information from other people.... Among the fifteen of us, I don't thing there
was anybody in the academic or professional world we couldn't call on if we
wanted to, and we took advantage of it..... We were paid a very modest per
diem. All of it was called "expenses" on the vouchers. We were told not to
report it on our tax returns.... The checks were drawn on a special account of
Able's at a New York bank. He signed them....I don't know what the study cost.
So far as our time and travel were concerned, it couldn't have come to more
than the low six-figure range. But the big item must have been computer time,
and I have no idea how high this ran......
YOU SAY THAT YOU DON'T THINK YOUR WORK WAS AFFECTED BY PROFESSIONAL BIAS. WHAT ABOUT POLITICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL BIAS? IS IT POSSIBLE TO DEAL WITH QUESTIONS OF WAR AND PEACE WITHOUT REFLECTING PERSONAL VALUES?
Yes, it is. I can understand your skepticism. But if you had been at any of our
meetings you'd have had a very hard time figuring out who were the liberals and
who were the conservatives, or who were hawks and who were doves. There IS
such a thing as objectivity, and I think we had it... I don't say no one had any
emotional reaction to what we were doing. We all did, to some extent. As a
matter of fact, two members had heart attacks after we were finished, and I'll be
the first to admit it probably wasn't a coincidence.
YOU SAID YOU MADE UP YOUR OWN GROUND RULES. WHAT WERE THESE GROUND RULES?
The most important were informality and unanimity . By informality I mean
that our discussions were open-ended. We went as far afield as any one of us
thought we had to. For instance, we spent a lot of time on the relationship
between military recruitment policies and industrial employment. Before we
were finished with it, we'd gone through the history of western penal codes and
any number of comparative psychiatric studies [of draftees and volunteers]. We
looked over the organization of the Inca empire. We determined the effects of
automation on underdeveloped societies....It was all relevant....
By unanimity, I don't mean that we kept taking votes, like a jury. I mean that we
stayed with every issue until we had what the Quakers call a "sense of the
meeting." It was time-consuming. But in the long run it saved time. Eventually
we all got on the same wavelength, so to speak.....
was anybody in the academic or professional world we couldn't call on if we
wanted to, and we took advantage of it..... We were paid a very modest per
diem. All of it was called "expenses" on the vouchers. We were told not to
report it on our tax returns.... The checks were drawn on a special account of
Able's at a New York bank. He signed them....I don't know what the study cost.
So far as our time and travel were concerned, it couldn't have come to more
than the low six-figure range. But the big item must have been computer time,
and I have no idea how high this ran......
YOU SAY THAT YOU DON'T THINK YOUR WORK WAS AFFECTED BY PROFESSIONAL BIAS. WHAT ABOUT POLITICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL BIAS? IS IT POSSIBLE TO DEAL WITH QUESTIONS OF WAR AND PEACE WITHOUT REFLECTING PERSONAL VALUES?
Yes, it is. I can understand your skepticism. But if you had been at any of our
meetings you'd have had a very hard time figuring out who were the liberals and
who were the conservatives, or who were hawks and who were doves. There IS
such a thing as objectivity, and I think we had it... I don't say no one had any
emotional reaction to what we were doing. We all did, to some extent. As a
matter of fact, two members had heart attacks after we were finished, and I'll be
the first to admit it probably wasn't a coincidence.
YOU SAID YOU MADE UP YOUR OWN GROUND RULES. WHAT WERE THESE GROUND RULES?
The most important were informality and unanimity . By informality I mean
that our discussions were open-ended. We went as far afield as any one of us
thought we had to. For instance, we spent a lot of time on the relationship
between military recruitment policies and industrial employment. Before we
were finished with it, we'd gone through the history of western penal codes and
any number of comparative psychiatric studies [of draftees and volunteers]. We
looked over the organization of the Inca empire. We determined the effects of
automation on underdeveloped societies....It was all relevant....
By unanimity, I don't mean that we kept taking votes, like a jury. I mean that we
stayed with every issue until we had what the Quakers call a "sense of the
meeting." It was time-consuming. But in the long run it saved time. Eventually
we all got on the same wavelength, so to speak.....
