Abstract
Office talk
Thank you for Chris Mooney's reminder of the demise, a decade ago, of the Office of Technology Assessment (“Requiem for an Office,” September/October 2005 Bulletin), which for 23 years provided congressional members and committees with objective and authoritative analyses of complex scientific and technical issues.
The Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) provided comprehensive technical analysis and widened the communication between Congress and the scientific and technical communities. OTA had a local, dedicated, and professional staff. This staff was sensitive to the culture, language, and process of Congress, which allowed for the integration of their work into the workings of Congress. This institution addressed the often-overlooked scientific and technological aspects of the many subjects before Congress. OTA was a model for other nations that wished to maintain the public trust through the careful consideration of issues of technical and scientific complexity.
Congress would be better served, and better serve the nation, with the objective analysis of these complex issues through a body that serves a function similar to OTA. There are many things that we must do to include scientific and technological considerations into the legislative process fully, fairly, and completely. These include depoliticizing scientific advice, electing more scientifically fluent legislators, improving the familiarity and level of comfort with technical subjects among the nonscientist legislators, and providing more policy-relevant input from professional scientists and societies. Reviving an organization like OTA would be a good start to successfully completing these tasks, and I continue to actively pursue legislation that would create such a body.
Cong. Rush Holt
Democrat, Twelfth District, New Jersey
Chris Mooney's article is highly enlightening and helps frame the ongoing debate about how Congress obtains advice to consider science and technology policy. Let's face it: the view from Capitol Hill is not always lucid, nor does it always serve the public interest. But neither congressional nor executive branch hubris, whether by Democratic or Republican representatives, justifies deliberately ignoring information and analysis from objective sources who aim to resolve scientific and technological issues.
Without the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), Congress has become increasingly dependent upon biased parties for advice–as several legislators warned in OTA's defense–and particularly dependent upon experts in the executive branch, in business, and in private think tanks. When public policy development supplants the public interest with private interest and public debate with personal opinion, it threatens Abraham Lincoln's dream of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The issue should then be not why OTA was abolished, but given the increased dangers and challenges now facing the United States, how it should be quickly restored.
James Louis Holt
Dallas, Texas
Chris Mooney's article on the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) gives an incomplete picture of the agency's demise. For instance, Mooney dismisses conservatives' concerns that OTA's staff was liberal and that its liberalism affected its work. But in interviews I conducted in 2004 with several former OTA staffers, they admitted that the agency's personnel generally leaned left. One OTA alumnus told me how “subtle pro-government and left-of-center viewpoints” would seep into OTA reports. Another described (in an Issues in Science and Technology article) the way that OTA's technology-assessment process resulted in reports tending to favor “federal intervention over market-driven and state-level solutions.” So even though the vast majority of OTA's work was evenhanded and scrubbed of overt bias, Republicans' concerns about liberalism should not be casually dismissed.
The Clock
UPDATES
Screen grab from Ghalyoun's 1997 home video, taken at the Twin Towers.
Tourist or terrorist?
As Josh Schollmeyer reported in “Terrorism Takes a Holiday” (July/August 2005 Bulletin), Spanish authorities arrested Ghasoub al-Abrash Ghalyoun in 2002 after discovering in his Madrid home more than 12 hours of videotaped footage he shot of various U.S. monuments and institutions (including the World Trade Center). They alleged the tapes, which were filmed during a 1997 trip to the United States, were intended to serve as reconnaissance for the 9/11 hijackers; Ghalyoun maintained he was simply documenting his lifelong dream of visiting the United States. In late September, the Spanish High Court sided with Ghalyoun, finding him not guilty on the charges of mass murder and belonging to a terrorist group.
Zoned out
The proposed Central Asian nuclear-weapon-free zone (NWZ), which has proceeded in fits and starts since 1997, has hit another snag (see “In the Zone,” July/August 2005 Bulletin). In October 2005, the Associated Press reported that the British, French, and American ambassadors to the United Nations sent a letter to their Central Asian counterparts informing them that unless language in the NWZ draft treaty changes, they will not support it. The United States, for one, believes that the treaty, as is, could limit the U.S. ability to transport nuclear weapons through the region and that Russia could take advantage of a loophole that would allow it to deploy missiles in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
Mooney is also wrong to suggest that the elimination of OTA was a “calculated” tactic to politicize science, and his claim that conservatives suffer from a “deep and abiding distrust of the nation's scientific community” is risible.
