Tigerhawk, thanks for the history lesson. I was an undergraduate at the time of Shultz's speech, and not a particularly politically-aware one at that. Still, I'd like to believe that if I had heard this speech at the time, I would have agreed with it.

What I liked most about your post was the reaction of the mainstream media outlets to the speech. What I noticed right away is that they did not deal with the substance of his argument. Rather than debate whether our moral confusion and self-defeating second guessing was appropriate, Rather, Stahl, and company chose to emphasize that pre-emption might result in the loss of innocent lives. In other words, don't act against people whose primary objective is to take innocent lives because innocent lives might be lost in the process.

Rather than debate the policy on its merits, Rather, et al, decided to highlight what little daylight existed Reagan, Bush, and Shultz, as if a small or even large rift between the three discredited the policy.

Rather than try to determine the public response to the ideas, it seems Rather, Jennings, Donaldson and company chose to link the ideas to partisan politics, election-eve pandering to Jewish groups, etc. - anything but deal with the argument on its merits .

On a peripheral note... My doctoral thesis was entitled "Information technology and Organization Structure." As with any thesis, it included a literature review. One of the first sources I came across was the book by Shultz and an essay contained therein entitled "Information technology and management organization." Here's a reference

Whisler, T. and G. Shultz (1960). "Information Technology and Management Organization." Management Organization and the Computer. G. Shultz and T. Whisler. Chicago, University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business: 3-36."

Turns out that Shultz was also on the faculty of the University of Chicago, starting in 1957. I didn't know this at first, when I found the book. When I went back to tell my advisor about the book, I asked if this was the same Shultz who had served as Reagan's Scy of State. Definitely not, I was told. It wasn't until I got to MIT and found an old book he had left behind (donated) to the library that I made the connection. He got his PhD there and taught there from 1949-1957.

The reason I mention this is that Shultz & Whisler's essay was ahead of its time in thinking about the role computers would play in organizations and the impact they'd have on managerial work. The book they put together was an edited volume from an academic conference put on in 1958 that assembled some of the best minds around. Among them was Herbet Simon, the most prolific social scientist of the last 50 years and later a Nobel prize winner. The conference came on the heels of an extremely controversial (for the time) article appearing in Harvard Business review entitled "Management in the 1980's" about what management would lool like 25 years hence.

Shulz was 20 years ahead of his time in 1958 in his academic work and he was 20 years ahead of his time in 1984 when he made the speech about terrorism. We are lucky to have had such a man serving our nation.

Finally, it is very telling that he served in one capacity or another several administrations, but not Carter's. Very, very telling.