Court of Reason; 2; The Military Industrial Complex: Is it a Danger

Transcript

National Educational Television presents Court of Reason.

Presiding member Robert K. Merton, Chairman of the Department of Sociology, Columbia University.

That issue, the military industrial complex, is it a danger?

Good evening.

In his valedictory address to the nation, President Eisenhower warned of the potential danger,

inherent in the conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry.

This opened up a continuing debate on what was described as the military industrial complex,

a term that has become part of the language of American politics.

Advocates of opposed points of view on this subject are David T. Baselon, formerly a corporation

lawyer, who now devotes full time to writing and whose book The Paper Economy will be published

in the spring.

William M. Brown, Director of Civil Defense Studies at the Hudson Institute, and former consultant

to the RAND Corporation.

Visiting members of the court, who will examine arguments with me, are Daniel Bale, Professor

of Sociology at Columbia, and Editor of the forthcoming book The Radical Right.

And Robert L. Heilbrunner, author and economist whose most recent book is The Great Ascent.

The two advocates will briefly present their opposed points of view, and then our discussion

will begin.

First, David Baselon.

We know there is a military industrial complex because generalizing how it told us about

it a couple of years ago and warned us against it in his farewell speech to the history books.

We can also see it by looking at the scope of military expenditure, currently running

at a rate in excess of $1 billion a week.

Now if there is such a complex of elite power in our democratic order, how does the question

arise as to whether it is a danger?

When and where in history has a big military not been a danger?

Moreover, our post-war military posture vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, consisting of a competent

and insane exchange of homicide plus suicide threats, is admittedly as much of a danger

to our own domestic population as it is to the enemy nation.

But the danger is not limited to the possible effects of war with the Soviets.

Indeed, it is not properly understood at all by reference to nuclear war.

That is not a danger but an incomparable disaster.

No, there are clear and present dangers in the very existence of the military industrial complex.

Whether or not we are ever to suffer an exchange of nuclear salvos.

That is because this complex of elite power underlies and urges the military point of view,

the military resolution of all problems.

The true and immediate danger lies in the political character of the military emphasis,

which is supported by big industry and serviced by the technological elite.

Here we need some history.

The 1937-38 recession, marking the end of the New Deal, was never properly resolved in political terms.

It was transcended by a shift to war production, which has been more or less continuous since then.

Thus, the New Deal did not solve the structural problems of the economy,

which were the key to the Great Depression.

The quasi-solution of these has been inseparable from the expansion of military production.

Without military spending, our economic history would have been drastically different.

In effect, a truce was made between the forces of the New Deal and major corporate power

in order to fight World War II.

We have, for the past quarter century now,

translated most major issues of the political economy into the terms of this truce,

nothing more than a temporary military solution,

with the obvious effect that we have become deeply wedded to the military,

both domestically and in our foreign affairs,

primarily because we are afraid to come back to the real problems, the political problems.

But the military offers no genuine solution, either to the Cold War

or to the deeper problems of the domestic economy.

In relation to both, it is at best a dangerous and temporary holding action to give us time.

Time to do what?

Time to learn to fight the Cold War by non-military means,

and time to come to terms politically with our technological snowball of a super abundant economy.

Both have been confronted as military issues,

neither is susceptible of a military solution in the long run.

In the short run, each is a great danger.

And there you have a political issue so profound that our grandchildren will still be talking about what we did about it.

If they are here to talk and their rulers let them,

and if, in fact, we did anything about it.

Each of the $800 billion and more we have spent under the sign of the military since 1941

might have been exactly necessary, not each of them was.

And still, the concentrated amalgam of military, industrial, and technological power created thereby,

which generalize now a call the military industrial complex,

would constitute an extreme threat to our democratic order.

That is because come reason or madness.

It is so compelling and institutional commitment to the military view of affairs.

We will know exactly how much of a danger the military industrial complex is when the time comes to liquidate it.

That is, when the threat of serious disarmament is immediate.

Or when we realize to what extent the successful prosecution of the Cold War requires non-military initiatives.

Or finally, at that moment when we understand that our economy demands the intervention of considerable federal power.

Whether or not excused or camouflaged by real or imagined military need.

Thank you, Mr. Baslan.

You've sketched out some of the dangers as you see them.

Now we'd like to hear from William Brown.

Thank you, Mr. Merton.

I think we have not yet defined and perhaps during the evening will be unable to define what this gigantic threat is.

What is the military industrial complex?

However, I think for the moment it will be satisfactory to think of the liaison which exists between the Department of Defense.

It's various agencies and with the complicated industrial structure of this country.

Now, I assert that it's wrong to think of this as a particular ever-present danger.

And that we have an adequate history to show that it's the civilians who control the Pentagon.

It's the civilians who control the Department of Defense.

And if we look back at this budget, which was mentioned by Mr. Baslan, we'll find that there are very important and somewhat occasionally wild fluctuations in this budget, which indicates that when we wish we can cut the budget.

I'd like to assert that there has been no time in American history when, with adequate cause, the government could not cut the military budget.

