EDWIN H. LAND: SCIENCE, AND PUBLIC POLICY
EDWIN H. LAND:
SCIENCE, AND PUBLIC POLICY
by
Richard L. Garwin
(Published in The Irish Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, 1993)
IBM Research Division
Thomas J. Watson Research Center
P.O. Box 218
Yorktown Heights, NY 10598
(914) 945-2555
(also
Adjunct Professor of Physics,
Columbia University;
Adjunct Research Fellow,
CENTER FOR SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University)
November 9, 1991
Presented at
Light and Life
A Symposium in Honor of Edwin Land
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Cambridge, MA 02138
Q308LSPP 110491LSPP 11/12/91
Edwin Land worked passionately to realize his vision for the
betterment of society. A significant portion of the
fascinating book by James R. Killian, Jr. "Sputnik,
Scientists, and Eisenhower" is involved with Land, directly
or indirectly, who was a member of the President's Science
Advisory Committee (PSAC) 1957-59, a Consultant-at-Large of
PSAC from 1960-1973, and a member of the President's Foreign
Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) 1961-77.
But he was also a member of the National Commission on
Technology, Automation and Economic Progress 1964-66 and of
the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television 1966-67
and a Trustee of the Ford Foundation 1967-1975.
His vision of science for the public was a great one, and
highly original. It is presented, for instance, in his
testimony to the Senate Military Affairs Committees (at the
Joint Hearings on Science Bills) October 1945. At a time of
great turmoil about the structure of the United States
Government for the advancement and control of nuclear
energy, Land testified rather on bills related to the
National Science Foundation and the role of the government
in science and technology. He argued
"...there can be no solution because we do not
understand the nucleus and we do not understand
the Russians. If, during the course of the next
ten years, we can expand the American scientific
community, expand to every locality our activity
in basic and applied science, get to understand
the nucleus, negotiate, argue, trade, bargain,
work with, and finally get to understand the
Russians and get them to understand us, then (if
during this period we have had a similar policy
for coming to understand the British and the
French), perhaps the terrible shadow may start to
lift."
Indeed, members of this Academy have taken very seriously
the mission to get to understand the Russians, but the
nation as a whole has not persistently supported education
and scholarship in understanding foreign peoples and
ourselves. Land goes on with his vision supporting the
general effort for
"...discovering the scientific talent and
fostering its development; in short by the
production of enough trained scientists, not only
to work in basic science, but also to participate
in every phase of the industrial aspect of
community life."
But also,
"the other-- and this is the field of my personal
interest-- is to develop thousands of new small
scientific industries..."
"As I visualize it, the business of the future
will be a scientific, social and economic unit.
It will be vigorously creative in pure science
where its contributions will compare with those of
the universities... the machinist will be proud
of and informed about the company's scientific
advances; the scientist will enjoy the reduction
to practice of his basic perceptions."
And he continues with his vision of a thousand small
companies, each employing 2000 people (including 50
scientists) and grossing (in 1945) $20 M each, and spending
$1 M on research, which would (given inflation alone to
1991) spend $10 B on research and engineering annually,
employ 2,000,000 people directly, and contribute $200 B to
the national income directly "and much more indirectly."
"And year by year our national scene would change
in the way, I think, all Americans dream of. Each
individual will be a member of a group small
enough so that he feels a full participant in the
purpose and activity of the group. His voice will
be heard and his individuality recognized."
What will these people do?
"First of all, this new company will start by
contemplating all of the recent advances in pure
science and in engineering. Its staff will be
alive to the significance of newly available
polyamide molecules... a group of fifty good
scientists contemplating one of these fields and
inspired by curiosity about them and a
determination to make something new and useful,
can invent and develop an important new field in
about two years. This new field will be a
monopoly for the group-- a monopoly in the best
sense of the word-- because it will derive from
justifiable patents and important inventions, and
from know-how deliberately acquired by the
group..."
"While I feel that both the war and the pre-war
periods have demonstrated that the concentration
(of scientific activity and of distinguished
scientists in a few large corporations) that did
occur was of enormous benefit to the country and
that it would be a grave hazard to prevent such
concentrations from occurring, I feel equally
strongly about the desirability of meeting what is
objectionable in such concentration by having
thousands of other small laboratories as well
staffed in quality, if not quantity, of
scientists. These small laboratories because of
their compactness, freedom from such institutional
control as exists in large corporations, the close
relationship that can exist between the scientist
and the people making their products, would, I
believe, create far more new fields than would the
large laboratories and it would be the best method
of preventing significant monopolies in any
essential field."
