DOCUMENT RESUME

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AUTHOR Bonier/ DavidTITLE The Social Impact of Widespread Computer Use:

Implications for East-West Relations. Report of anAspen Institute Conference (Queenstown, Maryland,March 23-25, 1989). Communications and Society ForumReport.

INSTITUTION Aspen Inst. for Humanistic Studies, New York, N.Y.SPONS AGENCY Congress of the U.S., Washington, D.C. Office of

Technology Assessment.; Ford Foundation, New York,N.Y.

PUB DATE 89

NOTE 43p.

PUB TYPE Collected Works - Conference Proceedings (021) --Viewpoints (120) -- Reports - Descriptive (141)

EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS Civil Liberties; Computers; *Decentralization;

Economic Status; Foreign Countries; *Foreign Policy;*Information Technology; *International Relations;International Trade; Power Structure; *SocialChange

IDENTIFIERS *USSR

ABSTRACTOn March 1989, the Aspen Institute convened a group

of experts to assess Soviet progress in computer and informationtechnologies, their current and likely impact on Soviet society, andappropriate ways for U.S. policymakers to respond. Major issuesaddressed by conference participants included: Will new informationtechnologies encourage a decentralization of authority in Sovietsociety? How will the new technologies affect human rights, if atall? How will they affect the Soviet Union's economic prospects? andCan the United States influence any of these computer-related trendsthrough its foreign policies or trade policies? The conferenceconsisted of seven sessions, each of which was devoted to a specificissue. Session titles were: (1) The Social Impact of Computer Use;(2) Computers as Decentralizing Forces? (3) A Portrait of SovietComputer and Information Technologies; (4) Does ComputerizationRequire an Open Society? (5) Soviet Computer Culture as a ReformistVanguard? (6) Should "the West" Encourage Soviet Computerization? and(7) What Next? Proposals for Research and Action. A list ofconference participants is included. (GL)

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c:404 Communications and Society

E FORUM REPORT

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Michael RiceProgram DirectorAspen InstituteBox 837Truro, MA 02666(508) 349-6602E-mail: TCN 111

THE SOCIAL IMPACT OF WIDESPREAD COMPUTER USE:Implications for East-West Relations

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONOffice of Educational Research and Improvement

EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATIONCENTER (ERIC)

)(This document has been reproduced asreceived from the person or organizationoriginating itMinor changes have been made to improvereproduction quality

to Points of view or opinions slated in this Jocument do not necessarily represent official

OERI position or policy

Report of an Aspen Institute ConferenceWye Woods Conference Center

Queenstown, MarylandMarch 23-25, 1989

byDavid Bollier

Contributing EditorCHANNELS Magazine

This conference was made possible by grants fromthe Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress

and the Ford Foundation

6) 1989 The Aspen Institute

"PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THISMATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY

Stephanie Ralston

TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCESINFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)."

Jack 0. Clarke, ChairmanDavid T. McLaughlin, President

Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies

An independent, international, nonprofit organization, the Aspen institutebrings together leading citizens to discuss Issues of lasting significance.Its Program on Communications and Society serves as an impartial forumfor assessing the importance of modern communications and informationsystems to the ideals and practices of democratic society.

Table of Contents

I. The Social Impact of Computer Use 2

II. Computers as Decentralizing Forces? 9

III. A Portrait of Soviet. Computer and InformationTechnologies 15

IV. Does Computerization Require an Open Society? 21

V. Soviet Computer Culture as a Reformist Vanguard? 26

VI. Should "the West" Encourage Soviet Computerization? 31

VII. What Next? Proposals for Research and Action 35

Participants 39

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The Social Impact of Widespread Computer Use:Implications for East-West Relations

On March 23-25, 1989, The Aspen Institute convened adistinguished group of experts to assess Soviet progress incomputer and information technologies, their current and likelyimpact on Soviet society, and appropriate ways for U.S.policymakers to respond.

Recent glasnost and perestroika reforms aspire to remakemuch of Soviet society, introducing market principles toeconomic production and new civil freedoms to the culture.Within limits, General-Secretary Gorbachev apparently hopes toencourage greater efficiency and vitality in the Sovieteconomy; more open, creative social expression; stricterpolitical accountability for Party leaders; and greaterpolitical participation among the Soviet people.

As the Soviets grapple with these profound changes, it islogical to wonder what role computers and information technolo-gies will play. Will the technologies encourage a decentrali-zation of authority in Soviet society? How will they affectSoviet human rights, if at all? How will they affect theSoviet Union's economic prospects? More pragmatically, can theUnited States influence any of these computer-related trendsthrough its foreign policies or trade policies? This AspenInstitute conference, sponsored by the Ford Foundation and theU.S. Congress' Office of Technology AssesGment, sought toaddress these and other related questions.

Conference participants consisted of scholars of Sovietand Eastern European studies; analysts of Soviet science andtechnology; experts on the organizational uses and social andpsychological impact of information technologies; governmentresearchers who assess the public policy implications ofinformation technologies; the president of a major computercontractor for the U.S. Government; the director of an activistsjroup of socially concerned computer professionals; journalistsfamiliar with Soviet affairs; experts on Soviet human rights;and participants in an exhibition of U.S. informationtechnologies, sponsored by the U.S. Information Agency, whichtoured the Soviet Union in 1988.

The conference consisted of seven sessions, each of whichwas devoted to a specific issue. Michael Rice, Director of TheAspen Institute Program on Communications and Society,moderated the discussions.

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I. THE SOCIAL IMPACT OF COMPUTER USE

How should we characterize the social impactof widespread computer use where itriaaalEealyoccurred?

Before making an empirical inquiry into Soviet use ofcomputer technologies, the group first conducted a sort cf"meta-dialogue" about the proper methodologies for proceeding.Why do computer technologies develop? What general purposes dothey serve? What social impact do they usually have?

To provide an analytic framework for discussion, ProfessorJames Beniger of the Annenberg School of Communications at theUniversity of Southern California made a presentation that drewheavily from his 1986 book, The Control Revolution:Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society.

"In order to understand the social impact of computeruse," Beniger advised, "it is useful to concentrate not oncomputer use as an abstract category but on what those adoptingcomputers intend to use them for....Be on the lookout for whois attempting to control what."

Beniger suggested that analysts move away from generalcategories such as "computers" and focus instead on suchconcepts as "information processing" (to change informationfrom one form to another); "communication" (purposive movementof information from one place to another); '!decision" (to useinformational inputs to affect output that affects behavior insome way) and "control" (purposive influence, however slight,toward some predetermined goal).

such categories help identify the power relationships andsocial context within which information technologies operate --a major theme of Beniger's book. The Control Revolution arguesthat all the innovations in information technclogies -- fromphotography and telegraphy in the 1830s to digitalizedprocessing and communications in our own time -- can beunderstood, fundamentally, as responses to "the control crisisof industrial society." The technologies were attempts,assisted by formal bureaucracy, to manage an increasinglycomplex system of manufacturing and transportation.

In a sense, Beniger continued, computers can be understoodas a technological embodiment of bureaucracy, the 5,000-year-old system of human organization for controlling a given realmof the economy. "New forms of information processingtechnology begin with attempts to control the materialeconomy," he explained.

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This control seeks to govern four primary realms of theeconomy: production (e.g., CAB/CAM, robotics, inventorycontrol); distribution (air traffic control, uniform productcodes); consumption (new mass media for advertising,"personalized" mass advertising assisted by computers, marketresearch); and generalized or high-order control (replacementof bureaucracy by computers).

Whatever their intended goals, computer technologies canalso produce unintended social consequences that merit ourattention, said Beniger. Two examples come to mind:

1) Technologies that originally emerge to control thematerial economy are eventually seen as useful forcontrolling anything, including our fellow humanbeings. (E.g., computerized police records used tobuttress apartheid in South Africa.)

2) Technologies adopted to increase control result inever-more fragile systems that actually increasethe risk of losing control. This stimulates the needfor higher-order, ancillary control technologies tocontrol the pr.!.mary control technologies. (E.g., theair traffic control system which governs aircraft, orthe nuclear command computer system which governsnuclear missiles.)

Charles Zraket, President and CEO of the MITRE Corporationand the chief designer of the two computer systems in Beniger'ssecond example, disagreed that "control" is the most salientfeature of new information technologies. "Tice 'what is known'as a result of these technologies is the real revolution,"asserted Zraket, "not how they're applied, in terms of who getsinformation and who controls what."

For example, said Zraket, worldwide sensors in space, inthe air and on the ground can generate entirely new ensemblesof information that could never be obtained before. Computer-assisted advances in astronomy have vastly increased ourknowledge of the universe. Zraket added, "Universal inter-active access to this information via computer/communicationsnetworks, as noted by the late Ithiel Poole of M,I.T.. is thehallmark of this revolution in what is known, compared to theinvention of the book, the printing press, and broadcast andfilm ,;:edia."

Richard W. Judy, Director of the Center for Soviet andEast European Studies at the Hudson Institute, agreed that itis "hard to think about computer systems without thinking about

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'control.' Yet at the same time (the concept of 'control']seems so general that it's not productive of any usefulpropositions."

Judy noted that at a primary level of applications, newinformation technologies may indeed serve to enhance "control,"in the form of new efficiencies and feasibilities ranging frommanufacturing to research. Yet there are other applicationswhere "control" is a secondary or peripheral concern.

Information technologies are better viewed as "agents ofchange" than control, argued Paul Spindel, President of theScarsdale Systems Group, a management consulting firm.(Spindel accompanied the USIA information technologies tourin 1988.) Selling or giving computers to the Soviets will notprovide the ultimate tool by which Soviet leaders control theirpeople, he said. It will instead provide a means (in additionto economic and political factors) for facilitating change.