But he is right to worry about the future of science and technology policy advice to Congress. No institution currently fills OTA's shoes. (Mooney correctly maintains that the National Academy of Sciences can't replace OTA, but he's wrong in explaining that it's because the academy “does not take orders from Congress.” In fact, the academy frequently does take orders from Congress. The chief shortcoming of the academy's reports is that they generally look only at science and don't consult with policy stakeholders to the degree OTA did.)
In the end, there are several sensible arguments for reestablishing OTA that conservatives can appreciate: a new OTA could save money by advising against wasteful projects; it would right a growing imbalance between the executive and legislative branches by giving Congress its own source of scientific and technological expertise; and it would give Congress a new tool helpful not just for governing with science, but also for governing science–that is, for better overseeing the vast American scientific enterprise that sometimes functions with disregard for the public interest.
Adam Keiper
Managing Editor, The New Atlantis
Washington, D.C.
Adam Keiper and I seem to agree precisely half of the time–certainly a promising start for a discussion–but his response puzzles me.
Keiper challenges my assertion that the modern political right distrusts the nation's scientific community–an outlook that I document in my book The Republican War on Science. Yet, Keiper proceeds to prove the existence of such distrust when he labels the work of the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) “liberal” (as did the conservatives who killed it).
I don't dispute that many members of the American scientific community have liberal political leanings–or that this might also have been generally true of the OTA staff. But I do question whether labeling scientists “liberal” really gets us anywhere. Congress desperately needs scientific advice, and one can only assume that many university-based, liberal-leaning scientists will eventually be called upon to provide it. That's not a bad thing. There is far more to scientific advice than the political views of the scientists involved–whether these views are subtly present or not.
Remembering Jo
The last time I spoke with Joseph Rotblat was July 9, 2005–the fiftieth anniversary of the Einstein-Russell Manifesto. “Prof” was the manifesto's junior signatory. As such, to younger generations, he served as a bridge to the moral giants of the past, providing a tangible connection to a very important history.
As executive director of Student Pugwash USA when Prof and Pugwash jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995,1 had many opportunities to watch him interact with young people. (He made this a priority during the final years of his life.) Prof's self-deprecating good humor put young people at ease, and the inevitable heaviness of age seemed to melt away whenever he was surrounded by students.
Joseph Rotblat.
We've lost three Pugwash greats in the past year–Prof, Ruth Adams, and Martin Kaplan, all ardent supporters of the Student/Young Pugwash network. The best way to honor our mentors is to carry the baton forward. It's in our hands now, and we must ensure that humankind never forgets the initial abhorrence of nuclear weapons that filled the early days of the atomic age.
For my part, I will continue to chronicle Pugwash's history, a promise I renewed during my final conversation with Prof.
Sandra Ionno Butcher
Director, Pugwash History Project
Falls Church, Virginia
In Mons, Belgium, for a fiftieth anniversary conference on Hiroshima, Jo Rotblat, myself, and a few other participants wandered toward the town hall. A brass monkey adorned the main entrance, and our host encouraged us to rub its head to bring good luck. A couple of us did, but Jo held back; a scientist no doubt skeptical of superstition.
“Go ahead! Make a wish! It brings you good luck!” our host urged. Reluctantly, Jo stepped forward and reached out to pat the shiny head. “I wish we could abolish nuclear weapons,” he said, with an air of hope and hesitation. Alas, those weapons are still with us. But I can certify that the monkey does bring good luck. Within a few weeks, Jo (and the world) learned he'd received the Nobel Peace Prize.
William Lanouette
Author of Genius in the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard, The Man Behind the Bomb
Washington, D.C.
After attending a lengthy World Health Organization meeting in the late 1980s, I sat exhausted at the Geneva International Airport, slumped over in a departure lounge chair. All of a sudden, Jo Rotblat, nearly 80 years old and 30 years my senior, came steaming by, pushing a colleague in a wheelchair on their way to a Pugwash meeting in Brazil. “What's the matter, Frank,” he tossed out as he passed me, “can't take it?”