Edwin Land recommends the solution to monopoly be found in
multiple monopolies which compete with one another. His
position is one of opposition "to the concept that research
by government should be substituted for research by the
small business... (which) grows strong by having its own
scientists and by building itself around their efforts."
He completes a vision of the National Science Board
appointed by the President and picking its own Director but
provides an ingenious suggestion in support of those who
oppose "the complete isolation of this scientific group from
the political world." And that is a "Joint Liaison
Committee consisting, for example, of three members of the
board and three members of congress" for mutual education
and
"...particularly suited for considering one
important problem for which a solution has not yet
been proposed: the encouragement of individuals
who are primarily interested in new applications
of recent advances in pure science rather than in
basic inquiry itself..."
"Those who wish to strike out for themselves
should have the opportunity to complete their
inventions both theoretically and practically and
build them into actual enterprises."
Although Edwin Land must have realized that much about him
was unique, he tried to identify those elements of his own
being and experience that could be replicated to the benefit
of his nation and the world.
According to David Beckler's detailed notes of the 15
October 1957 meeting of the Science Advisory Committee (of
the Office of Defense Mobilization) with President
Eisenhower 11 days after the Soviet Union launched the first
artificial Earth satellite, Sputnik, Edwin Land urged the
President to involve the American people in the satisfaction
of scientific discovery; on 7 November Eisenhower in his TV
and radio address remarked that one of the greatest and most
glaring deficiencies of the citizenry was their failure to
give high enough priority to scientific education and to the
place of science in national life.
Land's emphasis on scientific education of the public was a
lifelong interest, whether reflected in his later service on
the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television (with
James R. Killian, Jr.), in his involving Polaroid production
staff in the work of the research laboratory, or in the
"Introduction To Outer Space" issued by President Eisenhower
26 March 1958, more than 33 years ago. That perceptive and
inspiring but practical document was written by Land,
Edward M. Purcell (from whom you will hear later) and
Francis Bello, known to many of us from his work with
Fortune and Scientific American.
I present the paragraph headings from "Introduction To Outer
Space" as an indication of its content:
1. Why satellites stay up
2. The thrust into space
3. The moon as a goal
4. A message from Mars
5. Will the results justify the costs?
6. The view from a satellite
7. A close-up of the moon
8. And on to Mars
9. The satellite radio network
10. Military applications of space technology
11. Space timetable
As Ken Olsen observed in his talk this morning about Land
and Polaroid, knowing where you want to go is a big
advantage.
A small portion of "Introduction To Outer Space" addresses
the military uses of space, noting
"For the most part, even the more sober proposals
do not hold up well on close examination or appear
to be achievable at an early date. Granted that
they will become technologically possible, most of
these schemes, nevertheless, appear to be clumsy
and ineffective ways of doing a job. ..." After
the example of "dropping" a bomb from a satellite,
the report continues, "This is only one example;
each idea has to be judged on its own merits. ...
The history of science and technology reminds us
sharply of the limitations of our vision. Our
road to future strength is the achievement of
scientific insight and technical skill by vigorous
participation in these new explorations. In this
setting, our appropriate military strength will
grow naturally and surely."
In 1991, we are still involved with questions about the
proper military use of space, and much that "Introduction To
Outer Space" envisaged has come to pass. But not without
effort and vision, and in this exploitation of space, Din
Land played a pivotal role.
Most of the following can be found in James Killian's book,
on which I rely in part to avoid problems with information
still classified secret, and in part because I could not
better Jim Killian's authoritative and eloquent
descriptions. Land had been a member of the Steering
Committee of the Technological Capabilities Panel (TCP),
which was a sensitive and highly classified study led by
Killian 1954-55, intended to provide President Eisenhower
with a comprehensive assessment of the Soviet first-strike
nuclear threat to the United States and the U.S. ability to
prevent or withstand it. An essential element of TCP was
the Intelligence Committee headed by Din Land, which
conducted a no-holds-barred review of U.S. intelligence
information and capabilities. That Land Panel included
William O. Baker of Bell Labs, Ed Purcell of Harvard, and
John Tukey of Princeton. The panelists used to joke that
they could hold a panel meeting in a taxicab, and they
probably would have if the information had not been so
sensitive. For their frequent trips around Washington in
radio-dispatched CIA automobiles, the panelists were
prudently assigned code names.