It was even done by our last president, General Eisenhower, who himself was a military man and whom I will assert made the statement about the military industrial complex more out of considerations of such things as balancing the budget, high taxes.

Then, out of fear that there was a great monolithic danger which was arising which would capture and hold the American people.

I would further like to assert that there are not very many people worried about the problem.

I think that many people realize that we have a large military capability, we have a large industrial capability, which makes it possible.

But they are not worried about it.

I'd like to prove it by using a chart which I'll introduce in a moment.

But first, I'd like to say that there are many subjects people are genuinely and deeply concerned about.

The problem of nuclear war, which Mr. Baslan mentioned, the problems of disarmament, the problems of space and the conquest of it.

There were about farm problems, foreign aid, and even civil defense is a matter of much more concern to them.

When I say concern, I mean they take the subject seriously.

The chart I'm referring to is a chart which asks the question how to look serious about X, where X is any particular subject at hand.

This chart says that if you want to be serious about a subject X, first you might at least mention X.

Second, you might say X is serious.

Third, you might say I will prepare a chart on X which means I will list the important problems that are connected with X.

As you understand X in this case is going to be the military industrial complex.

Furthermore, as you get deeply serious, you will have calculations on X. You will make some calculations as to what the effect of X is on the system.

Finally, or not finally, but fifth, you will devote some time, some energy, and some space to the consideration of X.

You will, if you are a research worker, you will let the considerations of X affect the study that you're doing.

And finally, as the last admonition, if you want to look serious about X, be serious about X.

In this case, X is the military industrial complex.

I say that not many people really take the subject seriously.

It's true we mentioned X. Eisenhower mentioned it.

He said it was serious.

Eisenhower himself didn't have the third step, which is a chart on X.

There is very little, if any evidence that he or anyone else actually made some calculations as to what effect X,

in this case the military industrial complex was actually going to do to the United States.

There are, as far as I know, no impressive studies which have devoted time, energy, and space to the consideration of the military industrial complex.

The subject was not funded to any significant extent by any agency of the government, or for that matter by any private agencies, foundations, or individuals.

And finally, there was almost no one who could then have the opportunity to take such considerations and apply them to any particular study.

Such as disarmament, civil defense, foreign aid, and so forth.

I say this shows that people are not serious about the subject of the military industrial complex, because they would have done these things, which they have in fact done about civil defense, foreign aid, farm problems, space, disarmament, and nuclear war.

I'd like to turn some questions to Mr. Baslan, and primarily try to, now that you have some more time, Mr. Baslan, try to get you to describe a little more definitely what you understand by the major danger of this military orientation, which you indicated to the society.

Could you be a little more specific with regard to the kinds of dangers that that involves?

I think it has distorted our political life as since the end of the New Deal.

I think that, in what ways?

Well, for example, there are many structural changes in the economy that have been affected by means of under the military umbrella, under the guise of military purpose.

These changes were necessary.

I think some of them were initiated by the New Deal.

They had to be extended.

They were, in fact, extended under a military purpose.

Forex, the simplest would be simply a government spending, federal spending.

Another example, very obvious, during the 50s, would be scientific research, the majority of which is paid for by the federal government and paid for directed toward a military use primarily.

I say that to manage a dynamic technological economy, that would be required in any event.

The fact that it came under the military umbrella is unfortunate politically, because it seems to be excused by the military purpose.

Where, in fact, it obscures the fact that it was necessary in any event.

That is my main objection, so that, in effect, for 25 years, we have swept under the rug domestic political problems.

And if we were ever denied the use of the military excuse, it would be a very lively area under the rug.

Before I let my colleagues get at you, I have one more specific question rather than this general one.

What do you make of the fact that after 1945, for a period of three or four years, we did enter into what amounted to pretty complete disarmament.

The economy managed not only to survive, but to undergo a boom.

Why do you assign no significance to it?

And why do you consider that some equivalent of that is not possible in the future?

I think I'm not saying that those immediate post-war years were not significant.

I think they're very significant and instructive, but I don't think they're a good argument against the basic thesis,

because I'm talking about a long-range trend since 38.

The new deal was not revived after 45.

After 45, you had pent-up consumer demand, you had billions in war bonds, and you had an inflation, an artificial inflation, but an inflation.

And it didn't last very long.

And we had a depression 47-48 around there, and we got out of that one only the same way we got out of the 37-38 recession.

Mr. Bezos, let me break in a second.

The first question I would like clarified, and I put this question to you half contentiously and half innocently,

is what do you mean by the complex, the complex?

Now, sometime ago in commentary, you reviewed a book by Fred Cook called The Warfare State.

And you reviewed it, I thought, very well.

Let us say you reviewed it seriously, and you took it seriously.

And yet you found particular fault with it because of what you found to be conspiratorial overtones with the whole book, which annoyed you.

A kind of sinister, hitting at things.

But I must confess that in your own speech tonight, which I found eloquent, I was also struck by the use of certain words, elite.

And again, this word complex.

And I would like you to spell out what this is.

Well, if I pick you up on the word elite, the existence of elites does not require conspiracy among them or conspiracy to set them up.

