Putting Science in the Dark

One of the reasons that American science is the strongest in the world is that American scientists openly and freely exchange ideas, results and theories. They build on each other’s work. One researcher’s thought triggers another idea across the country in a disorganized process with results that no one can foresee or direct. But the Pentagon believes that openness conflicts with the needs of military secrecy. In the name of national security, it is reviving its campaign to clamp down on what scientists may talk about in public.

The Reagan Administration maintains that there is a gray area between classified and unclassified where restrictions may be imposed on sensitive technology of military value. The Administration’s approach to scientific information is consistent with its approach to information in general: Ideas can be owned, and access to them restricted.

Last week the Pentagon placed curbs on approximately 30 scientific papers that were about to be presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers in Washington. The government says that research in optics has military uses in lasers and in reconnaissance satellites. Some papers could not be presented at all, and the others could be presented only if foreign citizens were kept out.

The scientists whose papers were restricted did their research under Defense Department grants. To get those grants they had to agree to pre-publication review by the government. Their eligibility for future defense grants could depend on their submitting to censorship in silence now.

But do the government’s restrictions make sense? In most cases the Russians can get the information that they want from other sources. The people who can’t are other scientists.

Even Edward Teller, as staunch a friend as the Pentagon has in science, says that openness is essential. “Secrecy is a measure that hurts our opponents a little and us a great deal,” he says. “In nuclear weapons, where we had the greatest of secrecy, the Soviets are now ahead of us. In electronics, where we had very little government secrecy, we are way ahead of others, particularly the Soviets. It looks like an absurdity, but who is ahead depends not only on what they learn from us but on the speed of our own development.”