Eisenhower, Feynman and the Four Prunes: Strategy, Stockpile Stewardship and the Dangerous Science and Technology Elite
Victor H. Reis

February 14, 2019

In his farewell speech in 1961, President Eisenhower memorably warned of the “unwarranted influence of the military industrial complex,” but also warned “Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.” In short, policy makers should not implicitly trust scientists. Another perspective was given by the renowned physicist Richard Feynman who said in in his commencement Speech at Caltech in 1974: “If your answer happens to come out in the direction the government or the politicians like, they can use it as an argument in their favor; if it comes out the other way, they don’t publish it at all. That’s not giving scientific advice.” So, scientists should not trust politicians. After Reis’ retirement in March 2017, he realized that he spent a 50-year career buying or selling science and technology to the federal government from all sorts of jobs (four of them prune jobs) in and out of the government. In short, he became a full-fledged, practicing member of that dangerous scientific and technical elite - mostly stuck between Eisenhower and Feynman – trying to develop trust between these two different cultures by using systems analysis, judgement and craft. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. His talk will report on lessons learned from that dangerous community and present a brazen solicitation of constructive criticism and suggestions.

Vic Reis is a former U.S. government official, best known as the architect and original sponsor of the U.S. Nuclear Stockpile Stewardship Program and its associated Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative. Reis was a senior staff member at Lincoln Laboratory, assistant director for National Security and Space in the OSTP in the Executive Office of the President, a senior vice president for strategic planning at the SAIC, Director of DARPA; and subsequently director of defense research and engineering at the U.S. DoD. Reis served as Assistant Secretary for Defense Programs in the U.S. DOE from 1993 to 1999, where he led the development of the DOE's Stockpile Stewardship Program. Since 2005, Reis has served as senior advisor in the Office of the Secretary, DOE. He was also a member of the Strategic Advisory Group of the U.S. Strategic Command, the DCI S&T Advisory Group, the Argonne National Laboratory Board of Governors and other advisory groups.

Eisenhower, Feynman and the Four Prunes: Strategy, Stockpile Stewardship and the Dangerous Science and Technology Elite

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Center for Global Security Research (CGSR) sponsored this talk entitled "Eisenhower, Feynman and the Four Prunes: Strategy, Stockpile Stewardship and the Dangerous Science and Technology Elite" by Victor H. Reis on February 14, 2019.