There are great important forces in modern society, which simply require elites.

I mean, the management, the creation, management of atomic energy is necessarily in the hand of an elite.

Let me try.

The privacy of certain Cold War information is naturally in the hands of an elite.

But in regard to Mr. Cook's book, he made a much too simple, a black and white picture.

He gave a picture of the growth of militarism in America over this period as if we had never been threatened by Soviet initiative.

And I consider that all wrong.

And he did imply and urge the reader to think that everybody had kind of gotten together a certain point and decided to put this over on the American people.

I think it's much more profound than that.

That's a very important, I'd like to press a little harder.

I mean, there are great many companies in this country who may consumer goods, but one doesn't call other,

one doesn't speak of a consumer good complex.

When you speak of a military, you could.

I think, to me, in any rate, when you use the word complex, you conjure up in my mind a bunch of people who have tacitly or explicitly a common objective.

Presume that this objective is to maintain a heavy military industrial mix in the economy.

And that this is an explicit thing on which, as it were, people would agree if people within the complex.

If I could turn the question around to you, what do you think that generalizing how it meant when it used to turn?

I think that what you refer to is power, which is not necessarily the result of conspiracy.

It's based on an institutional complex, a number of strong institutions.

There are lots of people involved, lots of common interests.

This creates a force.

There's no question that Boeing wants to...

It's a structure.

It gets very unhappy.

Well, yes, a structure, of course.

Not a personal conspiracy in a backlink.

That's it, where?

Well, I'm bothered by the same problem.

This was my first question, which Mr. Habron equally responded to.

Namely, is there some method of coordination here?

Is there a common objective?

Let me put it more specifically.

You said at one point that they were wedded to the military.

This assumes that the military is an entity, and yet one hears of debates, let's say Maxwell

Taylor when he left the army wrote a book called The Uncertain Trumpet, which attacked a policy of massive retaliation.

He now comes back as advisor to President Kennedy, in which a different policy of conventional arms now comes to the fore.

What does one mean then by the military, assuming that there is a common aspect to this?

You're right.

That may be an unfortunate shorthand, since there's no doubt.

We all know we've had a long history of the military services fighting with each other.

And I'm sure that the proponents of one weapon system fight with another, and the money goes to a B70 bomber.

It doesn't go to something else.

But is this simply a matter of fighting between weapon systems you have here, different, almost philosophical points of view at stake?

Those who argue about conventional warfare, it seems to me a very different from those who argue massive retaliation.

This does not simply reflect, I would assume, different industrial complex interests.

Well, it has different consequences.

It has consequences, but is this motivation?

Well, since it has consequences, I think it might have some motivation.

That is the people who have a heavy investment and look toward a serious profit from producing a particular weapon system are going to side with that philosophy,

that military philosophy, which requires that weapon system.

That's true, but is there going to do that when it's no longer quite as necessary?

The question of the problem is to what is the leading element, namely, what initiates decisions?

Does a set of interests initiate decisions, or is there some general strategic point of view which initiates decisions,

which then have consequences that people respond to?

Well, I think the whole thing was initiated, could not have happened if it hadn't been Hitler,

and if the Soviets had not taken an initiative in Eastern Europe following...

Well, let me push one more specific question without trying to seem to be hectoring you.

For example, in the last five years, there's been extraordinary shift in the economy.

As a consequence, I assume a strategic decision, namely a shift from bombers to missiles.

This has meant unemployment in Michigan and the Detroit and a boom in Texas and other places.

I don't assume this was the result of the lobby of Texas versus the lobby of Michigan.

I assume that this represented some form of strategic decision, which did have consequences.

Now, would you assume, therefore, that this is a decision of a military industrial complex,

or are there other elements which have shaped this decision with the attendant consequences?

Well, I think we're arguing a point, as to whether or not there can be a military industrial complex

if elements of it disagree.

If you are saying there cannot be a complex because elements disagree, then I'd have to argue with you.

If you say they disagree, I agree with you.

Is Kennedy a member of the complex then?

Or is Eisenhower a member of the complex?

That's the crucial question, I think, Dan.

And let me just read, because I...

I think we're all members of the complex.

In the sense that our society has...

Then who takes the blame this?

I'm not interested in guilt or blame.

I'm interested in understanding.

I gather this small possibility of suggesting a term which entered into history

with the close of Eisenhower's term in office, ought to be scrapped for the very reasons

that are now being exemplified.

That is to say, we're now, I gather in the position of trying to find out

who was in the mind of the author who created the term military industrial complex.

And just from internal evidence, one must assume that though the voice was the voice of Eisenhower,

the prose was surely not his, but more probably the prose of Malcolm Moose.

Now, dropping the term complex for the moment, and that's centering on it,

and trying to pursue the questions that have been developed,

what do you see as the character of the dangerous consequences on the society,

on the domestic economy, of having a massive military establishment,

which is presumably, in part, a response to what's interpreted as an ongoing Cold War?

What do you see as the concrete dangers?

I see, basically, I see two dangers.

One in the Cold War, since we're...

Well, I would be perfectly satisfied to drop the word complex and use the phrase military emphasis.

