BACKGROUND INFORMATION
[The following account of the workings of the Special Study Group is taken
verbatim from a series of tape recorded interviews I had with "John Doe." The
transcript has been edited to minimize the intrusion of my questions and
comments, as well as for length, and the sequence has been revised in the
interest of continuity. L.C.L.]
HOW WAS THE GROUP FORMED?
...The general idea for it, for this kind of study dates back at least to 1961. It
started with some of the new people who came in with the Kennedy
administration, mostly, I think, with McNamara, Bundy, and Rusk. They were
impatient about many things....One of them was that no really serious work had
been done about planning for peace---a long-range peace, that is, with long-
rang planning.
Everything that had been written on the subject [before 1961] was superficial.
There was insufficient appreciation of the scope of the problem. The main
reason for this, of course, was that the idea of a real peace in the world, general
disarmament and so on, was looked on as utopian. Or even crack- pot. This is
still true, and it's easy enough to understand when you look at what's going on
in the world today....It was reflected in the studies that had been made up to that
time. They were not realistic...
The idea of the Special Study, the exact form it would take, was worked out
early in '63...The settlement of the Cuban missile affair had something to do
with it, but what helped most to get it moving were the big changes in military
spending that were being planned.....Plants being closed, relocations, and so
forth. Most of it wasn't made public until much later....
[I understand] it took a long time to select the people for the Group. The calls
didn't go out until the summer......
WHO MADE THE SELECTION?
That's something I can't tell you. I wasn't involved with the preliminary
planning. The first I knew of it was when I was called myself. But three of the
people had been in on it, and what the rest of us know we learned from them,
about what went on earlier. I do know that it started very informally. I don't
know what particular government agency approved the project.
[The following account of the workings of the Special Study Group is taken
verbatim from a series of tape recorded interviews I had with "John Doe." The
transcript has been edited to minimize the intrusion of my questions and
comments, as well as for length, and the sequence has been revised in the
interest of continuity. L.C.L.]
HOW WAS THE GROUP FORMED?
...The general idea for it, for this kind of study dates back at least to 1961. It
started with some of the new people who came in with the Kennedy
administration, mostly, I think, with McNamara, Bundy, and Rusk. They were
impatient about many things....One of them was that no really serious work had
been done about planning for peace---a long-range peace, that is, with long-
rang planning.
Everything that had been written on the subject [before 1961] was superficial.
There was insufficient appreciation of the scope of the problem. The main
reason for this, of course, was that the idea of a real peace in the world, general
disarmament and so on, was looked on as utopian. Or even crack- pot. This is
still true, and it's easy enough to understand when you look at what's going on
in the world today....It was reflected in the studies that had been made up to that
time. They were not realistic...
The idea of the Special Study, the exact form it would take, was worked out
early in '63...The settlement of the Cuban missile affair had something to do
with it, but what helped most to get it moving were the big changes in military
spending that were being planned.....Plants being closed, relocations, and so
forth. Most of it wasn't made public until much later....
[I understand] it took a long time to select the people for the Group. The calls
didn't go out until the summer......
WHO MADE THE SELECTION?
That's something I can't tell you. I wasn't involved with the preliminary
planning. The first I knew of it was when I was called myself. But three of the
people had been in on it, and what the rest of us know we learned from them,
about what went on earlier. I do know that it started very informally. I don't
know what particular government agency approved the project.
