Mr. Albert J. Wohlstetter
c/o Dr. Herbert S. Dinerstein
5 Chemin Pierre Brasiere
Geneva, Switzerland

November 6, 1958

Dear Mr. Wohlstetter:

It was a great pleasure to make your acquaintance the other day at the Council and I look forward to having other opportunities to talk to you at greater length. I am also counting on you to visit Harvard some time as soon after your return from Geneva as we can find a mutually convenient time.

Phil Mosely has shown me your article for *Foreign Affairs*. I think it is a major contribution, though some of its points may be a little elusive to the non-initiate. I do feel however that your reference to the fact that I do not consider numerical superiority important does not correctly represent my views. First of all, the statement you ascribe to me does not exist on page 95 of my book. On pages 96-98 however I do make on a less sophisticated level exactly your basic argument: that we must have a strike-second capability. There are many criticisms that I would now make of my chapter on all-out war, particularly with reference to the tactics the Soviet Union is likely to follow. And I agree with you about the missile problems. It does seem to me however that we are sufficiently in accord so that we should not use up our energies in attacking each other, particularly with respect to convictions we do not hold.

I wish you much luck in your enterprise in Geneva and I am much reassured that somebody with your competence is available to advise our delegation.

Kindest regards.

DELEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Surprise Attack Safeguards
American Consulate General
Geneva, Switzerland

November 12, 1958

Dear Mr. Kissinger:

I, too, look forward to our meeting again -- in the Council or at Harvard -- soon after Geneva. Just when "after Geneva" will be appears very obscure indeed this afternoon of the second day of the Conference. (As you no doubt observed from press reports, the "conversations" with our Russian friends had the predictable beginning -- like the paired soliloquies which substitute for talk between the small children studied by Jean Piaget.) I am hopeful, however, that we shall be out of the trenches by Christmas. The slogan was common in the American camp last month.

I am terribly sorry if I misinterpreted your views on retaliation and American superiority. I don't have a copy of your book here in Geneva. My notes may very well have been faulty or my understanding poor; at the very least, the page reference could have been mangled in successive retypings. In any case, the reference to you is quite incidental to my argument and I will be very happy to amend it if it misrepresents your views at the time of your book.

My memory and my notes had you saying, on page 95, that there exists no cheap way to fight an all-out war (meaning no way for the aggressor to come off cheaply), attributing this to the ability of the loser to adopt a counter-city strategy. With as few as fifty 10 MT weapons, he could kill 30% of the aggressor's population; that is, as much as 65 million dead, which would certainly not be a cheap price for the aggressor to pay.

Quite apart from the exact sums named, it seemed to me that here and in several other places in your book, you did not give much weight to an aggressor-defender relation in which the aggressor could deprive the defender of the option to do anything like that damage in retaliation. This neglect in turn reflected (I thought!) one of the initial, widespread views as to the meaning of "absolute weapons": while nuclear plenty might have some uses, some moderate number of bombs was enough -- nuclear sufficiency -- to assure urban destruction. Of course, I had no need to go to your famous book to find illustrations of this view. As you know, the literature both

before and after is replete with similar statements. It is one
specific case of the balance of terror view, and as in the general
case, it has been held by many people whom I respect and admire.
My own view, reached in the course of several empirical studies,
expressed in quantitative detail in a variety of classified works,
and, most summarily, in the Foreign Affairs piece, is that a strike-
second capability is achievable but only with difficulty and, de-
pending on the strategic choices to be made by both the Soviet
Union and ourselves, we may not have the ability to retali ate at
critical junctures. Moreover, I regard it as basic to my argument
to reject the notion that the enemy would under no circumstance
take risks. It is possible that he might at some time in the future
be extremely assured of the capability for preventing retaliation
if we behave sufficiently stupidly, but, in any case, I think it
wrong to assert unconditionally that he would require foolproof cer-
tainty of the ability to prevent our response. This, as I stress
in the article, depends on the magnitude of the risks that may be
pressing upon him as alternatives. Here again I may have misunder-
stood your views in the book, but I had recalled language of a
quite opposite sense in the discussion immediately following page
95.

For so comprehensive a book as yours to contain an almost uni-
versal view which I believe to be in error would surely not be very
damning. Nor would it commit you to its defense at this date. I
am sure that we are extensively in agreement, and it seems to me
also that we might save our energies for attacking our common prob-
lems rather than each other. If, after reading this and checking
in your book, you think this reference unjust, please let me know
quickly and I will try to amend it. To insure against any mishap
in communications, I shall send a copy of this to Phil Mosely and
to Philip Quigg, with authorization for either one of them to change
or drop the reference if I can't get a second letter back in time.

I appreciate your estimate of the article's contribution and
hope that I can fix up any obscurities for the "non-initiate." I,
too, am very conscious of the possibilities for misunderstanding.

Mr. Henry Kissinger
Center for International Affairs
Harvard University
Cambridge 38, Massachusetts

[LC]

2

[LC]

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unless its deferred char-
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W. P. MARSHALL, PRESIDENT

1959 SEP 1201

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ALBERT WOHLSTETTER THE RAND CORPORATION.=

THE COMPANY WILL APPRECIATE SUGGESTIONS FROM ITS PATRONS CONCERNING ITS SERVICE

April 25, 1960

Mr. Albert Wohlstetter
The RAND Corporation
Santa Monica, California

Dear Albert:

I returned to my office
after a brief absence to find a copy
of your paper, "On the Value of Over-
seas Bases." I want to tell you how
much I appreciate your sending it and
that I thought it was excellent.

