Report from Iron Mountain - Anonymous |
[The following account of the workings of the Special Study Group is taken verbatim from a series of tape recorded interviews I had with "John Doe." The transcript has been edited to minimize the intrusion of my questions and comments, as well as for length, and the sequence has been revised in the interest of continuity. L.C.L.]
HOW WAS THE GROUP FORMED?
. . . The general idea for it, for this kind of study dates back at least to 1961. It started with some of the new people who came in with the Kennedy administration, mostly, I think, with McNamara, Bundy, and Rusk. They were impatient about many things. . . . One of them was that no really serious work had been done about planning for peace—a long-range peace, that is, with long-range planning.
Everything that had been written on the subject [before 1961] was superficial. There was insufficient appreciation of the scope of the problem. The main reason for this, of course, was that the idea of a real peace in the world, general disarmament and so on, was looked on as Utopian. Or even crack-pot. This is still true, and it's easy enough to understand when you look at what's going on in the world today . . . It was reflected in the studies that had been made up to that time. They were not realistic . . .
The idea of the Special Study, the exact form it would take, was worked out early in '63 . . . The settlement of the Cuban missile affair had something to do with it, but what helped most to get it moving were the big changes in military spending that were being planned. Plants being closed, relocations, and so forth. Most of it wasn't made public until much later . . .
[I understand] it took a long time to select the people for the Group. The calls didn't go out until the summer
WHO MADE THE SELECTION?
That's something I can't tell you. I wasn't involved with the preliminary planning. The first I knew of it was when I was called myself. But three of the people had been in on it, and what the rest of us know we learned from them, about what went on earlier. I do know that it started very informally. I don't know what particular government agency approved the project.
WOULD YOU CARE TO MAKE A GUESS?
All right—I think it was an ad hoc committee, at the cabinet level, or near it. It had to be. I suppose they gave the organizational job—making arrangements, paying the bills, and so on—to somebody from the State or Defense of the National Security Council. Only one of us was in touch with Washington, and I wasn't the one. But I can tell you that very, very few people knew about us . . . For instance, there was the Ackley Committee. It was set up after we were. If you read their report—the same old tune—economic reconversion, turning sword plants into plowshare factories . . . I think you'll wonder if even the President knew about our Group. The Ackley Committee certainly didn't.
IS THAT POSSIBLE, REALLY? I MEAN THAT NOT EVEN THE PRESIDENT KNEW OF YOUR COMMISSION?
Well, I don't think there's anything odd about the government attacking a problem at two different levels. Or even about two or three [government] agencies working at cross-purposes. It happens all the time. Perhaps the President did know. And I don't mean to denigrate the Ackley Committee, but it was exactly that narrowness of approach that we were supposed to get away from.
You have to remember—you've read the Report—that what they wanted from us was a different kind of thinking. It was a matter of approach. Herman Kahn calls it "Byzantine"—no agonizing over cultural and religious values. No moral posturing. It's the kind of thinking that Rand and the Hudson Institute and I.D.A. (Institute for Defense Analysis) brought into war planning . . . What they asked us to do, and I think we did it, was to give the same kind of treatment to the hypothetical nuclear war . . . We may have gone further than they expected, but once you establish your premises and your logic you can't turn back . . .
Kahn's books, for example, are misunderstood, at least by laymen. They shock people. But you see, what's important about them is not his conclusions, or his opinions. It's the method. He has done more than anyone else I can think of to get the general public accustomed to the style of modern military thinking. Today it's possible for a columnist to write about "counter-force strategy" and "minimum deterrence" and "credible first strike capability" without having to explain every other word. He can write about war and strategy without getting bogged down in questions or morality.
The other big difference about or work is breadth. The Report speaks for itself. I can't say that we took every relevant aspect of life and society into account, but I don't think we missed anything essential . . .
WHY WAS THE PROJECT GIVEN TO AN OUTSIDE COMMISSION? WHY COULDN'T IT HAVE BEEN HANDLED BY AN APPROPRIATE GOVERNMENT AGENCY?
I think that's obvious, or should be. The kind of thinking wanted from our Group just isn't to be had in a formal government operation. Too many constraints. Too many inhibitions. This isn't a new problem. Why else would outfits like Rand and Hudson stay in business? Any assignment that's at all sophisticated is almost always given to an outside group. This is true even in the State Department, in the "gray" operations, those that are supposed to be unofficial, but are really as official as can be. Also with the C.I.A . . .
For our study, even the private research centers were too institutional . . . A lot of thought went into making sure that our thinking would be unrestricted. All kinds of little things. The way we were called into the Group, the places we met, all kinds of subtle devices to remind us. For instance, even our name, the Special Study Group. You know government names. Wouldn't you think we'd have been called "Operation Olive Branch," or "Project Pacifica," or something like that? Nothing like that for us—too allusive, too suggestive. And no minutes of our meetings— too inhibiting . . . About who might be reading them. Of course, we took notes for our own use. And among ourselves, we usually called ourselves "The Iron Mountain Boys," or "Our Thing," or whatever came to mind.
