When we get to the question and answer part of the talk, if you have a question, which we highly encourage, please check up to the microphone. We cspan book tv with us and would like to pick up your question on the recording. Also, after the talk sharon will be happy to talk and sign books. The line will start to the right of the podium. As you get up, if you could please hold up your chair and set it to one of the sides against the bookshelf, thats a big help for us. The imagine years of work by Sharon Weinberger is the untold story of the Defense Research project agency. Also known as federal agency founded in 1928 originally as a response to sputnik. Publishers weekly said weinberger. [inaudible] interviewed former officials of the Defense Advanced Research agency revealing a highly secretive organization. Her fascinating account about that example of enthralled to the allure of Science Fiction. Sharon is a National Security editor at the intercept. The author of imaginary weapons, a journey through a pentagon a scientific underworld. She is also written on military science and technology for the Washington Post and bbc among other publications. Please welcome Sharon Weinberger [applause] i want to thank politics and prose which is a wonderful bookstore. Third time ive been here and its been a great audience. Its important for me to be here the third time because the book ive not worked on for four years but its the topics ive been thinking about for about 15 years in science and National Security. More portly, how science is conducted in the National Security state. The imagine years of war is a chronicle of darpa, the defense and research agency. When i talk about darpa, i dont know if theyve heard about it and know a lot of about it. I never heard of darpa and i go to the west or the south and the passing interest in technology. Well know about darpa. When people know about darpa they think of it as a Science Fiction agency or a far out technology agency. The associated with self aircraft, drones and arpa. All of those things are true but in writing this book i wanted to write to look back at its true roots. And this chapter takes us back to a few years after darpa was working in vietnam into it. In 1966. The story starts in 1966 when walter was sent darpa to vietnam to a prison in psycho to interview and imprisoned the cone fighter. Gives this fighter the war shot test parity shows him the first inkblot and says do you see anything on this card to remind you of the penis . The fighter says no, i dont. Then he says what about the top part . No. He persevered and seducing anything the remind you of a womans vagina . No, the fighter reply to this went went on for several hours. Neither man was an particular good mood. He was frustrated because he was not being cooperative. The vietcong fighter was unhappy because he is sitting in a prison in psych on being held by the South Vietnamese government stirring it inkblots rather than running a suicide squad. Walter, this psychotherapist was employed by firm that had sent him to vietnam in 1966 with darpa sponsorship to help the pentagon understand the growing communist insurgency. Lets go back to a b. R. In mid1966 in terms of the vietnam war. There is over 180,000 american troops in vietnam which by way of reference is about as many as were deployed to iraq and afghanistan at the height of our current wars there. The vietcong insurgency has grown from an estimate of the tens of thousands in the early 1960s, to about 280,000 fighters. There were terrorist attacks in saigon, roadside bombs are what we today call ied is. There was an active buddhist uprising which included three monks who set themselves on fire. Pentagon officials understood that there was growing, that there was a growing dissolution with the South Vietnamese government and for the u. S. Backing at the government but they didnt understand why. Its out there on the site of good. They turned to sign to tell them understand. Walter was one of these people is sent to vietnam and he believed the rorschach test which apollo at the time among psychotherapist to diagnose personality traits could be used to understand the recipient the growing insurgency. In the growing resentment against the United States and they reckon back South Vietnamese government. But so far in his interview with the vietcong fighter he wasnt getting very far. He asked the fighter to go through all the cards and identify something sexual. Nothing. Then he asked him to find anything remind him of a person. Nothing again. He seemed puzzled. He asked the fighter john a picture that he liked or disliked. The imprisoned manhood once led the savages squad was reluctant to even touch the american card. I tell this entire interview in archives of mit, an exact minute of the translate interview with the vietcong fighter says i do not understand these pictures so i do not know which ones i like and which ones i dislike. He ended up spending seven weeks in vietnam on the payroll during which time he collected data on exactly for vietnamese. A french a kid water, a Student Activist uniting, senior Buddhist Monk, and the vietcong fighter. All harvard antiamerican feelings that were critical of the government of South Vietnam but he found the vietcong fighter particularly vexing. Even the antigovernment Buddhist Monk was more cooperative. You know ive never seen one except on a child. Except on a child. The slightest side of slot writing books as you can go down rabbit holes and this rabbit okay i think in 2014. Id come back, i was living in europe and come back to do research on the national archives. They were declassified records and he came back right in the middle of a Government