With kind regards.

April 22, 1960

Santa Monica, California
The RAND Corporation
Mr. Albert Woblesetter

Dear Albert:

that I thought it was excellent.
much I appreciate your sending it and
seems Buses." I want to tell you how
of your paper, "On the Value of Over-
after a brief absence to find a copy
I returned to my office

With kind regards.

The RAND Corporation

1700 MAIN STREET
SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA

ALBERT WOHLSTETTER
RESEARCH COUNCIL

24 April 1962
L-8627

Mr. Henry A. Kissinger
Center for International Affairs
Harvard University
6 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge 38, Massachusetts

Dear Henry:

I am sorry I'm going to miss your May 11 visit. Please let me know if you'd like me to set something up with some other RAND people. We really should have a leisurely talk as we've been threatening to for the last six months as one or another of us whipped by on the way to someplace else.

I very much appreciate your kindness in writing to R. K. Nehru, Desai, and Tappa. My schedule calls for me to arrive in Delhi on the fourth and leave on the sixth. It may, of course, shift a day or two in either direction, and more likely on the far side. I am still turning over in my mind whether to take in Pakistan. If I do, I'll trouble you again by way of a letter or two. In any case, I would very much appreciate your sending me as soon as you can manage it accounts of your talks in India and Pakistan.

Saeki, the Commandant of the Japanese National Defense College, was out to dinner Saturday and told me he had enjoyed your visit at the College. I'll be talking there myself sometime in May.

AW:lc

The RAND Corporation

4 May 1962

L-9484

Mr. Henry Kissinger
Center for International Affairs
Harvard University
6 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Henry:

I much enjoyed your notes on the conferences with Menon, Nehru, and company. I got the feeling, as you must have, that I had been there before. There is a startling contrast between the forthrightness of Indian opinion on disarmament and their candid concern that perhaps they should have a half a dozen people get to know something about it.

I appreciate also your writing to Tappa, R. K. Nehru and Desai. In the Indian correlative of the civil-military dispute, judging from your account of Menon, there seems no doubt that the Brahmins are still on top.

Once again, let me repeat our familiar incantation. We should get together for a leisurely chat soon — after my return. Where will you be headed then?

I am enclosing the latest revision of my itinerary.

AW:mm
Enclosure

May 23, 1962

Secretary General R. K. Nehru
Ministry of External Affairs
Government of India
New Delhi, India

Dear Mr. Nehru:

I still remember with great pleasure our conversation during
my visit to India in January. I hope that the material on disarmament
which was sent to you has arrived and is proving to be helpful.

I am writing to you today to introduce a good friend of mine who
is now travelling throughout Asia and Europe to learn about the strategic
thinking in these areas. He is Albert Wohlstetter, of the Research
Council of the RAND Corporation, and one of the most influential strategists
in the United States, although perhaps not as well known abroad. Disarm-
ament is another of his interests.

Mr. Wohlstetter expects to be in New Delhi from June 3rd to 9th,
and I would be most grateful if you could find time in your busy schedule
to see him. I think you would find him interesting, and I know he would
benefit enormously from an opportunity to speak with you. It might be
useful for him to speak with Mr. M.J. Desai of your Ministry also, and I
wonder whether you might be able to arrange this.

I will be in touch with Mr. Wohlstetter, and will take the liberty
of making him to contact your office upon his arrival in Delhi if you will
be able to see him. I look forward to hearing from you.

With kind regards and all good wishes.

May 23, 1962

General Thapar, Chief of the Indian
Army Staff
New Delhi
India

Dear General Thapar:

I still remember with the greatest warmth our meeting during
my visit to India last January, and also my talk at the United Service
Institute.

I am writing to you today to introduce a good friend of mine
who is now travelling throughout Asia and Europe to learn about the
strategic thinking in these areas. He is Albert Wohlstetter, of the
Research Council of the RAND Corporation, and one of the most influential
strategists in the United States, although perhaps not as well known
abroad. Disarmament is another of his interests.

I will be in touch with Mr. Wohlstetter, and will be glad to
ask him to contact your office upon his arrival in Delhi.

Henry V. Kiehluger

Sincerely yours,

ask him to contact your office how he arrival in Delhi.

I will be in touch with Mr. Wohlfatter, and will be glad to

penetit emolumenty from an opportunity to speak with you.
to see him. I think you would find him interesting, and I know he would
and I would be most grateful if you could find time in your busy schedule
Mr. Wohlfatter expects to be in New Delhi from June 3rd to 5th.

apprès. Disarmament is another of his interests.
strategists in the United States, although perhaps not as well known
Research Council of the RAND Corporation, and one of the most influential
strategic thinking in these areas. He is Albert Wohlfatter, of the
who is now travelling throughout Asia and Europe to learn about the
I am writing to you today to introduce a good friend of mine
Institute.

my visit to India last January, and also my talk at the United Service
I still remember with the greatest warmth our meeting during

Dear General Trabax:

India
New Delhi
Army Staff
General Trabax, Chief of the Indian

May 33, 1963

May 28, 1962

P. N. Bhatia
Editor
Times of India
New Delhi, India

Personal

My dear Prem,

I don't suppose your reporters ever brought to your notice that I left the D.V.C. in September last year, and have since then been at Harvard, doing the "course" that A. D. Pandit did, and L. P. Singh before him. I am now at the end of my stay here, and expect to be back home about the beginning of July, waiting for Government to find a new assignment for me.