In the Cold War, I think the Cold War has been misunderstood to a very important degree

as being a military endeavor.

We all seem to think of it in those terms.

I think that the Cold War is a lot more than a military conflict,

and as a military conflict, it seems to be stalemated and impossible to fight.

Domestically, we do many things that we would have to do anyway.

Government spending, government intervention in the economy,

government planning and direction, which we can do politically,

only because it is stamp-certified military.

That's unfortunate.

It determines what we do.

It commits us to doing something that is military.

That's a danger, because it ties us to the military irrationally.

I would agree with you to that extent, certainly, Mr. Basmer.

Would you say, because something is for political reasons under the military umbrella,

it is therefore dominated by the military?

I think, as a matter of practice, we do know that much of this gets put across.

Foreign aid has been put across as a military factor.

But then does it get used by the military for the military?

This seems to me with a very important question, then.

Well, I don't say we have a military dictatorship,

and I don't say we're going to wake up tomorrow having one.

But there's no question that the military defends its own interests.

However, they conceive them, and the bigger they are, the more powerful they are,

and the more people think that they're very necessary.

I come back from my apartment when you say the military defends its own interests,

because I so recently, unfortunately, unfortunately, by Charles Murphy,

which I would assume speaking for many military interests,

was an attack or an oblique attack on McNamara,

since McNamara is breaking the power of much of the military

by reorganizing the service components in very different ways,

which they didn't like.

Well, what is then the military here?

It's in conflict, I agree, that any one general may take a position

and opposition to other generals.

I'm sure that there are factions and cliques throughout the military,

the government, and whatever the industrial military does.

Well, should we talk then decisions and policies rather than the military?

Yes, I'm certainly not saying that we shouldn't talk decisions and policies.

I'm just saying that I believe our discussion of decisions and policies

has been distorted because of this military emphasis.

In a mail, I say word, Bob.

I've been zero in my military fashion.

I'm Mr. Brown.

Well, Mr. Basel, I've been getting riddled by Dan over here.

And I would like to put a question to you.

Believe me, it's meant mainly.

We have an economy in which we do.

I think there's no question about it.

Spend a billion dollars a week, is it, on military stuff?

And in which many of our large corporations depend to varying degrees, important degrees,

on orders from the military for production.

And in which the general prestige and status of the military is fantastically higher

than it was before the war, when it's hard to remember.

It used to be kind of a, I mean, that's what the inefficient son of the family

that he went in the army, especially, could do.

All these changes have taken place in our economy.

Why, in that case, do you treat a subject of this apparent seriousness

with that spurious mockery of how to dismiss an argument?

Because by your little six and eight tests of what isn't an argument,

anything that people aren't making charts about or talking about

or what have you isn't serious.

I'm not concerned about whether foundation people are giving grants to study the subject.

Nor do I wish to say that there's a conspiracy to hide it.

But I do think it speaks a very serious attitude on your part

when you take a subject that all of us consider serious

and, in effect, make a joke of it.

Now, sir.

First of all, let me say that the chart argues that you don't take it seriously.

Who doesn't think?

Why?

Because I haven't written a study on it?

That's right.

But I have written a study on it.

I've written a book about it.

On the military industrial complex?

Yes, it's in a book called The Future as History, chapter three.

Well, then I apologize for that.

I exclude you.

The, sorry, I didn't read the book.

I've actually read your book, The Great Ascent, which I think is a great book.

This is a way of making personal demands if there's any personal here.

But let me say that I tend to come across a number of writings

which are concerned with military problems, with industrial problems.

And the military industrial complex comes up as a word.

Sometimes it comes up as a concept.

The concept, to me, means this.

There is a military organization, which is composed of sub-military organizations,

each one of them trying to grow and expand and increase its influence.

Not to defeat the national purpose, but thinking that its growth is good for the national purpose.

The same is true of the industrial organizations which are connected with the military organizations.

To my mind what was meant by Eisenhower was that these two in some undefined way

could amplify each other and lo and behold, if we weren't careful somehow

out of this would come some super organization or some new way of life

which would be closer to some image of a garrison state and so forth.

Now, I put up that chart and I say that there are almost no people taking this matter seriously

and not to illustrate that it isn't a serious matter.

I think it's a somewhat serious matter, but that people up to now have not been concerned about it.

And I am one of them.

No, I'm not saying that it's a measure of how people respond to this question.

This thing would have to grow much more impressive in people's minds before they began to take it seriously.

People believe and I'm one of them.

See, I don't take it as seriously perhaps as you or as you suggest some others

because I believe it's under control.

I believe that Mac the Mara and his crowd, which is the Office of Civil Defense,

which is the civilian portion of the Department of Defense,

and the President and the Executive Council have an adequate control.

I believe that the American institutions have enough tradition

that there is almost zero chance of a runaway military industrial combination

which would seize control of the democratic processes of the country

and change them in an undesirable way.

Mr. Brown, could I put a question to you that really is a question raised by Mr. Baslan,

I'd like to rephrase it in the hope that you take it seriously.

