• DELAUER ON DEFENSE. CUTTING REGULATORY RED TAPE.

__ -.lJ1IcDS LaboratDries TheMaterial Difference ~

How ToGetAn ElephantOut OfAn Aircraft

Haw do you banish six or seven tons of.......----1 unwanted weight from an aircraft or spacecraft?

~~!'II Researchers have long known that lithium could reduce~~~ the density of aluminum-and thus its weight-with

no loss of strength. But they've also known that goodfracture toughness and ductility would be difficult toachieve, and that this would be a very touchy materialto manufacture.That's where matters stood until Alcoa Laboratoriesmounted one of its most ambitious team efforts in orderto develop aluminum-lithium alloys.Almost everything connected with this project requiredscientific and engineering innovations, from thecontainment materials needed for casting ingots toentirely new lubricants and new methods of chemicalanalysis and fabrication.

To move swiftly despite these complexities, weorganized a "layered staging" strategy, proceeding

" simultaneously with a number of teams and cross-..~~ .... ~... coordinating their progress.

Result: Alcoa Alithalite alloys, a new family of materialsfor the next generation of aircraft and aerospace

.. designs.

If retrofitted on a current widebody jet, even the firstgeneration of these alloys could lighten the planeby 14,000 pounds-the weight of the largestAfrican elephant.

At Alcoa Laboratories, we're out to make a materialdifference, and our progress is accelerating.For a closer look at what we're doing,send for our book, The Material Difference.Write to Dr. Peter R. Bridenbaugh,Vice President-Research & Development,Box One, Alocoa Laboratories,Alcoa Center, PA 15069.

~ALCOA

I2 FIRST LINE 20 FORUM,

/ J

S. FREDERICK STARR36 7 LETTERS Liberal-arts colleges arehelping

to keep science strong.

8 TRENDS 22 FORUMWorkplace chemicals and the N. J. GOLDSTONEimmune system, biotech to clean Why government-funded researchup toxins, plastic cars, high-tech is doing less for business.arrest, protest in Hungary, new-fangled cement, and Third World

74 BOOKS AND COMMENTacid rain.Asbestos lawsuits, SOl wizards,

18 MARSHALL I.GOLDMANand colonizing space.

What Chernobyl means to theSoviets. 80 M.I. T. REPORTER

COVERPhoto by Dan Budnik, WoodfinCamp & AssociatesDesign by Kathleen Sayre

26

JULY 1986 VOL. 89 NO.5

46

EDITED AT THE MASSACHUSETIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

TechnologyReview

26 HIGH TECHNOLOGY'S STAKE IN TAX REFORMBY PHILIP WEBRE AND DAVID BODDE

Broad tax reform should benefit high technology, even if it meansthe loss of a few special preferences.

36 SQUARING OFF AT THE TABLE, NOT IN THE COURTSBY LAWRENCE SUSSKIND AND LAURA VAN DAM

Interested parties are negotiating to develop better environmentalregulations and avoid lawsuits.

46COVER STORY:

"MOVING THOSE INDIANS INTO THETWENTIETH CENTURY"BY HOLLIS WHITSON AND MARTHA ROBERGE

The U.S. government and energy interests are seeking to relocate11,500 Navajo.It is a conflict between a technologically advancedsociety and a land-based people.

"IT USED TO BE HOME"BY G. MARK SCHOEPFLE, ROSE 1. MORGAN, ANDPEGGY FRANCIS sconThe human costs of federal efforts to relocate the Navajo andreduce their cattle stocks are high.

52

58 INTERVIEW: RICHARD DELAUER ON DEFENSEThe former Pentagon R&D chief gives an engineer's perspectiveon buying weapons, information control, the Soviet elite, andmore.

TechnologyReviewPUBliSHER

William J. Hecht

EDITOR-IN-eHIEF

John 1. Martill

MANAGING EDITOR

Jonathan SchIefer

DESIGN DIRECTOR

Nancy 1.Cahners

DESIGNIPRODUCTION MANAGERKathleen B. SayreSENIOR EDITORS

Alison Bass, Sandra Hackman,Sandra Knight, Susan Lewis,

Marc S. Miller

ASSOCIATE EDITORSBeth Horning, Laura van Dam

ASSISTANT PRODUCTION MANAGERElizabeth Fullon

PRODUCTIONIEDITORlALASSISTANT

Valerie Kiviat

ASSISTANT TO THE EDITORSLori Nollet

BUSINESS MANAGERPeter D. Gellatly

CIRCULATION DIRECTORJulie Zuckman

SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE MANAGERDorothy R. Finnerty

ClRCULA TION/ ADVERTISINGASSISTANT

Linda E. Brennan

ADVISORY BOARD

Edward T. ThompsonChairman

O. Reid AsheViewdata Corp. of America

William BennettHarvard Medical School Health Letter

Claude W. BrennerCommonwealth Energy Group, Ltd.

