Columbia University's IDA Jason Project 1960s Work--Part 3

An April 13, 1966 “Draft Proposal,” marked “Private,” that was written up by the Cambridge Study group professors indicates the Vietnam War-related purpose of the 1966 Jason Division Summer Study of Columbia’s IDA. In its “Preamble,” for example, the “Draft Proposal” states:

“The continuing struggle in Vietnam has rapidly become this nation’s dominant military and foreign policy concern…

“The growing seriousness…of the Vietnam War naturally leads scientists and engineers, especially those with long experience in weapons development and military strategy, to ask whether there are technological opportunities that could contribute substantially to the achievement of the nation’s objectives in Vietnam. In particular, questions arise as to whether technological innovations are feasible to reduce the cost or speed the fulfillment of the present military strategy, and whether technology applied to alternative military strategies might make some other options more attractive by virtue of being less costly in lives and resources without impairing achievement of political objectives.

“A group of scientists and engineers who have been involved in military/technical analyses in the past at the Defense Department and the White House are preparing to conduct a special short-term study to examine these questions in depth, with a view to making specific recommendations to the Department of Defense.”

The April 13, 1966 “Draft Proposal” then listed the specific “objectives” of the 1966 Jason Division Summer Study of Columbia’s IDA:

“1. To determine if there are possible technological innovations in military weapons and practices that could enhance the probability of achieving military objectives, consistent with our political objectives, in Vietnam at lower cost; and

“2. As a necessary concomitant to the first objective, to make an estimate of the costs and effectiveness of the present military tactics and of possible military options, especially in the light of feasible technological innovations.

“The kinds of military options that should be considered in the light of the nation’s political objectives include:

“1. increase of American military power and pressure to force the withdrawal of the N.L.F. and Viet Cong;

“2. continuation of roughly the existing level of confrontation;

“3. reduction of American and Vietnamese military action with a view to limiting the military objective to the guarantee of the protection of `free zones’; and

“4. variations of the latter to include ranges from fluid, active defenses of free zones and to static perimeter defenses.

“Technological possibilities will have to be examined in areas such as: interdiction of communication and transportation, reconnaissance, geographical barriers (the possibility of `sealing off’ South Vietnam); weapons systems; military and civilian personnel protection; and others.

“The general intention will be to identify new or existing military and technological opportunities, to estimate their cost and usefulness against the costs and effectiveness of present strategy and weapons, and to recommend further action or policies for the Department of Defense in the light of these estimates.”

Finally, the April 13, 1966 “Draft Proposal” described its “Plan for the Study” by the Jason Divison of Columbia’s IDA:

“It is planned to bring together a group of up to (or less than) fifty scientists and engineers for two weeks in mid-June, 1966, two weeks in the latter part of July, and if necessary two weeks in the latter part of August. These intensive two-week periods will be preceded by and interspersed with occasional one-day meetings and by directed staff work. In addition, a steering committee of roughly six scientists and engineers will meet regularly to formulate the concepts and guide the deliberations.

“Some early briefings may be held in Washington; the bulk of activity will take place in the Cambridge area.”

Next: Columbia University’s IDA Jason Project 1960s Work—Part 4

Columbia University's IDA Jason Project 1960s Work--Part 2

Carl Kaysen was the Deputy Special Assistant for National Security Affairs in the Democratic Kennedy Administration between 1961 and 1963. Coincidentally, Kaysen also was an Associate Dean at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Public Administration between 1960 and 1966.

After it became evident to many U.S. academics that the Democratic Johnson Administration’s policy of escalating the Vietnam War in early 1965 by starting to bomb North Vietnam on a regular basis had failed to achieve a quick victory in Vietnam for the U.S. war machine, Harvard University Graduate School of Public Administration Associate Dean Kaysen visited U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara at the Pentagon. As Power and Promise: The Life and Times of Robert McNamara by Deborah Shapley recalled in 1993:

“McNamara was looking for `fresh’ ideas when he returned from Vietnam in November [1965], and he was handed one in particular—for a technological `barrier’—that would play a major part in his attempt to redirect the war…Carl Kaysen, who had worked in John Kennedy’s White House…recalls visiting McNamara twice in December 1965 in his office.