If you take the scattered facts that are available in any of the reports of the Armed Forces Committee,

indicating the proportion of jobs in various areas of the country, manufacturing jobs,

that are directly and immediately linked to defense work or military work.

As you know, you find some communities that may move up as high as 80%

of the working population and manufacturing plants engaged in such work, San Diego,

other places that will run 30%.

I take it that one of the points that Mr. Baslan was driving at when he was talking

of the dangers that he sees in this military penetration of the public mind

was that as increased dependence, immediate visible dependence on the continuance of military equipment,

spreads, grows, that the civilian population becomes militarized in their outlook

and that this cuts off possibilities of non-military ways of trying to cope with this world conflict.

Now, what do you have to say to that prospect, granted for the moment that there may be no studies of that?

I think if we push it to a question of where there are pinpointed social or economic investigations,

we can't get very far.

Yes. Well, I think I would agree that, with part of what you said,

I would agree that if a person has a job in a defense factory

and if the contracts are canceled, that he's terribly upset and will go out of his way

and his union will and they'll get together with the management of the company

to try to find some way to reinstate that particular defense contract

or get some others to take its place.

Now, however, this is something that you would expect from any organization

who doesn't have to be a military contract.

You could have a shoe factory if they stop or try to stop making shoes.

There will be sort of a revolt of the workers,

they must be putting strongly, but there will be a strong pressure group developed.

It's through the railroads. You can't, you know, the featherbedding issue

is an illustration of that. It's through with minors. It's through everywhere.

So I don't think it's very fair to point out to a common human reaction

as a part of a military contract.

That was complex. I didn't intend that in the least.

Simply that I managed to make myself thoroughly unclear,

which won't be the first time that's happened.

What I was really driving at was not that this concern with having your job

and keeping it was peculiar to the holding of jobs in defense industry.

I was saying that in most cases where the dependence is on defense industry,

wouldn't you suppose that people would tend to assume that the growth of armaments

and the continuing effort to cope with what seems to be a clear danger,

would be perceived by civilians increasingly as an exclusively military affair.

That's the issue. You'll see which marks it off from the case of the Shoes

because you don't fight the Cold War as yet.

And perhaps that's one mistake.

I would probably agree that there would be some such tendency, yes,

that there would be a tendency for a person to associate his security

with the maintenance of a larger military structure.

Extend this a bit, and I'd like to have Mr. Baslan develop this

because I'm trying to see at which junctures you're in such thorough agreement

that the rest of us will be illuminated.

If you extend that, when you speak of civilian control in the Pentagon,

use the category civilian and say people who don't hold commissions in the military,

don't you see the same possibilities that the outlook of the civilians there

might become, use a very old-fashioned word, militaristic?

I think you can argue that there is some such threat.

The people who have this much control, however, in the national government,

I think are usually selected somehow on the basis of their concern for the problems of national security

and that they are able to transcend any narrower power motives that they may themselves have.

Every person, I think, who works for the government in a high position

is there because he is somewhat concerned about his ability to function in an effective way,

which is a complicated way of saying that at least one element of his makeup

is that he seeks a certain amount of power.

But other elements in the makeup of effective civil servants are people who are concerned

with the national security. They're concerned with international relations,

they're concerned with the economy, and we depend on these people

to rise above any particular power needs of their own.

And we have, I would assert, a sufficiently great democratic tradition

that we don't have to worry excessively, not that there's no worry,

but we don't have to worry excessively about the problems of a runaway combine

between the nature of civil servants.

Can I respond to that? I think, Mr. Brown, you're discussing the problem

as to whether or not the military industrial complex is a danger

in terms of whether it is aptly very soon to a military dictatorship.

In that context, you properly point out that the civilians are still in control.

I'm perfectly willing to end up telling the idea that the military industrial complex

is dominated by civilians.

For instance, I believe that the industrial technological complex,

without the military, is a sufficient danger in its own to a democratic society.

If you want to discuss the idea of will our present situation lead to dictatorship

under what conditions and so on, that's another subject.

But my point was that the military emphasis is a danger today,

whether or not it leads to a nuclear war or to a military dictatorship.

Well, I think you're trying to say that we are living today in a dangerous world

and that the dangerous world arises from the result of the nuclear technology

which has become part of military systems.

No, he's not.

The only way you can get something through Congress is to say it's for defense.

That's what he's saying.

That you can no longer talk about welfare, about needs, because you get hooded out of court.

If you can identify whatever this particular project is with defense.

Look at the media.

Take, for instance, the Veterans Administration.

A beautiful welfare organization, very well financed, a marvelous system of new hospitals

with not enough clients, not enough patients, because it's devoted to the military.

It was created in the first place only because it was doing something for the military,

for people who had fought for us.

I don't think that the Veterans Administration or that kind of welfare situation

could be gotten through Congress if it wasn't called military.

Mr. Bazon, I'm obviously missing your point, so you'll have to set me straight.

If, on the one hand, you think of these welfare institutions

that you exemplify by the Veterans Administration.

I gather as occasionally desirable developments in the American society.

Very much for them.

