TC2:Jp

incidentally, is perfect.
discriminate among Germans. His English,
because we could invite without seeming to
Because of his position, he ought to be a
something of the sort.

wing it we ever have another conference or
my strong recommendation that we keep him in
to talk about him, and this is just to add
the same thing last year when we had occasion
My recollection is that Bop or Henry thought

that he was an exceptional man.
 hours, a lunch conversation. I became convinced
in the record because, on the basis of an
and will be for two years. I am putting this
now Commandant of the NATO Defense College
meet General Wolf Ernst von Benda-Ein. He is
This is just to record that I had occasion to

January 31, 1964

FROM: SCHEITLING

MEMO TO: BOWIE, KISSIMGER, AND BROM

RYANWOOD VERNON
THOMAS C. SCHEITLING
EDWARD S. MYERON
HENRY A. KISSIMGER
YALE INKELER
ROBERT R. BOWIE, Director

CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

MYERSCHMELTZ
CYMBRIDGE 38
q DAINITY AVENUE

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ROBERT R. BOWIE, Director

ALEX INKELES
HENRY A. KISSINGER
EDWARD S. MASON
THOMAS C. SCHELLING
RAYMOND VERNON

6 DIVINITY AVENUE
CAMBRIDGE
MASSACHUSETTS 02138

February 7, 1964

Brigadier General John W. Vogt
Director, Policy Planning Staff
International Security Affairs
Office of the Secretary of Defense
The Pentagon, Room 4E 842
Washington 25, D. C.

Dear John:

I meant to talk to you before this about Fellows
for next year at the Center. The Air Force has
nominated a Colonel William B. Robinson, who I
trust has your approval. With your advice, we
should be delighted to accept him.

Two Army majors, one of them a young man that I
know very well and both of whom have spent time
at Harvard, have encouraged me in the strongest
terms to try to get a Colonel Seignious as a Fellow
here. He is presently somewhere in EUCOM and, I'm
told, has all of the qualifications and lots of
interest. I have not met him but he sounds very
good. Do you think that you or Wendell Coates
might look into him as a possible candidate? I
continue to think that DeWitt Armstrong and Larry
Legere would be splendid when their time comes.

Is there any chance that Captain Edward Beach of
submarine fame would be sent as the Navy Fellow?
I read a paper of his and, though I've not met him
yet, I am most attracted to him.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

February 5, 1964

Professor James Eayres
Department of Political Science
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario
Canada

Dear Professor Eayres:

I wonder if you'd care to come to Cambridge to talk about Canadian defense policy with a group of us at Harvard and MIT. We have a faculty seminar on arms policy that has been meeting Monday evenings ten or twelve times a year for the last three years. We know remarkably little about Canadian-American defense relations or Canadian defense policy, and suspect that this deficiency is both inexcusable and subject to being remedied. Maybe you can help us.

Kenneth Waltz, who is spending the year with us at Harvard, has proposed in the warmest terms that we ask you to come down and spend an evening with us, perhaps taking the occasion to spend a couple of days in the area to get acquainted.

There is another group here at the Harvard Center that meets Tuesday morning to discuss "political-military affairs," and I might want to burden you with a second seminar that morning also. The overlap between the two groups is very small so that the same kind of brief initial preparation would undoubtedly serve in both places. We cannot offer an honorarium, but if a round-trip ticket to Cambridge and a chance to visit presents any attraction, we'd be delighted to pay all your expenses.

The date we have in mind is Monday, April 13; the second seminar would be Tuesday, April 14. If you could stay Tuesday night, I would like you to come to dinner at my house. If this date is no good, we might manage to pick

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

February 5, 1964

Professor Henry A. Kissinger
CFIA

Dear Henry:

John Lindbeck has worked up with ACDA a proposal to hold a ten day conference on "Motivations and Implications of Chinese Communist Policy in Respect to Arms Control and Disarmament." He is planning to collaborate closely with Halperin, to hold the conference in July, to work up a report with Halperin, to hold a follow-up conference in the fall, and to submit a report to ACDA by the end of the year. The budget would be $75,000. A dozen papers would be commissioned. He has secured the agreement of a fairly impressive list of participants. He would like this to be a joint activity of our center and the East Asian Research Center.

He talked some to Bob about this, and some to me, but we never thrashed it out in detail. John is now in London, seeing Mort; Bowie is on the other side of the earth. There is a deadline for the submission. I've wired Bowie to ask if he approves the joint submission, and I expect he will. I'll sign as a consultant to the project, and Mort will sign on as vice chairman.

Do you see any reason why we should not jointly sponsor the affair? Are you interested yourself? I do not know whether I can join the conference, but have promised to give a few days to the project when they are doing their report. I have asked John Lindbeck to discuss his plans with the Arms Control Seminar next Monday night and to become a member of that seminar. I hope that's OK with you.

TCS:jh

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

March 18, 1964

Professor Robert R. Bowie
Director
Center for International Affairs

Dear Bob:

During my previous summers at Harvard, I have not drawn
any supplementary summer salary from Harvard; I have
usually engaged in various activities, some of them
compensated. This summer I should like to avoid outside
activities as much as possible, in order to work on a
book that I have begun, and would like to use the regular
Harvard arrangement for drawing a summer supplementary
salary out of research funds available to the Center.

I should also like to request leave from my Harvard duties
during the spring term of 1965, a year from now, and request
that my salary during that spring term be maintained from
research funds available to the Center. My plan is to
complete a draft of the book before this summer is over,
and to finish the manuscript altogether during the spring
term when I am freed from teaching and other obligations.
My plan for the spring is to go to London with my family
and to have some association with the University of London,
but with the idea that I shall devote myself in London to
my own book and engage only in university activities that
serve my purposes or at least do not interfere with my own
work. I would like during that spring term to draw on the
Center for my own expenses, principally my own travel to
London, and any secretarial and similar services that I
cannot get from the University of London. I plan to look
for other financing to get my family transported across and
back; and I hope that most of my professional travel within
Europe will be financed by various people who will invite
me around at their own expense.