The purpose of writing this letter is to tell you that I have given your name to a most interesting "non-official" American academician, Mr. Albert Wohlstetter, who will be visiting Delhi in the near future. He works for the Rand Corporation, and his special field (where his work has, I believe, a certain amount of influence on governmental thinking) is defence policy and strategic considerations. I have suggested to him (through Mr. Henry Kissinger--whom you may have met when he was in Delhi last January) that he might get in touch with you for obtaining a worthwhile assessment of the Indian approach to world politics. I hope you will be able to give him some time.

I trust Sakuntala and the children are flourishing as well as
yourself. My wife is with me here, but the rest of the family is in India.

All the best,

UKG/md

[Y]

May 29, 1962

Mr. Albert Wohlstetter
c/o Hotel Ashoka
New Delhi, India

Dear Albert:

This is just a note to confirm my cable.
I have written to General Thapar and R.K. Nehru,
asking both to spend some time with you, and the
latter to fix an appointment with Desai. They
will expect your call upon your arrival. Mr.
P.N. Bhatia, Editor of the _Times of India_ has
also been written and will expect to hear from
you.

I hope your trip is going well.

Kind regards.

Henry V. Klaasen

Sincerely yours,

Kind regards.

You.

I have written to General Tagar and R.K. Nehru, and the
I have written to General Tagar and R.K. Nehru.

This is just a note to confirm my cabie.

Dear Albert:

New Delhi, India
c/o Hotel Aahoks
Mr. Albert Wohlfatter

May 29, 1965

WESTERN UNION

TELEGRAM

W. P. MARSHALL, PRESIDENT

SF-1201 (4-60)

<table><thead><tr><th>SYMBOLS</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>DL= Day Letter</td></tr><tr><td>NL= Night Letter</td></tr><tr><td>LT= International Letter Telegram</td></tr></tbody></table>

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YOUR CABLE MAY 28 LT LABERT WOHLSTETTER HOTEL MAJESTIC SAIGON

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WESTERN UNION HU 2 8020 EXT 222.

WESTERN UNION

TELEGRAM

W. P. MARSHALL, PRESIDENT

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<table><thead><tr><th>SYMBOLS</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>DL=Day Letter</td></tr><tr><td>NL=Night Letter</td></tr><tr><td>LT=International Letter Telegram</td></tr></tbody></table>

1042A EDT MAY 30 62 TBA125

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YOUR MESSAGE MAY 29 ALBERT WOHLSTETTER HOTEL FRAWAN BRANGKOK

THAILAND IS UNDELIVERED. ADDRESSEE IS NOT AT THE HOTEL

Same message sent to Hotel Ashoka, New Delhi

Dongre Building,
Lamington Road,
Bombay 7.

February 20, 1963

Dr. Albert Wohlstetter
Research Council
The Rand Corporation
1700 Main Street
Santa Monica
California
(USA)

Dear Dr. Wohlstetter,

I do not know if you still remember me. In May last year, you
were kind enough to write me a letter expressing your warm appreciation
of my paper "India, Tibet & China" published by the Democratic Research
Service in 1959. You had also in your letter offered to send me some of
your works. I have, however, not yet received any one of them. Most
probably they have been lost in transit.

I am writing to you today especially to request you to do me a
small favour. I have applied for a scholarship to participate in the
Harvard International Seminar which is being held from July 1 to August
23, this year. I have been a student of current political affairs for
the last six years and would like to participate in the discussion on
political problems that would be organised as part of the Harvard Seminar.

In this connection, I would very much appreciate if you could
write to the Organisers of the Seminar conveying your views regarding my
ability to understand and analyse the present-day issues as evidenced in
my paper. Such a letter from you might help in establishing my creden-
tials for awarding a scholarship to participate in the Seminar.

I am enclosing herewith a copy of the letter outlining my "inte-
rest in the Seminar and the contributions I expect to make to it" which is
required to be sent by every applicant. It would give you some idea of
my views on the current world affairs.

I am also furnishing herewith some personal details regarding my
educational qualifications and experience etc., for your information.

Mr. Alan Carlin, Ford Foundation Scholar, who came to meet me on
your behalf in last June may have written to you about me.

Hoping to hear from you and to be excused for the trouble,

Phcls :

Albert Wohlstetter
2805 Woodstock Road
Los Angeles 46, California

PERSONAL

May 6, 1963

Mr. Henry Kissinger
Center for International Affairs
Harvard University
6 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge 38, Massachusetts

Dear Henry:

Returning from an extended trip back East, I found your letter
with its kind comments on "Scientists, Seers and Strategy." Many
thanks. In your private communications with me and our mutual
friends, orally and in writing, you have invariably been most generous
in your praise of my work, and even in acknowledging your own debt
to it. I have always appreciated that.