Robert C. CowenThe Christian Science Monitor

Edwin DiamondDepartment of Journalism,N. Y. U.

Rae GoodellDepartment of Humanities, M.I.T.

David E. GusheeCongressional Research Service

Fred JeromeScientists' Institute for Public Information

Robert W. MannDept. of Mechanical Engineering, M.I.T.

Vietor K. McElhenyVannevar Bush Fellowships, M.l.T.

Louis Menand 1IIDepartment of Political Science, M.l. T.

Lester C. ThurowSloan School of Management, M.I.T.

Frank UrbanowskiThe M.1.T. Press

2 JULY 1986

FIRST LINE

Lessons from Japan

"By focusing on the broader economic,political, and social issues that centeraround technology,Technology Reviewissending warning signals to America aboutfuture problems," writes Japanese jour-nalist Takashi Kakuma inBeruf, the To-kyo magazine that carries translatedarticles from the Review for Japanesereaders. 'Just about everything that hap-pens in the United States eventually occursin Japan," Kakuma warns.

This comment onTechnology Reviewand its relevance to Japan as well as theUnited States was published on the occa-sion of Berufs fourth anniversary. Kak-urna's remarks came in a dialogue withYoshiro Hoshino of Teikyo University.Together they speculated on Hoshino'sobservation that American technology haschanged: "It used to be that when a prod-uct had 'Made in America' stamped on it,quality was guaranteed."

What has changed? asked Kakuma.Hoshino's answer: "When American

engineers were knowledgeable about pro-duction and maintenance problems, theydesigned products that wouldn't easilybreak down.

"Now a different America is emerging,"he says. For example, General Motors in-troduced articulated robots on their as-sembly lines without changing the basicmanufacturing processes, without study-ing the consequences thoroughly before-hand. "This would not have happened inan earlier America."

In other ways, too, says Hoshino, U.S.technology is showing its age. It's focus-ing, he thinks, too sharply on space, elec-tronics, and biotechnology, and by

emphasizing Star Wars the United Statesis "taking a chance on falling behind inthe industrial technology infrastructurehere on earth."

What are the real problems for tomor-row's technology? asked Kakuma.

Hoshino's answer: it may be possible toguide a rocket to its target in space, but"I'll eat my hat if you can operate an au-tomated car from Shinbashi to the middleof Ginza in downtown Tokyo. Issues re-lated to nature and unpredictability ...are a challenge that can't be solved by con-ventional technology."-]ohn Mattill

lWO STAFF ADDITIONSOur masthead displays two new namesthis month-Laura van Dam and BethHorning, associate editors. Van Dam willedit Forum contributions and major arti-cles, working on our contributors' words,while Horning as copy editor will concen-trate on improving the editors' efforts.

After graduating in science communi-cation from Boston University, van Damworked as a reporter for theSt. Petersburg(Fla.) Times and New England Business.Earlier she did editorial work for the NewEngland Wild Flower Society and (as anintern) for the Christian Science Monitor.Horning studied and taught English at In-diana University and since 1980 has beenworking as an editor for various publish-ers in the Boston area. She writes poetry,essays, and fiction for several newspapersand magazines.

Because of other pressing commitments,Robert Cowen was unable to write his col-umn for publication in this issue ..

Beruf magazine, which brings the contentof Technology Review into Japan, eete-brates its fourth anniversary.

PHOTO: KYOKO MAKINO

In fact, KLM flies to 124cities in 77 countries around the world. Fly KLM toEurope's #1 air-port in Amsterdam. And, without changing airlines or airports, on to 42 cities in Europe and 30in the Middle East and Africa, in a style that has earned KLM "best in passenger service:'+To get to the city you want to be in, not some city nearby, call your travel agent, ~

or KLM. The Reliable Airline of the World.KLMRoVal DUlch Airlines

LETTERS

Chemists and the Media

SCIENCE AND SENSATIONALISMIn "Time for Chemists to Pull Their Headsfrom the Sand"(February/March, page 6),Robert Cowen wrongly disparages theNational Research Council (NRC) reportOpportunities in Chemistry.The report'sintent was to show how chemistry aidseach of us every day-and to counter me-dia sensationalism, which is typified byMr. Cowen's suggestion that "many peo-pie ... wonder what new chemical horrorsare being released daily into the environ-ment." Such sensationalism tends to in-duce anxiety rather than encourageprudent consideration of the risks andbenefits of scientific developments.