R. Bowie

3/18/64

What I am trying to do is to put together a book that integrates some of the things I have published in the field of military strategy, some of the things I have lectured about but not published, and some matters on which I have not yet collected my thoughts. I expect it to be a full-size book, covering the nature of war, deterrence, limited war, brinksmanship, general war, alliance policy, and various related topics, including a little bit -- but only a little -- on arms control. I intend to write it for the general interested reader with a minimum of formal theorizing. I intend, of course, to seek its publication under the auspices of the Center. My idea is to bring out in book form most of the things I've been working on since I joined the Center, with under-emphasis on arms control because I got a lot of that off my chest a couple of years ago. If all goes well, I should manage to complete the work by the end of 1965.

Normally, I should consider this a legitimate charge against our defense studies grant from the Ford Foundation. It is presently unclear what the residue of funds in that grant will be by the time this summer arrives, and I would propose to use those funds to cover my salary this summer if in fact enough remain, and probably to request other funds available to the Center to finance my leave during the spring of 1965. Inasmuch as my role at the Center is intended to be scholarly as well as administrative, you may wish to consider whether my regular salary can be used for this purpose next spring, that is, the half of it that is already identified with the Center.

I have corresponded with Dean Ford about this possibility and he informed me that he saw no objection to my being away for a semester of next year. I've talked about this with John Dunlop, Chairman of my department, who also sees no difficulty.

To sum up, I should like to draw a summer supplementary salary this year, and to take leave for one semester in the spring of 1965 financed by funds available to the Center, both for the purpose of completing a book in the field of military strategy.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

To: Henry Kissinger

From: Bob Erwin RE

Date: 6/8/64

Re: AMERICA, POWER AND POLICY by Urs Schwarz

In an inconclusive discussion of the Schwarz manuscript last week--with me still recommending that the Center not sponsor it--Bob Bowie was concerned to know your opinion. I told him that you had found it a superficial piece of work.

But of course I oughtn't to presume to speak for you. Could you give me a memo, just summing up your judgment in brief.

June 30, 1964

MEMORANDUM

TO: Thomas Schelling

FROM: Henry Kissinger

1. I did read *Lord of the Flies*. I thought it worth reading, though the allegory grew a little heavy after awhile. I have spoken well of it to friends but I have not formally recommended it in courses.

2. Horowitz did not get in touch with me for any of the purposes that you asked me or for any other purposes.

3. I have checked the authors as you requested. A "O" means that I have read a book or two articles by the author but that I am indifferent. A "check" means that I do not particularly appreciate the author. An "X" means that I appreciate the author (though I may not agree with him). (This is particularly true of Sartre.)

4. Rapoport has never asked any of the questions or ever been in touch with me. I have never met Rapoport.

May I now ask you a question? What the hell is this questionnaire for?

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

6 DIVINITY AVENUE
CAMBRIDGE 38
MASSACHUSETTS

June 23, 1964

From: T. C. Schelling fcs

To: Messrs. Herman Kahn, William Kaufmann, Henry A. Kissinger, Klaus Knorr, Robert Osgood, Glen Snyder, Albert Wohlstetter

Will you help me with a little research I am obliged to conduct, by answering
a brief questionnaire?

A Did you read *Lord of the Flies*; did you think it worth reading; did you ever say so, and have you ever recommended it?

Did a man named Irving Louis Horowitz ever get in touch with you while writing a book about the "new civilian militarists" or while doing a paper for the American Friends Service Committee Institute? Specifically, did he interview you, send you a questionnaire, or phone you, either about your policy views or about your personal background, or did he ask you for reprints, unpublished materials, or a bibliography of your published works?

Would you please check with an X the authors on the following list of whom you have read a book or two articles with appreciation, and with some other mark the authors on the list of whom you have read a book or two articles without particular appreciation, and make no mark for the authors that you have not read that extensively:

Erich Fromm
Erick Erickson O
Bruno Bettelheim
Paul Tillich X

George Santayana X
C. Wright Mille ✓
Jean-Paul Sartre X
Hannah Arendt X

Has Anatol Rapoport systematically inquired into your interest in game theory, your participation in actual games or gaming exercises, your views on civil defense, your reading habits, your health, your family background, your war experience or draft status, or your feelings about eventual dente with the Soviet Union?

Did he request a bibliography of your work, ask you which of your publications you considered your best or your most representative, or solicit any recommended reading that you use in connection with a course or a seminar that you offer?

Have you ever met Rapoport and was he cordial?

TCS:ac

XERO
COPY

XERO
COPY

XERO
COPY

XERO
COPY

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

July 14, 1964

From: T. C. Schelling

I am sorry if I sounded mysterious but you are all friends and I thought I could be blunt, and I have intended to tell you afterwards what was bothering me if you couldn't guess. I had been asked to review Anatol Rapoport's recent book, and it was so full of assertions about several of us and so lacking in evidence that I wanted to comment on his not knowing what he was talking about but wanted to be sure I knew what I was talking about. Your replies did not surprise me, and especially I was not surprised that Rapoport had made no effort to find out in the most direct and simple fashion, namely by getting in touch with you, whether his conjectures were correct.

I suppose the minimum compensation I owe you is a copy of what I wrote. It is rather long for a book review and not entirely disinterested, but that probably won't surprise you. I was not trying to be your champion, and do not feel that I have defended you eloquently or that you need defending, but I got a little aroused by what I thought was a book the man should never have written and what I enclose is the result.

Thank you for your help and please excuse me for troubling you.

