Syllabus - Science and National Security in the Cold War

In an earlier post on getting acquainted with the history of science, I suggested that those interested in finding quality further reading look for syllabi online. To contribute to that, I thought I would post a syllabus I wrote for a course I taught at UC Berkeley in Spring 2013. There are a few readings that I would change, now that I've had the experience and seen what worked and what didn't work quite so well. Those readings I'm less sure I would assign again (just because they didn't drive a lot of conversation despite a great set of students) I will use the strikethrough font (like this).

History 103 – Science and National Security during the Cold War

3104 Dwinelle, Mondays 12-2

Spring 2013

Instructor:

            Douglas Michael O'Reagan

            [email address removed for online posting]

            Office hours: Dwinelle 2210, Mondays 2-3pm and by appointment

This seminar will examine the shifting relationship between national security and science and technology in the United States and Soviet Union following the Second World War. The importance of science-based technologies in fighting and winning the war led to new opportunities for scientists, such as increased funding, prestige, and sometimes political influence. Science took on new importance in diplomacy, intelligence gathering, and military planning. However, perception as a valuable national security asset also led to new challenges and dangers for scientists, including conflicts between 'classified science' and ideals of openness, persecution for 'disloyalty' as judged in the ideological context of the Cold War, and popular backlashes at the heightened authority of scientists in cases such as the anti-nuclear movement. How these developments shaped science, and how science and technology shaped the Cold War, are the major themes addressed by the assigned readings.

Course Requirements:

Students will be expected to complete all assigned readings prior to coming to class, and to attend and participate actively in sections, which will include short weekly written responses. In addition, students will be asked to write a research paper on a topic related to the course. Your grade will be determined by the following factors:

            Section participation (70%) – Includes:

·         Attendance

·         Speaking/debating during class

·         Writing weekly questions / short assignments

            Research paper (30%)

           

For the research paper (10-15 pages), you will be allowed to choose any topic related to history of science and national security during the Cold War. You should consult with me when selecting your topic. A rough draft or detailed outline with sources will be due several weeks earlier. Students wishing to write a brief (2-3 page) prospectus for a 101 thesis topic related to this course should discuss this with the instructor early in the semester.

There will be optional (but HIGHLY encouraged) library training sessions just for History 103 students at the following dates:
Wednesday, March 20            10:00-12:00     350 Moffitt Library

Tuesday, April 9                     12:00-2:00       350 Moffitt Library

Weekly Assignments

Unless otherwise stated (in class and a bSpace announcement, most likely), your weekly assignment will be to write three discussion questions based on the readings and send them to oreagan@berkeley.edu by midnight on the Sunday before class. These should be analytical question, not factual ones. We will discuss this more in class.

This class is a reading seminar, meaning it will not be lecture-based and will be demanding of your time. Weekly assignments range from 100-200 pages of reading.

Course Policies

Attendance: There are only twelve meetings throughout the semester, so attendance is very important. Any absences will result in losing a proportionate amount of your participation grade. However, you can miss ONE class without any excuses if you write a 1-3 page report on the readings of the week you missed, discussing your impressions and how they tie to course themes or other weeks' readings, due by the next class meeting. Any additional absences MUST be arranged in advance. Arriving later than the first 10 minutes of the session will count as a half-absence for grading purposes.

Plagiarism: I take plagiarism very seriously, and I will follow university policy without exception in reporting instances of plagiarism. If you have questions or concerns about citing and using documents, please speak to me at any point in the semester. The library training session can help here as well.

Participation and Courtesy: This course will be most useful and entertaining if everyone prepares ahead of time and is willing to contribute to discussion. This means respecting each other's opinions and acting in a courteous manner. Disagreement is fine, even encouraged in the case of lively debate, but disrespect for others is unacceptable in all cases.

Late submissions / Extensions: Only in extreme and PRE-ARRANGED circumstances are extensions something we can discuss. Papers turned in late will lose 2/3 of a grade per day (for example, A becomes a B+, B+ becomes a B-), up to three days late. I will not accept papers later than May 16 (see below).