In trying to identify the sources of technology-relatedsocial change, Gary Chapman, Executive Director of ComputerProfessionals for Social Responsibility, cautioned against"technological determinism." "I continue to be resistant toth( idea that technology makes things happen on its own.Whatever is happening is based in human needs, and chat needhas a source in material circumstances." In the context ofEast-West relations, Chapman warned, it is especially dangerousto conceive of computers as autonomous agents of social changebecause such an approach can lead to fatalism.

Wilson P. Dizard, Senior Fellow at Georgetown University'sCenter for Strategic and International Studies, noted that therapid development and application of new technologiesin thelate 20th century make it particularly difficult for us tounderstand their significance.

Applying our knowledge of computerization to Sovietsociety is even more difficult, said Dizard, because there are"tremendous discontinuities in the organization and applicationof information" between our two countries. Furthermore,understanding how new technologies interact with humans ishighly problematic, said Dizard, citing Shoshana Zuboff'srecent book, In_thehge of the Smart Machine: The Future ofWork and Power, and the MITRE Corporation's mixed success withintroducing computers in schools over the past 20 years.

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Computers and Soviet Society:A First Impression

The choice between technological determinism and thepolitics of human control may be too stark a framework forunderstanding what impact computers actually have, warnedSherry TurklE, a sociologist at the M.I.T. Program in Science,Technology and Society.

Turkle cited her experience in a Soviet store where awoman at the check-out counter tallied her bill with an abacus."Will that woman be using an electronic wand on products withinthe next five or ten years?" Turkle reflected. "Differentfeelings, assumptions and expectations about the kind of worldone lives in are embedded in a change from abacus to electronicwands." Technologies change the way people think aboutthemselves and the dorld. With computerization comes thegrowth of a "computer culture." Computer cultures challengeany sharp divide between technological determinists andintentionist control. At the level of computer culture, saidTurkle, "it does make sense to talk about the technology itselfhaving some kind of effect."

In response, Gary Chapman took pleasure in citing anaphorism by Karl Marx, "Men make history, but they don't makeit as they please." Perhaps it would be useful to consider thedialectical process, said Chapman, and look at the "relation-ship between the technological infrastructure and human need,"and how "those two interact with each other to create some newform of consciousness and some new perspectives on opportun-ities for technology."'

It may be also useful to keep in mind the "law of thesuppression of radical potential," an axiom posited by BrianWinston, said Robert Karl Manoff, Director of the Center foyWar, Peace and the News Media. This socio-political "law"asserts that technologies are developed to the point where theycould have a radical impact long before they are in factemployed in such a fashion (if they ever are). This is becausethe established powers of a society deliberately suppress thetechnologies' radical potential.

The Soviet Union is probably one of the only societieswhere this law is actually on the books. A Soviet coop, forexample, cannot operate a new photocopier until it firstinstalls the machine in a separate room containing barredwinaows, a metal door, and a pass-througi) slot in the door,among other security protections. (Whether such rules areobserved in practice ma)t be another matter entirely.) What

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makes the Soviet Union so interesting at this time, saidManoff, is that its leaders are self-consciously trying toovercome the law of the suppression of radical potential.

That point deserves underscoring, said Professor Robert W.Campbell ot the Russian and Ea tern European Institute atIndiana University. As an analyst of Sovtet affairs, Campbellsaid he must frequently grapple with such questions as "What isautonomous? What is exogenous? What sort of causality isoperating? in the grand Marxian dynamic, technology is theexogenous factor. But we all agree that there are a lot ofsurprising results and potentials that come from newtechnologies."

"For technology to have power, you have to possess it,"said Charles Zraket of the MITRE Corporation. "That's one ofthe things the Soviet Union lacks today. To that extent, ithas to be a willful act to possess it."

But assume that the Soviets have identified a need andobtained a technology, interjected Michael Rice. At thatpoint, is there a kind of determining influence that comessimply from what the machine is capable of doing? Doesn't that'determine' at least the limits of what you can do with it?"

Not necessarily, replied Sherry Turkle. "In the case ofcomputer technology, you're faced with an extraordinarilyambivalent object. That is to say, it's the best technology inthe world for centralization and controlling things, and it'sthe best technology in the world for radical decentralizingpossibilities."

It is important to remember, said Charles Zraket ot theMITRE Corporation, that "you can't just look at [the impact ofcomputers] as a cybernetic system. There are lots of humansinvolved in applying the technology."

"That's where the ambivalence comes in," said Turkle."People with different motives, desires and purposes seize onthe computer and say, 'Aha, this is what I've been waitingfor!' But the people in a position to make such a commentprobably wouldn't want to be at the same party together."

"I don't think technologists envision what is going tohappen at the time they develop new technologies, much asGutenberg didn't envision the Reformation when he developed theprinting press," pointed out Paul Spindel, President of theScarsdale Systems Group, a management consulting firm.(Spindel accompanied the USIA information technologies tourin 1988.)

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Whether a new technology results in centralization ordecentralization "is more a political issue than one having todo with the technology itself," claimed Charles Zraket. "Theconcept of information sharing is what characterizes thecurrent situation." The digitalization of print, film, videoand information technologies makes it more feasible than everto share information worldwide, said Zraket. That, in fact, isthe most noteworthy trend in the dissemination of informationtechnologies, he said. "It's the nature of information as aresource that it's going to be shared. I don't think it. [thetechnology] contributes anything to centralization; in fact, Ithink it pushes things in the opposite direction."

"The technologization of information simultaneouslycontributes to the rationalization of information and itsimpoverishment," noted Robert Manoff. "What strikes me aboutthe development of data banks is that information which doesn't

into those systems is lost."

To take the realm of commercial videocassettes, forexample, Manoff said that the new technologies ignore "the GirlScout camp songs, oral traditions, a vast literature, dances,songs, and rituals, not to mention all the marginalpublications that don't get on NEXIS. There is sharing --absolutely. But there is also a narrowing down of what isavailable to be shared, which is a very serious consequence ofinformation technologies which seem both to expand and narrowone's choices."

"I don't see how you can say that when you can store theEncyclopaedia Britannica on one side of an optical disc,"replied Zraket. "The amount of information being shared isincreasing exponentially."

"I think we can all put away the idea of simpletechnological determinism," said Richard Judy of the HudsonInstitute. "But what happens when you have two very differentinformation cultures, irrespective of the information techno-logies in each, and then you make available to the two culturesthe same technologies? You may have very different results."

"In our culture, we have a cer ain compulsion to communi-cate horizontally," Judy continued. "We think nothing ofpicking up the phone and calling across the country. In theSoviet Union, that type of culture does not exist. They aren'tused to horizontal linkages....Most Soviet research organiza-tions require the permission of somebody upstairs not just touse the Xerox machine but also to make a long-distance call,"

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Judy said. (Indeed, a Soviet researcher may need permission toobtain the telephone number to call!)

Judy said that Robert Campbell's research shows thatcommunication linkages in the Soviet Union tend to be alongvertical channels, i.e., up and down a bureaucratic hierarchy.This pattern is "not just because of the technology and it'snot only because of the politics. The culture expects thatthat's the way communications occur," said Judy.

Dr. Harley Balzer, Director of the Russian Area StudiesProgram at Georgetown University, agreed that cultura.1.expectations play a much-overlooked role, but added that thehorizontal/vertical distinction is too simple. "In bothsocieties, you've got 'pockets' of both kinds of communica-tions. We've got far more of the horizontal. They may have apredominance of vertical, but the number of horizontals seemsto be increasing," said Balzer, citing the flourishing networksof Soviet jazz afficionados and youth newspapers operatingindependently of Moscow.

One should not discount the genuine differences in"technological literacy" between the U.S.S.R and the U.S.A.,warned Glenn Schweitzer, Director of Soviet and East EuropeanAffairs at the National Academy of Science/National ResearchCouncil. "New technologies are being 'parachuted' into theSoviet Union without the intermediate steps of technologicaldevelopment," said Schweitzer. "There are examples ofinstitutes where people had free access to Xerox machines andthey did not know how to operate them. They tried to fix apaper jam and broke the machine." Soviet literacy abouttechnology in 1989 compares to U.S. literacy many years ago,said Schweitzer.

One premise of this discussion, said Nicholas Ulanov,Associate at McKinsey & Company, is that there is a suppresseddemand for "horizontal" communications in the Soviet Union.To a degree, demand is restricted because of telephone costsand access limitations, conceded Ulanov. But he wondered iftherr is indeed "an inevitably superior demand [for telephoneuse] Lhat will drive down the costs, ease innovation andincrease its acceptance among the populace? Or is thatneutral? I don't think there's an automatic answer to thatquestion Culture is a good way to look at it, but you alsohave to remember that technology helps define the culture,"

Catherine Fitzpatrick, Research Director of HelsinkiWatch, replied that "demand" has been (and will be) lessinfluential in enhancing "horizontal" telephone communicationsthan the political decisions by Soviet' leaders.

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Sharing of information may occur in the context ofcomputerized management systems, said Fitzpatrick, but whencomputers are used as instruments to control people, informa-tion is not typically shared; it is withheld. Examples includepolice files on individuals or the suppression of news aboutthe Chernobyl nuclear disaster or the Armenian earthquake.Furthermore, said Fitzpatrick, the use of computers can resultin the "loss" of information through pre-processing -- i.e.,the information is never entered into the system in the firstplace, a phenomenon noted earlier by Robert Manoff.

