Book Review: Military and Scientific Affairs: American Civil-Military Decisions
| Published date | 01 December 1964 |
| Author | Michael Howard |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206401900416 |
| Date | 01 December 1964 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
566
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
that
a
common
difficulty
has
evoked
essentially
similar
devices in
the
several
countries;
it is
not
in
the
United
States
only
that
the
chief
executive
has
special
responsibilities
under the
law.
The
role
of
the
Joint
Congressional
Committee
on
Atomic
Energy,
however,
is
unique
even
for
the
United
States
and
certainly
"by
all
odds
more influential
than
any of
the
legislative
controls adopted
in
the
other
countries
in
this
survey."
As
to
accountability,
Professor
Hodgetts
concludes
that
the
political controls themselves
are
characteristic
of
any large under-
taking.
In
the
case
of
atomic
energy
the
complications
lie
in
esoteric
science
when
secrecy
is
added
while
fateful
choices
must
be
made.
The
author
believes
that
"the
safeguard
against
pre-emption
of
power
by
politically
irresponsible experts
is
the
existence of
countervailing
sources
of
influence."
He seems to
be
right
in
finding
this safeguard
at
work
in
the
structuring
of scientific
advice
in
the
United
States.
But
his
confidence
is
not
fatuous;
he
can
find
an
example
in
Canada
of
the
way
in
which
a
scientific
fraternity
can
close
ranks
so
that
"the
rare
critic
who
dares
to
protest
is
met
with
that
patient
but
supremely
con-
fident
reassurance
which
somehow exposes
him
as
a
person
with
an
ax
to
grind
or as
an
obvious
crank."
A
long-run
appraisal
of
the
peaceful
uses
of
atomic
energy
-
in
power,
in
medicine,
and
otherwise
-is
not
the
duty
of
this
succinct
administrative
study.
It
does
reveal
the
nature
of
the
programmes;
it
says
enough
to
show
their
significance.
Its
final
word
is a
justifiable
note
of
caution
-a
note
not
unlike
that
recently
sounded
by
David
Lilienthal
in
the
United
States.
It is
not
in
disparagement nor
as
an
argument
against
experimentation
that
Professor
Hodgetts
closes
by
suggesting
that
"the
time
may
indeed
have
arrived
for
a
much
more
hardheaded
reappraisal
of
the
relation
between costs
and
expected
returns
in
dollars and
in
human
well-being."
Poughkeepsie,
New
York
ARTHUR
W.
MACMAHON
AmERICAN
CIVIL-MILITARY
DEcIsIoNs.
A
Book of Case
Studies.
Edited
by
Harold
Stein.
1963.
(University: University
of
Alabama
Press.
705pp.
$9.50)
This
book of
case
studies completes
the
20th
Century
Fund
project
inaugurated
by
the
study
of
civil-military
relations,
Arms
and
the
State,
which
appeared
in
1958.
Like
many
such
ambitious
programmes,
it
has
not
worked
out
quite
as
its
sponsors intended.
Illness prevented
Dr.
Stein
from
writing
as
much
of
the
first
volume
as
he
would
have
liked,
and
it
became
less
an
academic
analysis
of
problems
of
civil-military
decision-making
than
a
history
of
American
military
policy
since
the
Second
World
War.
Half
the
essays
in
the
present
volume
therefore
deal
with
a
period,
that
before
1945,
somewhat sketchily
covered
in
the
first.
Problems
of
obtaining
security
clearance have
held
it
up
for
five
years;
and
it
now
appears
in
an
awkward
quarto
format
which
makes
it
difficult
to
shelve
with its
companion-or
for
that
matter
anywhere
else.
It is
therefore
best
to
consider
it in
its
own
right
as
a
collection
of
studies
in
contemporary history,
and
as
such
it
is
of
major
importance.
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