Introduction of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Charles M. Vest

President of MIT

Delivered at MIT, Cambridge, MA, March 29, 1999.

Good morning. I am very pleased to play a role in this valuable colloquium on Secrecy in Science. And I am particularly happy to have the assignment of introducing our keynote speaker.

In considering the theme of this conference, it may be well to recall John Dryden’s observation that "…secrets are edged tools and must be kept from children and from fools." And som would add "…and from science."

Secrecy in science sounds quite repugnant. After all, science—as an organized systematic effort to understand nature—thrives on free and open inquiry.

Yet secrecy in science is a reality and a source of tension in many ways.

The uses, misuses and consequences of secrecy are issues as fresh as today’s headlines bearing datelines of Los Alamos or Washington.

The other side of the coin is a serious matter as well, as Congress and the Office of Management and Budget try to find the appropriate way for the American public to have access to scientific data. This matter of OMB circular A110 requires thoughtful, expeditious analysis and action by our community.

Sometimes secrecy is imposed by formal government classification or by corporate restrictions. But it also can be self-imposed—by the investigators themselves, in the competition to be first to discover or publish new findings.

And although we are talking today about secrecy in science, we must consider technological research as well. Today, the boundary between science and technology is increasingly blurred. And because technology frequently is tied directly to commercial interests, it presents an evern fuzzier picture.

Here, we often must deal with matters of competitive advantage—and technological knowledge begins to be viewed as an "intellectual property," with a clear economic and political value. Now, I believe strongly in the importance of interplay and partnership among industry, government, and academia. However, these new relationships bring with them new challenges and more layers of complexity when it comes to access to scientific and technological information.

These same concerns and complexities arise in the international relationships that are so important to the culture of science. In an age of globalization, how shall we address these matters?

Futhermore, as military procurement moves more and more into a mode of integrating components purchased from the consumer sector, what does that imply for matters of classification and secrecy?

Today’s symposium, therefore, is timely in the large as well as the immediate, sense. The AAAS has assembled an extraordinary group of speakers to initiate and guide our discussion.

No one is better qualified to help us wrestle with these issues than this morning’s featured speaker.

In a life of astonishing productivity and exceptional dedication to the public interes, Daniel Patrick Moynihan has pursued several diffferent careers, often simultaneously. He has achieved distinction as a social scientist and professor; as a senior public policymaker and advisor to governors and presidents of both parties; as a diplomat; and, to top it all off, as one of the most respected members of the United States Senate.

Most of us would be delighted to have done so well in any one of these fields. Senator Moynihan has managed to combine them all into one astounding career.

He is in his last term as Senator, but his retirement from that exclusive club will simply give him more time to write, think, and go on delighting us with his insights and explorations.

This is beginning to sound like a eulogy, isn’t it? It isn’t, of course. Senator Moynihan is nowhere near finished examing the world around him and provoking the rest of us with new ideas and observations.

His expertise in the field of secrecy has been earned the hard way.

As the U.S. Ambassador to India from 1973 to 1975, and as U.S. Representative to the United Nations from 1975 to 1976, he saw firsthand how a culture of secrecy cast a shadow on the work of international diplomacy and negotiation.

As a past member of the President’s Science Advisory Committee and a member of the Board of Directors of the AAAS Advisory Committee, he has direct knowledge of secrecy issues as the intersection of national policy and scientific research.

His most intensive exposure to the culture of secrecy, however, came in the period of 1977 to 1985, during his tenure on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. For his service on the committee—including his four years as its chariman—he received not only the respect of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle, but also the CIA’s Agency Seal Medallion.

In 1993, convinced that the end of the Cold War had created an opportune moment to examine the cost, effect and future of U.S. policies on secrecy, Senator Moynihan introduced legislation to establish a Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy. The commission was authorized in 1994, with Senator Moynihan as its chairman. Its report was issued in March of 1997, and has become the basis for a continuing process of discussion and reform throughout the federal government.

One year later, Senator Moynihan published his eighteenth book, entitled Secrecy: The American Experience. In it, he writes:

"We are not going to put an end to secrecy, nor should we… But a culture of secrecy…need not remain the norm in American government as regards national security…The central fact is that we live today in an Information Age. Open sources give us the vast majority of what we need to know in order to make intelligent decisions. Analysis, far more than secrecy, is the key to security."

Senator Moynihan’s vision of a more open culture in which information is publicly tested and widely shared may not be fulfilled any time soon. However, in its sturdy reliance on skeptical inquiry and the free dissemination of ideas, it sounds like a close cousin of the scientific method. That is reason enough to give it our close attention, and even our strong support.

Please join me in welcoming the senior Senator from New York, the Honorable Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

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