There may be political or other systematic reasons whyinformation readily available on computers is not disseminated,Fitzpatrick said. For example, a Washington Post reporter toldher that the newspaper had incriminating information aboutFerdinand Marcos and Oliver North several months before thePost went public with the revelations. "Somehow, no one everfocussed on [the information] and decided to put it on thefront page. 'These stories exist in computers,' as thereporter described it Someone could have pushed a button andprinted out the Marcos file. Well, why didn't. they? For me,it's more a question of how decisions work than whethercomputers aid the process [of disseminating information]."

II. COMPUTERS AS DECENTRALIZING FORCES?

Does the growing use of microcomputers andcomputer networks constitute a decentralizingforce in the decision-making structures of largeorganizations?

To understand what sort of impact microcomputers have hadin state and local governments in the United States, ProfessorKenneth L. Kraemer, Director of the Public Policy ResearchOrganization at the University of Callifornia, Irvine, beganthis session by providing an overview of his research. Kraemerand his associates have conducted extensive empirical researchon computer use in 400 city goverments, including in-depth casestudies of 50 of those cities.

Based on his work, Kraemer believes, "There's nothingreally radically different going on in these organizationsbecause of personal computers. They're useful tools, sometimesused well, sometimes badly....But there is no decentralizationof decisionmaking going on. People are essentially doing whatthey did before, but they do it easier, faster, or moreconvincingly."

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In the 1970s, plentiful federal revenues to cities wereused to build huge databases and computer simulation models forcity planning. In the 1980s, federal monies have dried up andcity planning now focuses on citizen participation and localdecisionmaking; data-intensive, top-down city planning is farless common. "If you want to know about the future impact ofcomputers," Kraemer advised, "you have to look more broadly atthe social, institutional, professional changes that are takingplace, and try to divine how computers might fit into thatcontext, not change it."

While there are about 10 million PCs in the United States,the number of PCs within any organization is generally quitesmall -- on the order of several hundred. Most PCs are usedfor word-processing, spreadsheet analysis, and databases, saidKraemer. About half of business eCs are connected tomainframes, usually for office automation purposes, some forlocal area networks.

Computer technology is still being absorbed in citygovernment, Kraemer reported; its use is not as widespread asimagined. Furthermore, although some pevle have greateraccess to computers than before, the distribution of PCsclosely parallels the previous distribution of mainframeresources. In city governments, the main departments usingPCs are (in order of usage) data-processing offices, financeand budget offices, police departments, and public works.These trends are likely to continue, said Kraemer, because allhis mainframe studies have shown that computerization "tends tofollow the dominant interests of power and resources" in agiven organization.

"Computing is, for the most part, a tool for doing whatpeople did before, only faster, better and easier," Kraemernoted. "Most people stay within their existing job scope;there is no great pulling up or down of authority [because ofPC use]."

While computers can facilitate either vertical orhorizontal communication in an organizational hierarchy,Kraemer finds that they are most often used for verticalcommunication. "People at the top want to get the word out,and people at the bottom want to influence the people at thetop," he explained. By contrast, horizontal communicationamong peers tends to be for less important matters, such asarranging meeting times, coordinating simple tasks,transmitting small work packages, and gossiping. Competingunits within an _ganization do not share information to anygreater extent than they shared before, he said.

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Kraemer's message, in sum, is that computers usually donot exert the kinds of dramatic effects on organizations thatmany people expect. He offered several broad conclusions fromhis studies of "plain vanilla applications" of computers:

The impact of computers has been marginal, incrementaland evolutionary, and it is going to remain so. One reason isthat the introduction of new technology -- simply the physicaldeployment of it -- takes time.

Developing expertise among end-users of computers takestime, a process that is periodically disrupted by newgenerations of technology, new operating systems and newvendors. This can set back a data-processing shop two to fouryears, on average. Managers within organizations are thereforeeager to adopt new computer technologies at a pace they canhandle. That way, by ensuring internal stability within theirorganizations, they can better handle the instability thatbuffets their organizations from without.

Computer and information technologies do notnecessarily alter existing lines of authority. Kraemer citedthe experience of the U.S. Department of Health, Education andWelfare's "social services integration" project in the 1970s.The innovation sought to use computers to consolidate theproviding of social services, allocate regional resources moreefficiently, and provide information referrals. The projectwas instigated to streamline services and eliminate duplica-tion. In a modest-sized city, for example, there were as manyas 150 service agencies with overlapping and confusingjurisdictions.

Once agencies participating in the project saw that thefederal government was serious about consolidating not onlyfederal but local resources -- threatening their decisionmakingpower -- they pulled out of the program. This is likely tohappen whenever computers are used to realign existingconfigurations of power, said Kraemer.

"Computing is essentially conservative in its applica-tion," Kraemer believes. "It tends to serve the interests andagendas of existing organizations and elites. If their agendais to liberalize and democratize the organization, theninformation technology can be used to facilitate such reforms.If not, it can be used for other purposes. It can reinforceand perhaps even accelerate change, but it cannot bring changeabout in the first place."

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Based on the U.S. experience, Kraemer concludes, "It isunrealistic to expect that PCs will have a major impact on theSoviet population as a whole, or any significant proportion ofthe population that exists outside of existing institutions andorganizations."

Will Computers Tend to Centralizeor Decentralize Authority?

Loren Graham, an historian of science at the M.I.T./Harvard Russian Research Center, challenged the relevance ofKraemer's research to Soviet society: "Since the spreadsheetitself has built into it the assumptions of our existingeconomic order, it's totally unsurprising that when you askwhat will be the effect, the answer is that the effect will beincremental. The spreadsheet was built on that assumption.It's an enabling technology for the goals already assumed byour society.

"But if you put that same technology in a differentsociety with different rules and perhaps even different goals,then the answer becomes very different....Under the traditionalSoviet economy, the spreadsheet doesn't make sense," Grahamasserted.

To illustrate his point, Graham cited a well-known essayby historian Kenneth White which argues that the introductionof the horse stirrup in 10th century France led to the birth ofEuropean feudalism. "But what White didn't mention," saidGraham, "was that the horse stirrup was invented in China inthe 6th or 7th century, slowly made its way across Eurasia andEurope, and bang, suddenly it had an effect." France wasalready on the way to feudalism, explained Graham; the horsestirrup was simply an enabling technology. The computer, too,is an enabling technology whose impact depends upon the hostculture.

Nicholas Ulanov of McKinsey & Company urged participantsto look at what exactly information technologies enable."While the Soviets may import computer technology for certainuses, it may so readily enable other uses that it helps totransform the culture into which it is introduced," saidUlanov. To illustrate his point, he cited numerous instancesin which major corporations have used computers to transformentire sectors of the U.S. economy: oil refining (Texaco), airtransportation (American Airlines), hospital supply (McKessan),as well as most newspapers and finance services.

Richard Judy also questioned the relevance of Kraemer's

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research to the Soviet Union, because it focuses on large-scale, public-sector organizations, which are the least likelyto use computers in innovative ways. One should look insteadat new, small-scale, entrepreneurial, quasi-private organi-zations, said Judy. From his review of actual orders forcomputers at the Soviet Ministry of Electronics, Judy said that"the preponderance of people seeking to buy computers are incoops." Why are cooperatives interested in computers? Perhapsto produce software, Judy speculated, because that averts theneed for supply inputs from the outside, which could be veryunreliable.

It may be more useful to ask whether computers will driveadministrative change rather than administrative reform, saidGlenn Schweitzer, Director of Soviet and East European Affairsat the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council.Reform may or may not occur; change will almost certainly occurin at least two sectors: Soviet program budgeting, which isusing computers to draw in more participants, and computerizedmanagement information systems, which can force managers tothink through problems they might otherwise pass over.

Since micro-computerization is at such an early stage inthe Soviet Union, said Dr. Murray Feshbach, Research Professorin the Department of Demography at Georgetown University, itmay be premature to make predictions. Two years ago, forexample, only 1.6% of students in the ninth through twelfthgrades actually had access to a computer even though nearly allof them were required to take computer courses. Given thenascent stages of computerization and political liberalization,Feshbach called it "wishful thinking" to postulate one oranother social impact right now.

Returning to the question at hand -- Will computertechnologies tend to promote decentralization or centralizationof authority? -- Leonard R. Sussman, Senior Scholar inInternational Communications at Freedom House, an organizationthat monitors human rights, is optimistic. He believes "thepotential for a Hegelian synthesis, resulting in a higher andhigher level of decentralization, is there. I don't think theSoviets have a choice at this point." For the moment, what isnoteworthy, said Sussman, is that "the periphery [of the Sovietcitizenry] is speaking to the periphery," as seen in thediverse citizen-contributors to glasnost magazine. TheCommunist Party may be destined to have only "a central impactrather than central control," he said

In considering the question of centralizing/decentralizingimpact, Charles Zraket urged that participants make adistinction "between what happens within an organization that

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builds and operates a computer system, and the impact that thatorganization has on the outside world." The organization ofinformation within an organization can be very decentralized inoperation, but its impact on the outside world can be verycentralized, said Zraket, citing his work in designing computersystems for the Internal Revenue Service, the F.B.I.'s NationalCrime Information Center, the State Department, and theDepartment of Defense.

Furthermore, decentralized communications does notnecessarily imply decentralized control, Zraket pointed out.Within large, professional research organizations such as theMITRE Corporation, he said, communications can be quitedecentralized among researchers even while policy controlremains quite centralized among top management.

Goodman's Historical Reviewof Soviet Com uterization

Dr. Seymour E. Goodman, an expert on Soviet science andtechnology and Professor of Management Information Systems andPolicy at the University of Aiizona, also bridled at thecentralization/decentralizatior. dichotomy. The model forSoviet mainframe computerization has been one of "distributedhierarchy," in which Moscow nas sought to strengthen itscentralized authority via computers while leaving localenterprises with some limited autonomy.

