Harvard's Coalition Building Pays Off

After a long battle with the Reagan Administration over information controls, Harvard and the higher education community appear to be winning the battle for freedom of scientific information.

In the name of national security, the Reagan Administration has spent the last seven years attempting to limit the free exchange of scientific research. The Administration has expanded controls on the publication of scientific research, attempted to impose prepublication reviews of research results, broadened the classification of information and limited the exchange of knowledge with overseas scholars.

Led by Harvard Vice President for Government and Community Affairs John Shattuck, higher education officials have fought these policies on the grounds that they jeopardize academic freedom. Furthermore, the educators argue, such restrictions weaken scientific research, handicap the American economy and seriously damage national security in the long run.

Now, other interests are joining the educators' call for a less restrictive information policy. To Congress, the Iran-contra affair revealed the dangers of excessive government secrecy. Businessmen concerned about America's economic "competitiveness" have also mounted an attack on the Administration's controls. They argue that the failure to share scientific information has weakened the United States' ability to match foreign business innovations and will lead to economic stagnation.

Changes within the Reagan Administration have also moderated the Administration's insistence on secrecy. A number of hard-line policy makers have left the Administration, and the prospect of a further U.S.-USSR arms treaty has led President Reagan and other officials to tone down their anti-Soviet rhetoric.

As a result, the Reagan restrictive information policies appear to be losing ground. Congress is likely to balk at further attempts to keep a lid on scientific research--particularly in the field of superconductivity--congressional aides say.

"The outlook is improving for a relaxation of some of the restrictions on the communication of science and technology that have been imposed during the past decade," says a report released late last month by Shattuck and Harvard Policy Analyst Muriel Morisey Spence '69.

Moreover, education officials say, the issue of information restriction could be a major one in the up coming fall presidential campaign, since it has tremendous ramifications on economic growth, foreign policy, and the way the government formulates policy. They point out that the issues of government secrecy and information restriction played a prominent role in the Democratic candidates' debates throughout last winter and will likely become important topics in the fall campaign.

"The two principle topics of the upcoming campaign are going to be economic growth and competitiveness and the challenges of foreign policy and national security," Shattuck says. "The issue of government information controls is central to both of those topics."

"It's already entered the Democratic candidates' lexicons," says Thomas S. Blanton '77-79, director of planning and research for the National Security Archives (NSA), a Washington-based organization that seeks to declassify information.

Every Democratic candidate has come out in favor of more open government and fewer restriction on scientific information, in part as a result of the Iran-contra scandal. On the Republican side, however, Vice President George Bush has not separated himself from the Reagan Administration's policies. Nonetheless, analysts believe Bush may have to change his stance.

"I think we're going to see both candidates trying to put some distance between themselves and the Administration," Shattuck says.

Implications for Scientific Research

At stake in this debate, educators say, is America's position in scientific research and in the world economy.

Higher education officials argue that science works best in an open atmosphere, and that too many restrictions lead to a stagnation of basic science. Pointing to the Warsaw Pact countries, scientists argue that their economic stagnation is a result of government restrictions on scientific communication. If the United States continues to restrict the free flow of science and technology, it will ultimately weaken America's position on the cutting edge of research, critics say.

The Reagan policy of information restrictions "has appeared somewhat threatening" to scientific research, says Harvard Director of Governmental Relations Parker L. Coddington. "Once you start creating fences, you don't help yourself in the [technological] race," Coddington says.

"If we kept basic research under wraps, [foreign scientists] would make these discoveries soon enough in Japan to beat us to market, soon enough in the Soviet Union to beat us to space," he says.

Protecting National Security

But not every one agrees that sharing scientific discoveries with foreign researchers is in America's best interest.

To the Reagan Administration, the free flow of information can seriously jeopardize the United States' national security. For the past seven years, the Administration has adhered to a "mosaic" view of national security information, a theory that says that even bits and pieces of seemingly harmless data can be pieced together by our adversaries in such a manner that it would jeopardize our national security.

"In the 1980s `national security' is in itself an all-encompassing term too often construed as having to do only with foreign policy and defense matters. In reality, it must include virtually every facet of international activity, including foreign affairs, defense, intelligence, research, and development policy, outer space, [and] international economic and trade policy," former National Security Advisor Richard V. Allen wrote in a 1983 report.

In defending the mosaic theory, Administration officials often cite a 1979 article describing how to build a hydrogen bomb, which drew only on unclassified information scattered through a number of scientific journals.

"The presumption in previous administrations was that this information should not be classified unless it would cause discernible harm," Blanton says. "The presumption in the Reagan Administration has been that this stuff shouldn't be released."

"The burden of proof was with the classifier [in the Carter Administration]. Now it's almost turned around," Coddington says.

Those who oppose the Reagan restrictions argue that the Administration is hiding behind the mosaic theory to prevent scrutiny of its policies. "The intent of that argument is to have the discretionary power to limit information," Blanton says. "What they're trying to do is to get a free pass on classifying information to avoid embarrassment"

In addition, critics argue that the restrictions cannot succeed, because sophisticated intelligence gatherers are able to piece together scientific information despite strict controls. "What any researcher worth their salt does is construct mosaics," Blanton says

Critics of the Reagan Administration's information policies have looked to Harvard for leadership. During the past several years, Shattuck and Harvard have led the crusade to roll back the Administration's information restrictions.