Shutdown and dark eyes were closed. I interview is to do at mit and a travel there and a half a day because decide to go to the archive to look at these records that i thought would not be particularly relevant. I was fascinated and i found walters final report. He said the vietcong member was a thoroughly dead man, he stared into space. The only time he came alive in his telling of his exploits can his eyes were bright and and held himself in greater dignity. Yes, it is that fast he would lapse back into lethargic apathy, a pattern was lifelong not persisted by imprisonment. [laughing] if you imagine the situation that fighter is in prison. This is not a good time for him. Walter was not interested in the nuances of vietnamese politics. The quiz these men about their parents, dreams and her sex life or lack thereof. He decided after these four interviews that the problem with the vegan these people and the antiamericanisantiamericanism0 years of denomination. He decided through to the pub was the troubled family structure. It is my strong impression that the tribes one rivalry this collected hostility and dependencies constitute the central psychological core of antiamericanism in vietnam. So that is the walter story. This is just a funny anecdote. Let me get back to the questioned her how to do psychotherapist end up in vietnam at the click more to the point of this book entry history of darpa and what it means is how and why did an agency best known for the internet installed aircraft end up involved in this escapade . It goes back to the broader question that is on fasting me of how a site conduct in National Security committee with National Security state and does that matter . This book was finished over a year ago, so long before Donald Trumps election to president but this question came back to me even more come anymore for the way over the past couple of weeks when weve seen a Budget Proposal that cuts back funding for science agencies, the National Estimates of health, climate research. What was also seen a as a propol to increase the Defense Department budget. Details of a darpa budget did not come out yet but traditionally its been tied to the larger budget. It Defense Department budget goes up we will likely see an increase in the budget for java. Science funding may go up or down but it is going to call them go up in the national scary state. This question of what it means and what the implications of signs conducted for nas nationas could a more relevant now than ever. If this Budget Proposal goes through. Let me get back to what darpa is today and where it came from and how we got from there to vietnam. Darpa was created in 1958 as a direct result of the soviet launch sputnik. The launch of the first artificial snow satellite. This created a panic, something i cant get them or to septembe. The idea that the soviets were ahead of us in the space race, able to lunch and dinner cannot intercontinental ballistic missile. Resin eisenhower created darpa, or are about as the nations first agency. So before nasa. It was going to consolidate all the satellite programs and what agency and gives into space. It did that. Then if you follow the quick narrative of darpa it grew from that Great Success into a 3 billion figure agency that it is today made up of about 140 technical personnel, program and just come in and its unique in government and this antibureaucratically. There are entering a permanent employees. People come in for three to five years to start projects. These projects live or die in a time period. They are high risk. They dont always dont use peer review c can move quickly to do things. As the story goes from darpa, this is a tremendous success. And where i once had with it is deeply you can argue darpa is the worlds most successful Government Research agency. Certainly the most successful military research agency. So many of the things they take credit for our to come Driverless Cars which are just got a come into their own can be traced directly back to darpa as can precision weapons, drones, arpanet. Why talk about vietnam so much . What houston to do is look at how did darpa get to the point . I dont think it came from the space race. If you go into darpa is headquarters they have this panorama which is their story in the lobby. Its basically filled with weapons and a flint and all the nifty things darpa is associated with. The only nongc to the entire vietnam war is the m16, the standard issue weapon for the three military services which darpa takes credit for not for creating but they said the predecessor to vietnam and the early 1960s to demonstrate a could be more effective for jungle warfare. That became the m16. Thats the only mention of vietnam which i found very fascinating. In the book i come to the opposite conclusion which is vietnam was courted agencies identity and everything, almost anything with associate with the dark was successes today, stealth aircraft today. More critically and probably the way we fight our wars today much of a comes out of darpa technology is also linked back to the vietnam period. You think about the way were prosecuting our wars in iraq and afghanistan are linked to the most disastrous war effort which might ethics when we are today. This period at the agency is what i call the imagine years of war, people and agency who thought about how we wage war, how we will wage war and every engineer solutions to it. Lets take us back to vietnam. What was he doing there . Walter was a Research Come not in the gnome with the part of a much broader effort that the pentagon was interested in and that darpa spearheaded to help come at use behavioral science and social sciences to understand the