In a major computerization drive conducted over the past20 years, the Soviets introduced thousands of mainframecomputers into enterprises throughout the U.S.S.R. Despiteintensive investment and Party commitment, the effort hasessentially failed.

Why? "Computing, for whatever it enables, exists in amuch larger web of organizations," explained Goodman. Thenature of this "web" has a lot to do with whether computeriza-tion can succeed or not. A Soviet factory must interact notonly with its normal production suppliers and customers, butalso computer and software suppliers, maintenance workers, andoftnn, the local Communist Party leadership. The relationshipsamong these groups are not conducive to computerization, to putit mildly, Goodman reported.

"In terms of base technical support, the people who usecomputers in a Soviet enterprise are in deep trouble," he said,because of the unreliable supplies of spare parts, electricalpower, floppy discs, paper -- everything you can think )f I

Nothing is too small to throw i monkey wrench into the basiccomputing capability," Goodman stressed.

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In this context, questions of centralized or decentralizedauthority are not: as germane as the mere ability of a Sovietenterprise to run a reliable computer operation. If sparecomputer parts can take twr years to arrive and the local Partyofficials are clamoring for greater output, the typical factorymanager is not eager to make his enterprise more dependent oncomputers, said Goodman.

"No one really quite knows how to run a modern high-techorganization in the Soviet Union neither Marx nor Lenin toldthem how to do it," he said. It is impossible to run a squeakyclean enterprise because so much gray-market dealing anacreative accounting is needed simply to function in the Sovieteconomy.

Given these norms of economic life, a computer createsmore probJems than it solves for the typical Soviet enterprise.Either you use the couputer to run a fictional "virtualcompany," in which case the computer becomes an extra burden,or you try to use it as a useful, Western-style managementtool, creating "an audit trail that never existed before,"said Goodman. For many reasons, "there's a great disincentiveto using these machines," he said, even with perestroika.

The portrait of Soviet computerization is far differentwhen it comes to the militarl, and research and developmentefforts, said Charles Zraket. The Soviets are quite advancedin the cognitive sciences and computer design, even if theirtechnological artifacts are not as good as ours; theirmathematical algorithms are sophisticated and can compensatesomewhat for hardware deficiencies; they understand communica-tions theory; and they can exercise great control over theirnuclear weapons via communications links. In describing Sovietmilitary computers and communications, Zraket used words like"effective," "impressive," and "reliable, survivable androbust,

III. A PORTRAIT OF SOVIET COMPUTER AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES

What are the noteworthy aspects of computinuand telecommunications in Soviet society todayl

In this session, Dr. Seymour F. Goodman elaborated on theportrait of Soviet computing that he sketched earlier. He.:eferred participants interested in technical detail to a recentreport, Global TrenqsinComputrjechnology.andTheirImpetonE?TortControl, published by the National Academy Press in 1988.A lengthy chapter by William McHenry provides the most detailed,

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up-to-date assessment of Soviet computerization publiclyavailable.

Goodman reported that there are four noteworthy areas toex,lore: the Soviets' new rhetorical emphasis on computers,bureaucratic reorganization to foster computer use, technologytransfer efforts, and development of new computing andtelecommunications hardware.

1) In the past several years, there has been "an intensi-fication of rhetoric relating to computers," said Goodman."Computers are a 'centerpiece technology' in perestroika....Infact, perestroika is to some extent driven by a Soviet perceptionthat they are in deep trouble, in terms of technologicalinnovation and diffusion. No technology has a higher profile inmaking the Soviets aware of these problems than informationtechnologies." So far, however, the increased volume of"computer rhetoric" has had little substantive impact.

2) One major Soviet strategy for dealing with itscomputerization problems has been to create new bureaucraticorganizations, such as multidisciplinary scientific/technicalcomplexes, new state committees, and new cooperatives.Despite the changes, "few if any of these organizations havedramatically improved the bottom-line situation, and some of themare falling apart,4 reported Goodman.

3) Technology transfer remains a key Soviet strategy forimproving the nation's computer capabilities. While technologytransfer efforts resemble those of the detente period in the1970s, today's technology transfer has both "a differentcharacter and new prominence," said Goodman. "There is a newawareness of what's going on globally."

4) Soviet development of new computing and telecommunica-tions hardware has been modest and evolutionary over the past fewyears, especially compared to global computer developments.There has b::.,en a sequence of unimpressive machines and aninterest melding telecommunications and computers and indeveloping local area. networks, Goodman reported. But thedistribution of any new technology is so slow that it diminishesthe impor_ance of new technical developments.

To put the Soviet computer situation into a global context,Goodman related it to three worldwide trends in computing:globalization, commoditization, and a broadening technologicalipectrum. In cich of these areas, the Soviets have "missed theboat," said Goodman.

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The212halizationofcomputers has been "one of the mostextraordinary dispersions of technology in the history oftechnology," said Goodman. "Any nation that has any claims oraspirations to be modern must find a place for itself with thesetechnologies." It's not just a matter of acquiring machine x;the technologies are "working their way into the fiber ofimportant sectors of these nations' economies."

Soviet physical scientists and Party leaders concerned abouttheir nation's world image are not happy to be left standing onthe sidelines, said Goodman. The disappointme.t is especiallyacute because the Soviets were pioneers in much of the technologyand are now being outperformed by many minor countries such asTaiwan and South Korea (and even more annoying, by its long-timerival, China) .

"Commoditization" -- the transformation of exotictechnologies barely out of the lab into mass-produced items ofinternational commerce -- is another area where the SL-iets havefallen down. They are still struggling to produce tensthousands of eight-bit microcomputers, which don't have adequatememory capacity, monitors or hard disks. The only technologythat is being commoditized in any volume is telephones, part of amajor Soviet effort to make them widely available.

h:b2E2asiglinatfEID212Rical spectrum" -- the filling in ofproduct "holes" in the multidimensional spectrum cf informationtechnologies -- is another major global trend in computing. Newproducts with more specific uses are constantly being created;old products are being given broader uses and made moreaccessible. A key example is highspeed computing, once acapability sold by only one company to major institutional users.Now there are dozens of machines produced that have some claim tosuper-computing performance in one domain or another (a fact thatgreatly complicates technology transfer policy).

Here, again, the Soviets are failing, except perhaps in thearea of high-speed computing. Even here, Soviet computing islargely in the 1 to 5 MIPS range, which is not high-speedcomputing by world standards.

The Soviets, especially the military, are intensive users ofsophisticated satellite communications, said Charles Zraket ofthe MITRE Corporation. As the military upg:ades its satellitetechnology from C-band to Ku-band (a more powerful part of thespectrum), it may turn more of its old technology over to thecivilian economy. While ground-based telecommunications may belagging, the infrastructure of point-to-point satellitetelecommunications is "robust," said Zraket.

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Soviet Telecommunications

Professor Robert W. Campbell of Indiana University said thatthe Soviet telecommunications system, as a point-to-pointswitched system for transmitting data, voice, facsimiledocuments, etc., is "utterly inadequate to the needs of a modernindustrial society." It's "too thin," for one thing, in terms ofthe numbers of households and businesses served. The UnitedStates has some 180 million telephones; the U.S.S.R. has about 30million.

Second, the Soviet telecommunications system is not well-integrated. "Its architecture is strange in that it does notaccomplish what should be the main goal of a telephone system --to put everybody in touch with everybody else in a shortinteractive cycle."

The Soviet leadership has become aware of its telecommun-ications deficiencies and is trying to improve things, as part ofits drive to "informatize" Soviet society. Many of the chronicproblems in the system stem from the low status that thetelecommunications sector has in the Soviet economy. To obtainequipment, it must rely on the military/industrial establishment,which is not responsive to civilian needs, and on imports fromEastern Europe. The Soviets' indigenous capabilities forproducing civilian telecommunications are "very, very weak," saidCampbell.

In revamping their telecommunications system, the Sovietsmust also find ways to give greater priority to the needs of thecivilian population and production enterprises, and not just theneeds or wants of the Party hierarchy.

Could new information technologies serve as an autonomousforce for social change in the Soviet Union? Campbell doubts it,explaining: "Technologies are carefully shaped to fit theimperatives of an existing organization. On the other hand, ifyou want to democratize [Soviet institutions], all thesecommunications technologies could be very important" -- somethingthat is perhaps evident in Gorbachev's many policy changes.

Despite obvious problems in Soviet telecommunications, weshould remember, said Wilson P. Dizard of the Center forStrategic and International Studies, that the Soviets are thesecond-largest producer of telecommunications equipment in theworld. Furthermore, they are starting to import very goodFinnish equipment; they recently struck a major deal to importSpanish telephone equipment; and they are now negotiating withAlcatel, the French company, to acquire equipment. Big changesare underway.

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Despite these developments, importing telecommunicationsequipment if, not Gorbachev's top priority, said Charles Zraket.He really wants to build "the downstream infrastructure that willallow the Soviets to build the equipment themselves rather thanimport it," he noted. "But that's a much more complicatedtechnology transfer problem, because you're not going to get[foreign companies] to go into joint ventures withoutrevolution in how the Soviet market system works."

Are the Soviets Capable ofprodurechEuimenty_

If the Soviets are to develop an indigenous computer andtelecommunications capability, they will need to radically changethe structure of their economy, predicted Richard W. Judy of theHudson Institute.

"The problems of the supply system are really quiteincredible," saii Judy, "because any given producer has to haveinputs from a large number of suppliers, each of which is a semi-monopolist who doesn't care about producers. And so the systemfalls down." Judy provided the group with a case study of theSoviets' abysmal failure at manufacturing the Korvet, a fairlybasic educational computer workstation.

