July 1, 1975

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics

Dr. Saleem Shah

Chief, Center for Studies of Crime
and Delinquency

National Institute of Mental Health

Parklawn Building

5600 Fisher's Lane

Rockville, Maryland 20852

Dear Saleen,

Do you have any bibliographic data concerning bargaining behavior
in connection with hostages?

It is painful to have to think that this is a skill that we are
certainly going to have to develop more and more in the forthcoming
milieu.

If this has not come across your own desk, perhaps some of your opposite
numbers in law enforcement may have collected some statistical or historical
information that would be useful in such circumstances. If this has never
been done, it probably would pay to try to get such a study mounted, I hope
with some discretion. I am sure I do not have to tell you the kinds of
circumstances that makes this a prominent issue in our minds these days
at Stanford. And when Dave Hamburg gets back, I imagine he wéll be able
to write his own book about the subject! I was really deeply concerned
about the risks that Dave himself might have been exposing himself to in
the very process of negotiation: why wouldn't the kidnappers just try
to grab him, too, for even more ransom! But then it occurred to me that I
really did not know of any actual historical precedent for that particular
kind of behavior and this itself is perhaps puzzling. So, then it occurred
to me that there really was a behavioral science issue of very considerable
practical importance as well as a certain amount of theoretical challenge.

Please let me know if you can think of any leads in this area.

More generally, I Bawes I have the gloomy premonition that stateless
war is going to loom as a larger and larger part of the threats to personal
security. This, of course, was one of the main reasons for my anxieties

about further developments in the fields of BW and CW..

I miss seeing you all at the council meetings but I guess even more
momentous things have happened than my retirement from that particular duty!

Sincerely yours,