Due Dates:

• March 11: Paper topic ideas, at least one and up to three.
• April 8: Paper rough draft. Sections being in outline rather than fully-written form is fine at this point, but the more complete it is, the better advice I can give and the better your final grade is likely to end up
• May 13 at 5pm in my box at 3229 Dwinelle: Final Papers Due. Electronic copies are unnecessary, paper copies are mandatory. If the office is closed when you try to submit your paper, you can send an electronic copy just to verify that you're finished on time, but I will still need a hard copy the next day.

Course Readings and Schedule:

Books to purchase/rent:

• Stuart Leslie, The Cold War and American Science: The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).
• Hugh Gusterson, Nuclear Rites: A Weapons Laboratory at the End of the Cold War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).
• Krige, American Hegemony and the Postwar Reconstruction of Science in Europe. (Boston: The MIT Press, 2008).
• Peter Galison and Bruce Hevly, eds., Big Science: The Growth of Large-Scale Research (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992).

Recommended to purchase/rent:

• David J. Kevles, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America, 3^rd ed. New York, NY: Knopf, 1977 [1978]. ISBN: 9780394466316.
• Brian Balogh, Chain Reaction: Expert Debate and Public Participation in American Commercial Nuclear Power
• Mark Walker, Nazi Science: Myth, Truth, and the German Atomic Bomb (New York, 1995)
• Alan Collins, ed., Contemporary Security Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007
• Kristie Macrakis and Dieter Hoffman, eds., Science Under Socialism

Week 1 (Jan.28) : Introduction

Week 2 (Feb.4): The Atomic Bomb and the End of the Second World War

·         Mark Walker, "The Crucibles of Farm Hall," in Nazi Science: Myth, Truth, and the German Atomic Bomb (New York, 1995),  p.207-241

·         J.S. Walker, "The decision to use the bomb." Diplomatic History 14 (1990): 97-114.

·         Peter Galison and Barton Bernstein, "'In any light:' Scientists and the Decision to Build the Hydrogen Bomb," Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 19 (1989): 267-347.

·         Vannevar Bush, "Science, the Endless Frontier" (http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/nsf50/vbush1945.htm) Ch. 1 'Introduction;' Ch.3 'Science and the Public Welfare;' Ch. 6 'The Means to The End'

Recommended:

• Lawrence Badash, Scientists and the development of nuclear weapons: from fission to the Limited Test Ban Treaty 1939-1963 (Atlantic Highlands, 1995)
• "Scientific Activities in the Government, 1940-1962," - NSF Report 62-37
• Paul Forman, "Inventing the Maser in Postwar America" - Osiris 7 (1992) 105-134
• Herbert York, The Advisors: Oppenheimer, Teller, and the Superbomb, 2nd ed. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989)
• Silvan S. Schweber, In the Shadow of the Bomb: Oppenheimer, Bethe, and the Moral Responsibility of the Scientist (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000)

Week 3 (Feb.11): Big Science

• Peter Galison and Bruce Hevly, eds., Big Science: The Growth of Large-Scale Research (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992).
• Robert Seidel, "The Origins of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory." p.21-46
• Galison, Hevly, Lowen, "Controlling the Monster: Stanford and the Growth of Physics Research, 1935-1962" p.46-78
• Dominique Pestre, John Krige, "Some Thoughts on the early History of CERN." p.78-99
• Robert W. Smith, "The Biggest Kind of Big Science: Astronomers and the Space Telescope." p.184-211
• Kevles, "K1S2: Korea, Science, and the State" p.312-333

Recommended:  

• Derek J. de Solla Price. Little Science, Big Science (New York, 1963).
• Peter Westwick. The National Labs: Science in an American System, 1947-1974. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.
• Peter Hales, Atomic Spaces: Living on the Manhattan Project (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997).
• Robert Seidel, “The postwar political economy of high-energy physics,” in Pions to Quarks: Particle Physics in the 1950s, edited by Laurie Brown, Max Dresden, and Lillian Hoddeson (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 497-507.
• Peter Galison, “Physics between War and Peace,” in Science, Technology, and the Military, edited by Everett Mendelsohn, M. Roe Smith, and Peter Weingart (Boston: Kluwer, 1988), volume 1, pp. 47-86.