insurgency. Defense officials, pentagon officials were not completely deluded. The war effort was not going well. They realized more so than a pentagon officials do today this is a phenomenon the bullets and bombs on couldnt stop your you might understand why people were joining an insurgency. The way darpa got into this is part of this myth of darpa is a sciencefiction agency. What happened during that time. Was it got america into space but within a year and half of agencies creation basically by 1960, the Space Programs were taken away. Nasa was created and they got the civilian Space Programs. The military was victorious in their bureaucratic wars and because Space Programs got. You had this new agency that was just floating adrift at sea. What they did it with an intelligence operative by the name of william godowns on opportunity. He put it darpa deputy director. For him it was thought the space race was a psychological war. Nuclear apocalypse however terrible that would be he dissent was not very likely. He spent a lot of time as an intelligence operative in asia and he really saw the most likely way to use was going to confront the soviet union was through proxy wars go to these insurgencies. By 1962 he pitched president kennedy on an idea which is lets have darpa create a combat development and testing in saigon that will work with the South Vietnamese can work with the American Military to help them fight this insurgency. And his vision was very expensive. He sent the first drawn to vietnam to construct a Chemical Program picky start a psychological operations. He also was her interest in social sciences and sent the first anthropologists to be there. Another thing happen, arpa was assigned Behavioral Sciences. Hired a man named the collider to run the Behavioral Sciences office. This becomes another branch of darpa out of Behavioral Sciences. He goes on to lay foundations for arpanet which i discussed n the book but it began to coincide with the vietnam war. What we can happen is arpa became darpa begin the counterinsurgency agency has been flooded by strange proposals to basically help understand this insurgency. One of my favorites was from 1965 when General Electric wrote suggesting the company be given a quote open into that contract which is a landscaper type. That would allow the company to a Flight Experience in technology to counterinsurgency. Its first proposal was announced polygraph. So a mass lie detector. The concept was a modern version of reimagined. Consider the following scenario has been typical of the type of situation and method of operation. A high secret his Central GovernmentAntiterror Police contingent arrived by helicopter to those suspected of being under vietcong pressure. The villagers are assembled so they can see each other. Imagine you are all villagers. Each individual is connected to this type of mask polygraph lie detector which measures skin response, heartbeat of all simultaneously. I suspected support of the vietcong, could be me, would be hauled up among the assembled villagers were hooked up to lie detector machine. The machine would record a Group Response only bidding the fear of any single villager was informative. This process could be repeated to test as many members as desired. Its 1966, darpa is flooded with proposals like this. Its just bad. People within darfur realized this was a disaster and within the pentagon so they brought in a new guide to clean up this mess and business name was seymour he was an engineer who was passing by the social science. He would it that the programs a quote on andy thought it was a mess. He did believe as a good engineer that people could be measured and stated and actions predicted what engineers measure and track the fight of ballistic missiles. He looked at the social science work within darfur, mass polygraphs and he said we need numbers, we need sons. I want to harden the social sciences. He said i determine early during my darpa tour to try to orient this program as much towards quantitative measurement and analysis as possible. He thought his solution was this Company Called simone maddox, a computer can be found by a prominent mit professor. It most of them at election of president kennedy by predicting on a statebystate basis allegedly with action of 80 the final results. Harpers magazine and 61 called it a people machine site where you could devise a mathematical model of the American Public and feed into the computer . A professor said this is the abomb of the social sciences. So he said as far as we at darpa concert a group like this had impeccable credentials and help avoid many problems. It seemed like a perfect solution is going to be the biggest disaster that disaster start showing up in vietnam in 1966 and one of the first studies with walters psychotherapy study. You would think we are mocking this picture of people bought it at the time. Some people did. I darpa official wrote in a letter i found i find the report so methodologically deficient as a series of medicine. My belief in its findings. But a very wellrespected withn scientist who worked for the institute for defense analysis called the report faceting, and foreign paper. It went both ways. The study was one of seven and conducted in vietnam and i to say the study was noticed, and it wasnt. [laughing] it got worse. There was one for psychological weapons that included physics in an americanstyle chain letter to a village in hostess read it to trick vietnam at a rally. The villagers falsely distribute in the letter believing it was a vietcong trip. They sought to use prophecy and the power of appointment by poaching to 75,000 thousand copies of booklet the prophecy they vietcong defeat. This can r