Judy continued: "The Soviet [supply] system workedreasonably well when the kind of goods produced were reasonablysimple and didn't require fine tolerances or inputs from a largenumber of sources." Furthermore, the military can generallyobtain high-quality products because it is "an informed,empowered customer." But the civilian economy is not empowered,said Judy, "so there's no discipline of the market."

"They realize they have to change the essence of the systemand open it up to the rest of the world," said Judy. "But tryingto pull that off is a very difficult job. Look at the history ofreform in Eastern Europe and China. It makes you wonder if itcan ever be done in the state sector. Or do you have to buildaround it with new kinds of entities, private or cooperative,where the market feedback mechanism can work?"

Alice H. Henkin, Director of the Aspen Institute's Programon Justice and Society, asked if ideology is hobbling the advanceof Soviet technology. Professor Loren Graham, the historian ofSoviet science and technology, replied that ideology did have aninhibiting effect until Gorbachev came to power, but "for nowthey've faced that issue and dealt with it." The mainimpediments to technological advance are not ideological, saidGraham, but "economic and systemic."

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The nation whose technological advance is most hobbled byideology, said Graham, may just be the United States. "We arestill completely hung up on the issue of technology transfer [ofcomputers and telecommunications] to the Soviet Union when, interms of international competition, the Soviets are zilch on thescale." Meanwhile, the Japanese and others are using ourtechnology to enhance their competitive position in the worldeconomy, he said. "We find ourselves incapable -- I think forideological reasons -- of defining our national security ineconomic terms, and not just military terms."

Charles Zrak3t speculated that when it comes to producingcutting-edge information technologies, the Soviets' chiefhandicap may sae cultural -- just as the Japanese seem to enjoy a"cultural" advantage in their superiority in high-techindustries.

Catherine Fitzpatrick of Helsinki WaLlh suspects that theroots of poor production quality may lie in a psychology andsociology of "crime" in the Soviet Union. "When you take thepopulation and make their natural impulses and ways of gettingthings done quickly crimes, it has an insidious influence onpeople's consciousness. They are used to the devious approach,rather than doing things straight-forwardly," said Fitzpatrick."Crime becomes a form of autonomy -- a w,y to distinguishyourself from the system. That breeds a kind of malice if you'reat the low end of the workplace," which can result 3n poorworkmanship.

But isn't there a contradiction here? Michael Riceinterjected. f the underlying cultural characteristics of theSoviet people are so much to blame for the Soviets' laggardt chnological progress, why then is military technology sosuperior? Might this disparity refute any "cultural"explanations?

Professor Goodman of the University of Arizona replied thatproduction quality is a problem in both the civilian and militarysectors. The military achieves higher performance through moreexacting quality control and by skimming the highest-qualityunits from production runs. Also, military hardware can beimproved through a few key links with the outside world;producing massive numbers of microcomputers for the civilianeconomy is a different sort of challenge.

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IV. DOES COMPUTERIZATION REQUIRE AN OPEN SOCIETY?

IRAjmostsaerisociety the necessary pre-condition to Soviet achievement of theefficiencies and advances that computer-based....mo.escanteciraailesasab292

Loren Graham of the M.I.T./Harvard Russian Research Centeropened this session by offering his thoughts on this question.After noting the remarkable liberalization of Soviet politicaland intellectual life over the past five years, Graham is ledto conclude, "No longer is censorship a major impediment tocomputerization. Other factors are." Chief among these otherfactors are economic backwardness, cultural attitudes, and thebureaucratic tradition, he said.

Graham put forth the provocative hypothesis that theeconomies of the Soviet Union and the United States may becomemore alike than different within twenty or thirty years. Bothmay be plagued by "common diseases," which Graham identified as"a greAer desire to lead a comfortable, intellectuallystimuling life rather than a practical, productive andprofitable one," and an overemphasis on theoretical studies,short-term financial outcomes, and non-productive activitieswith a corresponding underemphasis on manufacturing, long-termmanagement strategies and education.

Graham concurs with Seymour Goodman that Soviet societywill see new "islands of information in a society which stillrestricts information," a trend that will inevitably accelerateas computers spread. "If computers are spreading at the sametime that the taboos are falling," said Graham, "what doessamizdat mean?" When one participant protested that the Sovietleadership will not surrender its power so easily, Grahamreplied that "they may be insisting on a prohibition that hasno bite."

Dr. Goodman suggested that the censorship model thatprevails in Hungary might evolve in the Soviet Union, in whichofficial censors occasionally mount crackdowns on blatantlyprovocative works but generally stay in the shadows, a "latentforce until a boundary is crossed."

Catherine Fitzpatrick agreed. Yes, censorship of aliteral, mechanical variety may diminish, yet other, moresubtle forms of censorship will remain: stories yanked fromofficial publications, press blackouts, etc.

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Murray Feshbach of Georgetown University believes thatthere will be less censorship in the future, but that thefreedom of expression permitted will be uneven. "It will bedifferent in different parts of the country. It will vary bytopic, place and person." Leonard Sussman of Freedom Housebelieves that, despite much liberalization, "the volume ofcensorable material, especially religiots and nationalisticmaterial, will increase considerably and be a source oftension."

Toppling old taboos by relaxing censorship does not havepermanent results in any case, said Catherine Fitzpatrick."It's like shooting moving ducks in a gallery -- they keepcoming back."

Graham did not dispute that important forms of censorshipmay persist, but clarified his point: "Censorship is no longera major reason for the lag of computerization in the SovietUnion. I think in the past it was." If Gorbachev wanted topick the single most important policy change to unleashcomputerization, it would not be the elimination of old taboosabout controlling information, said Graham. It would be to letthe economy go free -- entrepreneurialism, open buyer-sellerrelationships, etc.

"But freedom of expression has a lot to do with a freeeconomy," countered Nicholas Ulanov. Graham agreed, but againstressed, "Over the past five years, the boviet Union has gonefrom a point in which the control of information was a veryserious fetter to the computer industry, to a point where it isno longer the most serious fetter."

Professor Campbell of Indiana University noted that theSoviets have recently made a radical shift in priorities withrespect to telephones, a technology traditionally regarded withgreat suspicion. The boviet leadership now wants to havetelephones in 90% of all households by the year 2000. Thecurrent five-year plan allocates some 85% of new telephoneinstallation to households, sometimes by taking phone linesaway from businesses.

Nicholas Ulanov of McKinsey & Company took issue withthose who believe that a relative lack of censorship is enoughto stimulate computerization. he cited differences in workers'behavior in the U.S. when an organization has "work group(network) computing" as opposed to stand-alone personalcomputers. Although the former scenario may encourage greatercollaboration, data-sharing, and centralized control, a certainamount of creativity is lost in the process because "peoplestart worrying that what they put into their private,

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uncensored E-mail (electronic mail) may get read by somebodyelse. The data is accessible to people. It doesn't actuallyhave to be read by anybody to affect people's behavior."

If computer networks can stifle openness in relativelybenign organizational cultures in the U.S., imagine the impactin the Soviet Union where the KGB is often snooping about,suggested Ulanove "In order to have a genuinely unfetteredtechnological surge in computing," Ulano'c stated, "you don'tneed just relative openness, you need genuine openness. Andwe're not talking about a genuinely open Soviet Union."

Unlike censorship of other communications media,computers, once widely dispersed in the Soviet Union, maypermanently elude official control, said Wilson P. Dizard ofthe Center for Strategic and International Studies. Hewondered how Soviet leaders could control computers if therewere enough computers using electronic telephone switchinglines in ten years. "Interactive, unmediated networks may befeasible and the government may not be able to enforce itscontrol of computers," Dizard said.

Zraket pointed out that "there's no network you can buildthat can't be monitored." Dizard replied that the sheer numberof computers would make that less feasible. To which Zraketreplied that Soviet authorities could nonetheless targetcertain people for monitoring.

How Might the Soviets Overcomethe Economic Obstacles to Computerization?

Paving discussed how censorship may or may not impedecomputerization, Rice urged the group to assess the economicobstacles and how they might be overcome. Are there stories ofcomputers being used successfully, perhaps in cooperatives?

Since 1983, coops in Hungary have emerged as successfulusers of computers, reported Richard Judy of the HudsonInstitute. The coops import AT computer equipment from the FarEast and develop their own software, which they then sell toHungarian state enterprises and other coops. They earn thehard currency to import PCs through counter-trade of Hungariancommodities such as furniture and folk art. Although the coopssuffer a relative disadvantage from the exchange, theycompensate for it with domestic sales of their software.

Soviet coops are more likely to sell services than goods,said Paul Spindel, President of Scarsdale Systems Group. "Thecoops sre PCs not so much as a way to provide better servicesas a way to obtain money through the blackmarket," he said.

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For example, a PC brought into the country for $1,000 can besold for $10,000 on the black market. Such profiteering is akeen motive for most of the 100 coops that 1..?. encountered.Such uses of PCs, others dryly noted, are not especiallyhealthy examples of computerization.

Dr. Harley Balzer of Georgetown University said he thinksit unlikely that there will be mass availability of microcom-puters in the Soviet Union within ten or even twenty years.The number of units that can be produced through serialproduction is "astoundingly low" -- in the hundreds, forexample. But importing PCs is difficult because of the greatcompetition for use of hard currency.

The Soviets did strike a barter deal with Peru two yearsago to produce 100,000 PCs over a five-year period, said Dr.Goodman. But the number of machines produced so far is quitesmall and their quality mediocre, he said, adding, "This is theother superpower' nickle-and-diming their PC problem!"

Do Joint Ventures Hold Promisefor Soviet Computerization?