TCS:ac

TOB:an

To the result.

by what I thought was a book the man should never have written and what I enclose
have defended you elementarily or that you need defending, but I got a little trammel
won't attribute you. I was not trying to be your champion, and do not feel that I
be rather long for a book review and not entirely disinterested, but that probably
I attribute the minimum compensation I one you to a copy of what I wrote. It
conjectures were correct.

most direct and stable fashion, namely by getting in touch with you, whether it
especially I was not authorized that Rebobert had made no effort to find out in the
to be sure I knew what I was talking about. Your replies did not attribute me, and
that I wanted to comment on it not knowing what he was talking about but wanted
and it was so full of assertions about several of us and so lacking in evidence
it he couldn't be. I had been asked to review Walter Rebobert's recent book,
could be right, and I have intended to tell you afterwards what we pertaining to
I am sorry if I sounded mysterious but you are all friends and I thought I

To: Robert Osgood, Glen Snyder, Vipert Molletter
Measles, Herman Kohn, William Kautzmann, Henry V. Kraeger, Klaus Kuehn,

From: T. C. Schelling

July 14, 1964

RYAMOND VERNON
THOMAS C. SCHERRING
EDWARD R. MYERON
HENRY V. KRUSINGER
YALE ILLINGER
ROBERT R. BOWIE, Director

MYERSCHUHLEITZ
CYMBINDEN 38
6 DIVISION AVENUE

*Strategy and Conscience*. By Anatol Rapoport. New York: Harper and Row, 1964. With an introduction by Karl Deutsch. Pp. xxvii, 323. $6.95.

Lincoln Steffens tells how he started a "crime wave," by filing stories while the rest of the reporters played pinochle at police headquarters. His competition broke up the game, and for several weeks the harried reporters barraged their papers with exaggerated coverage. Teddy Roosevelt had to go to New York to get the pinochle game going again and stop the crime wave, which was embarrassing the New York Crime Commission. About four years ago a wave of game theory arose, possibly at the RAND Corporation, engulfed the universities and is lapping at the Pentagon. Even a few members of peace movements have been caught in the undertow. The wave has been tracked by James Newman, Wayland Young, P. M. S. Blackett, and dozens of others who either don't like strategy or don't like someone else's strategy.

Rapoport's is not the first full-length book to sound the alarm, but ought to be the most authoritative. He is himself a game theorist and a creative scholar (whose contributions to economic theory were unfortunately buried for years in the *Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics*). His book is a passionate warning to disregard the "strategists," the "cool young men," the "paper warriors," whose thinking is "psychopathic" and "utterly devoid of moral sense," who view "global conflict as a game" and consider "successful nuclear surprise" as a "winning

-2-
move of a game," who decry the "illusion" that war is a dirty
business and invoke the scientific outlook "in combatting the
fear and the abhorrence of war." In the expressive language of
Karl Deutsch's introduction, the book is "a protest against a
glib and shallow fashion of contemporary thought that embodies
and enhances man's inhumanity to man." In short, "When I say
'strategist,'" says Rapoport somewhat anticlimactically, "I mean
someone who at the moment conceives international problems in
strategic terms" (176).

The book makes two points. (1) Strategic thinking is bad.
(2) Game theory is to blame. Contemporary strategists express
their theories in abstract and mathematical terms and assume
that their problems have "solutions"; they "optimize" a "mix"
to maximize expected utility, treat nations as "players"
motivated by "payoffs," take "rationality" for granted, and
"live in a world similar to that of a detective story, where
murder is a game of reversed blind man's buff and everyone can
be It." They also have an obsession with "gaming" which,
Rapoport is occasionally aware, has little to do with game
theory except for being equally cute and equally subject to
abuse. Furthermore--and Rapoport might have emphasized this
more explicitly--their game theory is bad game theory if he
describes it correctly, dominated by a zero-sum tradition and
by "games against nature," so that even in the most conspicuously
adaptive processes the adversary is rigidly assumed to be rigid
in his antagonism. (Actually I was surprised that he wrote his

book against game theory, rather than one against bad game
theory calling for better. By any definition that Rapoport
could possibly have in mind, he and Kenneth Boulding are game
theorists who explicitly use game theory in elucidating foreign
policy, and use it more than any "strategist" that I know of
or that Rapoport knows of. So there must be "good" game theory.)

Like his *Fights, Games and Debates* this book is in three
parts, and again the third is his personal exploration of what
is at issue between East and West, what the capitalist and
communist systems have in common and how they differ, what the
prospects are for reconciliation and what kind of dialogue is
required for reconciliation. Its only relation to the first
two thirds of the book is contrast: this is a domain that
strategists never explore. But since Rapoport acknowledges
that hardly anyone does, that is not a characteristic of
strategists.

The first third is a technical introduction to probability,
zero-sum games, prisoner's dilemma games and bargaining theory,
reminiscent of the first two parts of his earlier book. It is
the middle section that tells his thesis, describing what the
strategists do and how they think and how they do not think,
what is wrong about it, and why it all flows from their
preoccupation with probabilities, utilities, and game theory as
introduced in Part I. The seventy-five pages of game theory at
the beginning of the book is evidence that I do not misconstrue
the author: Rapoport is not saying that the strategists *remind*

him of second rate game theorists and share their style, but
that they _are_ second rate game theorists and this accounts for
their analytical style and their foreign-policy premises.