As the report states, the public mustmake choices on its own behalf. Neitherscientists nor any other special interestgroup should be allowed to influence thosechoices. The electronics engineer who fa-cilitates better television communication isnot thereby qualified to decide whether BigBrother, Jerry Falwell, or Robert Cowenshould appear on sets in every home.

Scientists do have ethical responsibili-ties, though. Whenever the public has tomake informed decisions, scientists arecrucial-not as advocates but as experts.To quote the report, they must supply ob-jective information "in language free oftechnical jargon." The media must dotheir part by providing balanced coverage.

Scientists and the media must cooper-ate. Currently, however, some parts of themedia represent the chemistry communityas uncaring and irresponsible, and someparts of the chemistry community stronglyresent the media's persistently pejorativetreatment of news involving chemicals.

A constructive step would be for themedia and the chemistry community toengage in an open dialogue on how tocommunicate with the public about rech-nological benefits and attendant problems.Such a dialogue would be most useful ifit were based on the good-faith premisethat both the media and the chemistrycommunity sincerely wish to help people.I'm happy to report that such a dialoguewill be initiated, with Mr. Cowen as aparticipant, at the national meeting of theAmerican Chemical Society this Septem-ber. And I invite interested readers to at-tend.

GEORGE C. PIMENTELBerkeley, Calif.

George C. Pimentel is president of theAmerican Chemical Society and chairman

of the Committee to Survey the ChemicalSciences, which commissioned the NRCreport.

PARTICIPATORY MANAGEMENTIn "Pruning Our White-Collar Ranks: AKey to Productivity" (November/Decem-ber, page14), Lester Thurow suggests thatcorporations would profit from partici-patory management, which, in his view,could increase productivity and eliminatesuperfluous middle management. My ownexperience with a small specialty-chemi-cals plant does not bear him out.

When I came to the plant in 1933, ithad participatory management: the plantmanager spent fully half the working daywith the employees. Yet even though par-ticipatory management remained in effect,the plant closed forever in June 1985. Onereason had to do with the untimely deathsof two key managers. But three otherknockout blows came from American in-dustry in general and show why partici-patory management, valuable as it may be,is usually infeasible in today's businessworld.

First, since the plant needed substantialfunds for technical improvements, tradi-tional financial-management policies be-gan to displace participatory manage-ment. The plant began to look for person-nel attuned to fiscal management ratherthan enlightened technical management.

Second, the plant felt the effects ofWorld War II, which marked a criticaltransition in the nation's economic his-tory. The war spawned a needto trainmillions of both military and civilian per-sonnel in a short time, and this led to gov-ernment involvement in civilian affairs.This involvement steadily increased, intro-ducing bureaucracy into the private sectoron a very large scale. As a result, plantmanagers found themselves further andfurther removed from workers.

Third, the plant's parent corporation,like so many others, moved toward quan-titative growth and away from qualitativegrowth based on technical excellence andparticipatory management. Much of thisaction was necessary because of inflationand the instability of interest rates, whichput a high premium on immediate profitand discounted the responsibility of bothgovernment and industry to provide forthe nation's economic and technical fu-ture. The upshot has been ever-larger con-glomerates and multinational corpora-Continued on page 24

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7641TR

TECHNOLOGY REVlEW

Overexposed inAlbuquerque

For six years until

May 1984 Yo-landa Lozanoworked at GTE's

Lenkurt plant in Albuquer-que, N. Mex., making com-ponents for personalcomputers. She wound andwaxed transformers and thencleaned them in a solventbath. According to health rec-ords for worker-compensa-tion claims, Lozano andothers in her department wereexposed daily to fumes fromepoxies, resins, and solventsknown to be toxic.

Yolanda Lozano now hasmalignant melanoma, adeadly form of skin cancer,and he is convinced it comesfrom her repeated exposure

to toxins at work. She and 90other workers are suing GTEthrough New Mexico'sworker compensation system.They claim that the list ofchemicals to which they wereexposed caused a Ii t of dis-eases almost as long.