You may then imagine that I was disturbed to read in your
first public printed appraisal your suggestion that my studies had as
consequence a one-sided extremism and were guilty of no less than
straining the very cohesion of the alliance itself. If you did not mean
to attribute to me such extremism and these troubles in the alliance,
you could have made your meaning plainer. You have ample oppor-
tunity to state the contrary in public. Whatever the worth of my work,
it did for the most part concern other matters than those you describe.

Perhaps you will forgive me then if my letter to the editor of
*The Reporter* seemed a bit curt. So far my public writings have not
earned a reputation as extremist, and the classified body of work and
writings to which you refer is just about the best I have done. Since
the public does not have direct access to that work, I have a perhaps
pardonable concern that it be described accurately by responsible
writers - a category in which I place you, though not Blackett and
Waskow. I am sorry if my letter caused you pain. But after all,
wasn't I the offended party?

Best regards to Roberta.

June.

I look forward to seeing you here the beginning of
will seek an early opportunity to make this clear in public.
for your work and my intellectual indebtedness to you. I
therefore, that this exchange does not detract from my respect
were available than a public letter. I want to assure you,
complaint, it does seem to me that better forms for rebuttal
Nevertheless, while I think you had some reason for

argument has been weakened.
from the end of a series of barbed remarks to the beginning, this
situation within NATO. Due to a transposition of one sentence
that they are bringing on an extremely dangerous political
have pushed your own very valid conclusions to each extreme
blinder. The point I intended to make was that your conduct
and I can see that barbed I could have made my meaning

After receiving your letter, I looked over my article

Thank you for your letter of May 6th.

Dear Alpert:

Los Angeles 46, California
2802 Woodstock Road
Mr. Alpert Wopfletter

May 13, 1963

October 17, 1963

Professor R. N. Rosecrance
Coordinator, National Security Studies Program
University of California
Los Angeles 24, California

Dear Professor Rosecrance:

Thank you for your letter of October 9th. I am delighted to hear that Albert Wohlstetter is being considered for a permanent position at UCLA. I believe that such an appointment would reflect great credit on the University.

Mr. Wohlstetter's work is without question the most fundamental analysis in the field of strategic studies. All of us who are working in this area have been influenced to a very considerable degree by his pioneer studies. The significance of his work goes far beyond its immediate impact on policy. Indeed, he has given the best theoretical formulation to the whole field of which I am aware.

I say this with all the greater emphasis because I have on several occasions disagreed with particular conclusions with respect to policy. Yet even those of us who have disagreed with Mr. Wohlstetter's conclusions have found it necessary to accept his theoretical framework.

I think Mr. Wohlstetter would be a great asset to any University and I recommend him with the utmost enthusiasm and without reservations.

With kind regards.

cc: Mr. Wohlstetter

Henry V. Kleininger

With kind regards.

without reservations.

University and I recommend him with the utmost enthusiasm and
I think Mr. McHaleetter would be a great asset to any

accept the theoretical framework.

with Mr. McHaleetter's conclusion has found it necessary to
respect to policy. Yet even those of us who have disagreed
on several occasions disagree with particular conclusions with
I say this with all the greater emphasis because I have

belliger. Indeed, he has given the best theoretical formulation

ficence of his work goes far beyond its immediate impact on

very considerable degree by his pioneer studies. The eight-

Mr. McHaleetter's work is without question the best

appointment would reflect great credit on the University.
for a permanent position at UCD. I believe that such an
enlightened to hear that Albert McHaleetter is being considered
Thank you for your letter of October 9th. I am

Dear Professor McOsaence:

Los Angeles 34, California
University of California
Coordinator, National Security Studies Program
Professor R. M. Rosecrance

October 13, 1963

Henry A. Kiebler

Sincerely yours,

Warm regards.

the West Coast.
able to do better on my next visit to
not locate you. I hope we will be
week I tried to reach you but could
When I was in San Francisco last
July 12th.

July 12th.
Thank you for your letter of

Dear Albert:

Los Angeles, California 90046
2802 Woodstock Road
Mr. Albert Wohlatter

July 23, 1964

1882-1964

1898-1964

On June 11, 1945, four weeks before the first atom bomb explosion at Alamogordo, James Franck boarded the night train from Chicago to Washington. He wanted to make sure that the report from the Committee on Social and Political Implications of Atomic Energy-of which he had been the chairman-would be delivered, with all possible emphasis on its importance, to the highest authority in Washington. This was the "Franck Report," setting out the revolution in warfare which the atom bomb was bound to bring about, and the dangers it would create for future security of all nations, including the United States. The report counseled against the introduction of the atom bomb as a legitimate weapon of war in the offensive against Japan.

Leo Szilard was one of the chief contributors to the Franck Report. A few months earlier, he had tried other approaches to Washington on the same matter. He wrote to President Roosevelt for an interview; after Roosevelt's death, this letter was referred by President Truman to his assistant, James Byrnes. Szilard failed to make a dent in Byrnes' simple attitudes: The bomb was developed for use in war, wasn't it? If any problems arose in connection with its use, the official scientific advisers-Oppenheimer, Compton, Fermi-undoubtedly would be aware of them.

Szilard was not satisfied with the Franck Report. He felt that the matter had to be brought to the attention of the President, by-passing the Interim Committee on the future of atomic energy, appointed by Secretary of War Henry Stimson, to whom the Franck Report was addressed. Also, he decided that this appeal should be based on moral considerations, rather than on arguments of rational statesmanship which the authors of the Franck Report believed might have greater influence on the policymakers in Washington. Franck and others argued that an attempt to bypass the Secretary of War would weaken the appeal. "You may be cleverer than I," he said to his younger colleague, "but believe me, I am wiser." "Sir," answered Szilard with a broad gesture of obeisance, "I agree with one-half of your statement."