Being one of the accused, I naturally do not care for the
first hypothesis, that "strategic thinking" is bad and corrupts
the people who rely on it; nor am I impressed with the second,
that it all flows from game theory. The first is the one that
matters, but is bound to be somewhat impressionistic and likely
influenced by the policies one finds congenial. Since we do have
this crime wave, and this is a review of Rapoport's book, let
me try to dispose of the second hypothesis, which ought to be
susceptible to evidence. First, although Deutsch in the
introduction says, "The strategic thinkers whom Rapoport
criticizes are clearly identifiable from his text," and Rapoport
himself says, at one point, "I have now identified the strategists"
(186), it is a little hard to tell if he knows _whom_ he is talking
about even if he knows what he is talking about. The name of
seven strategists occur in the book (Kahn, Kaufmann, Kissinger,
Knorr, R. Osgood, Schelling, G. Snyder) and they account for
twelve items out of 132 in the bibliography. This is my census;
they are never listed as a group nor is the method of selection
described. (I am excluding Liddell-Hart, who was a dean among
strategists before _Theory of Games_ ever appeared; Yarmolinsky,
who is represented only by part of a speech he gave, and the
Raytheon Corporation, whose mode of thinking is a little hard to
personify.) Seven is a small sample, but it probably contains

about half of the strategists in print who can be persuasively
associated with game theory. Of the seven, four I know personally
to be innocent of game theory; and even if one thinks that William
Kaufmann was implicitly infected with it during his sojourn at
RAND Corporation, it is worth noticing that the three selections
attributed to him were written ten years ago, before he ever joined
RAND. Kissinger has a colleague who would have to plead guilty;
but even guilt by association would have to be retroactive for
the work cited by Rapoport, since Kissinger wrote it before I
ever met him. It boils down to three possible game theorists,
against one of whom the evidence is that he included six simple
matrices and one probability equation in an otherwise "literary"
book on defense policy; and I can certify that his analytical
style in that book is the same as in things he published before
he adopted matrices for his bookkeeping. That leaves two,
Herman Kahn and myself. (I hope that both Kahn and the game
theorists will let me include both of us here for the sake of
argument.)

Whatever else one may say of the two of us, we are bound
to defy statistical analysis. Anyone who has met Kahn will
surely acknowledge that he cannot be described as a man so
ordinary in all other respects that his passing interest in
game theory and the style of his strategic analysis have an
indubitable relation of cause and effect. David Riesman once
hinted that civilian strategists act tough because, not knowing
at first hand the cost of war, they need to prove themselves

virile. As a conjectural diagnosis, this must compete with
Rapoport's. I know two outstanding strategists within the
Department of Defense who are devout Catholics but, then, there
are Jews among us and at least one Olympic skier, and I don't
know what else. Neither does Rapoport. So his correlation
coefficient relating game theory to "strategic thinking" is
suspect; but it is too low to be interesting anyhow, just two out
of seven in his sample.

I can raise the absolute number by adding Oscar Morgenstern,
whose *Question of National Defense* is unaccountably missing from
Rapoport's bibliography, and Daniel Ellsberg, as well as one or
two others who might be identified both with strategic thinking
and with game theory, but in a larger sample the denominator
would rise at least proportionately. (The exclusion of Wohlstetter
goes against recent tradition, but Rapoport treats the strategists
as sufficiently interchangeable for it not to matter.) And I
would have to put Rapoport himself and Boulding and a few other
good guys into the sample, and I am not sure the correlation of
monstrosity (his word) with game theory even comes out positive.
One can also raise the question whether foreign relations is
uniquely the field in which game theory leads one astray.
Rapoport admires Braithwaite for his "charming and perceptive
book," *Theory of Games as a Tool for the Moral Philosopher*.
Karl Deutsch, who likes this book enough to introduce it, also
likes game theory applied to politics and says so in his *Nerves
of Government* (1963), but is uneasy about its relevance to

foreign affairs. There is thus a hint that game theory stultifies
only those who worry about Russians. If so, it calls for a more
refined psychological analysis.

I have read one other full length manuscript devoted to
the thesis that game theory--literally game theory, the kind
that got started with Von Neumann and Morgenstern--accounts for
the depraved quality of American strategic thinking, and one
in print (Irving Louis Horowitz, *The War Game*) that, though it
confuses game theory and "gaming," makes much the same point.
Since statistical analysis of the open literature cannot
possibly support the proposition, I wondered whether there was
a reasonable premise that could make it true. There is: these
few gamely theoretical strategists occupy but the top of an
iceberg. They are emigrants from classified organizations whose
analytical style they typify; behind them is a vast population
of economists and game-theory strategists who not only dominate
policy but impose their fashion on the non-game-theory publicists.
This would be a reasonable conjecture, but being reasonable
doesn't make it right. I have been submerged and I did not see
the iceberg underneath. No one has to take my word for it;
still, an author might just ask somebody, and there is no sign
that these authors did.

In fact, though Rapoport remarks on "the paucity of
psychological knowledge among strategic thinkers" and says there
is little evidence "that either the empirical findings or the
insights of social scientists find important application in

book about the habits and views of several strategists whom he
identified by name never once got in touch with them by phone,
mail, or interview (and in consequence not only confused their
policies but got several of their names wrong). Rapoport cannot
be charged with such inconsistency, since he explicitly doubts
that it is "worthwhile to try to bridge the chasm between
strategic and conscience-inspired thinking." He considers it
"imperative to establish avenues of communication between Blacks
and Whites, and between East and West, because they all must
either learn to live with each other or perish. In the case of
strategy and conscience, I am not sure. Here, I believe, is
essential incompatibility, not merely a result of misunderstanding"
(195). It is no wonder that he knows so few of them and so little
about them.

Since the book is about a style of thought and not policy,
it is not surprising that he rarely identifies the bad policies
that strategic thinking leads to. There might even be a hope
that the wrong thinking would lead to the right answer, and the
strategists would be harmless. There is one main policy
orientation that he attributes to the strategists, and on this
he is correct. They all take seriously the role of military
force in deterring military action by foreign countries. They
may not take it more seriously than most policy-oriented
Americans, but among intellectuals their concentration on the
military side of foreign policy is rivaled only by that of the
peace movements. But as "policy" this is not very specific.

The only specific issue that gets Rapoport's attention is civil defense, and on this I might hazard a little psychology of my own, after the fashion of Rapoport.

