The Jasons:
The Secret History of Sciences Postwar
Elite
by Ann Finkbeiner
Viking, New York, 2006
304 pp. Trade, $27.95
ISBN: 0-670-03489-4.
Review by John F. Barber
Digital Technology and Culture, Washington
State University Vancouver
jfbarber@eaze.net
Born of The Manhattan Project and evolved
during the Cold War, a group of elite
scientists has worked in secret to advise
the U. S. government and shape American
policy and science for the past half-century.
Known simply as Jason (allegedly for the
hero of Jason and the Argonauts),
these scientists are responsible for the
electronic battlefield, the laser guided
star, global warming and oceanographic
studies, and the Star Wars missile defense
system.
More than researchers and inventors, Jasons
task was to work on highly classified
problems for the Department of Defense
and the intelligence community. Aside
from a brief period during the Vietnam
War, Jason has worked with unparalleled
freedoms in utter secrecy, unknown to
the general public.
Ann Finkbeiner, who runs the graduate
program in science writing at Johns Hopkins
University, provides the first detailed
accounting of the group and its activities.
Her book, The Jasons: The Secret History
of Sciences Postwar Elite, not
only details the personalities of the
scientists who comprise Jason, but also
addresses the Faustian dilemma presented
by scientific innovation that has dogged
America since some of the physicists charged
with developing the atomic bomb questioned
the morality of using their invention
to destroy human life.
Counting among its mentors and members
scientific stars like Freeman Dyson, Murray
Gell-Mann, Edward Teller, and Hans Bethe,
Jason has, according to Finkbeiner, perpetuated
a keen sense of stewardship over the applications
of pure science. Their idealism, however,
has often clashed with the military applications
of their research findings.
For example, during the Vietnam War, the
U. S. military was frustrated by its inability
to stop supplies moving along jungle routes
from North to South Vietnam. Asked to
help solve the problem, Jason developed
an electronic sensing technology that
could register and report movement near
its location. Where Jason thought the
technology would, and should, only be
used to provide a sensor barrier across
demilitarized zones, the military soon
adapted Jasons invention to direct
aerial or artillery assault on suspected
enemy positions. Several Jasons were highly
upset over this, they felt, immoral use
of science developed specifically to stop
the war, and sought a public debate. The
resulting media flurry was the first public
awareness, and acknowledgement, of Jasons
existence.
Another Jason project was called laser
guided star, a technology that allowed
the calculation of atmospheric distortion
along the path of a laser beam directed
at an astronomical object. Telescope mirrors
could then be adjusted for the measured
distortion, thus providing a clearer,
more focused image. When President Ronald
Reagan announced a space-based missile
defense system he called Strategic Defense
Initiative (critics dubbed the project
Star Wars) in 1983, the laser guided star
technology developed by Jason suddenly
had tremendous importance for aiming and
controlling the counter-defense system.
For the next two years, Jason secretly
reviewed SDI and offered advice. When,
in 1985, a French astronomy magazine announced
independent development of laser guided
technology, the U. S. government was forced
to lift the lid of secrecy thus greatly
improving astronomers ability to
see into space.
Called upon to help solve problems with
dependable weather forecasts, Jason invented
a three-dimensional mapping system of
the oceans temperatures. Along with
elaborate computer mapping models this
invention soon became the basis for charts
supporting arguments for global warming.
In each case, Jasons mission to
keep vigil over applied science has led
them into both moral dilemmas and political
messes. Finkbeiner recounts these standoffs
with marvelous objectivity, often letting
the scientists themselves, in clipped
emotional phrases, tell their own frustrations
and compromises with the often unintended
consequences of their work.
In the end, The Jasons poses several
vital questions. What role should government
play in scientific research? Should research
awards and grants go only to those scientists
who agree to have their research co-opted
for military application? What about pure
research, that undertaken simply to see
what can be learned? At what point is
the inventor of some technology accountable
for the hazards of that invention? When
does the good of an invention outweigh
the bad? In answering these questions,
Finkbeiner details the trouble scientists
get into when they think they can advise
the government, and the trouble the government
can get into when they do not take the
advice of scientists.
Finkbeiner concludes that when the country
faces decisions about imprecise, shades-of-gray
policies, it should have some truths at
hand (231). Scientists, she says, make
good advisors in that they are drawn toward
certainty but are at the same time wary
because they know that they could just
as easily be wrong. Jasons, noted for
their admiration of complexity in a problem,
can be counted upon to develop a solution
that is objective rather than politically
expedient. And when Jasons answer
is negative, as it has been a few times
in the past, and if Congress or the news
media hears of the opposition, only strong
personality or authority can overcome
that hurdle.