The "Szilard Petition" was signed by 56 of the scientists in the Chicago laboratories of the Manhattan Project, and sent to the President on July 17. Neither the Report nor the Petition made much of a ripple in the stream of history, which rushed inexorably to the holocausts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and August 9, 1945.

At the time of the Franck Report, James Franck was approaching 60, a generation older than Szilard, a

16

assuring trend. For example, in 1945, one physicist of the first rank was most pessimistic about the postwar years. He said, "If we manage to get through the next fifteen years alive, we shall probably emerge immune to atomic bombs." In 1960—fifteen years later—he did not feel that we were immune to atom bombs, but he now talked of the probability of war in the following forty years. Another prominent physicist was saying not very long ago that unless we had comprehensive arms control by 1970 the probability of war was extremely high. Later he moved the date to 1975, and has written recently that with average luck we might last out the century.

## WISHES AND ESTIMATES

The most important goal of both our national defense and our foreign policy must continue to be to reduce the probability of war. There is no basis, however, for the predictions which fix the length of our lease on life. All the urgent statements indicating that the lease is nearly up have some very large defects. First, they pretend to a knowledge of the future which we do not have, a knowledge not only of the technology but also of the evolving political and economic scene. Second, they point to the establishment in the near future of an improbably final arrangement for settling the deep antagonisms between the East and the West and in fact among all nations. They may express our wishes, but not our sober estimates of the durability of the antagonisms themselves.

We are in the dark about the future of science and technology, still more so about the long-term military and political future. We should be extremely skeptical, therefore, of sweeping predictions that come tied to a prescription for urgent and drastic action. The apocalyptic pairs of alternatives "Destroy the Russians or they'll destroy us" as against "Disarm or face world annihilation" are counsels of desperation. They abandon not only patience, but intelligence.

Uncertainty is hard to tolerate, but it is a hard fact of life. It demands flexibility, preparedness to change direction with new knowledge, and the use of every shred of knowledge that we have, including our knowledge of the glacial slowness of the cold war's receding. We have interests in common with our opponents, but they are not overriding. Utopian proposals ignore the durability of our political problems by calling for a final and immediate solution.

As if the problem of peace were not enough to settle all at once, such prescriptions are frequently coupled with recipes for solving the extraordinarily resistant troubles of the less developed countries. It is suggested that we can stabilize the peace and launch the less developed countries into self-sustaining growth at one stroke simply by devoting all or most of the money spent on national defenses throughout the world to provide capital for these areas. Such formulas hardly

take either problem seriously, keeping the peace or economic and political development. The latter is not at all likely to be accomplished quickly or by any simple formula.

Utopian hopes flourish in the less developed countries, also. If the stereotype, "the revolution of rising expectations," suggests that the gap between poor and rich countries is likely to be closed in a matter of years, or even decades, it would be better phrased, "the revolution of excessive expectations." Fostering technical innovation is not simply a technological matter, and, in any case, is no cure-all. It has no automatic connection with the development of democratic forms.

Millennial prescriptions of scientists and technologists in the advanced countries for the economic development of backward areas, with their simple stress on technology and the supply of industrial capital, form an unfortunately perfect match for some of the millennial characteristics of the leadership in newly independent countries.

John Von Neumann, who of all the scientists wrote most perceptively of our burgeoning technology and small, finite world, did not draw the utopian conclusions of many who cite him. On the contrary he wrote:

"It is unreasonable to expect a novel cure-all. . . . For progress there is no cure. Any attempt to find automatically safe channels for the present explosive variety of progress must lead to frustration. The only safety permissible is relative, and it lies in an intelligent exercise of day-to-day judgment.

"The one solid fact is that the difficulties are due to an evolution that, while useful and constructive, is also dangerous. Can we produce the required adjustments with the necessary speed? The most hopeful answer is that the human species has been subjected to similar tests before and seems to have a congenital ability to come through, after varying amounts of trouble. To ask in advance for a complete recipe would be unreasonable. We can specify only the human qualities required: patience, flexibility, intelligence."

There are without doubt large changes in technology impending. But how fast they will come and just what they will be is not really predictable. Still less are the widespread political and economic consequences of these changes. The future of technology is not black, but obscure. It is better for us to move by the fitful illumination of our intelligence than to make one grand leap in the dark.

The rule of law is not apt to come all at once like the social contract of the eighteenth century philosophers. It is more likely to be built opportunistically and piece-meal like the common law.

The changes coming are neither intrinsically benign nor malign. In any case, they are best not viewed in terms of the apocalypse or the millennium. The apocalypse might come, but it need not. And the millennium is not about to.

October 1964 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 15

thousand nautical miles? That's halfway around. Two paths of that length starting from the same center could meet at the opposite side.

And the old empires were actually rather impressive in extent. A direct path from Byzantium to the farthest extent of Justinian's domain on the Iberian Peninsula comes within a factor of three or four of making it halfway round the world. Communications and transportation have improved by very much larger factors than three or four. It used to take from a month to two months to go from Byzantium to Rome. Now jets can make it in hours, rockets in minutes. On the technical limits the Small World theory and the technicians are more plausible.