Michael Rice posed the question: Are there steps that theSoviets could take to help them achieve technological advancesgradually, without disrupting their existing economic and

political fabric?

Nicholas Ulanov said that he once studied over 500ventures in high-technology electronics between multinationalpartners between 1980 and 1985. "Four out of five jointventures failed to meet the criteria that both parties hadstated as desirable at the start of the joint venture," hereported, "and many of the remaining one out of five companiessimply could not be tracked down."

These results don't mean that one of the parties wasn'tvery satisfied, but both, at least, were not. Commoncomplaints were that the technology had not been transferred;the production capability did not exist; the resultingenterprise was not profitable; and/or the output did not equalthe input.

For all these reasons, Ulanov is skeptical of jointventures. Why then do companies still enter into such deals?"There are muliple motives," Ulanov explained. "You may sayyou want a profitable enterprise. But what you really may wantis access to the Soviet market. You may think that someday, byhaving a presence there, it will be worthwhile to be there,even if it doesn't make money now."

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Glenn Schweitzer of the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council sees little promise for jointventures in computer production. Among the areas in which sucharrangements will be made are health care, construction andfood processing, said Schweitzer -- areas in which the resultswill have visible public impact.

Dr. Murray Feshbach said that most joint ventures with theSoviets have been "fairly unsuccessful" and that the Japanesehad had sour experiences with such arrangements. Jointventures make sense primarily as "long-term, front-endinvestments for what you think the market will be." Changesare underway, but they will take five or ten years and requireSoviet entry into GATT and the IMF, both of which in turn willrequire price reforms to deal with the soviet budget deficit.

Feshbach sees the soviets following the economic model ofthe Swedes and Norwegians: using the word socialism butallowing private enterprise and using coops sensibly. Oneportent of this likelihood, he said, is Gorbachev's explicit,approving references to the Swedish and Norwegian models in hisJanuary 6, 1989, speech to academicians and culturalleaders. Also, Feshbach reported that in January 1989e therewere five soviet deputy ministers of different ministries and20 senior aides visiting Sweden to learn more about the Swedishexperience.

In assessing the promise of perestroika, ProfessorCampbell urged the more realistic perspective provided byhistory. "There is no way that joint ventures or coops, evenif given great latitude, will transform the Soviet Union,"Campbell contended. Innovations in those sectors "will workonly in small parts of the economy that do not jostle the stateeconomy and aren't big enough to attract the attention of thebureaucrats, etc. If you're going to make an enclave that'sgoing to transform the economy, it has to be big and have abase. You can't just get a few entrepreneurs out of thewoodwork to form cooperatives and a few foreign companies witha long-term view." Campbell said that the Chinese model, ofbringing in foreigners to operate entire facilities, holds thebest short-term hope for the Soviet Union.

Even innovations tested in limited territorial or sectoralsettings may not be big enough, Professor Campbell added.Remember, it has taken Hungary twenty years to reform itseconomy, and it still has serious fiscal, tax, and propertyrights problems to resolve. It will take at least that longfor the Soviets to make significant progress.

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For the foreseeable future, business success in the SovietUnion will go only to those "individuals who beat their headsagainst walls, break rules, take chances, and go againstrestrictions," said Dr. Harley Balzer of Georgetown University.

Despite such grim forecasts, participants noted that theperestroika reforms place grand expectations on computers. Inlight of how computers have not lived up to such expectationsin the U.S., particularly in education, Professor Sherry Turkleof M.I.T. suggested that "our myths about what computers can doare catching!" Based on her study of computers in Americaneducation, Turkle expressed doubts that computerization in theschools will do much for the Soviets. It may even make themless able to come to terms with the emerging computer world ofparallel processing.

Dr. Seymour Goodman, the scholar of Soviet technologicalprogress, agrees that computers in Soviet education are notlikely to accomplish much. "But put yourself in their shoes.You've got limited resources. YOU want to do something thatwill have high profile that may have some substantive impactfor the future. You look for something with relatively lowrisk. It is easier, after all, to put computers in schoolsthan to build 32-bit microprocessors." So the great campaignfor Soviet computerization has fallen to the schools "almostby default," said Goodman, adding, "We're talking about adesperate situation here."

"Soviet society has always had to have an ideology oftechnological transcendence," explained Dr. Harley Balzer."Every five or ten years, there's been some technology [heldout as a salvation] that will allow them to leapfrog over theproblems of backwardness and catch up with the West. Everysingle time, it's been a disappointment."

i. SOVIET COMPUTER CULTURE AS A REFORMIST VANGUARD?

Is there evidence of a growing computer culturein the Soviet Union (or other Eastern-bloccountries) that can promote or benefit from2.142122ELATI29191LE91-101

Catherine Fitzpatrick of Helsinki Watch opened thissession by telling of the role computers and other informationtechnologies now play in the samizdat community, who compriseone segment of the Soviet computer culture.

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"People have PCs; they use them; they work their tinyprinters to death, using them 24 hours a day," saidFitzpatrick. The source of many computers is Soviet touristsreturning home from the West. An estimated 20,000 Sovietcitizens travel abroad on tourist visas each year, and 10,000Soviet emigres return home each year. The magnitude of thiscommerce in PCs might be suggested by the New York-to-MoscowPan Am flight, said Dr. Feshbach; the aisles and overhead binsare absolutely glutted with consumer electronics. Sovietcustoms allows returning tourists to bring in one computer andprinter for personal use per visit. (Fitzpatrick said that itis also now possible for samizdat writers to fax documents tomany western European cities, which in turn can be faxed to theUnited States.)

Among the samizdat community, said Fitzpatrick, thecomputer has taken on another function besides printing, word-processing and memory storage; it also serves as unit ofcurrency on the black market, where one computer can sell forbetween 30,000 and 50,000 rubles. Why do samizdat publisherswant rubles? "To pay typists and to bribe Xeroxers. That'show it works, because these people can no longer get servicesfor free. It's very much a payas-you-go situation. partly asa result of the emancipation of females."

It is not illegal to own PCs or fax machines, but Sovietauthorities sometimes seize the machines as "evidence" to proveanti-Soviet publishing. Until recently, the relevant part ofSoviet law governing such machines was Article 70. This codeis now being revised and reissued as Article 98, which clearlyforbids "appeals to overthrow or violently change the constitu-tional order" (an apparent derivation of the U.S. Smith Act!).PCs can be sized under language that prohibits treasonousappeals made "with use of technical means intended for, orcapable of, duplication...." The penalty: 10,000 rubles fineand seven years labor camp.

In December 1988, new laws governing cooperatives werepassed that ban (among other activities) book publishing,lectures, educational cooperations. Some activities such aseditorial production and printing are permissible if they areconducted in conjunction with existing establishments.

Given the new atmosphere of glasnost, thu role of thesamizdat press has changed, said Fitzpatrick. "It serves toconsolidate interest groups and create cohesion among peers andnationality groups," she said. "It resembles the inhouse organof nonprofits that we're familiar with."

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Nonetheless, samizdat publications also exert pressure onthe establishment press. "There's a hastiness [in the estab-lishment press] to get things into print and carve out theterritory for what an event means, before it gets taken over bythe private press," said Fitzpatrick. Or sometimes an eventdescribed in the alternative press -- e.g., a human rightsabuse -- may be written about in the official press monthslater. In this sense, the dissident press sets the limits ofpermissible discourse. As the English-language editor of theMoscow News told Leonard Sussman of Freedom House, "I readPravda to get the party line; they read me to see how far theycan go."

Context is particularly important in what sorts of publicexpression are permissible, said Fitzpatrick. The PopularFront gives lip service to democratic socialism and obtainspermits to hold public meetings, and it is not harassed. Butthe Democratic Union, which does not observe the same niceties,does get harassed despite very similar public statements.

A Portrait oIftMElerging2112021er Culture

What about that segment of Soviet computer culture that isnot political? asked Michael Rice. Does it exist? How does itfunction?

At the USIA information technologies tour in 1988, PaulSpindel found three primary groups who were interested in theexhibit: 1) Scientists and engineers who were English-speaking, well-connected, and reasonably informed; 2) Youthfulhackers who knew the underground U.S. computer literature; and3) Women, who comprise 90% of the trainees for computerprogramming jobs. As a group, the women seemed attentive andcurious but submissive, said Spindel.

As far as a "computer culture" among the Soviet public atlarge, that is still many years away. Of those Soviet citizenswho attended the USIA exhibit of fairly basic PCs and relatedequipment, "80 to 90% thought it was science fiction," saidElizabeth Buxton, who accompanied the tour. In major cities,between 5,000 and 15,000 Soviet citizens lined up to see theexhibit each day.

There is "not much question" that there is a growingcomputer culture, said Dr. Harley Balzer, citing a "wealth ofanecdotal evidence" compiled by S. Frederick Starr. WhenBalzer brought along copies of the American-published Byte,magazine to a Soviet school, the students "pounced" on it withenthusiasm.

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Balzer reported that Fred Starr believes the emergence ofvarious computer-oriented groups in the Soviet Union representsa decisive shift in the direction of communications in thatsociety. Balzer himself is more skeptical, and believes anymajor shifts will be gradual and not uni-directional.

One vibrant computer subculture is growing up aroundSoviet computer clubs, which are both meeting places forexperts and learning places for novices, especially children.The first of these clubs was founded in Moscow by GaryKasparov. During summers, it sponsors a computer camp. SherryTurkle described her June 1988 weekend visit to the camp, heldin a school on the far outskirts of Moscow.

The organizers of the camp had made an effort to draw fromthe "two cultures" -- children from the computer club and froma youth organization devoted to nature and camping. The campalternated activities in archaeology and history with computeraccess and instruction. The head counselor was a high schoolhistory teacher with a special interest in archaeology;computer instruction was provided by mathematicians associatedwith the hasparov club, most of them drawn from a network ofgraduates of Moscow School 67, know for its special program inmathematics.

