The Conquest of Space

...It is only a pointer to the fact that democracy requires leadership more resourceful and courageous than tyranny and than its present leadership...

...They desire that more than any other prize and probably don't know about the pains of readjustment of an organic society to the realities of a technical one...

...In other words, the political and intellectual leaders of Asia and Africa fear democracy but desire technical efficiency as the horn of plenty...

...But, if the pure motives of the pure scientist should fortuitously coincide with the ends of the dictatorship in competitive coexistence with the democratic and capitalist world, wouldn't that be the best of all possible worlds...

...It requires intelligence and knowledge...

...We ought to realize that we are dealing with a foe who is no longer crying "Workers of the world, unite," but is wooing nations and rulers by offering the prizes of industrial civilization without the price tag of democracy and freedom...

...Intelligence is more easily mastered by interest and passion than the rationalistic Utopians of the 18th century believed...

...The earth satellites may prove that a culture frustrated in the creativity of the arts and the humanities will extend its vital energies in science, and that the political oligarchy will do all it can to coopt the scientists as part of the ruling oligarchy by giving them all privileges minus the power to make political decisions...

...We were clearly not as superior as we complacently thought we were, and the country knew it...

...Let one ray of hope penetrate into this gloomy picture...

...If the young man chooses literature or the social sciences or any of the humanities, he may meet the fate of an Ilya Ehrenberg who, after years as a Party hack, still could not meet the norms of "socialist realism...

...This is partly because it took Western civilization 400 years to make them compatible, and partly through the influence of the Marxist dogma that economic freedom breeds injustice...

...Russia has done this without paying the price of political freedom that we have assumed to be the prerequisite of scientific advance...

...This is not a plea for less freedom nor an apology for a despotic government...

...Thus, just as the Kremlin bosses spend vast sums on scientific development, they can spread economic assistance all over the uncommitted world without bothering about a Southern Senator, for instance, who has discovered that foreign aid might create competition for our cotton...

...Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb, has ruefully observed that we could afford these experiments if only we would forego the cost of annual automobile models...

...The Russians had proved their claim that they have an intercontinental missile while our three services, locked in internecine conflict, were still without this lethal prize...

...They prove that a technically backward nation can surpass a nation which has long boasted of its technical superiority...

...When the even more impressive half-ton second satellite was launched, the White House was reported "calm...

...But the nation was frankly excited and probably suspected that political calculation had prompted this unnatural serenity in the White House...

...A dictatorship can simply assign as much from the common fund as it thinks it needs for either foreign aid, political adventure or scientific development...

...Challenge to the Free World The Conquest of Space By Reinhold Niebuhr ON THE NEWS that Russia launched the first earth satellite, President Eisenhower professed not to have "an iota" of apprehension...

...How had the Russians achieved such competence...

...It is also possible to give it such specialized goals as to make it morally and politically irrelevant...

...This would also put an end to all strategies of deterrence...

...But, on the whole, political despotism has no quarrel with pure science or with scientists who do not feel called upon to challenge the basic dogmas of the regime...

...The leaders of these nations must regard the freedom of our Western culture as an impossible goal, or at least regard the compatibility of freedom with stability and justice as impossible...

...What is more...

...Perhaps the refutation of this assumption is the most shocking aspect of the satellite triumph...

...If this be true, the non-military aspects of the Russian satellite achievements become even more impressive...

...Incidentally, it is difficult to follow the logic of scientists who argue that the arms race will end in disaster if a disarmament agreement is not achieved...

...In this battle of ideas, the space satellites are obviously of tremendous significance...

...There is a kind of security in this situation, and it cannot be increased by agreements in regard to disarmament, spheres of influence or neutral zones...

...We have been led astray in our calculations of this aspect by Stalin's foolish effort to enforce Lysenko's unscientific biology...

...The new nations cannot be expected to appreciate the equilibria of power achieved in the mixed economies of the West...

...This dogma was plausible in the early 19th century, when Marxism arose as a protest against the injustices of an unmanaged economy...

...Furthermore, they are meaningless because the ultimate conflict is prevented more by the fear of mutual annihilation than by any regional accommodations...

...The nation's common sense comprehended the significance of this display of scientific skill...

...It is, of course, necessary for each side to preserve a relative equality in the nuclear arms race, lest the temptation of the superior side become too great...

...Could it be that an educational system that offers bright students a choice between the humanities, corrupted by the stale dogmas of Communism, and the purity of the natural sciences almost automatically weights the choice for the pure sciences...

...Moreover, since living standards have increased moderately, they do not have the same inclination to complain...

...But he does not seem to realize that these annual models are a necessity in our economy, which preserves its health partly by persuading people to buy more than they can afford...

...The Communist dictatorship requires one element which may be its undoing...

...Obviously, they have tremendously impressed the budding "uncommitted" countries...

...The latter are impressed with every evidence that nations have the keys to 20th-century technology...

...The choice will seem the more compelling when the mature future of the scientists includes physical security and privilege, together with unlimited opportunities to conduct their experiments...

...The Russian scientists had a fire-power which we did not possess, and the launching of the three-stage rockets into outer space required the most careful mathematical calculations of gravitational pulls and inertias...

...Educational experts had long been warning that Russia's high schools were producing a greater number of budding scientists than our schools...

...On the other hand, the American scientists who assert that the Russian achievement is proof of Soviet culture's superior scientific passion have not fully measured the depth of our dilemma: As a free society, we had complacently assumed that we could continue to raise living standards to fantastic proportions while maintaining our superiority in common scientific objectives...

...Fortunately, one can hope with some degree of plausibility that, once we finally catch up and also possess the ultimate weapon, all defensive strategies will become impossible and the idea of victory and survival after victory will be irrelevant...

...The people do not have the power to make their complaints count...

...But the situation ought to persuade us that we are in competition with a resourceful, ruthless foe and any complacency or illusions about the hazards of our struggle is a luxury we cannot afford...

...I should think that, of all aspects of Russian culture, the revelation of the compatibility of despotism with scientific advance is most disquieting...

...Assuming that we are locked in the fate of competitive coexistence and that we are competing primarily for the loyalty of non-technical Asia and Africa, what do these earth satellites mean...

...An intercontinental missile outmodes all our strategies of advanced bases...

...These agreements arc impossible because there is a lack of sufficient mutual trust to make them effective...

...No one can complain that will lead to higher taxes or less consumer goods...

...Hehry Kissinger is right: Neither side needs to be deterred because both sides now know that the ultimate war is impossible without reference to the momentary superiority of one side or the other...

...But the restiveness of the Moscow students proves that intelligence is subversive of authority, though the process of emancipation is more tortuous than had been believed...

...It will make their situation the more attractive because it will put them under the control of real scientists, while our poor scientists must contend with political admirals, inter-service rivalries and budget-conscious Secretaries of Defense...

...From a purely military angle, there was cause for apprehension...

...The advantages of a free society are so precious and the terrors of tyranny are so terrible that these advantages of tyranny in foreign policy ought and will not persuade us to sacrifice our freedom for them...