ABSTRACT
During the 1960s, I was an exception to the apparent, and usually correct, impression that scholars who are explicitly and publicly critical of government policies live in a different world than those who work or consult for national security agencies. Perhaps due to my diverse friendships and regular participation in fairly conventional conferences, testifying before the occasional congressional committee, as well as my policy-relevant publications, I had become something of a borderline case; often having secret, top secret, or Q clearances, while still being critical of government policies. Thus, as discussed in the autobiographical chapter, the Naval War College invited me to serve on its faculty in 1960. Later on I was invited to lecture at various defense colleges and write analyses for a number of federal agencies. Some would say that I was more like Mozart, who was happy to compose for the monarchy, than like Beethoven who chose (or was chosen) not to, like my colleague Anatol Rapoport. 3 Yet my insider position did not mute my criticism of governmental policy, and the next two papers further illustrate this far-from-cozy relationship.
“Deterrence and Shelters” was written for a Department of the Army study that was looking at plans for what they called, “an expedient shelter program.” In that analysis I urged against the dominant voice in the strategic community, which was in favor of fallout shelters and urban evacuation systems. I argued that the actual lifesaving potential of proposed civil defense shelters was far from enough to compensate for the dangers they provoked by inhibiting the serious search for non-military alternatives to international conflict and by promoting fatalism about nuclear war. Most of the advocates urged that shelters would be purely defensive measures, but a closer look suggested otherwise. It was well understood that shelters and evacuation would not save very many lives if the adversary struck first, but if the U.S. had already launched a pre-emptive first strike, the Soviet retaliatory response would be weak and scattered, in which case shelters and evacuations would play a very useful role. The implication should have been clear: that a country that invested heavily in “civil defense” would sure look as if it were tilting toward a credible first-strike posture.
