X-Message-Number: 5115
From:  (David Stodolsky)
Subject: Re: CRYONICS: On Julius and Ethel
Date: Sun, 5 Nov 95 23:00:14 +0100

Mike Darwin <> writes:
> While the Rosenbergs apparently were never successful at communicating 
> useful information about bomb contruction, they were guilty of trying.  
> They were also prosecuted using cooked evidence to tighten the case, but 
> subsequent information from Britian and the former USSR confirms they were 
> spies. See TRAITORS by Chapman Pincher (ISBN# 0-14-011151-4).

I think this author was target of a libel prosecution. A review of
the facts will demonstrate that the Rosenberg and related cases were
fabricated to promote the geo-political interests of the US government
after the war. (Recently I heard a lecture by a German historian,
who through examination of the diary of Stalin's closest assistant,
concluded that Stalin continued to believe and promote the reunification
of Berlin, long after the other Allies had de facto divided the city.) US
withdrawal from Europe immediately after the war was unthinkable,
because it would have left Europe open to an attack by the USSR. But
since the USSR was one of the Allies, this was not the real motivation.
The real agenda was to prevent communist parties from gaining a foothold
in postwar Europe. The CIA was involved in funding the opposition
to the legal communist party in Italy after the war. They also supplied
the "Gladio" secret militia. This consisted of arming extreme
right-wing (including fascist) groups, who apparently did not wait
for a Soviet strike into Western Europe, but used their weapons in
political assassinations. Winston Churchill collaborated in the Atom
Spy Hoax, because as he said, it is easier to mobilize people when
the you "put a face on the enemy."

This is all available in open literature for anyone interested, since
a lot of (the interpretation of) postwar history is dependent upon these 
facts, there is still considerable controversy about what "really" happened.
This has nothing to do with the question of recovering investment
on R & D. That is directly derivable from the macro-economic models.
The atom bomb example was given as a pedagogical device.


> 
> There is also little doubt that a significant amount of the "engineering 
> mathematics" required to develop implosion-type weapons and the hydrogen 
> bomb in particular were "stolen" from the West.

Precisely the conclusion you are supposed to come to as a result of
the above propaganda. It is precisely in "mathematics" that the Soviet
system excelled, because their economy was too unbalance to support
application of theoretical knowledge. If the USSR had not collapsed,
it would has eclipsed the West, because of an education system which
was producing scientists at a much greater rate in virtually all hard
science areas. Now most of these folks are in the USA, Israel, etc.


> 
> As to the general state of Soviet "science" I would refer any open-minded 
> student of the history of science to the antics of T.D. Lysenko or to the 
> story of Chernobyl (see CHERNOBYL by Gregori Medvedev). 

The Soviet system was know for massive inequalities in different fields.
It was remarkably efficient in weapons production. How else, could
a third world economy compete militarily with the USA?



> apparatchik was and is.)  I note with some hope that there are still places 
> David might profitably move: North Korea, Burma, maybe even Cuba.
> 
An update of my paper:
Stodolsky, D. S. (1994). Computer-network based democracy: 

Scientific communication as a basis for governance. In K. Bjerg & K. Borreby 
(Eds.), 

Home-oriented informatics, telematics & automation (pp. 51-58). Copenhagen: 
Oikos.

is available for comment  ;-)

dss


David S. Stodolsky      Euromath Center     University of Copenhagen
   Tel.: +45 38 33 03 30   Fax: +45 38 33 88 80 (C)


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