HARVARD UNIVERSITY

CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

ROBERT R. BOWIE, Director
HENRY A. KISSINGER, Associate Director
EDWARD S. MASON
THOMAS C. SCHELLING

6 DIVINITY AVENUE
CAMBRIDGE 38
MASSACHUSETTS

December 16, 1959

To: Robert R. Bowie

From: Henry A. Kissinger

This memorandum is written to express my concern about the future of the Defense Policy Seminar and to indicate my views about its future development. The importance of the subject hardly requires argument. From the point of view of public administration it seems essential that a subject which uses up fifty per cent of our national budget be a major topic of concern at Harvard. From the point of view of national policy it is also clear that the nature of our diplomacy depends on the kind of decisions we make on strategy. An understanding of the strategic situation is of crucial importance, even if one assumes a relaxation of tensions: this would merely mean a shift of our concern to some phase of arms control which, in any cases, is already a subject of seminar study. From the point of view of personnel, it seems to me essential that we make a contribution towards training people either for positions in government, for teaching in the defense area, or for an improved understanding of the issues in their capacity as private citizens.

All of this requires very little discussion and I am sure that there is no dispute about the importance of the Seminar as such. The problems arise from the peculiar nature of the Defense Policy Seminar. These special characteristics seem to me to be the following:

(1) _Its Size._ In the past three years the number of participants in the Seminar has gone from 39 in 1957 to 32 in 1958 to 51 in 1959. The figure for this year is somewhat misleading because we turned down at least fifteen qualified applicants. In addition to the people taking it, there are at least 25 to 30 auditors at each session.

(2) _Composition of the Seminar._ The Seminar is to my knowledge the only one at Harvard that includes participants from four Harvard graduate schools. In addition, because of our selectivity, we have been able to get an extraordinary number of the ablest students, particularly at the Law School and the Business School.

(3) The Seminar is considered by the military services as the key factor in projects for defense studies, in civilian universities. Both the Military Academy and the Air Force Academy give courses based upon our seminar, using our materials and taught by instructors trained by us. All three services are represented by officer/students. Some

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of these come to Harvard for the express purpose of getting this in-
struction.

(4) Conduct of the Seminar. The Seminar in the past two years
has established some of the most rigorous requirements of any seminar
at Harvard. It is the only seminar that requires both an examination
and a major paper. It probably requires more classroom work than any
other seminar. Every participant, in addition to attending the weekly
plenary session must participate in a sub-group. The requirements of
the sub-group are roughly analogous to those of an ordinary seminar;
that is, there are special lectures by the staff and from the end of
the first term onwards the students must present papers.

(5) Since the subject matter of national security resides to such an important extent in the minds of the people with experience, it is particularly important to bring guest speakers with experience to the Seminar. A list of those who have attended over the past three years is I think a testimony to the importance attached to this effort elsewhere. On the other hand, guest speakers are useless unless the session is well prepared.

For all these reasons, a Defense Policy Seminar requires more
work, more staffing and a different structure from most seminars con-
ducted at Harvard. The budget for it, which runs to around $20,000, is
not excessive if one relates it to the size and scope of other seminars.

I am concerned about the steady attrition that has been taking
place over the past few years. It seems to me that the Seminar should
not go by default but rather that an explicit decision should be made
one way or the other. The most immediate problem is that of Harry Ransom.
We have a policy of holding conferences with each student. We also have
a requirement of preparing and distributing a fair amount of mimeographed
material. We seek to make it possible for the students to circulate all
the other students with their views. All of this makes it essential
that we have a full time secretary and that I have a full time assistant.
Harry Ransom has taken a major load of the responsibility for preparing
the syllabus and specialized mimeographed readings. He has taken on
of the sub-groups fulltime and another one in close association with me.
It would be impossible to replace him: at least I know no one who could
discharge his responsibilities with equal skill and devotion. I also
feel that the Seminar is now at the absolute minimum of staffing. It
would be a pity if the Harvard effort, which has served as a model to so
many other institutions, should atrophy. Indeed, it would seem to me
highly desireable to have as part of the Seminar a continued effort to
keep up our clipping file and to maintain a Defense Policy Library.

There is, of course, a question of financing. Bart Leach and I are making an effort to raise the required funds. We are optimistic, although we may not be able to raise them in time to keep Ransom from accepting another offer. Then there are the funds made available by the Ford Foundation. Since I raise them, and since the Ford Foundation considers me to be the man largely responsible for them, I am perhaps in a position to say that our determination of what constitutes research would, to say the least, have an important bearing. I am sure we could justify at least half of Ransom's salary on that basis since over the past few years he has produced several books and articles and since at the moment he is working on another book.

I would make the following recommendations:

(1) A definite commitment should be made to Harry Ransom immediately, at least for next year.

(2) A meeting of the Advisory Committee of the Defense Policy Seminar should be held. This committee has never, to my knowledge, been disbanded and it is entitled to be informed about where we stand.

(3) Provision should be made for having some teaching fellows connected with the Seminar. The importance of having teaching fellows can not be measured primarily by the contribution they make to the conduct of the Seminar: rather, they should be considered a training group for potential researches in the field of as public servants. There are a number of participants who would have been eager to continue here had we had some kind of fellowship to offer. Every former staff member except one is somehow connected, either with the government, with this field or doing research.