I last saw Jo in October 2004 at the annual Pugwash meeting in Seoul. He gave a powerful after-dinner talk to the local sponsors of the meeting on the anti-Roman theme, “If you want peace, prepare for peace!” The next morning he and I were invited to breakfast with South Korea's defense minister. For me, the high point of the meal was when Jo's age–then almost 96–registered with the defense minister. His jaw dropped. “I think you're the oldest person I've ever met!” he exclaimed.
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Thank you
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Jo was dedicated and relentless even during the darkest days of the Cold “War. In these often discouraging times, he was a good role model for those of us who share his concerns about nuclear dangers. It was a privilege to have known him.
Frank von Hippel
Professor of Public and International Affairs
Princeton University
Princeton, New Jersey
Jo Rotblat's death is a tremendous loss personally, as well as politically. Hearing him talk about nuclear disarmament at London's City Hall in January 2005, it was hard to believe that he was close to 100 years old. “Without notes, he held the floor with cogency and passion, berating and inspiring in equal measure. He also delighted in arguments on a one-to-one basis, wrapping his interlocutors in a web of gentle but insistent logic. “With his point made, he would smile the sweetest smile in the world.
A special friend and mentor to many involved in science and peace work, especially in Britain, Jo's brilliance, commitment, and integrity will be greatly missed. But most of all, I will miss the arguments and that smile!
Rebecca Johnson
Executive Director, Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy
London, England
What struck me most about Joseph Rotblat was the sense of serenity, contentment, and lightness that he projected at the end of his life. Not to mention, of course, the stacks of books, papers, letters, and other documents that lined the walls of his study, filled his dining room, and spilled out into other parts of his home. More than tables and chairs, they had become his furniture.
When I first interviewed him for a forthcoming book a little more than a year ago, he had just suffered a stroke. While his physical strength had declined, his memory was still sharp. As he recounted his early days in Liverpool and his attempts to rescue his wife, who was trapped in Poland after the outbreak of World War II, he got as far as telling me that she died in the camps before his voice trailed off, his eyes welled with tears, and his head bowed forward.
He was dismayed with the Bush administration but ended our conversation on a high note. “I'm optimistic. We're going forward. It will never be smooth, but we're going forward.” I asked him why he felt this way. His eyes brightened, he lifted his arms, palms facing upward, and replied, “Because we're still here.”
Stephanie S. Cooke
Kensington, Maryland
Jo–I never asked why he signed his name that way instead of “Joe”–was brilliant, prescient, and astonishingly vigorous. I visited him in London in April 1998. After a long and intense discussion at the Pugwash office, Jo said he would take me to his club–the Athenaeum. (The Athenaeum was founded as “an association of individuals known for their scientific and literary achievements.”)
I expressed surprise. “Why would a socialist belong to a gentleman's club?” I asked. Jo was amused. His home, he told me, was piled high with papers and books, and he was embarrassed to take visitors there. But he had to take visitors somewhere; hence, the club.
The Athenaeum was only a mile and half away, but Jo was close to 90. I wondered whether we should take a taxi. “No,” he said, “I like to walk.” And walk we did: Russell Street to Bloomsbury, south across Oxford Street to Shaftesbury, on to Haymarket, and then to Pall Mall and St. James, where the nineteenth-century Grecian palace of a building sat.
I was 30 years younger than Jo, and my walking pace is reasonably brisk. Nonetheless, I huffed and puffed a bit to keep up. It was amazing–Jo applied maximum mental, moral, and physical energy to everything he tackled.
Mike Moore
Former Editor, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Palmyra, Missouri
See no evil
Sen. Richard Lugar's article “Redefining the Threat” (September/October 2005 Bulletin) feebly attempts to attack complacency in combating the nuclear threat, but instead it reveals the total lack of congressional will to deal with the threat of nuclear materials in countries still pursuing the reprocessing of so-called “civilian” plutonium. While Lugar and others look the other way, the stockpiles of weapons-usable plutonium in Russia, France, Britain, and Japan have now reached a level that rivals that of the military plutonium produced in the United States and Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Little has been said about the weekly plutonium shipments in France that occur along the 1,000-kilometer route between Cogema's La Hague reprocessing complex and the plutonium fuel plant at Marcoule in southern France. These poorly packaged and lightly guarded shipments are arguably the most attractive targets in the entire world for anyone wishing to steal nuclear material for a dirty bomb or nuclear device. Yet nothing has been done to halt this dangerous practice, as politicians prefer to wag a finger only at Russia and not to challenge Western allies.