I was not associated with the Technological Capabilities
Panel. I had helped build the first hydrogen bomb in my
early summers at Los Alamos 1950-52 and then, after joining
the IBM company, I worked about half-time 1953-54 with
Jerome Wiesner and Jerrold Zacharias on extensions of
continental air defense, and soon after Sputnik worked with
Bill Baker and others on some of the matters that had
interested the TCP intelligence section. Then for more than
a decade, until 1973 or so, I was a member of Din Land's
Panel advisory to the President's Science Advisor, which was
intimately involved with government organizations and
industrial contractors in the evolution of imaging
satellites.
Photographic reconnaissance has a long history, and by the
time I had any real contact with it during September, 1952
in Korea, it had evolved to enormous aerial cameras with
facilities for image-motion compensation (IMC). I suppose
the intelligence section of the TCP found the same cameras,
which would not be very convenient for providing photography
of "denied areas" such as the Soviet union. Yet it was
clear that there were vast uncertainties as to Soviet
military capability, particularly in regard to ballistic
missiles, and the ability to take suitable photographs would
be extremely valuable. Killian tells the story of the
marriage of small-format high-resolution cameras and the
modified sail plane concept to create the U-2, so quickly
and elegantly achieved by Kelly Johnson in the skunk works
at Lockheed. Previously rejected by the Air Force, the
concept was validated and given life by the Intelligence
Committee of the TCP.
The system was feasible only because of the recognition that
high-resolution film would allow scaling down the size and
weight of the camera so that it would fit on a light
aircraft that could fly at altitudes then beyond the
capability of any Soviet air defense system. And this
remained true until the 1960 downing of the U-2 flight of
Gary Powers. Of course, within a couple of months after
that politically disastrous event the United States was
receiving photographic images from satellites, in the form
of film cassettes returned in reentry vehicles equipped with
parachutes and snagged by aircraft over the Pacific Ocean
before they could fall into the sea.
In recalling Edwin Land, I note his reaction to the Soviet
shoot-down of the U-2 in 1960, cited by Killian,
"The president himself accepted full
responsibility for the flight. In 1960, in
commenting on this episode, Dr. Edwin Land said in
a commencement address: 'It was not a question of
the ineptitude that might be revealed by the
truth, or the possible damage that the whole
program of negotiation for peace may have suffered
... and it was not a question of whether with
foresight that particular crisis could have been
avoided. The issue was this: Does an American,
when he represents all Americans, have to tell the
truth at any cost? The answer is yes, and the
consequence of the answer is that our techniques
for influencing the rest of the world cannot be
rich and flexible like the techniques of our
competitors. We can be dramatic, even theatrical;
we can be persuasive; but the message we are
telling must be true.'"
As I got to know him in the work of the Land Panel over the
next 13 years or so, it was clear that absolute integrity
underlay this man of genius and vision. I don't believe Din
Land would have been happy with the lack of respect for
truth in more recent Administrations.
Bill Baker recounts that in the late 1950s, he and Din Land
and Jerry Wiesner would meet over dinner in Washington and
"tell one another stories" of the latest discoveries,
inventions, and clever solutions to problems. Din Land
evidently felt no need to keep his good ideas to himself.
Din and Jerrold Zacharias would engage in "competitive
inventing," sometimes on real problems and sometimes on
toys. These same qualities of insight and fun were evident
in Din Land's leadership of the Land Panel on which I was
privileged to serve until about 1973.
About the activities of the Land Panel, I can give only
impressions of the atmosphere of that activity, and even
there must ignore some important aspects. We would meet
several times a year for two or three days in Washington or
in the field at contractor establishments to understand the
capabilities of existing systems and the options for
improvement. At times, there were serious problems to be
addressed; at times great opportunities. The Land Panel did
not so much invent new concepts as evaluate and choose.
Sometimes, there were obvious technical mergers to be made,
and occasionally a key missing element was supplied during
Panel discussion. Land's addiction to thought and work was
obvious at these Panel meetings.
When we met at Polaroid, we could look forward to small
sandwiches brought in from Elsie's; my favorite was cream
cheese and caviar. Somewhat later, we would meet in a
magnificent boardroom at Polaroid, and would be provided
dinner by Din's cook. Occasionally our Panel meetings would
run until midnight, and even then we would look forward to
spending 30 minutes after the meeting with Din in his lab,
looking at his "Mondrian" or other striking aspect of his
current research. I recall that one session ended at
daybreak, but that was unusual, even for Din Land.
The thought and dedication of the Panel members and of Land
himself is hardly reflected in dry phrases such as the
following that I excerpt from a draft report I provided in
1965 at Din's request, evidently attempting to reflect his
leadership and the Panel consensus:
"The Panel... was requested ... review the
current status of three programs and to recommend
what direction the national effort should take in
order to realize the economic, operational, and
above all, the end-product advantages of a
successful system of this type. ..."