You then go on to say that the reason they were brought into being in our current historical context

is because they were described as part of the defense establishment, if you will,

as contrasted with the military.

Then why aren't you overjoyed by this use of an argument that enables these institutions

which you favor to be introduced here and now, whereas we might have to wait a generation

or two or three for such institutions if they were put forward in their own right.

I'm not clear of the logic of what you're saying.

It depends on how much rail, politic, I indulge for myself

as to whether I'm older, joyed or filled with pleasure.

But to some extent, I am.

For instance, the military created the electronics industry.

I think it's nice to have an electronics industry.

I am just pointing out that it is a danger that it has to be done under the military.

Because there are many such things.

I'm not against the VA hospital system.

I'm very much in favor of it.

I would like to see one for the whole country.

But the point I'm trying to make is this role of the military emphasis,

of the military stamp of approval.

I'm not clear about the military emphasis in both cases, both Mr. Browns and yours, perhaps.

And I suppose this is because I don't like this whole way of argument.

I like to argue a problem in terms of some decision and some policies.

It seems to me Mr. Bazlan and your case, what you've done is a shuttle back and forth,

being policies you don't like.

And then to describe it to an institution, which is called a complex,

with no way of seeing the mediation between the two.

In the case of Mr. Brown, the thing is this miss so early.

And I subscribe to Mr. Hobbrunner's point.

But I don't know an effect why he would even want to discuss the problem at all,

since he says people aren't worried about it, therefore it really doesn't exist.

Let me turn both of you against each other in this respect.

I would assume, and I would subscribe for the moment for the sake of argument,

although I also believe in this particular case, that a lot is done in this country under a military cloak.

If this is the case, wouldn't you say Mr. Brown,

the one of the reasons why there are so few studies of the military establishment

is that very rarely does an institution of this kind study itself.

That much of the reasons for the studies of civil defense or foreign aid

or research and development come, so to speak, from the military,

and that to great extent, because the emphasis is on its needs,

you very rarely get this kind of self scrutiny.

And even the congressional committees, which normally would be watch toward committees,

usually work along with the military establishment to help get its aims across.

Yes, I would agree with that statement.

Although it doesn't explain why, if there is a great deal of public concern,

there are not other public institutions which are studying the problem

and which are financing such studies.

Can I just interrupt? I'm sorry.

You say public concern, which you've used a number of times.

This is then like complex.

It's such a loose term when you say public concern.

There are different degrees of power in a society,

and different degrees of being able to get across a point of view.

There is no public per se. There are different public.

No, but I'm saying you measure the degree of concern by the number of studies

or the amount of funding for such studies, which is existing in the country.

Mr. Harbunner's book, the greatest scent, is reflection of the great concern

we have with the question of aiding the only developed countries.

Excuse me. What's this great, what's this we?

That book is a reflection of my concern with the problem as I see it in my peculiar,

and it is indeed a peculiar way.

And I have a concern about this problem of military spending,

which is just exactly as hot as my concern for underdevelopment.

I don't see why, just because there aren't nationwide meetings of protest,

which they were about two day and many generals going around.

That's exactly why the problem should be class is unimportant.

When the civil defense issue was a very hot issue,

people paraded in front of the White House with signs,

which, you know, shelters or grays and signs.

It showed they were generally concerned.

They wrote papers, they published articles, there's interviews, programs,

just a great effort was made.

I was saying, I'm not saying there isn't a great problem.

No one has effectively shown it to be a great problem sufficiently to arouse the public interest.

Let me answer one more question.

One more thing that you raised earlier.

All you have to do is present to Congress and say it's military and it passes.

Some extent that's true.

But it isn't without reason, you know, a quote that I wrote here

with dates back to Alexander Hamilton,

that safety from external danger, he said,

is the most powerful director of national conduct.

Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates.

He's saying two things.

One is that we will respond in an extreme way

when we feel the threat of external danger.

And I suspect that this is the motivation behind the issue you raised or the point you made.

Also, it also suggests that even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time,

give way to its dictates.

And within that clause, you see, is Eisenhower's worry,

which is the military, industrial complex, or some other form of worry,

that the loss of liberty will somehow arise out of a sufficiently great response to the external threat.

We'll give up liberty to struggle with it.

And the military industrial complex idea is that if you give up enough liberty to struggle with it,

you may not get that liberty back.

Now, there is some justification in the concept.

But the point I was trying to make is that not enough people in this country worry about it.

So it takes up enough of a human-prize raise to make it a great public issue.

Well, excuse me.

I just must bore in on this because your argument positively flabbergast me.

What you are saying, in effect, is that because a problem doesn't have public recognition,

studies, charts, foundation grants, it is...

It's so facto and important.

No, I didn't mean to make that statement.

Let me ask you a question direct.

The question direct, as they say.

Do you think that it would be a matter of small importance, not very difficult, to dismantle this military industrial,

quote, complex, unquote?

No, I think it would be a very difficult thing to do.

Well, don't you think a structure of our country, which would be difficult to dismantle,

whether this be church, state, industry, is in itself a problem, a matter to be considered seriously?

Let me qualify my statement.

I say it would be difficult to do.