WHAT CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT THE MEMBERS OF THE GROUP?
I'll have to stick to generalities . . . There were fifteen of us. The important thing was that we represented a very wide range of disciplines. And not all academic. People from the natural sciences, the social sciences, even the humanities. We had a lawyer and a businessman. Also, a professional war planner. Also, you should know that everyone in the Group had done work of distinction in at least two different fields. The interdisciplinary element was built in.
It's true that there were no women in the Group, but I don't think that was significant. We were all American citizens, of course. And all, I can say, in very good health, at least when we began . . . You see, the first order of business, at the first meeting, was the reading of dossiers. They were very detailed, and not just professional, but also personal. They included medical histories. I remember one very curious thing, for whatever it's worth. Most of us, and that includes me, had a record of abnormally high uric acid concentrations in the blood. None of us had ever had this experience, of a public inspection of credentials, or medical reports. It was very disturbing . . .
But it was deliberate. The reason for it was to emphasize that we were supposed to make ALL our own decisions on procedure, without outside rules. This included judging each other's qualifications and making allowances for possible bias. I don't think it affected our work directly, but it made the point it was supposed to make. That we should ignore absolutely nothing that might conceivably affect our objectivity.
[At this point I persuaded Doe that a brief occupational description of the individual members of the Group would serve a useful purpose for readers of the Report. The list which follows was worked out on paper. (It might be more accurate to say it was negotiated). The problem was to give as much relevant information as possible without violating Doe's commitment to protect his colleagues' anonymity. It turned out to be very difficult, especially in the cases of those members who are very well known. For this reason, secondary areas of achievement or reputations are usually not shown.]
The simple alphabetical "names" were assigned by Doe for convenient reference; they bear no intended relation to actual names. "Able" was the Group's Washington contact. It was he who brought and read the dossiers, and who most often acted as chairman. He, "Baker," and "Cox" were the three who had been involved in the preliminary planning. There is no other significance to the order of listing.
HOW DID THE GROUP OPERATE? I MEAN, WHERE AND WHEN DID YOU MEET, AND SO FORTH?
We met on the average of once a month. Usually it was on weekends, and usually for two days. We had a few longer sessions, and one that lasted only four hours. We met all over the country, always at a different place, except for the first and last times, which were at Iron Mountain. It was like a traveling seminar . . . Sometimes at hotels, sometimes at universities. Twice we met at summer camps, and once at a private estate, in Virginia. We used a business place in Pittsburgh, and another in Poughkeepsie, [New York] . . . We never met in Washington, or on government property anywhere . . . Able would announce the times and places two meetings ahead. They were never changed.
We didn't divide into subcommittees, or anything else that formal. But we all took individual assignments between meetings. A lot of it involved getting information from other people . . . Among the fifteen of us, I don't think there was anybody in the academic or professional world we couldn't call on if we wanted to, and we took advantage of it. We were paid a very modest per diem. All of it was called "expenses" on the vouchers. We were told not to report it on our tax returns . . . The checks were drawn on a special account of Abie's at a New York bank. He signed them . . . I don't know what the study cost. So far as our time and travel were concerned, it couldn't have come to more than the low six-figure range. But the big item must have been computer time, and I have no idea how high this ran.
YOU SAY THAT YOU DON'T THINK YOUR WORK WAS AFFECTED BY PROFESSIONAL BIAS. WHAT ABOUT POLITICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL BIAS? IS IT POSSIBLE TO DEAL WITH QUESTIONS OF WAR AND PEACE WITHOUT REFLECTING PERSONAL VALUES?
Yes, it is. I can understand your skepticism. But if you had been at any of our meetings you'd have had a very hard time figuring out who were the liberals and who were the conservatives, or who were hawks and who were doves. There IS such a thing as objectivity, and I think we had it . . . I don't say no one had any emotional reaction to what we were doing. We all did, to some extent. As a matter of fact, two members had heart attacks after we were finished, and I'll be the first to admit it probably wasn't a coincidence.
YOU SAID YOU MADE UP YOUR OWN GROUND RULES. WHAT WERE THESE GROUND RULES?
The most important were informality and unanimity. By informality I mean that our discussions were open-ended. We went as far afield as any one of us thought we had to. For instance, we spent a lot of time on the relationship between military recruitment policies and industrial employment. Before we were finished with it, we'd gone through the history of western penal codes and any number of comparative psychiatric studies [of draftees and volunteers]. We looked over the organization of the Inca empire. We determined the effects of automation on underdeveloped societies . . . It was all relevant . . .
By unanimity, I don't mean that we kept taking votes, like a jury. I mean that we stayed with every issue until we had what the Quakers call a "sense of the meeting." It was time-consuming. But in the long run it saved time. Eventually we all got on the same wavelength, so to speak.