Our adversaries are restrained not by technical limits but by the essential diversity of their own goals, and by the costs of doing us in, and therefore by us. The diplomats and political historians are on firm ground when, in contrast to most of the technologists, they stress the complexity and multiplicity of political objectives. The Communists are preoccupied with a good many other problems than crushing us by force of arms. No country in the Communist or non-Communist world has ever pursued the arms race with the single-minded ferocity assumed in the simple models constructed by writers on strategy and military technology. The world is getting small—compared to what is technically feasible—but it is not getting simple.

## • WORLD OF COMPLEXITIES

Technologists tend to treat these political and military problems as if they were pure technology. But in practice a decision to speed the development and production of nuclear weapons or bombers or rockets will be affected by the costs of such a program, the many competing national purposes for which the same resources might be used, and the apparent rewards. The rewards themselves depend upon the behavior of other nations, and the expected payoffs may in some cases be rather easily frustrated. In spite of the great scientific competence of the English, their costly rocket program, the Blue Streak, turned out to be of very dubious value and was cancelled, not because of any technical failure but because of the much greater capabilities the more powerful Russians have for counter-measures, making the Blue Streak vulnerable on reentry from space and even more vulnerable on the ground.

Some scientists and technologists talk of the imminent appearance of rocket programs so cheap that they will be available not merely to poor countries, but also to wealthy individuals, a new sort of nuclear dilettante. In fact, effective military programs for nuclear weapons and delivery systems are an enormous enterprise. Until very recently, studies of the diffusion problem considered only what would be necessary for new entrants to the nuclear club just to make bombs, as if the bombs

would deliver themselves and be unopposed. And it is still extremely rare for such studies to consider the delivery problem seriously with full account taken of the problems of operating and controlling nuclear forces in the face of possible enemy counters.

The spread of nuclear weapons is a genuine and an important problem. But the time scale for this diffusion and its characteristics have been woefully misrepresented by men who have taken the problem as one of improving technology to cut the cost of a standardized, universally desired product. Considered realistically, the product is not merely complex, but the standards are continuously changing. Nuclear retaliatory systems have not been going down in price, but up. The first 100 B-58s, Atlas, or submarine-launched Polaris cost three to five times more than the first 100 B-47s. In fact, diffusion has gone very much more slowly than was predicted, and prophecy continues to be quickly outmoded by events. Only a little over three years ago, Sir Charles Snow forecast at least a dozen new entrants to the nuclear club by 1966. Nothing of the kind is likely to happen.

Technologists who hold the Small World view tend to assume not only that any country will acquire all means of destruction within its technical capacity, but also that once acquired they are sure to be used. We have had predictions that nuclear war is statistically certain before the end of the decade. The danger of nuclear war is a very real one, but this sort of prophecy has no empirical foundation whatsoever.

Sometimes the certainty of nuclear war is presented mathematically. Given a fixed probability of war, no matter how small, as long as it is greater than zero, "sooner or later" the nuclear holocaust will come. In this form, however, the prediction is mathematically impeccable but trivial. An equally impeccable bit of algebra would show that the rule of law and eternal peace is statistically certain "sooner or later": in any given year there is some probability that the total rule of law and the peaceful settlement of disputes will come into being. Since this probability, although tiny right now, is greater than zero and not decreasing, then, "sooner or later. . . ."

The argument for the statistical certainty of nuclear war should be no more terrifying than the argument for the statistical certainty of eternal peace is reassuring.

Such impeccable but empty arguments are very common, even among Nobel laureates in physics. Still more common is the assertion that the probability of war in any given year increases year by year. Yet on the evidence of the greatly decreased vulnerability of our strategic force and the greatly increased centralization of command over nuclear weapons, the probability both of deliberate attack on U.S. forces and their "accidental" or miscalculated use has declined in the last decade.

Even the flat predictions that the probability of war is very high for some next period of years show a re-

14

cations and also of thought control. There is no longer
space on earth simply to extend the area of operation
of a technology; we have run up against earth's finite
limits. Not only can the range of delivery of weapons
cover the earth completely from any point, but the area
of destruction for unprotected targets is very large in
relation to the accuracy of this delivery. The Atlantic
and Pacific oceans and the distance from the Russian
border to Moscow no longer suffice to shelter the
United States and the Soviet Union. Moreover, the
spread of nuclear weapons to more powers is likely to
increase the instability, complicating the problem of
deterring surprise attack and making the task of reduc-
ing the chance of war through "accidents" or misun-
derstanding more difficult. The great mathematician,
John Von Neumann, suggested that a war between ex-
isting nations of present size and proximity, with weap-
ons of impending range and destructiveness, would be
as unstable as a war with the weapons of 1900 confined
to Manhattan Island. For this reason he felt that the
world had become "under-sized and under-organized."

One sort of inference typically drawn by scientists
and technologists from this line of thinking (though
not in his later years by Von Neumann) is the imme-
diate necessity for worldwide agreement in controlling
the technology of destruction. To use the stark alterna-
tives stated at the very start of the nuclear age, it is one
world or none.

But while scientists and technologists at the end of
the war urgently stressed the necessity of one world,
events were moving toward the multiplication of sov-
ereignties. Membership in the United Nations doubled
and is on its way to tripling. In any case it is clear that
we have not been going steadily toward one world.

