Scientists and Engineers for Social and Political Action. Science Against
the People: The Story of Jason. Berkeley CA: SESPA, December 1972. 43 pages.
The Jason Division, or Jason group, began when scientists from Harvard
and MIT persuaded defense secretary Robert McNamara to sponsor a special
study on "technical possibilities in relation to our military operations in
Vietnam." McNamara formally requested the scientists to look into the
feasibility of "a fence across the infiltration trails, warning systems,
reconnaissance (especially night) methods, night vision devices, defoliation
techniques and area denial weapons." A group of 47 scientists were assembled
under the auspices of the Institute for Defense Analyses; they represented
the "cream of the scholarly community in technical fields." After meeting in
summer of 1966, they recommended a gigantic electronic minefield: "20 million
Gravel mines per month; possibly 25 million button bomblets per month; 10,000
SADEYE BLU-26B clusters per month; 1600 acoustic sensors per month," along
with assorted aircraft to mine, monitor and attack over an area of many
hundreds of square miles. (The cluster-bomb minefields would trigger sensors,
which would automatically dispatch air strikes as backup.) The proposal was
enthusiastically received by the Pentagon, and became known as the "McNamara
fence." This booklet names the university scientists involved in the project.
Extract the names from this source
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