
From: rh120@columbia.edu (Ronda Hauben)
Subject: Computer Science and Government: ARPA/IPTO Draft For Comment
Date: 8 Jul 1999 02:12:31 GMT
Organization: Columbia University
Reply-To: rh120@columbia.edu


     Computer Science and Government: ARPA/IPTO (1962-1986)
                  Creating the Needed Interface
                              by Ronda Hauben
                              rh120@columbia.edu
 
     Mr. McCormack. The important thing about a man in science is 
      that he must have demonstrated ability to think originally, 
      isn't that right.
     Mr. Marchetti. Yes
     Mr. McCormack. They are discovering things and looking ahead 
      maybe 10 and 20 years sometimes.
     Mr. Marchetti. That is right
                              [Riehlman Comm. hearing, pg. 249]
 
     During the war there developed a partnership between 
     military men and scientific men. It was not brought about 
     automatically; it is not a thing that occurs readily. These 
     men come from different backgrounds, and it is hard for 
     each group to understand the other....I can say to you that 
     the morale of the scientists today as I meet them is so low, 
     so low that while they will not refuse to serve, they will 
     serve without enthusiasm and without fruitful inspiration.
                   [Vannevar Bush, Riehlman Comm hearing 1954, 
                    pg. 454-455]
 
 
     ARPA is considered throughout the field as being the main 
     supporter and perhaps the most important force in the course 
     of U.S. and probably world history in the computer....the 
     country never would have grown in the computer field the way 
     it did if it hadn't been for ARPA."  
               [Ibid., pg. X-22. Discussion with Dr. L. Roberts, 
               April 23, 1974]
 
1. Preface
 
     This paper is a beginning effort to explore the role of the
U.S. government in building the Internet. The Information Processing
Techniques Office (IPTO) created within the Advanced Research Projects
Agency (ARPA) in the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) is the early and
most significant institutional form of this role. Working within this
institution, scientists provided leadership in creating the new field
of computer science and in giving birth to the Internet. Understanding
the role of government in the creation and development of the Internet
involves exploring the interface between the computer scientists
working as part of IPTO and the military officers in the DOD.  More
fundamentally, this interface is actually an interface between the
computer science community and the U.S. government.
 
     During much of its 25 year existence, from 1962-1986, the
Information Processing Techniques Office funded and provided
leadership, not only for the creation of the new field of computer
science, but also for a large number of significant accomplishments in
this field. Among these accomplishments are the creation of
time-sharing and interactive computing, of packet switching
networking, VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration), AI (Artificial
Intelligence), the ARPANET, and perhaps most sensationally, of the
Internet. Also, under its direction and support, interactive computing
and the Internet have spread into many aspects of our society and
lives.
 
     And yet the Office of Information Processing Techniques was ended
in 1986. This raises the question of how did it provide the leadership
to make such accomplishments possible? And then, if it was successful
in doing such important feats, why was it ended?
 
     Before the creation of ARPA, and IPTO, there was concern within
the scientific community and in the U.S. government about how to
fashion an appropriate peacetime institutional form within government
to support basic scientific research. ARPA/IPTO succeeded in a
significant way in providing such a form, but it also encountered
problems that eventually ended its existence.  This paper suggests
that study of IPTO's birth, development and ending will be helpful in
trying to determine what institutional form within the U.S. government
is necessary to continue to provide leadership for computer science
research and for the continued growth and development of the Internet.
 
     The development and problems of the National Science Foundation
(NSF) are also relevant research questions to be studied toward
determining what form of institution is needed for the future. However, 
since such important developments in computer science were made under
leadership from ARPA/IPTO, it is more important to explore how this
happened. Future study is needed, however, to examine the extent to
which the NSF contributed to this effort and the problems this agency
encountered that prevented any greater contribution.
 
     To state the problem more simply, I am proposing that there is a
need to study ARPA/IPTO, both its achievements and the problems it
encounter, as it presents important experience toward determining how
to design a U.S. government institution to support the continued
development of basic research in computer science. This study is also
important to provide an answer to the question of how to design a
government institution to provide the needed continued oversight and
support for scaling and other critical functions for the child of
computer science and the IPTO, i.e. for the Internet. This paper is
intended as a contribution.

URL for full paper: http://www.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/arpa_ipto.txt

                  Netizens: On the History and Impact
                    of Usenet and the Internet
                http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook
                also in print edition ISBN 0-8186-7706-6

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