Secret Science In Cold War's Aftermath: Who's Peeking?

The Cold War is over, but government-imposed secrecy in United States science has not been relaxed, say many scientists and policy analysts. They add that more harm than good is being done by continuing the classification system at peak levels, asserting that the process of science, like that of democracy, thrives on the free exchange of information. And, while some of them disagree as to whether secrecy is on the increase or decrease in science, most say that the legal authority for a classification system described as excessive is due for review and, potentially, trimming. "There are opportunities being provided to reassess the situation" of excessive or inappropriate classification, says Theodore Postol, a physicist and a professor in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "But the situation is not getting any better. In fact, it may be getting worse." In December 1983, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory performed an underground test of an X-ray laser device called Excalibur, then under development. Excalibur, they hoped, would focus energy emanating from a nuclear explosion into a powerful beam capable of destroying enemy missiles. Although successful in its immediate objectives, the test led to controversy, according to New York Times reporter William J. Broad, who tells the story in his new book, Teller's War: The Top-Secret Story Behind The Star Wars Deception (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1992). Edward Teller, famous for his role in developing the hydrogen bomb, enthusiastically described the test in a letter to President Reagan's science adviser, George A. Keyworth II, saying that the X-ray laser was "now entering the engineering phase," implying, according to Broad, "that basic research was complete." This was far from the case, he says. According to Broad, Livermore physicist Roy Woodruff was angered by what he saw as Teller's irresponsibly optimistic assessment of the test. Woodruff was a high-level administrator with 20 years' experience at the lab and well-informed about technical problems with the X-ray laser program. He tried to talk Teller into sending a clarification. When Teller refused, Woodruff wrote a corrective letter himself, but he was prevented from sending that letter by Roger Batzel, then director of the laboratory. Thereafter, Broad says, Teller continued to send unrealistic reports on the program's successes and its potential to the White House, securing a steady stream of funding support. Woodruff's critique continued to be squelched within the laboratory, despite his efforts to press his views. In time, the X-ray laser program became widely challenged by scientists as technically unworkable. Now, the "brilliant pebbles" antimissile system is the focus of the Star Wars effort- -with Teller again a prominent cheerleader. Much of the work remains hidden from public scrutiny. How was Teller able to mislead policymakers on so vital a scientific issue? One factor was the system of secrecy itself, Broad says. "Secrecy must be eliminated wherever possible" writes Broad, "in order to derail the kind of false momentum that allowed the X-ray laser to get so far with so little. Openness is the only sure antidote to the abuse of power." Gerald Marsh, a physicist and a defense analyst at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, assesses Broad's book simply. "Bill got it right," he says. --F.H. In January, Postol challenged the Pentagon's positive assessment of the Patriot missile's effectiveness in the war with Iraq, judging the missile "an almost total failure." His findings were published in the Harvard journal International Security ("Lessons of the Gulf War: Experience with Patriot," 16(3):119-71, 1992). The Defense Investigative Service attempted to classify his article after the fact, telling Postol he could not further discuss his ideas publicly, he says, although he drew his findings entirely from unclassified sources. Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Government Operations Committee, sided with Postol, and the Department of Defense (DoD) abandoned its efforts against the professor. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, "the Pentagon has redefined the enemy as everybody " says Postol. "As a result, the rationale for classification has widened considerably, with a looser set of criteria for classification." One measure of the potentially lengthening reach of the classification system is that "there's been a dramatic increase in the use of the Invention Secrecy Act," says Steven Aftergood, a senior researcher with the Federation of American Scientists (FAS). Based in Washington, D.C., FAS calls itself the oldest organization in the world devoted to ending the nuclear arms race and lists more than three dozen Nobel laureates among its sponsors. The Invention Secrecy Act of 1951 was enacted by Congress under the shadow of the Korean War, says Aftergood, "to protect our technological flank against enemies--it was very much a product of wartime," although it remains in effect today. The law establishes a procedure whereby the Patent and Trademark Office of the Department of Commerce screens patent applications against certain categories of inventions specified by DoD, the Department of Energy (DOE), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Applications for inventions in these categories are reviewed by the interested agency, which may then ask Commerce to impose a secrecy order. "What does this mean?" says Aftergood. "It means you don't get a patent, and you're prohibited against disclosing your invention." Up from an average of 300 new orders each year in 1980, according to Aftergood, the government issued 774 new orders in 1991. Of these, 506 involved private-sector inventors. Usually, the nature of the patent applications affected by secrecy orders is never known. One exception is the case of George Davida, a mathematician at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. He developed a cryptological computer algorithm for international businesses interested in protecting their communications. When his patent application was hit with a secrecy order in 1978, he protested publicly. Eventually, the order was rescinded. "My question," says Vivian Weil, director of the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at the Illinois Institute of Technology, "is whether the rise in secrecy orders is for military purposes, or whether it is in response to economic threats." Under a MacArthur Foundation grant, Weil's group is studying the intersection of science, national security restrictions, and the First Amendment. "A few years ago, we would have assumed a military aspect" to a classification decision, she says, "but now I think it might be a competitiveness issue. Concern