The 50 campers ranged in age from 8 to 15. Of the campersdrawn from the Kasparov club, most seemed to come from alitefamilies -- their fathers were engineers, professors andscientists. The "Kasparov" campers were all male and highlytalented. Admission to the club is very selective; for every30 students who apply, only one is chosen. ,And they werehighly focused in their interests. Although the camp leadersplanned a schedule that alternated archaeological digs (helpingto excavate a nearby church) with computer activities, thecampers' 7...17k of enthusiasm for the first and commitment to thesecond had turned computer use into an activity that occupiesmany of the children for most of the day, with the favoriteactivities being writing programs for computer games, both inBASIC and machine language. The computer room was male-dominated and expert-dominated. Girls were timid about comingin as were boys who were less advanced in their computerskills. (They were trying to get separate hours when theycould have the computers to themselves.)

Turkle described an atmosphere of contrast and complexity:A high-tech curriculum and highly charged conversation aboutRussian nationalism, religion, the importance of spiritualvalues. Children were hungry for computer expertise as a wayto travel more, have access to money, foreigners and freecontact with other Soviets.

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However interesting the Soviet hacker culture, Alex Beam,a journalist who reported from Moscow for three years for theBoston Globe, believes that it holds little promise for Sovietsociety in general. Hacker culture "is a thin layer ofchildren from the technocratic elite" and "is not even a majortrend," he said. Dr. Balzer agreed, noting that a colleague ofhis who just wrote a book on Soviet popular culture does notmention hackers at all.

But Paul Spindel pointed out that hacker culture doessuggest a certain "intellectual independence," and that is anencouraging development. And Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer, ananthropologist who has studied Soviet cultures, observed that,while hackers are not large in number, they "come from elitebackgrounds and may have a greater influence when they growup."

Glenn Schweitzer of the National Research Council objectedthat the term "hacker" has implications that don't really existin the Soviet Union. Young computer buffs are earnest, career-minded individuals, not high-tech renegades of a counterculturemovement.

"What can a computer culture do to help perestroika andglasnost?" asked Gary Chapman of Computing Professionals forSocial Responsibility. "My answer would be, 'Not much.'What the Soviets really need is a vast transformation inthinking about their politics and economy."

"One myth of the computer culture is tLat it isnecessarily individualistic and entrepreneurial and thus is ina privileged relationship with democratic institutions," saidSherry Turkle. "The Soviet experience is turning this mythinto a working hypothesis about the relationship of computeruse and political awareness. My current observation in theSoviet Union is that with computer expertise, people feel thatthey have a stake in the future, know the value of their work,and find lack of access to people, information and marketsunnatural. I believe they are an imTortant growing point ofcivil society."

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VI. SHOULD "THE WEST" ENCOURAGE SOVIET COMPUTFRIZATION?

How actively should "the West' encourage computerdevelopment in "the East"? Should there be anexplicit strategic or human-rights tradeoff foroffering assistance ventures,or loosening high-tech export restrictions?

Since the arrival of glasnost, said Wilson Dizard of theCenter for Strategic and International Studies, formulatingU.S. policy toward the Soviet Union has become a more complexenterprise. New changes are so rapid.

One initial complexity in answering the session'squestion, Dizard pointed out, is the precise meaning of "theWest," which, besides the United States, includes manydifferent "players" such as the OECD counties and majorcomputer exporters such as Korea, Taiwan and Brazil. "TheEast," too, is an agglomeration of many nations with differentrelationships to each other and to "the West."

"A second problem," said Dizard, "is factoring out the'computer relations' from among the whole tangle ofrelationships that the U.S. has with the Soviet Union andEastern Europe. Obviously, computers are important but they'reonly one piece of the jigsaw puzzle, which includes humanrights, trade, and many other factors."

Dizard identified three primary policy approaches towardthe Soviet Union these days: 1) Hardliners, personified byRichard Perle, the former Department of Defense official, whobelieve this is the time to get tough with the Soviet Union.2) Business interests, who believe the U.S. should activelyseek out Soviet trade because it will help ease the U.S. tradedeficit. Moreover, if we don't trade with the Soviets, theJapanese, Koreans and others will. 3) Supporters of Gorbachev,wno believe that if the U.S. and other nations do not helpGorbachev's reforms succeed, some new era of Stalin-likeoppression may replace them. Proponents of this approach evensuggest something resembling a Marshall Plan for EasternEurope.

In a sense, technology transfer is the central issue inthis debate because, even in talking about basic computersystems, the key issue is the disparity of technologicaldevelopment between the Soviet Union and the United States.

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"We are already encouraging Soviet computer development ina lot of little ways that add up," Di:lard pointer out. CoComitself has been easing some restrictions on comraGer exports.Also, the Soviets benefit from the osmosis of commerciallyavailable U.S. computer goods and publications, even if theflow is sometimes circuitous or informal.

What would be the impact if current restrictions ontechnology exports to the Soviet Union were loosened? Dizarddoubts that "the floodgates would be opened" because theSoviets are somewhat reluctant to become overly dependent uponforeign technology. Also, the Soviets do not have amplesupplies of hard currency to spend on foreign lomputer goods,nor do they have much to sell to the U.S. in return.

Dizard's conclusion: "Computers and other high-techresources are a small but important part of the overallstrategic relationship with the Soviets. There is room for aprudent policy that ties our interests in this area with otherfactors, such as human rights, conventional force levels inEurope, Soviet policy in Eastern Europe, conventional trade,and participation in GATT down the road. We do have aninterest in a more stable, less aggressive Soviet regime."

Robert Karl Manoff of New York University's Center forWar, Peace and the News Media, observed that "any position ontrade and technology policy is in effect predicated uponinternal Soviet political developments." What's been missingfrom U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union, said Manoff, is anappreciation for the emergence of a civil society in the SovietUnion, with all that implies -- genuine political discourse, arudimentary electoral process, political factions, etc.

Nor do we have a "sufficiently historical" understandingof how the cur::ent balance of forces in the Soviet Union willbe altered in the future. "We should factor into our judgmentsthe real symbiotic relationship that is developing in thatsociety between economics and politics," he urged.

What shoe ".d guide our behavior, said Manoff, is theprogress the Soviets make in becoming a more "normal" nation inthe community of nations: "As the Soviet Union tries tonormalize its political and economic processes, we as a nationshould move to normalize our intercourse with that society. Weought to put our relations on a more even keel -- 'most favorednation' status, if that's what it would be called."

Richard Judy of the Hudson Institute said he starts withthe premise that the U.S. does not have "a long-term,inevitable geostrategic conflict of interest Will the Soviet

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Union." Accordingly, our policies, said Judy, should encouragethe current wave of political reforms; a more pluralisticeconomy and polity; a devolution of power from the Kremlin tothe rest of the nation; a diminished Soviet hegemony in iasternEurope in some orderly way; and greater Soviet focus ondomestic problems. If trade can play an ameliorative role inthese areas, said Judy, then it should be eniloyed to do so.

Charles Zraket, President of the MITRE Corporation,believes we should encourage exports of commercially availablecomputer technologies but hold back on critical military anddefense technologies. The real issue, said Zraket, is thepolitical framework in which trade would occur. "What are ourgoals there? How would they affect our allies in Europe andJapan? What are our relations with them? What restrictions,if any, would we have on their transfer of technology?"

Zraket said that a MITRE study conducted ten years agofound that well over 80% of technology transfer internationallyis done through multinational corporations, via trade,subsidies, joint ventures, etc. Government-to-governmenttransfers have gotten more publicity, he said, but it has been"pretty ineffective." Technology transfer is not a simpletransfer for artifacts, Zraket emphasized, but a complexprocess in which the receiver-nation must know a great dealabout the technology, including how to organize and deploy it.

Paul Spindel, President of Scarsdale Systems Group,stressed that we currently enjoy a rare "window of opportunity"for U.S. trade with the Soviet Union. Although the Soviets'inability to pay in hard currency is troubling, said Spindel,the United States should nonetheless try to exploit theimmediate trade opportunities.

Leonard Sussman of Freedom House believes that the socialimpact of computers on the Soviet Union will be quite differentfrom the American experience, apart from the unexpectedconsequences. The "networking of networks" and creation of newcitizen feedback channels "must inevitably affect the politicalprocess, as well as certain trade ana social processes," hesaid. Whether the U.S. decides to take a hardline stance,promote business intercourse, or actively provide economic aid,Sussman said that "letting nature take its course" may be allwe can do to affect internal Soviet polity.

Gary Chapman of Computing Professionals for SocialResponsibility said he was skeptical of whether computers cantransform society. While computerization can have a profoundefiact on society, the impact of a "computer culture" would bemarginal, he said. Furthermore, the Soviet's capability of

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buying or producing vast numbers of microcomputers is solimited, said Chapman, that it is almost pointless to speculateabout what possibilities freer trade might provide; analogiesto computerization in the West just don't apply, he said.

Glenn Schweitzer of the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council said, "For the near term, the natureof U.S.-Soviet military confrontation will probably be the mostimportant factor in determining U.S. policy in transferringcomputer technology to the Soviet Union." As for linkagesbetween human rights and technology transfer, Schweitzer saidthat it is very hard to isolate those two factors from thelarger context of U.S.-Soviet relations and strike any sort ofmeaningful tradeoff. computers are a subset of U.S. technologypolicy; human rights are a subset of U.S. foreign policy.