[No class on Feb. 18 – Presidents Day]

Week 4 (Feb. 25): The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex

• Stuart Leslie, The Cold War and American Science: The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford.p.1-43, 233-256
• Paul Forman, “Behind quantum electronics: National security as basis for physical research in the United States, 1940-1960,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 18 (1987), p.149-229. [shorter than it looks – lots of graphs, etc.]
• Daniel J. Kevles, “Cold War and Hot Physics: Science, Security, and the American State, 1945-1956,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 20 (1990), p.239-264.
• Roger Geiger, "Science, Universities, and National Defense, 1945-1970" Osiris 7 (1992) p.26-48
• Margaret Rossiter, "Setting Federal Salaries in the Space Age." Osiris 7 (1992), p.218-237

Recommended:

• Dwight D. Eisenhower, "Farewell Speech" (1961) (http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ike.htm)
• Naomi Oreskes, "Laissez-tomber: Military patronage and women’s work in mid-20th-century oceanography." Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 30 (2000): 373-392.
• Allan Needell, "Project Troy and the Cold War annexation of the social sciences." In Universities and Empire: Money and Politics in the Social Sciences during the Cold War. Edited by Christopher Simpson. New York, NY: New Press, 1998, pp. 3-38.
• Rebecca Lowen, Creating the Cold War University: The Transformation of Stanford (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).
• Noam Chomsky et al., eds., The Cold War & The University: Toward an Intellectual History of the Postwar Years (Boston: New Press, 1997).
• Mark Solovey, “Project Camelot and the 1960s Epistemological Revolution: Rethinking the Politics-Patronage-Social Science Nexus,” Social Studies of Science 31 (April 2001): 171-206.
• Woo and Carson, "Managing the Research University: Clark Kerr and the University of California." (http://history.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/slides/Soo-Carson_Kerr_2004_0.pdf)
• Tom Coupé (2003) "Science is Golden: Academic R&D and University Patents," Journal of Technology Transfer 28: 31–46.

Week 5 (March 4): Scientific Diplomacy, Scientific Power

• John Krige, American Hegemony and the Postwar Reconstruction of Science in Europe.
• Vaughan C. Turekian and Norman Neureiter, "Science and Diplomacy: The Past as Prologue". Science & Diplomacy (http://www.sciencediplomacy.org/editorial/2012/science-and-diplomacy)
• C.I.A., "The Science Attaché Program," (https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol10no2/html/v10i2a02p_0001.htm)

Recommended:

• Yakov M. Rabkin. Science between the Superpowers. (New York 1988)
• David Dickson, The New Politics of Science. Ch. 4 (Science and Foreign Policy: Knowledge as Imperialism), p. 163-216
• Gar Alperovitz, Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam. The Use of the Atomic Bomb and the American Confrontation with Soviet Power, 2nd ed. (New York: Penguin, 1985 [1965]).
• Martin Sherwin, A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and the Origins of the Arms Race, 2nd ed. (New York: Vintage, 1987 [1973]).
• Michael Gordin, Red Cloud at Dawn: Truman, Stalin, and the End of the Atomic Monopoly

Week 6 (March 11): McCarthyism and the Dangers of Political Involvement for Scientists

• Jessica Wang, American Science in an Age of Anxiety: Scientists, Anticommunism, and the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999). p.1-117, 253-296.
• Matthew Wisnioski, "Inside 'The System': Engineers, scientists, and the boundaries of social protest in the long 1960s." History and Technology 19 (2003):  313-333.