This actual and growing diversity of the world re-
ceives notice in the Big World analysis, which is pre-
sented by many distinguished diplomats, historians, and
writers on foreign affairs. Mr. Kennan, who is all three,
has written:

"Many Americans seem unable to recognize the tech-
nical difficulties involved in the operation of far-flung
lines of power . . . There are, believe me, limits to the
effective radius of political power from any center in
the world. It is vitally important to remember this, par-
ticularly in the face of the fears one hears constantly
expressed today that the Russians want universal power
and will be likely to take over the world if we fail to
do this or that.

"There is no magic by which great nations are brought to obey—for any length of time—the will of people very far away who understand their problems poorly and with whom they feel no intimacy of origin or understanding. . . . There are geographic limits to the possibilities of military occupation; and such colonial regimes as can occasionally be successfully established at points remote from the ostensible center soon develop, as has been demonstrated time and time again

since . . . the Byzantine Empire, a will and identity of
their own and become increasingly ineffective as instru-
ments. . . . What I am asserting is that universal world
dominion is a technical impossibility, and that the ef-
fectiveness of the power radiated from any one national
center decreases in proportion to the distance involved."

This view stresses that power is finite, that it di-
minishes in proportion to distance from its center, and
concludes that—at least for any time—world dominion
by the USSR or any single power is a technological im-
possibility. It emphasizes the apparent growth of many
centers of power, and the increased importance of small
powers. On the whole, multipolarity is held to make
the world more stable. One world, in this view, is tech-
nically infeasible.

It is something of a paradox that the technologists
insist on one world as a political necessity while the
diplomats and political historians assure us that it is
technically infeasible.

The latter show an attractive and persuasive aware-
ness of the diversity of competing national goals, prob-
lems in exercise of power, and factual limits both to
power and to national ambitions—matters that tech-
nologists tend to brush over all too lightly. Nonetheless,
this view has problems. For one thing, although power
comes in several varieties, none I have examined—in
terms of the technology of nuclear or conventional war-
fare today—falls off so neatly in a straight line from the
power center. Even for conventional combat, the costs
of getting to a theater of war can be very small and the
capabilities very large, compared to the costs and capa-
bilities of moving about inside the theater. It some-
times turns out that a distant foe actually has an advan-
tage over one nearby, whose local means of access may
be very poor. In the case of nuclear war the cushioning
effects of space are much more radically transformed.
How important distance is will depend on your objec-
tives. A first strike may be considerably helped by prox-
imity, but a so-called "second-strike capability" is likely
to be aided by distance.

In any case, the old geopolitical considerations on
the balance of power which typify the Big World view
are too schematic and dubious to be very reassuring
about the stability of the world today.

Nor is the theory very reassuring about Soviet ambi-
tions. It tells us that great nations will not obey a dis-
tant will "for any length of time," but even a short
time could be highly unpleasant. Moreover, even if we
assume the infeasibility of total world dominion by a
single power, this is not completely comforting. A world
divided between several nuclear-armed contending Com-
munist powers might be even worse. And finally, com-
pare the finite limit to the effective radius of power,
stressed by Big World theorists, with that other finite
limit stressed by holders of the Small World view. How
does the technical limit of power compare with the
size of the globe? To be specific, is it less than twelve

October 1964 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 13

the ability to control weather, is still in its dim beginnings with the small-scale, local attempts at rainmaking. Even now, one locality might benefit at the expense of another—say, by diverting a river. But drastic changes in climate and atmosphere that may one day be effected by men include changes in the level of the seas, possible flooding of continental shelves and coastal cities, long-term warming of vast regions and cooling of others. Quite apart from the wartime application of these changes, the possibilities of diverging interests here dwarf anything we have seen in the Arab-Israeli conflict over the Jordan River or even the water disputes between California and Arizona.

A mere roll call of the potential changes in our power to change things can be inspiring or terrifying—usually both—we are told we will have either cataclysm or paradise. But even some aspects of paradise can be terrifying, and as a result, predictions of the future of science and technology tend to be a competition in ominousness.

Prophets of technological change may take on the awesome attributes of their subject matter. Some of that massive power rubs off on the fellow who announces it, as if he could evoke the enormous good—or the destruction—he foretells. But unlike the messenger who brought bad news to the king in the past, messengers of technological bad news today find an assured welcome in the community.

## TECHNOLOGICAL PROPHECY

Yet control involves, as a necessary condition, successful prediction, and the prophecy business in technology is very shaky. Its aura of power is sustained only because in general we do not keep tabs on how such predictions on science and technology turn out. Such scorecards would almost always prove chastening. Even some of the examples of extraordinarily successful prescience have turned out to be rather more like the prophecies of Nostradamus than predictions deduced from a finished scientific theory. There are, of course, many noxious examples of unsuccessful prophecies—plain bum guesses—by famous and excellent scientists. There was Simon Newcomb's demonstration, published a few years after the Wright brothers flew at Kittyhawk, that "no possible combinations of substances, known forms of machine, and known forms of force can be united in a practicable machine by which men shall fly long distances through the air." Then there was the great Rutherford's judgment, less than a decade before the first sustained nuclear chain reaction, that we were never likely to be able to release atomic energy. Forecasts by distinguished scientists of the growth and spread of nuclear weapons and rockets have hit not only the bull's eye, but on all sides of the target; and sometimes these scattered shots were fired by the same marksman. This is not unique. One of the most ambitious attempts to foresee the next ten to twenty-five years of our techni-

cal future, issued in 1937, totally missed nuclear energy, antibiotics, radar, and jet propulsion.