“It was common for leading university scientists and other experts to work on military problems during war…In Cambridge in 1965, there evolved a `floating crap game,’ Kaysen says, involving a few Harvard and M.I.T. faculty—some with formal Pentagon ties and some without—to brainstorm on ways to resolve the war…Thus the idea arose of the `electronic fence,’ or `barrier.’…

“Perhaps America’s technology could be used to advantage in the jungle after all, Kaysen’s group told McNamara in December. A string of new devices—tiny sensors that detected footfalls, air-dropped mines, remotely guided air and ground fire—could be installed starting on the coast, following the 17th parallel, running inland and continuing straight on across the waist of Laos…

“The plan for the barrier went forward in secret. Scientists in a secret group called the Jason Division of the Institute for Defense Analyses would bring in parallel studies to McNamara by the fall of 1966…”

Former Harvard University Dean Kaysen also stated in the book Jerry Wiesner: Scientist, Statesman, Humanist—Memories and Memoirs:

“In late 1965 and early 1965, Jerry [Wiesner], [MIT Professor] George Kistiakowsky, and I persuaded McNamara to support a summer study in Cambridge with the purpose of finding more effective ways than bombing…”

McNamara then “wrote back to the Cambridge group asking that their summer study examine the feasibility of…night vision devices, defoliation techniques and area-denial weapons,” according to the book The Jasons by Ann Finkbeiner. The same book also noted that:

“To set up their summer study, the Cambridge group called Jack Ruina, who was now president of IDA. `I got a call either from George Kistiakowsky or Jerry Wiesner or one of those guys,’ Ruina said. `Zacharias maybe. So what were they talking? They said, “We would like to have a study on a Vietnam issue and would you be willing to set up a study so it would be an IDA study.”’ IDA, with its academic trustees and its highly placed Defense Department customers, was a natural for the Cambridge group.”

Next: Columbia University’s IDA Jason Project 1960s Work—Part 3

Columbia University's IDA Jason Project 1960s Work--Part 1

The purpose of the Project Jason group of U.S. university professors that Columbia University’s Institute for Defense Analyses [IDA] weapons research think-tank set up in the late 1950s was described by Princeton University Professor John Wheeler in the following way, in a Dec. 11, 1963 letter to former IDA Vice President and Director of Research Albert Hill:

“Project Jason of the Institute for Defense Analyses has served as one mechanism to draw a new generation into defense issues. It has had the great advantage of making defense work seem to scientists not as a second rate activity, as it is often regarded in other countries, but as something deserving the attention of the very best minds.”

On Friday, Oct. 20, 1961 at 1710 H Street NW in Washington, D.C., for example, the Jason Division of Columbia’s IDA held the initial session of its annual Fall meeting. At 9:00 a.m., Seymour Deitchman of IDA’s RESD Division spoke and led a discussion about “Problems of Limited War.” Then, at 11:30 a.m., Dr. Michael May spoke and led a discussion about “Limited War Technology.” After a lunch break, the U.S. university professors who were members of the Jason Division then heard Richard DuBois of IDA’s Weapons Systems Evaluation Division speak and lead a discussion at 3:30 p.m. on “Carrier Tactical Forces Through 1963.”

The following morning at 9:00 a.m. on Sat., Oct. 21, 1961, Dr. M. Ruderman and Columbia University Professor of Physics Henry Foley, both members of the Jason Division, began the second day’s session of Jason’s annual Fall meeting by leading a discussion on “Midas.” Then at 1:00 p.m., former Columbia Professor of Physics Charles Townes led a discussion on “CORWA.” And the second day’s session ended with a 2:45 p.m. discussion led by Dr. Paul Hansen of IDA’s Weapons Systems Evaluation Group on the “Tactical Aircraft Penetration Study.”

