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Books SCIENCE AND GOVERNMENT, by C.P. Snow; Harvard University Press ($2.50). Reviewed by V.A. Fulmer, '53, Executive Assistant to the Chairman of the M.I.T. Corporation. THIS provocative essay is a case study of the role of scientists in the governmental decision-making process. It points up a number of challenges certain to become increasingly important in our national life. "One of the most bizarre features of any advanced industrial society in our time," Sir Charles write, "is that the cardinal choices have to made by a handful of men: in secret, and, at least in legal form, by men who cannot have a firsthand knowledges of what those choices depend on or what their results may be. In the lexicon of political science, this book is an analysis of "closed" political systems...the machinery by which scientists are asked to give secret advice on the crucial questions of our times. The plot concerns two men and two cloak-and-dagger choices: Sir Henry Tizard and F.A. Lindemann, who engaged in a now famous controversy over the development of radar as Britain's principal air-defense system and, late, over strategic bombing against Germany in World War II. M.I.T. Alumni will have a special reason for reading this lucid little book, quite apart from its timely subject matter. C.P. Snow's chronology of events leading up to the British decision to send Sir Henry Tizard to the United States with British radar secrets in September of 1940 is an important, heretofore unpublished chapter in the history of the wartime Radiation Laboratory at M.I.T. Roughly half of this book is given over to the pulling and hauling which preceded Tizard's arrival in this country. C. P. Snow's conclusion is that advanced societies desperately need more scientists in government, although the reader will probably be surprised at the reason why. He points with deep concern to the risks that advanced societies run in their ultimate dependence upon the fallible judgements of a few knowledgeable individuals. He shudders, for example, at the thought of what might have happened to England if Sir Henry Tizard had allowed radar development to become sidetracked in favor of other schemes for air defense. He is even more apprehensive about the buffeting of great national decisions by the hot winds of personal relations between scientists. If personalities carry a heavy weight in "open" political systems, then they are at a classical extreme in the dynamics of "closed" politics. Decisions based upon scientific choices almost always involve this larger risk, Sir Charles maintains. The "euphoria of secrecy," imposed either because of military requirements or because of the natural difficulty of communication between scientist and nonscientist, leaves most scientific decisions in the hands of dangerously few men. The author's prescription for this poor state of scientific health in national governments is simple. It would be ideal, he observes, if we could insist upon wide scientific literacy among government administrators. But this is not really a practical solution in the foreseeable future. Failing this, advanced societies should: 1) Avoid at all cost a single scientific overlord. 2) Avoid "gadgety" scientists in government. The closer a scientist is to some hardware development, the less likely he is to be objective about scientific choices which might involve his or someone else's gadgets...atomic bombs, antibiotics, and television sets included. 3) Enlarge the number of scientists involved in advising government. But the crux of the matter, according to Sir Charles, is not how to protect society from science but how to use science to restore initiative in societies grown flabby with their own success, societies which have lost their sense of purpose. At one end of the spectrum of uses to which governments can apply science is the destruction of human life... at the other end stands the preservation of life. In both regions, C. P. Snow feels, there is no shortage of initiative. Men have always been able to think ingeniously about life-and-death matters affecting society. It is in the great range of opportunities that lies between the two extremes of destruction and preservation of life that scientists should be employed in greater numbers. By temperament and tradition, scientists can bring speculative and imaginative influences, and above all, a sense of the future, into our political processes. Though he claims no special foresight for scientists as a group, Sir Charles argues that their disciplined sense of time (of science as an endless frontier, to use Dr. Bush's words) can revitalize our society in this great political middle ground. Scientists, more than any other single group, can help us to replace our existential order with one that is future-directed. Sir Charles's book adds significantly to the scant literature available to the student of science and government. There can be no doubt that he has performed a service in putting so concisely what others have only hinted at with much less economy of words. Engineers in this country, and perhaps in England, will regret the unfortunate blurring of the role of the engineer in the great wartime developments reported in this book. In the hands of a literary giant like Sir Charles, this fuzziness is a real hazard to improved pub- (Continued on page 52) Books the President Has Read THREE of seven books which have influenced John F. Kennedy's approach to the presidency, according to The New York Times Sunday Magazine (March 12), were written by members of M.I.T.'s Faculty. These books are: Turmoil and Tradition, a study of the life and times of Henry L. Stimson, by Elting E. Morison; The United States in the World Arena, by W. W. Rostow; and The Question of Government Spending, by Francis M. Bator, '49. All three were published within the last year and widely reviewed. 28 | The Technology Review
