Computers in the News



Author: Jack Turner

Date: March  , 1987

Keywords: 

Text:
     There are a number of benefits computers offer us these days. 
They are used in more and more areas of our personal, occupational and
national lives.  Occasionally knowing a bit about the technology helps
us to read between the lines in events of significance.
     I remember back in the summer of '73 when I was hanging out in
Berkeley doing some reading and writing.  Though now I do most of my
real work in the morning, I was still a night owl in those days and did
mindless things like watch TV in the AM.  Usually there wasn't much to
watch at that time of day.  But you may remember that those were the
times of Watergate, and the hearings were televised.  I particularly
recall that day when the senators were questioning Alexander
Butterfield, the Nixon aide, who quite nonchalantly mentioned that
Nixon had a tape system in his office which secretly recorded
everything he (and his associates and visitors) said.  What a
bombshell!  Though there was some controversy (including ''accidental''
erasures), those tapes greatly helped turn public opinion against Nixon
and hence change history.  After that, I can guarantee that any
president would think twice about installing a tape system in the White
House.
     But this past month some interesting news broke.  The National
Security Council is a bureaucratic agency originally set up to advise
the president in matters of national security.  Though it is answerable
only to the president (not  to Congress) it has come to take more and
more of a part in establishing and influencing foreign policy.  It is
seriously under fire, at the moment, as we all know, because some of
its staff are accused of complicity in the Iran/Contra Affair.  Typical
of Washington bureaucrats, they either ''can't recall'' important
matters when summoned before a congressional investigative committee,
or they take the Fifth Amendment, citing their right not to incriminate
themselves.  I suspect, moreover, that each small office in that agency
has its own paper shredder and that they have been working overtime
lately.
     Like all other government bureaucracies, however, the NSC has
accepted the inroads of technology in other ways.  They have a large
computer which undertakes a number of tasks, some of them quite
horrible to comtemplate (is this where they come up with  figures of
how many people will die in a hypothetical atomic attack?); it has a
program, developed by IBM for other, more mundane, businesses, called
PROFS (an acronym for Professional Office System).  This is an
electronic mail network which helps the members of the staff keep in
touch with each other.  Each microcomputer in the agency (and even
those at people's homes and portable computers they may take with them
on trips) are linked together (either by cable or by phone modem)
through the agency's mainframe.  PROFS helps them communicate with each
other-a worker can leave a message or reply for another worker, a
superior can leave a report to be downloaded by all of his underlings,
and so forth.  
     Everyone had the illusion that this system was top secret.  When
you erased your message (which was, of course, protected by such things
as password access only) it went into electronic oblivion-or so
everybody thought.  Newsweek reported ''The technology must have been
very seductive.  After centuries of using paper, bureaucrats have
become wary of leaving paper trails:  indeed, a paper shredder
dominates one corner of the offices formerly used by Lt. Col. Oliver
North.  But the fleeting nature of the electronic messages on the
computer screen encouraged a different attitude:  'There was something
disinhibiting about the system,' says a former NSC staffer.  'You'd
really open up and lay out what you wanted to say.'''  
     So all kinds of matters wound up being discussed on PROFS.  What
most people who used it didn't know, however, was that PROFS
automatically kept a copy of everything for historical purposes. 
Former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane knew about it,
however, and told the Tower Commission.  As I'm writing this, the
commission, appointed by President Reagan to get to the bottom of the
mare's nest known as the Iran/Contra Affair, is pouring over the
computer tapes.  One suspects that they will find a mine of
information.  Time will tell what place this simple and seemingly
innocent computer program will play in determining the future of our
nation's foreign policy.     

Copyright © march , 1987 by Jack Turner