The Jason Division of Columbia’s IDA also held a summer weapons research study session between June 14, 1965 and July 30, 1965 in Building N. 3614 at Otis Air Force Base in Massachusetts during the 1960s. Half of the Pentagon weapons researchers attending this summer Jason Division meeting were ARPA, RAND and IDA staff employees and half of the attendees were U.S. university professors who were Jason Division members. Besides former Columbia University Professor Townes, the steering committee for the 1965 Jason summer study session included Columbia Professor or Physics Henry Foley, Columbia Professor of Physics Leon Lederman and Columbia Professor Richard Garwin, who also directed Columbia’s IBM Watson Laboratory.

Next: Columbia University’s IDA Jason Project 1960s Work—Part 2

Some Poems From The 1970s, 1980s & Early 1990s

Written during the late 1970s, the 1980s and early 1990s, these poems might reflect some of the historical mood of those decades:

The Forgotten Majority

We speak for the Forgotten Majority.

We speak for the Forgotten Majority of the 1980s that refuses to vote for new dictators in the media-rigged elections.

We speak for the Forgotten Majority that owns no stock in the exploitative corporations of the USA.

We speak for the Forgotten Majority which lives in poverty and either walks the streets without jobs or is locked in 9 to 5 slavery in offices or factories that pay wages too low.

We speak for the Forgotten Majority that can’t afford next month’s rent for a slum apartment and can’t afford the price of a new house or a new condo and must move from old neighborhoods because the rent has been gentrified.

We speak for the Forgotten Majority.

We speak for the Forgotten Majority that is denied jobs, housing, and an adequate standard of living because of colonialism, neo-colonialism and racial discrimination.

We speak for the Forgotten Majority that the capitalist patriarchy oppresses and exploits.

We speak for the Forgotten Majority that opposes the Pentagon’s war moves in Central America, Europe and the Middle East, but is excluded from mass media access.

We speak for the Forgotten Majority that wants an end to the oppression of gay men and lesbians and an end to the rule of Democratic and Republican Party politicians and their white capitalist allies.

We speak for the Forgotten Majority that demands its freedom now!

Target Nicaragua

They’re lining up the robots and the troops
The mass media cheerleaders are telling us why we should be thankful
The jackasses and bird-brains are trying to manage the flesh and blood and minds and spirits of the acid-opened-up people
The Catholic Church is pumping out more leaflets from central headquarters
In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Ghost and the Vatican, Inc.
The Russian-American intellectuals are conspiring on the mattress with the women refugees from the wife-beaters.

The covert aggressors are overtly murdering civilians with U.S. guns in Nicaragua.

The Pentagon is drawing up the bombing plans and ordering a new supply of napalm.

The ghost of Walt Whitman is marching through the academic departments and crying out: “Stop the bull-shit!”

The professors are developing more weapons
The homeless are herded into the armories
The students are studying computers
The people in Nicaragua are preparing for the worst
The CIA has issued a new secret plan of aggression
Called
“Target Nicaragua.”

Summer 1983

To be old and unpublished and poor
In the USA
Makes you wonder what the point is
Of writing another unrecorded song
Or unpublished novel
Or unmarketable non-fiction.
You're just a slave, obviously,
Trapped in those 9 to 5 coffins
With other slaves who don't know they're slaves
While the pigs rip everyone off
And the middle-class lefties preach left gradualism from their soft middle-class job slots
And middle-class gatekeepers with middle-class critical standards, mentalities and politics
Won't let you get into print.

Yes, Revolution will come
But you might starve too soon to see it.
Although the nuke war may come sooner for you the way things are going these days.

Wasted Lives

Wasted lives
So many wasted lives
Wasted minds
So many wasted minds
Wasted hands
So many wasted hands
Wasted men
And many wasted women.

