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Frank StantonFrank Stanton
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Session:         Page of 755

Q:

We can fill it in later.

Stanton:

Sure. But, in that group there was General [James] Doolittle, former Secretary of Defense Bob [Robert] Lovett, the head of the RAND Corporation, a real grab-bag of people. It was to keep a leadership group informed about what might be going on and what might happen, but there was no stand-by characterization, and the message or the mission was to think in terms of 1984, I believe was the year, look back and see the mistakes we made in planning and utilization of technology, etc. It was a plan of being here but putting yourself out there, and looking back. Fascinating briefings. We had people from various branches of industry and government brief us on things that were still in the laboratory that would be developed in that period, and would apply to life, either here or abroad, in that period. Boron, as I recall, was something I never knew about until that period. It had not been discovered yet, although they knew, in the atomic energy table, where it was going to come. The scientists who briefed us said, “This will happen in this period, and it will have these characteristics.” Then, later I know I read in one of the scientific journals that the substance had been found, or, not found but created, I guess is the best way to put it.

That briefing took place by an engineer, a scientist from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, who flew out for the briefing and told us this would make a lot of changes in wartime aircraft for a variety of applications. So, we had a number of things like that that were thrown to us, and you were free to ask questions or anything you wanted. It was a fascinating assignment, but it knocked out a weekend every so often.

Q:

Did you ever get to writing policy statements or making decisions about how various technologies should be used?





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