!! spellx done
25  A Ministry of Truth
    The Washington Post, Sunday, January 1, 1967

     "Joshua, what have you done for peace this year?"  Leo Szilard
would ask me.  He was one of my most cherished friends, but I would
have to wince in expectation of his admonition.  We scientists are
particularly concerned with what we might leave behind us.  All would
vanish in the same nuclear conflagration as the rest of human
achievement if we do not find a way to stay the conflict of world
power.

     We may be no better statesmen than other citizens, but we should
constantly seek some technical innovation to contribute to human
survival.  

     The most likely way for nuclear catastrophe to occur is through a
miscalculation of the other side's intentions and policy.  So long as
communications are clear and time allows thoughtful analysis, any
escalation of a conflict toward the use of nuclear weapons will remain
fearful and constrained, and therefore reversible.

     Let us once panic, or the enemy conclude that we have reached the
point of rage, and it will provoke the same reaction on both sides:
"We must take the ultimate chance, get them before they get us".  At
such a point, the fate of the earth may depend on proving that our 
policy is only defensive.

     Plenty of precedent shows the importance of miscalculation in
starting major conflicts.  Before World War I, the Kaiser was all too
convincing in an inflated show of German military power, and he deeply
misapprehended the Czar's policy of Pan-Slavism.  Hitler was
astonished when the British really did react over Poland.

     Some mechanism to divine the truth of a nation's policy would
therefore be of incalculable benefit to man's hope of survival.  Truth
is a novel principle in politics; we have so little experience of it
that it would be hard to predict all of its ramifications.  But it
could save us from the ultimate catastrophes, which should be enough
reason to promote it.

     Such an environment might also solidify fundamentally peaceful
policies.  These would be more advantageous when it was possible
to prove them to the other parties.

     It would be too revolutionary to suggest that a country always
tell the truth, nor can we immediately impose truth-telling on our
adversaries.  Nevertheless, unilateral initiatives could transform
the future.  Political institutions might suffice by the pervasive
assimilation of foreign policy into internal, domestic law to make it
administratively too cumbersome to violate a treaty.  This is a simple
extrapolation of the concept of self-inspection, but it would require
much civil restraint on the President's authority.

     We could establish an official Ministry of Truth whose lawful
function was to know the truth about our national policy and immediate
plans.  The minister would, however, speak only when licensed by the
President to make an ex cathedra statement on a crucial, solemn
occasion.  It would be difficult starting from now to make the
minister's independent responsibility wholly credible.

     We therefore set a truth machine as an objective of
psychobiological research.  To extract the truth from a human being is
an awesome goal, and it would be inconsistent with our image of human
dignity to disable him from lying.  However, only the official staff
need be obligated to submit to the device.

     Technically, the machine should not be as difficult to perfect
as it would be to establish the supporting institutions.  Lie
detectors and narcoanalysis (truth "serum") are steps in this
direction, but far from perfect.

     We do know, however, that direct electrical stimulation of the
brain can elicit or inhibit speech.  We should then be able to learn
how to make a cooperative subject tell what he knows, and it is the
minister's job to cooperate with the machine.

     Once such a system becomes available, it should coordinate the
bureaucratic techniques needed to assure that the truth minister does
have the relevant information, and can truthfully say that none has
been denied him.  Indeed when it became firm policy to open this
avenue to the truth, it might never or rarely be necessary to invoke
the machine itself.

     The truth would then be available to the President as another
weapon of national policy for world peace.  The technical problem is
merely to achieve such a level of credibility that when the truth
is invoked other nations could rely upon it in making their own
plans.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------