Ugly greed surrounds my soul
Sammy Glicks and corporate females
Pig professors bullying the young
Cornering the jobs behind armed guards.

Within The Skyscraper

Within the skyscraper
Men plot evil deeds
Women sell their made-up faces, their egoistic minds and their aerobic bodies
To the highest bidder.
They talk about their markets
And how to manipulate all the fools;
Money is their god,
Weapons is their product
Theft is their profession.
But beneath the fluorescent lamps and above the carpeted floors
The Resistance to the tyrants in suits and ties
Cries out:
“Justice, Equality, Freedom!
Wall Street Will Fall!”
And the spirit of this Resistance
Invincible
Rides the elevators up and down the skyscrapers
And across each floor
And leaves its sign in the corners of cluttered desks and cubicles
Within the skyscrapers.

The Question

To read, to write or to fight,
That is the question;
And if to read
To read what?
Fiction or history or language?
And if to write,
To write what?
Poetry, plays, novels, short stories
Or biography or non-fiction?
And if to fight,
To fight how?
When others are demoralized and psyched out by the media
Or opportunist.
To be free and loving,
That is the answer;
And to avoid literary egotism.

Thanksgiving 1988

It's still a day of mourning for those people
Trampled on by the land lust of the settlers
And their corporate and yuppie descendents
But, accidentally,
I'm attempting to jump from coast-to-coast again
In search of freedom
In search of community
In search of a part of my youth
In search of the new 'Frissco
And a place to get through the '90s
And my '40s
While stuck in the middle of
Corporate Fascist Amerika.
Farewell loveless yuppie New York!

Thanksgiving 1991

Be thankful you’re still alive
Be thankful you haven’t starved
Be thankful the government
Didn’t lock you behind bars.

Be thankful you have a job
Where you can be a slave all day
Be thankful you have a landlord
Who steals most of your pay.

Be thankful for all the yuppies
And all the rich businessmen
Be thankful for all the generals
Be thankful for all the pigs.

Be thankful that no one spits on you
When you sit in a subway car
Be thankful if you’re lonely
Be thankful if you can’t find much love.

Goodbye America (written on Sepember 23, 1986)

Goodbye America
I hope to be back soon
To continue to bear witness to the inhumanity of your ruling class towards the rest of the world
You can continue to try to lock me out of your cultural world
And sentence me and my sisters and brothers to the 9 to 5 boxes
But we will continue to fight the class responsible for the mass media manipulation of U.S. working class consciousness
And even when I'm gone
Which may be soon or may be later
The flag of spiritual resistance to America's pig social system and anti-democratic pig value structure and pig cultural/intellectual/academic Establishment
Will be raised by future generations of rebels
Until leissure-oriented
Equality and freedom
And small "c" communism
Is established
Right here on The Lower East Side
And right her on the island of Manhattan.
Venceremos!
Take The Man's Mass Media!
And fight the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the corporations and Pentagon
To your last breath
Until all are free and equal.

Next: Columbia University’s IDA Jason Project 1960s Work—Part 1

Remembering The `Karibian vs. Columbia University Sexual Harassment Case'

Columbia University was able to get a jury to rule in favor of Columbia University in the “Karibian vs. Columbia University Sexual Harassment Case.” But this excerpt from the text of the June 28, 1996 court decision (930 F.Supp 134) reveals some interesting facts on how some Columbia University supervisors apparently treated their women employees, historically, in the late 1980s:

“Plaintiff Sharon Karibian brought suit against the alleged perpetrator, Mark Urban; against Columbia University, the former employer of Karibian and Urban; and against John Borden, a vice president at Columbia…