Of course we had differences, and big ones, especially in the beginning . . . For instance, in Section I you might think we were merely clarifying our instructions. Not so; it took a long time before we all agreed to a strict interpretation . . . Roe and Taylor deserve most of the credit for this . . . There are many things in the Report that look obvious now, but didn't seem so obvious then. For instance, on the relationship of war to social systems. The original premise was conventional, from Clausewitz,—that war was an "instrument" of broader political values. Able was the only one who challenged this, at first. Fox called his position "perverse." Yet it was Fox who furnished most of the data that led us all to agree with Able eventually. I mention this because I think it's a good example of the way we worked. A triumph of method over cliche. I certainly don't intend to go into details about who took what side about what, and when. But I will say, to give credit where due, that only Roe, Able, Hill, and Taylor were able to see, at the beginning, where our method was taking us.
BUT YOU ALWAYS REACHED AGREEMENT, EVENTUALLY?
Yes. It's a unanimous report . . . I don't mean that our sessions were always harmonious. Some of them were rough. The last six months there was a lot of quibbling about small points . . . We'd been under pressure for a long time, we'd been working together too long. It was natural that we got on each other's nerves. For a while Able and Taylor weren't speaking to each other. Miller threatened to quit. But this all passed. There were no important differences . . .
HOW WAS THE REPORT ACTUALLY WRITTEN? WHO DID THE WRITING?
We all had a hand in the first draft. Jones and Able put it together, and then mailed it around for review before working out a final version . . . The only problems were the form it should take and whom we were writing it for. And, of course, the question of disclosure . . . [Doe's comments on this point are summarized in the introduction.]
YOU MENTIONED A "PEACE GAMES" MANUAL. WHAT ARE PEACE GAMES?
I wanted to say something about that. The Report barely mentions it. "Peace games" is a method we developed during the course of the study. It's a forecasting technique, an information system. I'm very excited about it. Even if nothing is done about our recommendations—which is conceivable—this is something that can't be ignored. It will revolutionize the study of social problems. It's a by-product of the study. We needed a fast, dependable procedure to approximate the effects of disparate social phenomena on other social phenomena. We got it. It's in a primitive phase, but it works.
HOW ARE PEACE GAMES PLAYED? ARE THEY LIKE RAND'S WAR GAMES?
You don't "play" peace games, like chess or Monopoly, any more than you play war games with toy soldiers. You use computers. It's a programming system. A computer "language," like Fortran, or Algol, or Jovial . . . Its advantage is its superior capacity to interrelate data with no apparent common points of reference . . . A simple analogy is likely to be misleading. But I can give you some examples. For instance, supposing I asked you to figure out what effect a moon landing by U.S. astronauts would have on an election in, say, Sweden. Or what effect a change in the draft law, a specific change—would have on the value of real estate in downtown Manhattan? Or a certain change in college entrance requirements in the United States on the British shipping industry?
You would probably say, first, that there would be no effect to speak of, and second, that there would be no way of telling. But you'd be wrong on both counts. In each case there would be an effect, and the peace games method could tell you what it would be, quantitatively. I didn't take these examples out of the air. We used them in working out the method . . . Essentially, it's an elaborate high-speed trial-and-error system for determining working algorithms. Like most sophisticated types of computer problem-solving . . .
A lot of the "games" of this kind you read about are just glorified and conversational exercises. They really are games, and nothing more. I just saw one reported in the Canadian Computer Society Bulletin, called a "Vietnam Peace Game." They use simulation techniques, but the programming hypotheses are speculative . . .
The idea of a problem-solving system like this is not original with us. ARPA (the Advanced Research Projects Agency, of the Department of Defense DoD.) has been working on something like it. So has General Electric, in California.
There are others We were successful not because we know more than they do about programming, which we don't, but because we leaned how to formulate the problems accurately. It goes back to the old saw. You can always find the answer if you know the right question.
SUPPOSING YOU HADN'T DEVELOPED THIS METHOD. WOULD YOU HAVE COME TO THE SAME CONCLUSIONS IN THE REPORT?
Certainly. But it would have taken many times longer. But please don't misunderstand my enthusiasm [about the peace games method]. With all due respect to the effects of computer technology on modern thinking, basic judgments must still be made by human beings. The peace games technique isn't responsible for our Report. We are.
STATEMENT BY "JOHN DOE"
Contrary to the decision of the Special Study Group, of which I was a member, I have arranged for the general release of our Report. I am grateful to Mr. Leonard C. Lewin for his invaluable assistance in making this possible, and to The Dial Press for accepting the challenge of publication. Responsibility for taking this step, however, is mine and mine alone.
I am well aware that my action may be taken as a breach of faith by some of my former colleagues. But in my view my responsibility to the society for which I am a part supersedes any self-assumed obligation on the part of fifteen individual men. Since our Report can be considered on its merits, it is not necessary for me to disclose their identity to accomplish my purpose. Yet I gladly abandon my own anonymity it is were possible to do so without at the same time comprising theirs, to defend our work publicly if and when they release me from this personal bond.
But this is secondary. What is needed now, and needed badly, is widespread public discussion and debate about the elements of war and the problems of peace. I hope that publication of this Report will serve to initiate it.