have no lasting effect on long-range measures that might be taken to implement
the Group's proposals, and derided the Group's abdication of responsibility for
its opinions and conclusions. So far as he was concerned, there was such a thing
as a public right to know what was being done on its behalf; the burden of proof
was on those who would abridge it.
If my account seems to give Doe the better of the argument, despite his failure
to convince his colleagues, so be it. My participation in this book testifies that I
am not neutral. In my opinion, the decision of the Special Study Group to
censor its own findings was not merely timid but presumptuous. But the refusal,
as of this writing, of the agencies for which the Report was prepared to release
it themselves raises broader questions of public policy. Such questions center on
the continuing use of self-serve definitions of "security" to avoid possible
political embarrassment. It is ironic how often this practice backfires.
I should state, for the record, that I do not share the attitudes toward war and
peace, life and death, and survival of the species manifested in the Report. Few
readers will. In human terms, it is an outrageous document. But it does
represent a serious and challenging effort to define an enormous problem. And
it explains, or certainly appears to explain, aspects of American policy
otherwise incomprehensible by the ordinary standards of common sense. What
we may think of these explanations is something else, but it seems to me that
we are entitled to know not only what they are but whose they are.
By "whose" I don't mean merely the names of the authors of the Report. Much
more important, we have a right to know to what extent their assumptions of
social necessity are shared by the decision-makers in our government. Which do
they accept and which do they reject? However disturbing the answers, only full
and frank discussion offers any conceivable hope of solving the problems raised
by the Special Study Group in their Report from Iron Mountain.
L.C.L. New York June 1967
the Group's proposals, and derided the Group's abdication of responsibility for
its opinions and conclusions. So far as he was concerned, there was such a thing
as a public right to know what was being done on its behalf; the burden of proof
was on those who would abridge it.
If my account seems to give Doe the better of the argument, despite his failure
to convince his colleagues, so be it. My participation in this book testifies that I
am not neutral. In my opinion, the decision of the Special Study Group to
censor its own findings was not merely timid but presumptuous. But the refusal,
as of this writing, of the agencies for which the Report was prepared to release
it themselves raises broader questions of public policy. Such questions center on
the continuing use of self-serve definitions of "security" to avoid possible
political embarrassment. It is ironic how often this practice backfires.
I should state, for the record, that I do not share the attitudes toward war and
peace, life and death, and survival of the species manifested in the Report. Few
readers will. In human terms, it is an outrageous document. But it does
represent a serious and challenging effort to define an enormous problem. And
it explains, or certainly appears to explain, aspects of American policy
otherwise incomprehensible by the ordinary standards of common sense. What
we may think of these explanations is something else, but it seems to me that
we are entitled to know not only what they are but whose they are.
By "whose" I don't mean merely the names of the authors of the Report. Much
more important, we have a right to know to what extent their assumptions of
social necessity are shared by the decision-makers in our government. Which do
they accept and which do they reject? However disturbing the answers, only full
and frank discussion offers any conceivable hope of solving the problems raised
by the Special Study Group in their Report from Iron Mountain.
L.C.L. New York June 1967