First I note that of the seven strategists represented, only four have published anything on civil defense, with the exception of Kissinger who implicitly disparaged it in the book cited. Snyder devoted a few unemotional pages to it in his book and Knorr wrote a chapter on the subject nine years ago that was cautiously favorable to taking the subject seriously. Rapoport seems to think (86-87, 94-95) that his strategists are civil-defense enthusiasts and in particular that they do not recognize the "provocative" aspect of civil defense or the feedback effect on the arms race. I believe--and this is just taking my turn at amateur psychology--that Rapoport is still twitching from the shock of Herman Kahn's book and supposes that Kahn represents the RAND Corporation, the Air Force, Princeton, Harvard, game theory, and the Kennedy Administration.

(He says that "Kahn became the loudest and clearest spokesman of the 'cool young men.'" It saves reading a lot of strategy if you can rely on that.) Actually, the only game theorist I know who in print considers "defenses" innocuous in Kenneth Boulding (*Conflict and Defense*, 1962) who cannot possibly be accused of the sins of the strategists. Boulding said, "Thus, a shield, a city wall, or a bomb shelter are purely defensive armaments: they lessen the capacity of the enemy to harm but can in no way harm him" (258-9). This was just a slip on Boulding's

-11-

part, but a slip I believe would not occur with Rapoport's
"strategists," who typically insist on the interaction of civil
defense with enemy responses, not neglect it. In two of the
works attributed to Schelling the implicit and explicit treatment
of civil defense is exclusively concerned with the "feedback."
And what aroused many people was not Kahn's treating civil
defense as innocuous "insurance" but his advocacy of its
"provocative" merits; it is easy to disagree with him, but not
on grounds that he neglected the very point one disagrees on!

Actually Rapoport is not quite as wrong about the
strategists as I make him sound, even though his evidence is
disgraceful and all he has is a hunch based on a small biased
sample. The game-theory hypothesis was not a bad guess, but a
wrong one. The research technique is a bad example. There is
no treatment of issues, just thought processes. There is
occasional misrepresentation of policies, but on the whole so
little about policy that it does not matter. And there is a
slightly insulting effort to cast a diverse and ill-defined
group of individuals as a single type. Nevertheless, there is
a contemporary style of thought and analysis that deserves to be
characterized as "strategic thinking," and whether it is good or
bad it may deserve to be studied. It remains to be studied.

The word "conscience" in the title has an important
meaning for Rapoport and arises in his own interest in game
theory. He has been fascinated, like many of us, with the
situations characterized as "prisoner's dilemma"--the situations

in which individual "rational" decisions produce inefficient outcomes. These are the situations in which "cooperative" choices by two participants could make both better off, but neither has incentive to choose "cooperatively" even if the other does. Rapoport is annoyed that a "solution" based on "rational choice" should be inefficient, and wants to redefine rationality so that it is collectively rational to make cooperative choices even though individual incentives go the other way. Under a test ban without inspection, he pointed out some years ago, a country may be better off cheating if the other cheats and better off cheating if the other does not, but in the end worse off with both cheating than if both abstained. Conscience--a sense of honesty of obligation--could lead each party to eschew his individual interest with the happy result that virtue brought its own reward. (Less reward than if one cheated against a virtuous partner, but nevertheless a joint reward compared with joint cheating.)

It is hard to tell whether or not he really has an argument with those who call the non-cooperative and unhappy outcome the "rational solution." I prefer to emphasize that there <u>are</u> situations in which individual rationality leads to inefficient outcomes and in which there is no sense of obligation to bring about cooperation; I prefer it because recognizing such situations raises a universal and massively important problem of social structure. Rousseau's <u>Social Contract</u> is an illustration of the need to structure obligations--through conscience if one

-13-

can create conscience, otherwise through damage suits, hostages,
bail, inspection schemes, synchronization of choices, or anything
else--to eliminate the subversive incentives, changing the
payoffs or adding new strategies. Conscience is great if it
will do the trick; and it must account for an enormous amount of
efficiency in social and economic arrangements where the purely
material incentives could be quite disruptive. It may even
explain why people vote on election day. Like Voltaire, who
preferred God-fearing servants, we can attach great utilitarian
value to the implicit sense of social contract--of honesty,
decency and identification with each other--that we are brought
up with. (This is in addition to the attractiveness of conscience
and honesty as human qualities, but an important addition.)

Rapoport wants to derive a justification for conscience
out of game theory itself, making conscience a universal part
of the solution to games of the prisoner-dilemma type. As a
theorist I disagree with the apotheosis of conscience; there
are too many cases in which society depends on inefficient
results. The *Mafia* have solved the prisoner's dilemma efficiently
and are the better terrorists for it, as did the Secret Army
Organization in Algeria, and so do the purveyor of mail-order
pornography and his juvenile customer who have a serious problem
of "trust" to surmount. The social value of efficiency, or its
esthetic attraction, depends on who is being efficient about
what.

Rapoport might agree with me as a theorist but, on
matters of war and peace, he does not believe in disinterested

research. He sees experimental probings as "actions which _in themselves_ can induce a reorientation in thinking about international relations, that is, actions which bring about changes in the political climate." He is interested in the impact that "research as a social activity can have on the society which supports it" (italics his, p. 173, 4). If we start asking different questions, he says, we become different people. This explains his preference for a new definition of "rationality," one that is collective rather than individual, conscientious rather than strategic, and his strong belief that strategic thinking is bad no matter how good it is. Seduction lurks, he says, in the mental habit of rational analysis, "for this analysis requires detachment," and detachment leads one "to ignore human characteristics when dealing with human beings" (109).