Experts say that a July 1985 report by Shattuck entitled "On the Free Flow of Information and Ideas", which attacked the Administration's efforts, inspired the higher education community to unite against the Administration's policies of information restriction.

Harvard and Shattuck form "a pretty unbeatable combination," Blanton says. Shattuck "is the first person people on Capitol Hill turn to on this issue."

Harvard's Office of Sponsored Research oversees all scientific projects which receive outside funding. The office enforces Harvard's rules against government controls on research and prevents Harvard scientists from accepting strictures--such as prepublication review--that would severely limit their freedom to share their results.

However, many other universities do not have the capacity to create similar watchdog groups and often can not afford to forgo badly needed federal funds. Unlike most universities, Harvard can afford to turn down federally funded projects that curtail the sharing of information.

The University can therefore take the lead in challenging the Administration's policies. "It's terribly important that there be institutions like Harvard and Stanford to set a clear precedent for other universities," says Dr. Robert M. Rosenzweig, President of the Association of American Universities (AAU), an umbrella group that represents the nation's 54 major research universities. "It's really important that institutions be clear about these policies."

Harvard officials insist, however, that they are not trying to encroach on other universities and establish policies that all must follow. "We're certainly not trying to tell other universities how to behave," Shattuck says. "That is the role the AAU should play."

Instead, Shattuck says, Harvard has built a coalition that opposes the Administration's information restrictions. "We have analyzed the secrecy policies and criticized them, brought them to the attention of Congress and other universities," Shattuck says of Harvard's role.

When Shattuck and other lobbyists began rallying the opposition to the restrictions on scientific communication, the scientific community was among the first to respond. Scientists are "even more unified now in the realization that you have to have a free flow of information," Blanton says.

"Secrecy makes it very hard to do research," says Dean of the Division of Applied Sciences Paul C. Martin '52. "Scientific research depends on communication."

Scientists have particularly objected to the Administration's attempts to limit their ability to collaborate with their foreign counterparts. The National Science Foundation has drafted research guidelines--and submitted them to the Reagan Administration--that would allow foreign scientists to have access to American supercomputers.

In the past, the Congress has not been able to opppose Reagan's policy effectively and has allowed the Administration a relatively free hand, analysts say. "For the most part, Congress has not figured out ways to rein in the executive branch in these areas," Blanton says.

But the Iran-contra scandal and fears of economic decline have prompted a change, and the Congress has joined the fight for free exchange of information, observers say.

"There is not any protectionist sentiment of this kind in Congress right now," Coddington says.

The Administration's recent efforts to prevent superconductivity laboratories from sharing their findings with foreign scientists have come under attack from the scientific community and are unlikely to pass through Congress, lobbyists say.

Such restrictions "are stupid and self-defeating," Blanton says, adding that the legislation is "not going to go anywhere" in Congress.

"It just seemed damned stupid" to impose such restrictions, Coddington says, terming the Administration's proposed legislation "an example of thoughtless foolishness." We weren't hiding anything from anyone."

Prompted by fear that the United States' products are not competitive in the world market, economic experts, too, have joined the fight to ease information restrictions.

Their ire has been aroused particularly by the way the Administration has applied the 1979 Export Administration Act. Enacted primarily to regulate the overseas export of goods and machinery, the law has increasingly been used to restrict the communication of technical information and ideas within the U.S.

These export controls have had direct economic consequences, scientists charge. A report by the National Academy of Sciences issued in April 1987 says that the Administration's interpretation of the export control laws costs the country 188,000 jobs and $9 billion a year and has been a major factor contributing to the nation's record trade deficit.

There is "growing evidence that restrictions in science and technology are very damaging to this nation's economy," Shattuck says.

Now that the U.S. trade deficit has become a matter of concern, businessmen and Reagan's own economic advisers are challenging the information restrictions.

Reagan's advisers "see it as absolutely necessary to recover market share for their own individual businesses and for America's economic health," Coddington says. "That whole system [of export controls] has been vigorously opposed by people in the Commerce Department."

Even though they believe they are winning the fight against the Reagan Administration's policies, education officials say they will continue to press their case to the next President and to the next session of Congress.

Shattuck's March 31 report calls on the next President to "signal a shift in policy" by issuing an executive order within its first 100 days loosening the classification and export control strictures. The 41 st President's agenda should be premised on "principles that justify the revision of the existing system of controls," the report says.

"The free flow of information and ideas is vital to the fabric of our national life," the Shattuck report concludes. "Government policy aimed at broadly controlling the communication of information and ideas is ultimately self-defeating and may soon become irreparably damaging unless it is substantially revised by the next President."

"We'll have a program to present to Congress," Rosenzweig said.

However, education officials say they recognize that the question of government classification of some scientific research is unavoidable and they say the fight will go on. "I'm not certain that we're going to see a great rollback in secrecy restrictions," Shattuck said.