“Karibian claimed that Urban sexually harassed her by engaging in unwelcome sexual activities with Karibian and indicating to her that she would receive employment advantages if she submitted and disadvantages in her employment if she did not. Karibian claimed that she in fact was benefited in her employment while submitting to Urban’s sexual demands and suffered detriment after she discontinued the relationship. Karbian also claimed that Urban retaliated against her because she complained to Columbia…

“…Urban produced a lengthy written statement…The statement by no means admitted any coerced or harassing sexual activity or any pressure relating to the conditions of Karibian’s employment. The statement did, however, admit that Urban had pursued Karibian romantically, that a sexual relationship had ultimately developed, and that it extended, with some breaks, until the spring of 1989. The statement described other matters relating to Karibian, including the fact that Urban had helped Karibian obtain compensation for hours in September 1987 which Karibian had not actually worked.

“…After reviewing the statement, Borden and the other people at Columbia involved with this matter decided to ask Urban to resign. Borden felt that he had been misled by Urban on an earlier occasion about what was going on between him and Karibian, and Borden and the others took the view at this time that it was improper management on the part of Urban to develop a sexual relationship with his subordinate. Another factor influencing the Columbia people was Urban’s involvement in having Karibian paid for unworked hours…”

Next: Some Poems From the 1970s and 1980s

Columbia University's Superior Bank/"Obamagate" Scandal Link?

Although Columbia University is a tax-exempt, “non-profit” institution that is supposed to be legally prohibited from engaging in partisan political politics, Columbia University Trustee Eric Holder is currently a 2008 Obama presidential campaign adviser.
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2007/08/eric_holder_joins_obama.html . Besides being an Obama campaign adviser, Columbia University Trustee Holder also became a law partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Covington & Burling after serving as a Deputy Attorney General in the Democratic Clinton Administration until 2001. (See the following link: http://www.cov.com/eholder/ )

But as the Covington & Burling web site at http://www.cov.com/practice/white_collar_and_investigations/financial_insitutions_investigations/
notes, Holder's law firm "represented Coast-to-Coast Financial Corporation in government inquiries and civil litigation regarding the failure of its subsidiary, Superior Bank, fsb, the largest bank failure in recent years."

Coincidentally, the Obama Campaign's National Finance Chair, Penny Pritzker, sat on the board of the Coast-to-Coast Financial Corporation whose special corporate interests Columbia Trustee and Obama Campaign Adviser Holden's law firm represented before U.S. government regulators and in federal court. As the Feb. 6, 2002 Office of Inspector General's report noted:

"Superior was orginally established in 1988 when the Pritzker and Dworman interests acquired Lyons Savings Bank...The corporate structure consisted of Superior being wholly-owned by Coast-to-Coast Financial Corporation (CCFC), the holding company, with the Pritzker and Dworman interests each owning 50 percent of the holding company..."

Yet the Office of Inspector General's Feb. 6, 2002 report also observed:

"Oftentimes the line between poor business judgment and fraud and abuse is difficult to draw. Nevertheless, based on our review of the failure of Superior Bank it appears that some of the decisions made by Superior management rise to the level of insider abuse...

"As early as 1996, Superior submitted Thrift Financial Reports that were inaccurate...

"Questionable management practices were evident at Superior for many years...

"...Examiners discovered that during the fourth calendar quarter of 2000 Superior sold loans at fixed prices to Coast-to-Coast Financial Corporation. This transaction violates various federal regulations by selling assets to an affiliate at a price less than fair market value..."

Next: Remembering The “Karibian vs. Columbia University Sexual Harassment Case”

Protest Columbia University's Complicity With U.S. Imperialism: April 24-27, 2008

To mark the 40th anniversary of the 1968 Columbia Anti-War Student Revolt against Columbia University’s complicity with U.S. imperialism, veterans of the 1968 Columbia Student Strike will be gathering at Columbia’s School of Journalism between April 24 and April 27, 2008. See the following link for the schedule of commemoration events:

http://www.columbia1968.com/


Next: Columbia University’s Superior Bank/”Obamagate” Scandal Link?