In view of Rapoport's undisguised abhorrence of strategic thinking, his belief that it dominates the attitudes of those who mess with it, and his expressed doubts that any good could come from dialogue with a strategist, together with his belief in research as social activity and not a quest for knowledge, one might suppose that he would be cool and uncommunicative towards the strategists personally. One would be wrong. Having treated the strategists in what can truly be described as the way he claims the strategists treat the enemy, he lets his conscience determine his personal relations on those rare occasions when he meets them. This statement is based on personal observation.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

August 19, 1964

From: T. C. Schelling

To: H. A. Kissinger

What do you think of Neville Brown? I have been very well impressed by him at conferences and things but have not read much of his stuff. Mort got well acquainted with him this past year and thinks he is about the best they have in Britain in military affairs. Mort suggested that we should bring him here as a Research Associate. He is apparently busy for the next eight months or so but is uncommitted thereafter. I shall see him next month at the ISS meeting and though I might talk with him about the possibility, tell him that we might not know until Christmas whether we had the money for sure but there might be some other ways of financing it rather than using our own money. Mort thinks he could do an especially good job on the strategic force prospects of the medium size countries like Britain, France, Germany, and, according to Mort, Brown has the best grasp of technology of anyone in the business in England and is free to write because he has no official connections. I agree with Mort that there ought to be a good study of what a country like Britain and France can hope to accomplish in the strategic level in the next ten to twelve years, done by somebody who is not trying to prove a point in connection with today's controversies. According to Mort, Brown is an unusually dispassionate guy.

If you think it is a good idea, I will proceed to talk to him a little bit in September. I cannot think of anybody else on whom I am very eager to spend such money as we have.

TCS:ac

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

December 30, 1964

From: T. C. Schelling
To: Messrs. Halperin and Kissinger
Subject: Research Associates

This is my record of our meeting

Henry will write to Hal Sonnenfeld with a firm invitation.

Mort will proceed with Orin Young in connection with his own
conference this summer, and will offer him a research associateship for
next year to convert his thesis into a book.

I shall explore Goffman's interests, recognizing it unlikely
that he could come as early as next year. I shall write to Horelick and
Halpern being careful not yet to commit myself.

I will write to Holst about Sharp and also see him next spring
but will take no action now.

Alton Frye looks like a good RAND possibility and I should
find out more about him.

Neville Brown will probably go ahead with the book we have talked
about but we may get him for something afterwards.

Pics may write to us and we shall be interested in a very
guarded way.

I think we can be reasonably aggressive, because it seems un-
likely that out of this group we shall both want and get more people than
we can manage over the next two or three years. So we shall keep trying
to enlarge the list.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

January 20, 1965

Mr. Benjamin Brown
Center for International Affairs

Dear Ben:

I have a piece of leftover business. Larry Finkelstein spoke to me a month ago about an Indian who would like to come to the States to study disarmament and who might especially like to come to Harvard, who would bring his own financing but might be treated as a special student or even as a Fellow. I have just got the man's "tentative plan" and his curriculum vitae; I also have a letter from Larry that is a little hesitant about where the money might come from.

I don't think we know enough about the man to make him an invitation. I don't have time to read any of the articles that he has written. He does not yet have his money. And I am terribly busy trying to get away. May I turn this over to you?

I would get Mort or Jay Stone to look at a few things the guy has written; if they are at all interested, I would try to find somebody who knows the man in Delphi or elsewhere, to find out something about his personality. If in the end he seems good we might want to admit him in some capacity but probably not at our expense. My quick impression is that he sounds like a man who does deserve to be cultivated and who might make good use of his year in the U.S., but more for his own training than for the work that he would accomplish here. I am telling Larry Finkelstein that I have turned this over to you.

TCS:ac
cc. Messrs. Bowie, Halperin, Kissinger.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

6 DIVINITY AVENUE
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 02138

April 19, 1965

To: Messrs. Bowie, Brown, Halperin, Kissinger

From: T.C. Schelling

The attached letter was sent
to me directly at the Institute. I acknowledged
it and warned Howard Berger that it would be a
while before we could respond to him.

Would you let me know what
you think?

TCS:ac
Enc.

INSTITUTE FOR DEFENSE ANALYSES

Weapons Systems Evaluation Division

400 Army-Navy Drive, Arlington, Virginia 22202 • Telephone (703) 558-1000

March 10, 1965

Professor Thomas Schelling
Institute for Strategic Studies
18 Adams Street
London WC2, England

Dear Tom:

I am writing to you to seek your counsel concerning the possibility of my being appointed as a Fellow of the Center for International Affairs at Harvard, preferably during the coming academic year. Although you are away from the Center at the present time, I turn to you for counsel because you are the one member on the staff of the Center who is most intimately aware of the goals of IDA and its relation to the government.

Although the Fellows are ordinarily government or international officials at the time of their appointment, I understand that exceptions to this policy have been made in the past. It is my hope that the Center will decide that such an exception is warranted in my case. The purpose of this letter is to set forth the reasons why I believe such an exception is warranted and to solicit your assistance (if you agree with me) in furthering my cause. It is my contention that IDA, because of the unique and significant role it plays in the governmental decision process, is an appropriate place from which to select Fellows and that I, because of my background, interests, and professional goals, am a suitable candidate for selection as a Fellow.

As you know, IDA was created at the request of the Department of Defense so that the government could tap the reservoir of scientific talent represented or influenced by the nation's academic institutions, while providing new opportunities for mutual exposure to problems that affect the national life, to the end that there be substantial mutual advantage from the process. Thus, IDA was conceived to serve as an instrument by which the academic community could participate more effectively in government and by which the government could reach deeper and more accurately into a great store of scientific knowledge and technical skill.

[LC]

IDA, because of its dual roles of acquainting academic and highly skilled technical personnel with the problems of modern-day government and of providing the services of these personnel to the decision-making levels of the government, is in a unique position to provide highly-trained people for high government positions. Thus, although the personnel in IDA technically are not part of the government, they represent a reservoir of personnel who can quickly assume the responsibilities of high government positions when the occasion demands it. It is for this reason I feel that IDA meets the requirements of the Center as an institution from which Fellows could be selected.