There's really two reasons.

One is, it's not as difficult as many people who would argue that there's a great danger with suspect

if the international situation changed so we felt there was good cause to dismantle it.

The second consideration is, it'd be a little difficult to dismantle because of the economic interaction.

Mr. Basson is right.

We have used the military forces and the expansion of military forces in some ways to bolster economy,

and perhaps we've done it willy-nilly, but not even knowing why it was happening.

I suspect it's less the military organization than some more subtle things such as deficit financing

and the way it interacts on the economy.

So it would be difficult to dismantle the military systems suddenly, per se,

because the reaction would be very great.

But I suspect that an economist, let me first, Mr. Howerunner and others,

would say, however, it can be done with some, over some period of time, gradually.

And especially, I think they make the statement that the economy would not suffer unduly from such dismantlement,

especially if you took their advice.

Each economist has a way of solving these problems if you take his advice especially,

and he say it will not be the tragedy that some people think it is.

It's interesting that we've managed to go this far this evening without trotting out

the most familiar question that's raised in connection with the place of the linkage

between the military, the industrial and the society.

And that's the concrete fact, which the House Armed Services Committee made known to everyone a few years back,

that the large numbers of retired military officers, naval, army,

and so on, the order of magnitude of 1,400 top-ranking officers, well over 100 there,

perhaps it was 200, I don't recall, at the level of admirals and generals,

are now involved in industry hold of high official positions there and in defense industries.

Now, in the remaining minutes, if we can allot our two advocates,

I would be interested to have each comment on the fact, the fact is beyond dispute.

What significance of any do you see in the fact?

Does it have any danger? Is it inconsequential? Or what? Mr. Baselon, would you want to speak to that?

I don't find that an independent danger, that's people working together,

and it's done in all business, all branches of government.

That would be used by someone like Mr. Cook to argue is conspiracy point of view.

I don't subscribe to the conspiracy point of view.

I'm sure they do business together, and I imagine even there's an occasional conspiracy about a contract here and there.

There isn't business, there isn't a reason why there shouldn't be here.

But that's not an independent fact, where else? I mean, that's where they belong in a certain sense.

That's not the real point. The point is that these big corporations and this budget of over $50 billion a year,

and all these tens of thousands of jobs are involved. That, to me, is the more important point, Mr. Brown.

I think I certainly would agree with Mr. Baselon, in that respect. I'd like to make two other points.

One is that the danger is not so much a danger of the growth of the complex, I would say, as much as it is,

there's a struggle for favors of one institution, these would be another.

It's an attempt of industry to sort of change the way the pie is cut up so that the particular industry that hires a particular general admiral set of them,

does a little better in this respect, it gives an advantage over its competitors.

But it doesn't have much of an effect on changing the entire level of the structure.

I'd like to make another remark, which is that these people, they're retired, but they're very useful.

They have a very, you know, some of them are just very talented and it's recognized, and that's Mr. Baselon's point, I believe,

that in some sense, it's an error to discard them. At the institute, I might mention,

we have joining us probably in a week or so, admiral well-born, an ex admiral, who we hope to be able to use in a research way to assist us with the job that we try to do.

Thank you, Mr. Brown, Mr. Baselon. That's about all we can manage for the advocates, but we still have a few minutes left, Dan, Bob,

to review the arguments as they were developed here this evening.

Dan, I wonder what your reactions were to either position or both as they were presented?

Well, I think curiously, there was quite an agreement towards the end, Mr. Brown said towards the end of his remarks,

he's a fear of the loss of liberty, perhaps, because of the pressures of a weight in society given so heavily to military.

I think the strongest point that Mr. Baselon has made is the fact that so much of what many of us may agree upon is desirable,

that usually, or can only come through the cloak of the military, and I think this is a problem, certainly, which gives weight to this.

What bothers me most, however, is the unanalysed assumption of this notion of a complex. Mr. Baselon shies away from a conspiracy theory quite rightly,

but then one is left with the question, and what is the weight of this? Is this a monolithic unity? Is this some kind of coordinated mechanism?

Is this simply a kind of vague lobby with internal differences of its own? Is it a kind of atmosphere which we don't like?

One is unclear, it's exactly what it is that's bothering us in this particular case.

And to this extent, I would say that I would rather try to formulate problems more in terms of concrete decisions,

who made them, what were the influences, what policies do we don't we like, and to this extent, to deal with the centers of decision in those terms?

I guess I just wanted to sort of take off from where Dan was, because I go along with him, and say another word on that and switch to another topic for a moment.

I think Mr. Baselon made the point well that we live in a society which is being in a number of fashions, militarized.

So there's a military smear over things that isn't altogether nice. At the same time, when I've been in Washington, I have met numerous generals and industrialists who are certainly members of this complex,

and I've found many of them, I hate to generalize them in a few contexts. I've found many more, to my way of thinking, rational, than a lot of so-called civilians.

In fact, when I look at the immediate threats to peace, I see them arising out of civilian organizations and even out of Congress, just as frequently, if not more.

Bob, you?

Now to the complex.

