'IRON MOUNTAIN' TO RAISE UPROAR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200370005-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 12, 2004
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: November 8, 1967
• Content Type: NSPR

FORT WORTH, TEXAS 'mil - ~Ac~UERS, l_E61114e.D
STAR-TELEGRAM Approved For Release. 2004/11 /01 : CIA-RDP88-013, WOOQQQ83, 0O~5? 9 Qrc pow-r Fti~o ri
L-103,377
BOOK TA
Dial Press has a book scheduled for publication Nov. 30 that
reads like a psychedelic - nightmare version of George Orwell's
"1984" or Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World."
7
wise Uproar
By LEONARD SANDERS
Star-Telegram Book Editor
.~~'OYl IV9.Oibx, lYd1I1
LEONARD
SANDERS
its, December issue and - hoax or not -= the book promises to {
become the focal-point of some lively debate.
The author understandably chooses'to remain anonymous.
* * *
IN AN INTRODUCTION,. Leonard C. Lewin, a New York
free-lance writer, explains that. an acquaintance - a professor
of "one of the social sciences" - approached him with this
story
But Dial Press claims that the b o o k -
i d e n t i f i e d as a suppressed government
report - is true. .
In essence the book, "Report From Iron
Mountain on the Possibility and Desirability of
Peace" ($5), concludes that lasting peace -7
disarmament' and the disbanding of armies
would be a. catastrophe of staggering propor-
The "report" warns that "the war sys-
tions.
tern cannot responsibly be allowed to disap-
pear until we know exactly what it is, we plan
to put in its place, and we are certain,.beyond
reasonable. doubt, that these substitute institu-
tions will serve their purposes in terms of the
survival and stablity of society."
Some advance readers in the government have labeled the
book a hoax. But Dial Press insists that the "report" is authen-
tic. Esquire magazine is planning a 28,000-word condensation in.
over the implications of the "findings," and felt that the mate-
rial should be made public knowledge. With Lewin's help, the
book was produced.
A New York Times news story quotes a State Department
Arms Control and Disarmament Agency spokesman as denying
that such a special study group ever existed. However he added
that the book "is cleverly done, and whoever did. It obviously
has an appreciable grasp of the disciplines involved." '
Arthur I. Waskow of the Institute for Policy Studies is
quoted as saying that if the report is authentic it would proba-
bly have come from the Bureau of the Budget of the Central
Inteili ence Agency.
He add@d" tl"iat one of his privately circulated, reports Is
mentioned in the book. "As far as I know, only about 60 people
in Washington ' ever saw m report. If it's h x,. it ust
involve somebody -e~ For Release X2004/1 I/ . C
n
o ar
y g v p :
cipate in a study on the nature of the problems that would poses of `social purification,' 'state security,' oAother rationale
confront the nation if and when a condition of "permanent both acceptable and credible to postwar societies."
peace" should arrive, and to draft a "program for dealing aith The "world war industry" (with the Cold War as an effec-
this contingency." tive substitute) has functioned well, the report notes.
The group of 15 members, each proficient in at least' two One chapter attacks the oft-quoted theory that war is an
fields, met many times during the next 2'/s years. The report extension of politics. "War itself is the basic social system,
* * .f
THE BOOK HAS the analytical objectivity that has shocked
readers of Herman Kahn's "On Thermonuclear War" and
"Thinking About the Unthinkable," but even more chilling are
discussions of other issues.
The advances of medicine, for instance, are 'iewed as a
problem creating population gains that must be offset in some
manner. Use of "the pill" in water supplies or certain essential
foodstuffs is casually mentioned with the note that tlu plan "is
already under development." (A footnote attribute= ;;ese expe-
riments to "biologists in Massachusetts, Michigan and Califor-
nia, as well as in Mexico and the U.S.S.R.Preliminary test
applications are scheduled in Southeast Asia, in countries not
yet announced").
In a search for an economic substitute for war, the report
dismisses the "war on poverty" as "inadequate because it
would be far too cheap."
"Space research can be viewed as the nearest modern
equivalent yet devised to the pyramid building, and similar
ritualistic enterprises, of ancient societies," the report ob-
serves. But it laments that "credibility, in fact, lies at the heart
of the problem of developing a political substitute for war. This
is where the space-race proposals, in, many ways so well suited
as economic substitutes for war, fall short. The most ambitious
and unrealistic space project cannot of itself generate a believ-
able external menace. It has been hotly argued that such a
menace would offer the `last, best hope of'peace,' by uniting
mankind against the danger of destruction by `creatures' from
other planets or from outer space. Experiments' have been pro-
posed to test the credibility of an out - of - our - world invasion,
M * 4
THE REPORT SUGGESTS that "flying saucer" incidents
may be the results of "experiments of this kind."
The report also discusses' deliberate pollution of the air,
food and water supplies as a "threat," and the creation of a
universal nonmilitary service a compulsory Peace Corps -
as a "sophisticated form of slavery" for social control in a
world at peace (the code of military disdipline would need little
revision; the report notes).
Also suggested are "blood games" for the effective control
of individual aggressive impulses, with the thought that "such a
ritual might be socialized,' in the manner of the Spanish Inquisi-
t. . tion and the less formal witch trials of other periods, for pur-
In 1963 the professor was asked b the ernme
t t
flict or conspire," the report claims.
"War has provided both ancient and modern societies with .
a dependable system for stabilizing and controlling national
economies. No alternate method of control has yet been tested
in a complex modern -economy that has shown itself remotely
.comparable in scope or effectiveness."
A=RDP88.-01350R000200370005-9'.