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139   Spreading Research Strikes 
      Score on the Wrong Target
      The Washington Post, March 1, 1969

     "Research strike at MIT on March 4" headlined a news story of a
spontaneous movement that has gained astonishing momentum among
scientists and graduate students on American campuses.

     The tone of the first rumors and reports was upsetting, not
only to me but also to some of the acknowledged sponsors of the MIT
event, according to a letter published in Science magazine.  Profs.
Boris Magasanik (biology), John Ross (chemistry) and Victor Weisskopf
(physics) wrote that they had no strike in mind in the sense of an
action against their employer, MIT, but rather "to halt their research
activities for ... a public discussion of problems and dangers related
to the present role of science and technology in the life of our
Nation... a gesture meant to underline the importance of the problems
involved".

     Students and faculty at many other campuses, including my own 
(Stanford), have resonated to the sense of urgency and even despair
that would motivate such a gesture.  They have, however, wisely (in
my own view) disavowed the pretense that they would stop thinking
as a gesture of protest.

     There are, after all, many pressures always operating to distract
a scientist from thinking; I would rather resolve to work a little
harder that day.  Such a pious vow would attract few headlines.  

     As an alternative, these students have called for a convocation
on the role that scientists can play to speed the positive human uses
of their efforts.  The challenge can hardly be ignored; it is one
of the greatest issues of our times.  We hardly know where to begin,
but it is certainly true that the universities have been negligent
in teaching some or the simplest facts about the actual conduct of
research.

     We find many people who should know better, including Congressmen
as well as undergraduates, talking about an annual research budget of
$17 billion as if these were funds spent in academic research at 
universities rather than the whole Federal investment in research and
development, mostly defense development.  Many students entertain
the myth, therefore, that university research is mainly subsidized
by the Department of Defense.

     In due course, cliches about the military-industrial-academic
complex become slogans for campus protest and disruptive strikes.  The
first order of business for these convocations is, then, a factual 
review of the actual disposition of scientific effort: academic
research takes up just 10 percent of the R & D budget, medical
research sponsored by the National Institutes of Health being the
preponderant item, at a level somewhat over a thousandth of the
gross national product.

     The anger and frustration that drive students and researchers
even to think about a research strike are not really directed to the
science policy of the Government, which has been shoddy -- except that
it is also the most enlightened the world has ever seen.  They are
directed to the failure of our political institutions to solve the
problems of war and poverty and are particularly provoked by the
inertia that moves a project like the antiballistic missile, as if
we lived in a dream world that could ignore the anxieties and 
adaptations of the Russians and the Chinese to our moves.

     I can understand the anger that leads to protest.  But I would
also charge my students and colleagues that they have a precious
asset more valuable than their rising voices: the skills, training
and temperament to analyze difficult problems with scientific 
objectivity.  Our scattered ideas on how to achieve world security
have never reached the level of consensus easily won by good science;
problems as difficult as this are postponed by prudent scientists,
if they can.

     Our political establishment may be incredibly obtuse about
seeming common sense on some issues.  Nevertheless, I doubt that
accredited scientists in any field would face insuperable obstacles
in funding innovative research even if it were openly aimed at world
peace.
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