Session: 1234567891011121314151617         Page 420421422423424425426427428429430431432433434435436437438439440441442443444445446447448449450451452453454455456457458459460461462463464465466 of 755

Well, I didn't, but I'm not sure whether anyone did in that group or not. Bernie [Bernard A.] Shriever was the general.

What other kinds of things did you discuss?

In those meetings?

Yes.

Well, the things had mostly to do with defense or military, because the composition of the group was largely military. RAND certainly there because of its advanced planning activities. I can't recall anything specific that I can dredge up at this point. This particular assignment was given to the committee or the group by Jack Kennedy. He wanted to find out -- I don't know whose idea it was, but certainly it came in a request from Kennedy that each of us had that we should participate in these discussions having to do with this forward- looking-backward kind of assignment. They never had had anything like it before, and never anything since, except that it made a hell of a lot of sense if you're in a period of stress and change, to have somebody worrying about what mistakes you might make if you had to go through certain activities. Something similar to this came up the other day in a meeting having to do with planning the curriculum for a school in government affairs, what are the problems that the government is going to have to cope with in the first twenty years of the next century? And to try to look around the corner and see what's coming isn't obvious.

These exercises are a lot of fun and very stimulating. For example, one that came up the