Technology transfer is one of the most important policylevers that the United States possesses, Dr. Seymour Goodman ofthe University of Arizona reminded the group. In a sense, ourtechnological superiority, by itself, has had a powerful impacton the Soviets in changing their perceptions of their economy.

Three main factors have crippled Soviet technologytransfer over the past forty years, Goodman contends:1) Export controls have significantly slowed the developmentof "dual use" technologies (i.e., systems with both militaryand civilian applications). 2) Poor long-term businessopportunities for Western companies have inhibited the sale oftechnology to the Soviets. 3) Self-imposed controls such asprotectionism, secrecy and the isolation of technical expertshave inhibited the development of Soviec technology.

Goodman asked participants to picture the dynamics oftechnology transfer in a graph. One axis represents how activeor passive the recipient is in the technology transferrelationship, while the other axis represents how overt orcovert the means by which the technology was acquired:

covertacquisitior

active relationship

passive relationship

overtacquisition

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The Soviets' policies encourage technology transfer in thebottom left quadrant, which is why their technology has done sopoorly over the past four decades, said Goodman. This quadrantis the least advantageous in terms of dealing with the majortrends in computerization today -- globalization, commoditiza-tion, and a broadening spectrum of technology,

At the same time, these very factors are weakening theeffectiveness of U.S. export controls to the Soviet Union. TheSoviets are more able to acquire low-level technology than everbefore; they are letting their top experts interact more freelywith their foreign counterparts; and they appreciate howbackward their economy is. These factors "should be a veryconscious part of U.S. policy," Goodman urged.

Nicholas Ulanov of McKinsey & Company suggested thaLdifferent technology transfer policies might be appropriate fordifferent levels of technology -- high-tech versus lower-tech,minicomputers and mainframes versus personal computers --because each might 11,,ve different effects on different parts ofSoviet society. Ulanov also suggested that if the U.S. isinterested in spreading technology to Soviet society, it mustlook to the private sector to do so. But that will never occurunless the Soviets find ways to provide "economic value" tosuch transactions, by making hard currency arrangements,copyright and royalty agreements, etc. Ulanov believes EasternEurope is far more capable of providing a hospitable businessclimate than the Soviet Union.

VII. WHAT NEXT? PROPOSALS FOR RESEARCH AND ACTION

What research or action steps would this grouprecommend to uide Western interests in the11129.22f22m2ELna41 Soviet and other Eastern-bloc societies?

Loren Graham of the M.I.T./Harvard Russian Research Centerbelieves it is "worth the risk" to sell computers to the SovietUnion. A worst case scenario would have Gorbachev overthrownand an ugly, new regime installed, which would then use its newtechnologies in ways antithetical to U.S. interests. ButGraham says such consequences would be mitigated by the rapidpace at which information technologies are developing. "Evenif everything went wrong," he speculated, technology would haveadvanced so much within five or ten years that "we wouldn'thave given away the store."

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Richard Judy of the Hudson Institute urged that anl.discussion of technology transfer consider the politicalcontext of Europe. What if a left-Green coalition gainedascendancy in West Germany in 1990, which resulted in a morereceptive German attitude toward the Soviets and a rejection ofCoCom? Furthermore, what if the consolidation of the EuropeanCommon Market in 1992 aetd -fter leads to trade in computerswith the Soviets?

Judy's point, in .'e, is that U.S. attempts tomaintain restrictive tt -gy transfer policies could beundermined by political .es outside of our control. ButNicholas Ulanov respondea eaat Germany and the Common Marketare not likely to trade with the Soviets because the economicbenefits for non-military computer trade "just aren't there."

Seymour Goodman noted that current U.S. technologytransfer rules do not extend down to off-the-shelf computerproducts. "Already the Soviets can legally buy a wide range ofcomputer products that they desperately need. They choose notto. There's no reason to believe that will change if exportcontrol regulations are significantly lifted." In this sense,the future is more a matter of Soviet choice: Does it want toimport foreign technologies?

For Charles Zraket, the key issue for the future ismaintaining U.S. technological superiority. "The issue is not,'Is there a risk in sending 100,000 Apples or even 20 Crays?'I would think there is really no military risk in doing that.Pretty much every technology leaks to the Soviet Union over amatter of time, in three, five or ten years. The real issueis, how can we keep it that way? How can we ensure that interms of critical technologies, they're always five or tenyears behind us -- and not with us, or ahead of us?"

Nicholas Ulanov pointed out that ordinary personalcomputers may not have much consequence for the U.S.-Sovietconfrontation, but they could enhance Soviet dominance over itsown population or client states. "An Apple computer makes ahell of a missile guidance system as long as you're not tryingto counter U.S. forces or go intercontinental. It also makes avery good police computer." These are risks we must recognize,said Ulanov, who nonetheless believes that the risks of tradingwith the Soviets are worth taking.

Glenn Schweitzer of the National Research Council believesthat we must consider a more expansive definition of nationalsecurity to include our economic competitiveness and many other

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factors as well as the military confrontation. At a high-techtrade fair in Moscow in December 1988, there were 70 WestGerman companies hawking their wares; only five U.S. firms we.Lethere. The Germans are accepting credits from the Soviets asthe condition for trade, apparently as a way to gain a toeholdin the Soviet market.

In planning future research, Wilson Dizard pointed outthat the issues involved are not simply bilateral; they involvethe entire international community (most notably Japan, theCommon Market and West Germany), who should also be consulted.New research should take these other perspectives into account.

Fitzpatrick urged that future research assess how (or if)trade in computers would affect the Soviet nationalities, anissue becoming more timely as the nationalities become morerestive. She warned that future human rights abuses probablywon't be directed at scientists, intelligentsia or the clergy,but at the working class, particularly unemployed workers,whose ranks are gr-

A key research need, said Robert Campbell, is to thinkabout big-picture, historical scenarios by which the SovietUnion will become a more normal, civil society. Manyconference participants echoed this sentiment.

In pursuing this task, Robert Karl Manoff thinks it isuseful to think of Soviet society as experiencing "moderniza-tion without modernity." That is, the Soviet people arefamiliar with industrialization, urbanization, andbureaucratization, but the concomitant trends experienced inthe West -- rationalization of life, reliance on the writtenword, and universalization of power and knowledge -- are notpresent. It would help to assess Soviet society in theseterms, said Manoff, and study what role computer technologiesmight play in forging "modernity" or perhaps a "post-modernity"in Soviet life.

If we are to talk about encouraging civil society, saidMarjorie Balzer of Georgetown University, then future researchshould consider how we can seek to diffuse Western technologiesbeyond the elites in major Soviet cities. The evolution of acivil society might also be studied by assessing the impact ofcomputer technologies in Bulgaria, Romania and other EasternEuropean nations, recommended Harley Balzer.

For the moment, it may just be impossible to discern, inspecific ways, the likely impact of computer and informationtechnologies on Soviet society. The American experience with

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computers is still too fresh to offer much guidance; the cross-cultural effects of computerization are poor'.y understood; andSoviet history provides few reliable signposts for the remark-able changes now being wrought by glasnost and perestroika.

Grand conclusions may prove elusive. But periods ofepochal transition are precisely the ones that merit moreprobing scrutiny.

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Participants

John Andelin, Assistant Director, Science, Information andNatural Resources Division, and Acting Manager,Communication & Information Technologies Program,Office of Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress,Washington, DC

Harley Balzer, Director, Russian Area Studies Program,Georgetown University, Washington, DC

Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer, Editor, Soviet Anthropology andArcheology, Department of Sociology, GeorgetownUniversity, Washington, DC

Alex Beam, Columnist, Boston Globe, Boston, MA

James R. Beniger, Professor, The Annenberg School of Communica-tions, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA

David Bollier, Contributing Editor, Channels Magazine,New Haven, CT

Elizabeth Buxton, USIA Exhibit Services, Washington, DC

Robert W. Campbell, Professor, Russian and East EuropeanInstitute, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN

Gary Chapman, Executive Director, Computing Professionals forSocial Responsibility, Palo Alto, CA

Wilson P. Dizard, Senior Fellow, Center for Strategic andInternational Studies, Georgetown University, Washington,DC

Murray Feshbach, Research Professor, Department of Demography,Georgetown University, Washington, DC

Catherine Fitzpatrick, Research Director, Helsinki Wttch,New York, NY

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Seymour Goodman, Professor, Management Information System,School of Business and Public Administratio41, Universityof Arizona, Tucson, AZ

Loren Graham, Professor, History of Science, M.I.T./HarvardRussian Research Center, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

Alice H. Henkin, Director, Program on Justice and Society,The Aspen Institute, New York, NY

Richard W. Judy, Director, Center for Soviet and East EuropeanStudies, Hudson Institute, Indianapolis, IN

Kenneth L. Kraemer, Director, Public Policy Research Organi-zation, Univ,rsity of California, Irvine, CA

Robert Karl Manoff, Director, Center for War, Peace and theNews Media, New York University, New York, NY

David T. McLaughlin, President and CEO, The .Aspen Institute,Queenstown, MD

Michael Rice, Director, Program on Communications and Society,The Aspen Institute, Truro, MA

Glenn Schweitzer, Director, Soviet and East European Affairs,National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council,Washington, DC

Paul Spindel, President, Scarsdale Systems Group, Scarsdale, NY

Leonard R. Sussman, Senior Scholar in International Communi-cations, Freedom House, New York, NY

Sherry Turkle, Professor, M.I.T. Program in Science, Technologyand Society, Cambridge, MA

Nicholas Ulanov, Associate, McKinsey & Company, New York, NY

Fred W. Weingarten, Senior Associate and Project Director,Communication & Information Technologies, Office ofTechnology Assessment, Washington, DC

Charles A. Zraket, President and CEO, The MITRE Corporation,Bedford, MA