Recommended:

• David Kaiser, “Nuclear Democracy: Political Engagement, Pedagogical Reform, and Particle Physics in Postwar America,” Isis 93 (June 2002): 229–268.
• David Kaiser, "The Atomic Secret in Red Hands? American Suspicions of Theoretical Physicists During the Early Cold War." (http://web.mit.edu/dikaiser/www/Kaiser.RedTheorists.pdf)
• Silvan S. Schweber, In the Shadow of the Bomb: Oppenheimer, Bethe, and the Moral Responsibility of the Scientist (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000). p. 115-148
• Ellen Schrecker, No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).
• Barton Bernstein, “‘In the matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer,’” Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 12 (1982): 195-252.
• Gregg Herken, Cardinal Choices: Presidential Science Advising from the Atomic Bomb to SDI (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).

Week 7 (March 18): Biology and Medicine in the Cold War

• Pnina Abir-Am, "The Politics of Macromolecules: Molecular Biologists, Biochemists, and Rhetoric," Osiris 7 (1992) 164-191
• Nicholas Rasmussen, "Of 'small men,' big science and bigger business: The Second World War and biomedical research in the United States.” Minerva 40 (2002): 115-146.
• Glenn E. Bugos and Daniel J. Kevles, " Plants as Intellectual Property: American Practice, Law, and Policy in World Context" Osiris 7, p. 74-104
• Sally Smith Hughes, "Making Dollars out of DNA: The First Major Patent in Biotechnology and the Commercialization of Molecular Biology, 1974–1980," Isis 92 (2001), p.541–75.
• Stefan Elbe, "HIV/AIDS and Security" in Alan Collins, ed., Contemporary Security Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007, p.331-345
• Rainer Hohlfeld, "Between Autonomy and State Control: Genetic and Biomedical Research" 247-268. In Kristie Macrakis and Dieter Hoffman, eds., Science Under Socialism

Recommended:

• Nicholas Rasmussen, "The midcentury biophysics bubble: Hiroshima and the biological revolution in America, revisited." History of Science 35 (1997): 245-93.
• Lily Kay, The Molecular Vision of Life. Caltech, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Rise of the New Biology (Oxford 1993)
• James D. Watson. The Double Helix. (1968)
• Krementsov, Nikolai. The Cure: A Story of Cancer and Politics from the Annals of the Cold War. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2002
• Eileen Welsome, The Plutonium Files: America’s Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War (New York: Dial Press, 1999).

[No class March 25 – Spring Break]

Week 8 (Apr1): Environmentalism and National Security

• John Barnett, "Environmental Security," in Alan Collins, ed. Contemporary Security Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007, p.182-203
• Daniel Deudney, "The Case Against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security." (http://mil.sagepub.com/content/19/3/461.refs.html)
• Spencer Weart, "Global Warming, Cold War, and the Evolution of Research Plans,"  Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences. Vol. 27 (2) 1997, p.319-356
• Dorothy Nelkin, "Scientists and Professional Responsibility: The Experience of American Ecologists" - Social Studies of Science, 7 (1977) 75-95.
• Sheila Jasanoff, "Science, Politics, and the Renegotiation of Expertise at EPA" - Osiris 7 (1992) p.195-217
• Dan O'Neill, "Alaska and the Firecracker Boys." In Bruce Hevly and John Findlay, ed., The Atomic West. (University of Washington Press): 179-200.

Recommended:

• Dalton, Russell, et al. Critical Masses: Citizens, Nuclear Weapons Production, and Environmental Destruction in the United States and Russia. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999

Week 9 (Apr8): Science and Technology in the Soviet Bloc

• Loren Graham, Science in Russia and the Soviet Union. p.79-206
• Alexei Kojevnikov, "The Phenomenon of Soviet Science" (21p)
• Danian Hu, "The Reception of Relativity in China," Isis, Vol. 98, No. 3 (2007), pp. 539-557
• Konstantin Ivanov, "Science after Stalin: Forging a New Image of Soviet Science." Science in Context, Vol. 15, No. 2 (2002), pp. 317-338
• Paul Josephson, Red Atom: Russia's Nuclear Power Program from Stalin to Today, p.1-5, 272-296
• Kristie Macrakis, "Espionage and Technology Transfer in the Quest for Scientific-Technical Prowess" 82-124. From Macrakis and Hoffman, Science Under Socialism.