Of course, the resulting report was very specific about the
"three programs..."
Because of its importance and controversial nature, a
crucial report of July 1971 required a formal position on
the part of each of the seven members of the Land Panel.
Having been asked by Din Land to provide the draft report, I
was also saddled with successive modifications and with
getting final approval from each of the members. This was
no small feat for a report that had to be distributed by
courier and viewed without retaining a copy. Nevertheless,
approvals came quickly (with the help of Land's secretary,
Natalie Fultz, in tracking down the panelists)-- all except
the final endorsement of the last Panel member, who was
vacationing in Hawaii. I plotted carefully when I might
reach him by telephone without interfering with his
pleasures, and decided that 5:30 pm would be optimum. Aware
of the six-hour time difference between Hawaii and New York,
I planned the call to reach him at 5:30 and, to my pleasure,
found him in his room. It took only a moment to realize my
mistake; the time in Hawaii was 5:30 am. We got it sorted
out, and the report was unanimously endorsed and eventually
implemented, although not without bureaucratic problems.
The legacy of Edwin Land is thus to be found not only in
this building and in the Polaroid Corporation that he built,
but in one of the greatest success stories of our age-- the
systems that provide our leaders with an awareness of what
is going on in the world, if only we are wise enough to know
where to look and to interpret what we see.
I believe it would be foolish-- no, it would be tragic-- to
follow the siren song urging that we put actual weapons into
space, or that we must be ready to destroy photographic
satellites launched by some nation not friendly to our
cause. We depend heavily on our own satellites to gather
vital information, and it is far easier to destroy a
satellite than to build another highly capable one. Sadly,
"a (satellite) eye for a (satellite) eye" would be no
consolation for us and little deterrent for an opponent; we
can hardly organize the wrath of nations against a power
using an antisatellite weapon (ASAT) against one of our
satellites while maintaining that our own use of ASAT
against other satellites would be legitimate. Our course
should be that of conviction and leadership toward the early
conclusion of a universal Treaty banning satellite
destruction or tests of such antisatellite systems, and a
Presidential declaration would go far toward realizing that
goal.
To summarize, I quote Killian now at length, in a
description to which I fully subscribe:
"The figure of Edwin Land exemplifies the kind of
scientist who appealed to Eisenhower and who
helped to make science advice welcome at the White
House.
"Land is an authentic genius. His powers of
exposition, his facility in expressing complex
ideas in novel, witty, and clarifying ways, can
lift a meeting or a report to a higher level of
discourse. In addition to heading the
intelligence division of the Technological
Capabilities Panel, he was a member of PSAC,
chairing one of its most sensitive panels, and of
the President's Board of Consultants on Foreign
Intelligence Activities. In these assignments he
pointed the way to the development of new
intelligence-gathering technology, such as
reconnaissance planes and satellites, that have
given unique powers, benign in their operation, to
American intelligence agencies, undergirding
policy decisions of immense consequence and saving
the nation billions of dollars.
"In meetings with presidents his eloquence and
lucid exposition incited their latent imagination
and prompted them to make decisions and to
undertake leadership roles that had been, until
then, beyond their reach.
"During these activities when he was a colleague
of mine at the White House, he was also building a
great company. As chairman of the board he is
Polaroid's chief executive officer, but he likes
to think of himself as primarily director of
research, emphasizing, as he does, that the chief
executive officer of a company such as Polaroid
should be the director of research.
"While accomplishing all of these things, he has
been doing basic research in vision and
contributing ideas in education to MIT and
Harvard-- ideas that have grown out of his
conviction that each human being has a potential
for creative accomplishment that can be realized
by the right environment and the skilled influence
of creative teachers who believe in this
potential.
"Recently, in reminiscing about the Eisenhower
days, Din Land (as his friends and associates call
him) expressed the feeling that his major
contribution as an adviser had been to convey to
the president and other leaders something of the
humanistic and aesthetic values of science. He
took greater pride in this act of 'teaching' the
qualities and values of science than in his
immense technical contributions to the
strengthening of our military, intelligence, and
space technology.
"At the latest count he holds five hundred patents
and has been elected to the Inventors Hall of
Fame, but his inventions are by-products of his
deep commitment to science.
"Let me be more personal. It has been a rare and
enriching privilege for me to be associated with
him in a variety of missions and enterprises for a
quarter of a century. To all these joint
undertakings he has contributed fresh insights, a
sense of adventure, and a 'vision of greatness.'"
We continue to benefit from the talents and efforts of this
great man.
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