is transferring to economic and commercial considerations." Weil points out that the machinery of secrecy put in place over the course of the Cold War is still there--whether exercised or not. "We have seen an increase in the number of invention secrecy orders," agrees Harold Relyea, a political scientist with the Congressional Research Service who has studied the U.S. classification system. But overall, Relyea sees less secrecy now than in the recent past. "In the Reagan years," he says, "there were conferences in this country that people couldn't present papers at because there were foreign nationals present. The cycle has moved. We're in a period of more openness. However, the authority is still there and can be exercised in the name of national security. And it's the Executive [branch] that determines what the national security is." "The Reagan and Bush administrations have allowed secrecy to run rampant," says Richard L. Garwin, a physicist and IBM Fellow at the company's T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, N.Y. "There's been no change in the levels of secrecy [since the Cold War]. The bureaucracy lags far behind what needs to be done." Secrecy Misused Garwin also says that secrecy has been misused at times. "So much secrecy is a matter of convenience to the bureaucrats," he says. He points to pressures brought by Department of Energy (DOE) officials against Alexander De Volpi, a physicist at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, to persuade him not to attend a nongovernmental workshop on nuclear disarmament in October of last year that was sponsored by FAS and the Natural Resources Defense Council. The reasons for obstructing De Volpi's attendance appear to have been at least partly political, judging from DOE Office of Arms Control director Anthony Czajowski's statement, quoted in Science magazine: "The workshop might be counterproductive to the president's arms control initiatives." De Volpi did attend, and there were reports that he would be barred from some DOE-sponsored meetings as a result. Officially, DeVolpi says, pressure for secrecy seems to be on the decline. He says Secretary of Energy James D. Watkins, for example, has spoken of more openness. But De Volpi is dubious about how much actual change to expect. "I haven't seen any decrease" in secrecy pressures, De Volpi says, "nor can I yet say that DOE programs with my name on them will be funded next time around. In my view, that's the acid test." Gerald Marsh, a physicist and defense analyst at Argonne, describes inappropriate uses of the secrecy system. "It's one thing when you accept a contract from the government that is understood to be classified," Marsh explains. "To publish openly, you need a release from your sponsor. But it's a different thing if you're doing unclassified materials research on a National Science Foundation grant: Someone at Commerce hears about it, and they put pressure on you not to publish or attend meetings." Marsh calls this "de facto classification of basic research." Anthony Fainberg, a physicist currently at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control, recalls a run-in he had with DoD officials. For a report to Congress on aspects of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Fainberg says he described problems with the survivability of space-based missile systems. Although he claims the work contained entirely unclassified information, DoD classified three full chapters of the report, he says. "It was fairly scandalous, and I'm still extremely angry," Fainberg says. "People sometimes hide behind the barrier of national security to cover the deficiencies of what they're doing. Secrecy is necessary, but not in this case. Somebody's political agenda was advanced by classifying this report." "Secrecy is necessary," says Sidney Drell, deputy director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). "I'm not here to beat the secrecy system. The problem is where to draw the line - - its the nature of the beast to overclassify. "I have seen it used to limit outside criticism. This country does better than any other country at bringing in independent outside advice, but that doesn't mean we can't improve." Protecting The Process? Scientists also say that excessive secrecy has hurt the process of science in the past and can do so in the future. Ray Kidder is a physicist who started the Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Calif., in 1962 and ran it for ten years. He says the objective of the project is to ignite a small amount of thermonuclear material by means of a large focused laser array. Important parts of the program remain classified, he says, despite recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences and others to declassify. "The problem is that Japanese and German scientists have published any number of good papers on aspects of ICF," Kidder says. "This puts the workers at Livermore in an uncomfortable position. The Americans are forbidden to publish their work, which is also very good. "It's frustrating," he continues. "Japanese and German scientists are publishing and getting credit for work done long ago. The scientists at Livermore can't participate in the interchange and would like very much to do so. It slows down the progress made in these fields by everyone. It's definitely damaged the program. Morale has been damaged too." "It's the process more than any particular information--the dynamics of the interchange of information--that leads to advances," says Gerald Marsh at Argonne. "People don't appreciate the true strengths and weaknesses of the system." "One always prefers open exchange in scientific questions," says SLAC's Drell, "because, first, good discussion can help clarify views, and, second, the more people who criticize your work, the more immunized you are against going off in silly directions." MIT's Postol says, "It's essential for the health of science and democracy that there be as much information available as possible, consisistent with national security. We must balance the need for secrecy against efficiency: you slow down the advance of your own technology when you classify details of that technology." "Do you achieve national security through scientific progress?" asks Harold Relyea, Congressional Research Service, "or do you achieve security by locking science up? Scientists mutually examining each other's work, that's the scientific process. Put science under a bushel, and you've killed it." "The classification system needs to be trimmed," concludes the FAS's Aftergood. "One of the ironic consequences [of the current situation] is that genuinely sensitive information gets less protection than it deserves in an overburdened system."

Secret Science In Cold War's Aftermath: Who's Peeking?

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of