It is not surprising that the Group, in its Letter of Transmittal, did not choose to
justify its work to "the lay reader, unexposed to the exigencies of higher
political or military responsibility." Its Report was addressed, deliberately, to
unnamed government administrators of high rank; it assumed - considerable
political sophistication from this select audience. To the general reader,
therefore, the substance of the document may be even more unsettling than its
conclusions. He may not be prepared for some of its assumptions -- for instance,
that most medical advances are viewed more as problems than as progress; or
that poverty is necessary and desirable, public postures by politicians to the
contrary notwithstanding; or that standing armies are, among other things
social-welfare institutions in exactly the same sense as are old-people's homes
and mental hospitals. It may strike him as odd to find the probably explanation
of "flying saucer" incidents disposed of en passant in less than a sentence. He
may be less surprised to find that the space program and the "controversial
antimissile missile and fallout shelter programs are understood to have the
spending of vast sums of money, not the advancement of science or national
defense, as their principal goals, and to learn that "military" draft policies are
only remotely concerned with defense.
He may be offended to find the organized repression of minority groups, and
even the reestablishment of slavery, seriously (and on the whole favorably
discussed as possible aspects of a world at peace. He is not likely to take kindly
to the notion of the deliberate intensification of air and water pollution (as part
of a program leading to peace), even when the reason for considering it is made
clear. That a world without war will have to turn sooner rather than later to
universal test-tube procreation will be less disturbing, if no more appealing. But
few readers will not be taken aback, at least, by a few lines in the Report's
conclusions, repeated in its formal recommendations, that suggest that the long-
range planning--and "budgeting" -- of the "optimum" number of lives to be
destroyed annually in overt warfare is high on the Group's list of priorities for
government action.
I cite these few examples primarily to warn the general reader what he can
expect. The statesmen and strategists for whose eyes the Report was intended
obviously need no such protective admonition.
This book, of course, is evidence of my response to Doe's request. After
carefully considering the problems that might confront the publisher of the
Report, we took it to The Dial Press. There, its significance was immediately
recognized, and, more important, we were given firm assurances that no outside
pressures of any sort would be permitted to interfere with its publication.
justify its work to "the lay reader, unexposed to the exigencies of higher
political or military responsibility." Its Report was addressed, deliberately, to
unnamed government administrators of high rank; it assumed - considerable
political sophistication from this select audience. To the general reader,
therefore, the substance of the document may be even more unsettling than its
conclusions. He may not be prepared for some of its assumptions -- for instance,
that most medical advances are viewed more as problems than as progress; or
that poverty is necessary and desirable, public postures by politicians to the
contrary notwithstanding; or that standing armies are, among other things
social-welfare institutions in exactly the same sense as are old-people's homes
and mental hospitals. It may strike him as odd to find the probably explanation
of "flying saucer" incidents disposed of en passant in less than a sentence. He
may be less surprised to find that the space program and the "controversial
antimissile missile and fallout shelter programs are understood to have the
spending of vast sums of money, not the advancement of science or national
defense, as their principal goals, and to learn that "military" draft policies are
only remotely concerned with defense.
He may be offended to find the organized repression of minority groups, and
even the reestablishment of slavery, seriously (and on the whole favorably
discussed as possible aspects of a world at peace. He is not likely to take kindly
to the notion of the deliberate intensification of air and water pollution (as part
of a program leading to peace), even when the reason for considering it is made
clear. That a world without war will have to turn sooner rather than later to
universal test-tube procreation will be less disturbing, if no more appealing. But
few readers will not be taken aback, at least, by a few lines in the Report's
conclusions, repeated in its formal recommendations, that suggest that the long-
range planning--and "budgeting" -- of the "optimum" number of lives to be
destroyed annually in overt warfare is high on the Group's list of priorities for
government action.
I cite these few examples primarily to warn the general reader what he can
expect. The statesmen and strategists for whose eyes the Report was intended
obviously need no such protective admonition.
This book, of course, is evidence of my response to Doe's request. After
carefully considering the problems that might confront the publisher of the
Report, we took it to The Dial Press. There, its significance was immediately
recognized, and, more important, we were given firm assurances that no outside
pressures of any sort would be permitted to interfere with its publication.