Large changes are clearly impending, but we are unable to foresee how fast they will come or even what they will be. The difficulty is partly in the very nature of research. Finished science or tentatively completed theory enables us to predict. But trying to prophesy the future of science is something else again. It is guessing what the dark will reveal when lit up. If we knew we would not need the research.

When we think we know what we will see—or won't see—we sometimes don't do the research, even though we need it. The brilliant English geneticist, C. D. Darlington, has written eloquently on the obstacles to further discovery that can be erected within the ranks of science itself. It is no accident, he thinks, that "bacteria were first seen under the microscope by a draper, that stratigraphy was first understood by a canal engineer, that oxygen was first isolated by a Unitarian minister, that the theory of infection was first established by a chemist, the theory of heredity by a monastic school teacher, and the theory of evolution by a man who was unfitted to be a university instructor in either botany or zoology."

Professor Darlington feels that great organs of authority—the scientific journals, the schools, and the royal societies—tend so quickly to get stuck in the mud that what we need instead of a department or ministry of science is a ministry of disturbance, "a regulated source of annoyance; a destroyer of routine, an undermining of complacency, an enfant terrible."

If "pure" or fairly pure science is troubled by false presumptions as to what its future might be, the situation is rather worse for applied science or technology. One of the main reasons for this is that the progress of technology is not just a matter of invention. It has to do with such grubby matters as costs and uses and competing purposes; that is, with politics, sociology, economics, and military strategy.

Experience and all the academic disciplines devoted to illuminating these matters shed only a dispersed and fitful light, but they are all we have. There are two useful sorts of analyses to illustrate the limits of our understanding of present and future technology and the implication of these limits. Let us call one the Small World and the other the Big World analysis.

## THE SMALL WORLD AND THE BIG WORLD VIEWS

First, the Small World. All of the fast-growing technologies described above have a common factor: they will enable us from any one point on earth to affect any other point and to do this with increasing speed and effectiveness. This eventually will be true of weather control. It is nearly true of transportation and already true of weapons delivery. It is nearly true of communi-

12

# Technology, Prediction, and Disorder

ALBERT WOHLSTETTER

Not long ago the familiar joining of science and technology would have been irritating to pure scientists, and in particular to a student of abstract mathematics. The connection however is appropriate, because science is not very pure. Even mathematical logic turns out to be very useful in electronic brains.

Science and technology have always been inseparably linked. As both Leonardo and Francis Bacon knew very well, knowledge is not only understanding and therefore good in itself; it is also power, the mastery of nature. Predicting is at least one condition for controlling and shaping things to human ends. And since many of the purposes of men conflict, knowledge also inevitably involves the power to destroy. The duality of peaceful and warlike uses of knowledge is intrinsic.

## THE ROLL CALL OF CHANGE

A rapid look at some new and accelerating technologies will suggest both the duality of impending change and the enormous scale of that change. In the development of nuclear energy, the ambivalence for peace or war is most obvious. The use for peacetime power has been slower than originally expected, though its long-term potential to replace fossil fuels is still very great. The tremendous scale of the change is directly visible in the use of nuclear energy for military explosives and the transformation this has worked on military strategy and power relations.

But the major change brought by the systematic exploration of nuclear reactions is likely to be in the massive transmutation of elements, a nuclear alchemy capable of almost unimaginable effects on our technology. In any case, it is apparent that synthetic new ma-

terials will continue to benefit—and to disrupt—the lives of all of us and the world division of labor, especially in less developed countries producing raw materials.

The widespread application of antibiotics and other modern medical and public health techniques will continue to work wonders in the life span of people, while the possibilities of biological warfare illustrate this duality. But some of the peacetime uses can be as problematic as they are beneficial: for example, the unexpected changes in the local balance of nature that have alarmed readers of Rachel Carson, or the enormous and violent increase in the numbers of people living and needing work, food, and living space.

Space travel and space technology offer no promising solution for the population problem. But the peacetime application in communication satellites is already patent, as is the use of satellites for wartime detection and warning, for the transmission of commands, and possibly for bombardment.

One of the central and fastest developments has been in computers and information machines, the so-called electronic brains. These have been essential in guided missiles and other aspects of military defense and are playing a major role in almost all the other developments mentioned. They are in essence an improvement in communications within a mechanism or an organization. Capabilities of communication both in the sense of transmitting messages and in the broader sense that includes transporting men and materials are accelerating enormously and are one of the plainest evidences of the increasingly—sometimes uncomfortably—tight connection of every part of the world to every other.

A final potential for changing nature to consider here,

11

ALBERT WOHLSTETTER

June 8, 1965.

JUN 14 REC'D

Mr. Henry Kissinger

Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Dear Henry,

Thank you for your piece on the price of German unity. I found it most interesting and useful.

Roberta and I enjoyed seeing you at Ditchley and at the Avenue Kleber. I still get the uneasy feeling that the quiz you warned us was imminent is coming by mail. There was something missing at that conference.

[LC]