Week 10 (Apr15): The Space Age

• Ron Doel, "Evaluating Soviet Lunar Science in Cold War America," Osiris 7 (1992) 238-264
• From Dick, Steven J. and Launius, Roger D., ed. Societal Impact of Spaceflight. NASA History series. (http://history.nasa.gov/sp4801-part1.pdf and http://history.nasa.gov/sp4801-part2.pdf)
• Ch. 11 – Krige, "NASA as an Instrument of US Foreign Policy,"  p.207-218
• Ch. 14 – Conway, "Satellites and Security: Space in Service to Humanity,"  p.267-288
• Ch. 16 – Lambright, "NASA and the Environment: Science in a Political Context", p.313-330
• Ch. 19 – Hastedt, "Reconnaissance Satellites, Intelligence, and National Security," p.369-386
• Ch. 24 – Westwick, "The Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) and Southern California," p.467-482

Recommended:

• Walter A. McDougall. ...the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age (Basic Books 1985)
• Everything else from Societal Impact of Spaceflight
• Dick, Steven J. and Launius, Roger D., ed. Critical Issues in the History of Spaceflight. NASA History series.
• Dwayne Day, "Intelligence Space Program," in Space Politics and Policy, ed. Sadeh, p.371-388
• Peter Hays, "Space and the Military," in Space Politics and Policy, ed. Sadeh, p.335-370
• Zuoyue Wang, "Saving China through Science: The Science Society of China, Scientific Nationalism, and Civil Society in Republican China," in Osiris 17 (2002), p.291-322

Week 11 (Apr22): The Atomic Age: The Anti-Nuclear Movement and the Fall of Scientists' Authority

• Brian Balogh, Chain Reaction: Expert Debate and Public Participation in American Commercial Nuclear Power, Introduction/Conclusion (p.1-20, 302-326)
• Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists p.393-409.
• Hugh Gusterson, Nuclear Rites: A Weapons Laboratory at the End of the Cold War Ch. 1-5, 9+; p. 1-101, 219-251

Recommended:

• Gusterson, Hugh. "Los Alamos: Summer under siege." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 55 (Nov/Dec 1999): 36-41
• David Dickson. The New Politics of Science. (1984) Introduction and Ch.1,3.
• Russell Dalton et al., Critical Masses: Citizens, Nuclear Weapons Production, and Environmental Destruction in the United States and Russia (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999).
• Donald MacKenzie, Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990).
• Donald MacKenzie and Graham Spinardi, “Tacit Knowledge, Weapons Design, and the Uninvention of Nuclear Weapons,” American Journal of Sociology 101 (1995): 44-99.
• Slayton, Rebecca. "Speaking as scientists: Computer professionals in the Star Wars debate." History and Technology 19 (2003):  335-364

Week 12 (Apr29): Wrapping Up: Cold War Science in Retrospect

• Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists, Introduction (on the SSC)
• Hugh Gusterson, "A pedagogy of diminishing returns: Scientific involution across three generations of nuclear weapons science." In Pedagogy and the Practice of Science: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Edited by David Kaiser. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
• Loren Graham, "Big Science in the Last Years of the Big Soviet Union," Osiris. 7 (1992) 49-71
• James Capshew and Karen Rader. "Big science: Price to the present," Osiris 7 (1992): 3-25.
• Peter Galison, "Removing Knowledge," http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hsdept/bios/docs/Removing%20Knowledge.pdf

Recommended:

• David Dickson, The New Politics of Science. (1984) Ch. 4.
• Yakov M. Rabkin. Science between the Superpowers. (New York 1988)
• Dalton, Russell, et al. Critical Masses: Citizens, Nuclear Weapons Production, and Environmental Destruction in the United States and Russia. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999, chaps. 2-3 (pp. 29-96).