You sound a bit like some of the military I've met on rare occasion from the Pentagon. As far as I can make out what we have in Washington's day,

at least in large sectors of the Pentagon, is not merely the traditional conflict between the civilian authorities and the military that we've had throughout our history.

But a particular kind of civilian who is new to our present world of a technical expert civilian, the technical expert on strategy.

We didn't get to that today, and it's not clear whether the new technician of social science, the new user of models for military strategy.

Whether these are part of this unanalyzed complex or no, but one thing is certainly clear, that a great deal of the aggression on the part of the military has been displaced onto them,

and there's a sense that they are losing their heritage, at least in the narrowly military sphere of making the decisions with regard to weapons systems, which is an indirect way of speaking about strategy.

It seems to me that it's just as a historical fact.

If we had to point to something in the present scene, we have something unique in our history, a world history, obviously, of the development of nuclear arms.

But beyond that sheer technology, we have something new that's come along with it, and that is the extraordinary idea that civilians trained in the arts of mathematics, of symbolic logic, of psychology, and heaven help us of sociology.

But these men are apparently playing a significant role in determining or affecting decisions on strategy.

And one of the interesting questions to raise is, once again, coming out from Mr. Baselon's point, whether the so-called civilianizing of military decisions in this form.

And here are technicians that make, to my mind, sometimes make the military technicians seem a warm-hearted soul.

Here are people who make their assumptions, and then with the greatest possible rigor that they can summon up, provided the logical conclusion of that.

Is this a development that has any significance in talking about what we've agreed, I think, to try to eliminate now this evening, the military industrial complex, which I gather, if one of the possible values of tonight's discussion is to suggest that this dramatic term, which I still insist, doesn't sound like our former president at all.

I think he resonated to it the way many others did when it was presented to him, whether that isn't really obscuring many of the specific issues.

Well, it's obvious we have a consensus on this, but at the same time, I'd rather not throw the baby out with a bathwater, and if we're going to get rid of the complex, all right.

The fact remains that there are a large number of large corporations who specifically have on their books large numbers of dollars of orders from the military, and that this, there exists in this country.

What we used to call a vested interest, a kind of inertia, jobs, incomes, skills, professions, and one's normal way of thinking hinge on a kind of liaison.

But I would say Bob, don't you find this an increasing conflict between people who have these ordinary vested interests coming up against the fact that so much of the basic decisions, or strategy decisions, made initially independently of their calculations, although lady, you have to take into account.

You have to worry about distributing, let's say, a contract between Grumman and Boeing because of the political pressures.

But the initial decisions to what kind of a strategy decision is independently.

Oh, I'm not saying a consequent later. I'm not saying that at all.

I'm not saying Eastern West Coast in order to guarantee employment.

All I'm saying is that here exists this large amount of economic activity, which is geared to military production.

And what worries me, and it does worry me, is how simply because inertia is a very powerful force, how if and when peace breaks out, which let's hope it will.

One dissolves this thing. I agree.

If you take the advice of economists in all of us to can be done, but that advice usually isn't taken.

I wouldn't like Dan's observation to be lost.

It was said so succinctly that it might have dropped out of view.

It does seem to me and needs to be put on the record.

There's a very great difference between saying that certain strategic decisions are made by this composite military civilian group of experts.

And this leads to certain weapon systems, and these need to be allocated.

That's very different from the reverse proposal that the dependence on the military economy is leading to the instigation of weapon systems simply to pork barrel contracts and strategic places around the country.

And the confusion on this, if it is a confusion as we seem to think, is one of the most pervasive.

We could go on quite some time on this, but I'm afraid that you don't have that privilege.

I do want to thank the visiting members of the court, Daniel Bell of Columbia, and Robert L. Heilbrunner, author economist, and our two advocates, David T. Baselon, author and critic, not yet a novelist.

And William M. Brown of the Hudson Institute.

Thank you, and good night.

Thank you.

This is NET, National Educational Television.

Thank you.

Transcript

Transcript

Series: Court of Reason

Episode Number: 2

Episode: The Military Industrial Complex: Is it a Danger

Producing Organization: WNDT (Television station : Newark, N.J.)

Contributing Organization: Library of Congress (Washington, District of Columbia)

AAPB ID: cpb-aacip-512-vt1gh9cc29

NOLA Code: CRTR

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Credits: Producing Organization: WNDT (Television station : Newark, N.J.)

AAPB Contributor Holdings: Library of Congress
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Format: Digital Betacam
Generation: Master
Color: B&W
Duration: 0:59:43; Identifier: cpb-aacip-accc76df35d (unknown)
Format: video/mp4
Generation: Proxy
Duration: 01:03:51

Citations: Chicago: “Court of Reason; 2; The Military Industrial Complex: Is it a Danger,” 1963-07-15, Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed September 22, 2026, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-vt1gh9cc29.; MLA: “Court of Reason; 2; The Military Industrial Complex: Is it a Danger.” 1963-07-15. Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. September 22, 2026. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-vt1gh9cc29>.; APA: Court of Reason; 2; The Military Industrial Complex: Is it a Danger. Boston, MA: Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-vt1gh9cc29