In order to better acquaint you with myself than has been possible during our brief contacts in the past, let me tell you a bit about my background and my goals: I am thirty-seven years old. I received two bachelor's degrees (one in aeronautics and one in mathematics) from the University of Michigan in 1948, graduating with a grade point average of 3.95 (out of a possible 4.00). I received a Ph.D. (cum laude) in aeronautics and mathematics from the California Institute of Technology in 1954. I have had twelve years of government service; one year in the Army and the remaining eleven years as a civil servant working for the Naval Ordnance Test Station, the Office of Naval Research, and the Air Force Operations Analysis Office. During the past four years I have been at IDA, working on a variety of tactical and strategic problems. My current professional objective is to increase my value to both IDA and the government by broadening my background to include analyses of situations involving considerable political-military interactions. It is my long-range intention to stay with IDA and on occasion (when requested) to serve the government by assuming positions within the Defense Department and/or the State Department.

My studies of strategic problems (such as "damage limiting") have led me to the conclusion that not much more can be done in this field until the interaction between the damage limiting and the damage inflicting (i.e., deterrent) capabilities of the United States are better understood. I feel that such an understanding will be forthcoming only through a better understanding of political-military interactions. The atmosphere of the Center is such that I would be able to devote considerably more time to the analysis of such problems than would be possible while continuing my duties at IDA. Also, I am certain that attendance at the Center would

- 2 -

stimulate me and prepare me to make better analyses of such
problems. Hopefully, the result of my stay at the Center
would be a significant contribution in coupling the analysis
of damage limiting and damage inflicting capabilities.

Preliminary talks with Jack Ruina have indicated that
there is a good possibility IDA would sponsor my attendance
at the Center. However, I do not want to pursue that subject
further until I have heard from you about the possibility of
the Center accepting me as a Fellow. I would greatly
appreciate any guidance that you could give me in that respect.

April 23, 1965

Mr. Thomas C. Schelling
The Institute for Strategic Studies
18 Adam Street
London W.C. 2
England

Dear Tom:

I have at last read your manuscript with some care. Since I
am not as splendidly organized as you are, I do not get my priorities
so well in order. I do hope my comments are still going to be useful.

So far I have read only the first eight chapters. I will send
you my comments on the remaining three sometime next week. As always,
I found many extremely original points. The manuscript is well written
and lucid.

Nevertheless, I would like to make a few comments. In order to
be helpful, I will stress my points of concern or disagreement rather
than those areas on which I share your views. You can assume that
where I do not comment I liked what you wrote and agreed with it. You
will find on the enclosed pages comments keyed to specific paragraphs
in your text. This letter concerns my general impressions:

1. I found the English too colloquial and even chatty. Given the seriousness of the subject, this gives the manuscript a somewhat jarring, perhaps even condescending tone--out of keeping with your character. Maybe the trouble is that I am too pompous. Still I thought you might review the manuscript from the aspect of not giving too much ammunition to your opponents. This is all the more important because you told me once that you consider this book your major theoretical contribution to strategy. While Socrates did very well with a conversational method, it does not quite come off here.

2. I found almost every historical example drawn from periods with which I was familiar inaccurate. This makes me wonder about the validity of historical examples from eras with which I am not familiar. I have labeled my disagreements in the chapters and I will not repeat them here. I would urge, however, that you get some research assistant to check them all to remove the sometimes mistaken emphasis which they now carry.

...

...

now carry.
to check them all to remove the sometimes mistaken emphasis which they
them here. I would urge, however, that you get some research assistant
I have labeled my disagreements in the chapters and I will not repeat
validity of historical examples from areas with which I am not familiar.
with which I was familiar inaccurate. This makes me wonder about the
S. I found almost every historical example drawn from periods

tional method, it does not quite come off here.
contribution to strategy. While Socrate did very well with a conversa-
you told me once that you consider this book your major theoretical
ammunition to your opponents. This is all the more important because
you might review the manuscript from the aspect of not giving too much
character. Maybe the trouble is that I am too bombarded. Still I thought
jarring, beriberi even condescending tone--out of keeping with your
the seriousness of the subject, this gives the manuscript a somewhat
f. I found the English too colloquial and even chatty. Given

in your text. This letter concerns my general impressions:
will find on the enclosed pages comments keyed to specific paragraphs
where I do not comment I liked what you wrote and agreed with it. You
than those areas on which I share your views. You can assume that
be helpful. I will stress my points of concern or disagreement rather
Nevertheless, I would like to make a few comments. In order to
and so on.

I found many extremely original points. The manuscript is well written
you my comments on the remaining three sometime next week. We always
So far I have read only the first eight chapters. I will send

so well in order. I do hope my comments are still going to be useful.
am not so splendidly organised as you are. I do not get my priorities
I have at least read your manuscript with some care. Since I

Dear Tom:

England
London W.C. 3
13 Adam Street
The Institute for Strategic Studies
Mr. Thomas C. Schelling

April 23, 1962

Mr. Thomas C. Schelling

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April 23, 1965

Also, while I believe very strongly in historical examples, I do not think you always use them to best effect. When you use an example I think you should explain why you think it is relevant. The fact that something which is formally analogous happened is important only if the situation you describe is, in fact, comparable.

Moreover, I find that while some chapters have very many historical examples others do not have any. As a result, the manuscript seems to me unbalanced. (One example that I have always liked for communicating determination was the refusal of the Romans after Cannae to ransom the persons Hannibal took and thereby forcing him to sell their compatriots into slavery.)

3. I do not think that the chapter on force and violence is the most suitable beginning for your book. It is so abstruse--even though important--that many readers may never get beyond it. After you have once made that point you then drop it and do not revert to it until about Chapter 7 or 8. I would suggest that you reverse the order of Chapters 1 and 2. The advantage is that most of your readers will think, in any event, that strategy is about nuclear weapons. You would get that problem out of the way and you would then introduce your more original concepts. This also would lead better into Chapter 3 dealing with violence and warfare.

4. What troubles me most about your book right now is that while it is very clever, it is not easy to tell exactly what you are getting at. If I had to give it a title now, I would call it "Random Observations on Random Aspects of Strategy." The various chapters are almost unconnected and while each of them has many interesting things to say, it almost reads as if the book had been collected from *ad hoc* articles which I know not to be the case.

