Word: arguments
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...first major book, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, he said that limited nuclear war was containable and therefore conceivable. He later backed away from that theory; yet for a time colleagues mirthfully referred to him as "Dr. Strangelove, East" (Physicist Edward Teller held the Western title). But his main argument, which eventually became U.S. policy, was that the old massive-retaliation approach of the middle-'50s was irrational because it offered no real alternative between surrender and wholesale annihilation: "It does not make sense to threaten suicide in order to prevent eventual death." John Foster Dulles' policies in general seemed...
...idea. So what Shurcliffe now has to do is convince Congress that it's better to give up what's been invested than to throw away any more. To that end, he spends many pages trying to prove that the SST will be obsolete before it is built. His argument here probably got a boost when the Russians unveiled their prototype SST late last fall; but even that has caused a semi-backlash, as a few Congressmen have urged the U.S. to step up its race to beat the Russians to the boom...
...pragmatic (does that mean practical or officious) exercise in the use of logical fallacies at the Faculty Meeting of 4 February. How grand it was to witness a pedagogical display of the honorable non sequitur, the venerable syllogism (in the sense of "a subtle, specious, or crafty argument"), the abundance of ad hominems and post hoc, ergo propter hoc's. "Eloquent" was the evaluation made by one speaker for the pedants who preceded him. No wonder Professor Beer trembles twice for his colleagues. Many, many thanks for an enlightening exposure to "academic freedom...
...often before in its frenetic past, the Ramparts staff was locked in debate over its future. Typically, it was letting mini-skirted secretaries and bearded writers have as much say as its directors. The argument was not over policy but money; Ramparts needs at least $300,000 to clear its debts. No one believed that both Ramparts and a competitor could survive. The question was whether the staff should follow Mitchell's plan to reorganize while in bankruptcy and seek new funding, or buy Hinckle's idea of starting all over under a new name. Said Mitchell...
This is the basic argument of a farewell gift to President Nixon by the Johnson Administration: a 198-page volume called Toward a Social Report, prepared under the direction of Mancur Olson, an economist with the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Two years in the making, the study charges that while the U.S. has-in theory, at least-learned how to regulate its economy, it has been ill-prepared to predict riots or determine its social needs and goals. Toward a Social Report contends that systematically marshaling "social indicators" would provide the nation with a working tool...