Freedom Is Necessary

In his hot seat on the Atomic Energy Commission, Dr. Henry DeWolf Smyth (author of the famed Smyth Report) has found time for reflection. He concludes in the current American Scientist that "in the world of today, science and freedom are necessary to each other."

Every year, says Dr. Smyth, practical technology becomes more dependent upon theoretical science. It is dangerous, he explains, to concentrate on sciences which seem to lead toward immediate practical goals: "Evidence shows that the value of science to technology comes from totally unexpected quarters and that the only safe objective to set up for science is the one which it has already set up for itself: an increased understanding of the laws of nature."

Dr. Smyth believes that Nazi contempt for intellectual freedom strangled German science and through it German technology. He suspects that Russian dogmatism will do the same. "Some of the things," he warns, "that happened in Germany and are happening in Russia could happen here . . . We are in a dilemma that . . . can be simply stated by the questions: How much should we talk? or, How much talk should be permitted?

"As a member of the Atomic Energy Commission, I am daily confronted by this dilemma . . . The best thing we can do is to balance the advantages of revealing information to our own people against the dangers of giving that information to a potential enemy . . .

"I am concerned by the extraordinary exaggeration given to the importance of secrecy in the public mind. We must not accept the false notion that the safety of the country depends on espionage laws, loyalty oaths, and FBI investigations . . . I assure you that these measures are evil and enervating, for they are against the traditions of both science and of the free society in which we live. Let us keep these police measures to a minimum and not allow panic or politics to extend them to areas where they are not needed."

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