...
...A Princeton spokesman says the dures to check bomb release mechanisms communications research division of IDA developed by industry...
...Moos, who strongly objected to the project...
...Some university defense contracts have been so secret that even the school's president has known little about their nature...
...The University of Pennsylvania this spring...
...A complete ban newly formed nonprofit corporation classified on classified research would be morally research previously performed at the school's indefensible...
...f -Wn virons may e in a position o help in mthe stua- Ponanue: y no , .. ies it (the division) conducts...
...The regents and Mr...
...We discontinued the project after deciding it wasn't in line with the humanitarian purposes of a university," says John R. Ragazzini, dean of the school of engineering and science...
...Worried that such contracts may be getting out of hand, other academic groups have taken similar positions...
...Projects are classified when researchers are given access to secret information, and findings may be published provided none of the secret information is disclosed...
...Findings often can't be shared with colleagues who are unable or unwilling to get security clearance of their own...
...During the 1967 Federal fiscal year, universities received Defense Department research and development contracts totaling $290 million, of which only about $34 million involved classified projects, according to an official of the department's Office of Defense Research and Engineering...
...Pentagon officials reply that the classified label doesn't necessarily mean that the research can't be published...
...A Contract Is Dropped Already the new policy has resulted in the scaling down of some secret research...
...The Cornell administration is currently considering the faculty, recommendation that the school disassociate itself from the lab, and observers say it s likely the university will take steps in this direction...
Vol. 1 • October 1967 • No. 8