5. Also, I am not clear what audience you are addressing. Some of the chapters assume a great deal of knowledge about the existing strategy debate so that I would assume you are talking to an expert audience. At the same time, you libbor points which, to such an audience, must be obvious such as most of Chapters 6 and 7. After all, the distinction between boundaries and other limits of demarcation does not require seven pages. If, however, you want lay readers to understand you, you must give them more explanation. This reminds me that the majority of your quotes do not have footnotes so that one can not really tell how valid they really are.

6. I have always been struck in listening to you and I am again struck in reading the book by a paradox. (Forgive the use of my favorite word. I have not used "dilemma" once.) I know no one writing on strategy whose observations are more relevant to politics. At the same time there is

....

whose observations are more relevant to politics. At the same time there is
word. I have not used "dilemma" once.) I know no one writing on strategy
struck in reading the book by a barack. (Forgive the use of my favorite
g. I have always been struck in listening to you and I am again

pave footnotes so that one can not really tell how valid they really are.
more explanation. This reminds me that the majority of your quotes do not
It, however, you want to readers to understand you, you must give them
pundarics and other limits of abstraction does not require seven pages.
and so most of Chapters 6 and 7. After all, the distinction between
the same time, you lAppend points which, to each an audience, must be opinions
debate so that I would assume you are talking to an expert audience. At
the chapters assume a great deal of knowledge about the existing strategy
2. Vlao, I am not clear what audience you are addressing. Some of
be the case.

as if the book had been collected from *ad hoc* articles which I know not to
and while each of them has many interesting things to say, it almost reads
Random Vabects of Strategy." The various chapters are almost unconnected
It I had to give it a title now, I would call it "Random Observations on
it is very clever, it is not easy to tell exactly what you are setting at.
4. What trouble me most about your book right now is that while
and warare.

concepts. This also would lead better into Chapter 3 dealing with violence
problem out of the way and you would then introduce your more original
in any event, that strategy is *apont* nuclear weapons. You would get that
Chapters I and 2. The advantage is that most of your readers will think,
apont Chapter 1 or 2. I would agitate that you reverse the order of
once made that point, you then drop it and do not revert to it until
important--that many readers may never get beyond it. After you have
most suitable beginning for your book. It is so spurious--even though
3. I do not think that the chapter on force and violence is the
into slavery.)

benevolent Humanist took and thereby forcing him to sell their combatrota
determination was the refusal of the Romans after Cæsar to random the
me unbalanced. (One example that I have always liked for communicating
examples others do not have any. As a result, the manuscript seems to
Moreover, I find that while some chapters have very many historical
only if the situation you describe is, in fact, comparable.)

fact that something which is formally analogous habored is important
example I think you should explain why you think it is relevant. The
I do not think you always see them to best effect. When you see an
Vlao, while I believe very strongly in historical examples,

Mr. Thomas C. Scheffling

- 3 -

April 23, 1962

[A]

Mr. Thomas C. Schelling

- 3 -

April 23, 1965

in your writings an almost conscious avoidance of the political application of what you are saying. This leads you to write long disquisitions about the mechanics of limitations, the nature of communications, but to avoid any judgment about whether the communications were important or the limitations made sense. In Chapter 6 you go to great lengths to describe the American riposte last August when we attacked the North Vietnam PT boat bases. You do not explain the context in which his action occurred and whether you believe that it really made any political sense. Were we right to construe an attack on our destroyers as being about that issue? (We certainly have changed our mind since.) Were we wise in construing a war on Korea as being about that country? I think these questions must be answered if communication and restraint is not to be an exercise undertaken for its own sake. At least, you ought to indicate that they will furnish the final criteria.

7. A final point, if you are still my friend. I find some of your method of argumentation a little bit too involved and sometimes even a bit condescending. You do not have to illustrate every point with ten examples which are more or less the same. More important, you sometimes use phrases which make you much too vulnerable to attacks from the peace groups that you are callous and simply playing games. I know this is nonsense but then a defense from me is not what you need.

I have labeled a few points but you might look through the book again to make sure that you have no unnecessarily bothersome adjectives. Please make sure that you do something about my point on page II-5. Bismarck was a very modern statesman who knew very well how to use the loyalty of his opponents' subjects.

I hope these comments are useful to you and I want to repeat that this is a most interesting book now which could become outstanding. I will send you the remainder of my comments next week.

Warm regards.

Henry V. Klaasen

Sincerely yours,

Warm regards.

will send you the reminder of my comments next week.

this is a most interesting book now which could become outstanding. I
I hope these comments are useful to you and I want to reject that

loyalty of its opponents, subjects.

Bramack was a very modern statesman who knew very well how to use the
Please make sure that you do something about my point on page 11-3.

again to make sure that you have no unnecessarily potherous adjectives.

I know this is nonsence but then a defense from me is not what you need
from the base groups that you are calling and simply playing games.

you sometimes use phrases which make you much too vulnerable to attacks
with ten examples which are more or less the same. More important,

even a pitfall descending. You do not have to illustrate every point
your method of argumentation a little bit too involved and sometimes

1. A final point, if you are still my friend. I find some of

that they will turn you to the final criteria.

an exercise undertaken for its own sake. At least, you ought to indicate
questions that must be answered if communication and restraint is not to be
constraining a war on Korea as being about that country? I think these
issues? (We certainly have changed our mind since.) Were we right in
the right to constrain an attack on our敌oyers as being about that
and whether you believe that it really made any political sense. Were
poor passes. You do not explain the context in which political action occurred
the American ribbons last August when we attacked the North Vietnam Viet
limitations made sense. In Chapter 6 you go to great lengths to describe
any judgment about whether the communications were important or the
time mechanics of limitations, the nature of communications, but to avoid
of what you are saying. This leads you to write long discussions about
in your writings an almost concomitant avoidance of the political application

Mr. Thomas C. Scheiling

- 3 -

April 23, 1962