While a concerted and successful effort has been made to control the growth of highly enriched uranium, plutonium continues to proliferate exponentially. Until Senator Lugar and other politicians around the world remove their blinders, we face an increasingly dangerous and likely threat of both nuclear proliferation and terror from the reprocessing and use of plutonium.
Let's hope the next time that Senator Lugar gives a presentation about nonproliferation threats and successes, he can proudly claim to have led the way in killing the Energy Department effort in Congress to revive reprocessing in the United States.
Tom Clements
Nonproliferation consultant
Takoma Park, Maryland
All about Iran
Walter C. Uhler's attack on my book, Iran's Nuclear Option: Tehran's Quest for the Atom Bomb (“Engage or Enrage,” September/October 2005 Bulletin), ignores the most salient reality of all: the very public role of three major European nations trying to persuade, threaten, and/or cajole Iran into not going ahead with its uranium enrichment program. More to the point, it was at the behest of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran admitted in 2003 that it had been secretly developing a nuclear program for the better part of two decades.
Reading on, one detects Uhler's agenda. He quotes Dilip Hiro, the author of The Iranian Labyrinth, at length, arguing that “all it might take to win crucial allies in Iran's younger generation is a thoughtful U.S. policy toward the country.” What nonsense! What exactly has the world been talking to Iran about? He then accuses me of not understanding “the difference between having a nuclear weapons ‘option’ and having actual nuclear weapons.” Perhaps he should have explained that kind of semantic obscurantism to those dealing with Pakistan a decade ago.
I personally fear that these long, labored exchanges only play into Iran's strategy–the very reason why I wrote the book. As former IAEA board member Nie von Wielligh once told me, “I watched negotiations with Iran from up close for several years, and there was no question that I was impressed by their skill at achieving their objectives. What they set out to achieve at the negotiating table in Vienna, they usually got in the end.”
After reading Uhler's critique of my book, the only thing that's “breathless” and filled with “overheated rhetoric” is his rather cheap bid to discredit my work.
Al J. Venter
London, England
Considering that preemptive war has devastated Iraq, besmirched the United States, and bolstered Iran simply because the Bush administration lacked the patience to let weapons inspectors complete their work, it hardly suffices for A Venter to assert his “fear that these long, labored exchanges [between Europe and Iran] only play into Iran's strategy.”
Does he recommend sanctions instead of negotiations? Does he recommend an illegal preventive attack? Should the United States attack Iran even in the absence of evidence proving that Iran has a nuclear weapons program? The reader of Venter's letter does not know, because, like his book, it is long on fears but short on hard evidence or policy prescriptions.
I'll leave it to Venter's intrepid readers to decide whether I discredited his book–or whether he did.
False imprisonment
William B. Greenough's opinion piece “Security for Whose Sake?” (September/October 2005 Bulletin) is an important reminder of the government's bizarre prosecution of imprisoned former Texas Tech clinical scientist Thomas Butler. It is also a startling example of a contradictory approach toward bioterror threats. With one hand the government gives researchers billions of dollars to study potential bioterror agents, while with the other it uses shoddy paperwork and academic disputes to paint them as bioterrorists.
Butler is the most famous victim to date, but he was not the first. That honor went to Tomas Foral, a University of Connecticut graduate student. Foral was charged under the PATRIOT Act in 2002 with one count of possessing a biological agent when federal authorities found anthrax-infected animal tissue in his private laboratory freezer. Two years later, a federal grand jury indicted Robert Ferrell, the former head of the genetics department at the University of Pittsburgh, and Steve Kurtz, an artist at the State University of New York in Buffalo, after discovering human DNA and E. coli in Kurtz's home. As with Butler, neither Ferrell nor Kurtz are charged with any acts of bioterrorism. Instead, they are being prosecuted on a technicality. Kurtz received the two harmless bacteria samples from Ferrell, and in doing so allegedly breached (in government-speak) “a material transfer agreement.” Both men face possible 20-year prison sentences for mail and wire fraud.
The list of victims is short, but it's likely to grow as more and more researchers are lured into biodefense work. Some government institutes offer training courses in how to safely and legally ship infectious specimens. As a microbiologist, however, I will not enroll in any such courses because I don't intend to mail any infectious agents until either there's a change in government personnel or a revamping of the PATRIOT Act.
Edward McSweegan
Crofton, Maryland