GTE spokesperson NancyColbert says the lawsuits are"without merit. There are noindications that the materialsused at the Albuquerqueplant produced the healthproblems of the plaintiffs." Aletter stressing the company'sposition went to every workerat the Lenkurt plant when thenumber of suits reached 20.GTE has since shut downmost of the plant, but attri-butes this to industry trends.

Almost 2,000 workers-many of whom are Hispanicwomen-experienced rough-ly the same conditions as Loz-ano did. Varying amounts ofover 150 different toxicchemicals were used regu-larly. Because no departmentof the modern plant had a lo-cal exhaust system, the fumesfrom these chemicals couldrecirculate throughout thebuilding. According to Loz-ano and the claimants' law-yer, Josephine Rohr, manyworkers were directly ex-posed to toxins such as poly-chlorinated biphenyls(PCBS),benzene, and tricloroethylene(TCE), yet GTE issued no res-piratory masks or protectiveclothing.

\

Albuquerquehigh-tech workers

were exposed to hun-dreds of toxins, as de-

scribed in these worker.compensation claims.

Now the workers sufferas many health problems_

Most of the ninety-oneplaintiffs were healthy beforeworking at GTE-Lenkurt.Now about thirty of them suf-fer from skin, uterine, ovar-ian, cervical, colon, breast,brain, and thyroid cancers.The rest complain of other se-rious problems, including diz-ziness, bronchitis, infectionsunresponsive to antibiotics,and deteriorating bones andcartilage. Two cases of an un-known illness resemblingmultiple sclerosis have beenreported as well. Three claim-ants with cancer have diedsince the suits were filed.Rohr says that fourteen moreof Lozano's co-workers havealso died of cancer.

"My doctor was the one

8 JULY 1986

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who started me thinking,"Lozano says, "because he saidit is very rare for aHispanicto ever get this type of cancer.He asked me right awaywhether I spent a lot of timein the sun. I said there's noway I could have because Iwas normally going into theplant at a quarter of six in themorning and not leaving untilmy 12-hour shift was up."

Rohr began the legal battlewith little local support, andshe has faced opposition evenfrom the local chapter of theInternational Brotherhood ofElectrical Workers, whichrepresents the Lenkurt em-ployees. The union over-looked health and safetyissues, choosing to fightagainst layoffs instead. Butdespite these efforts, GTE hasgradually moved most de-partments from the Lenkurtplant across the border to

Juarez, Mexico. Only about150 workers remain at theLenkurt plant.

Lozano and Rohr have re-ceived assistance from theNational Network for a NewHigh-Tech Agenda. Made upof high-tech workers, healthand safety specialists, and en-vironmentalists, the group isknown informally as the In-tegrated Circuit. One of itsmain priorities is the health ofhigh-tech workers.

Integrated Circuit memberNancy Lessin, director of theMassachusetts Coalition forOccupational Safety andHealth, has followed the Al-buquerque case closely. Shenotes that doctors, toxicolo-gists, and epidemiologists areshowing a growing interest inenvironmentally induceddamage to the immune sys-tem. These researchers thinkthey see a pattern in the symp-toms of workers exposed to abroad spectrum of chemicals,especially in large doses."Itis an unusual constellation ofsymptoms," Lessin says, "but

one we are coming to recog-nize."

The immune system, an ex-tremely intricate biologicalsystem, protects the bodyagainst disease by identifyingpotentially harmful alien ma-terials and releasing antibod-ies to fight them. AlbertLevin, a physician at the Uni-versity of California at SanFrancisco, emphasizes theability of large amounts orlarge numbers of chemicals tobreak down the immune sys-tem. He has coined the termcAIDs-Chemically AcquiredImmune Deficiency Syn-drome-to describe the vari-ety of symptoms that canresult. However, he cautionsstrongly against comparingCAIDS to AIDS, in which theimmune breakdown is rapidand far more extensive.

David Ozonoff, an epide-miologist at Boston Univer-

siry, agrees that researchersare seeing "definite effects onthe immune system fromchemical exposure." He feelsthat those effects are just be-ginning to be understood, buthe can see why defendantssuch as GTE fear evidencethat working conditionscould cause them: immunedeficiency might explain "awhole range of diseases."

The focus on the immunesystem marks a significantchange in research on toxiceffects. Until recently, re-searchers have tried to linkspecific symptoms to individ-ual chemicals. Many of thesymptoms like the ones ex-hibited in Albuquerque "werepreviously seen by the medi-cal community to be psycho-somatic, or what we callideopathic [of no knowncause]," says Levin. He notesthe "growing recognition that

Lancashire Laundry Day

a lot of the cancer we areseeing is related to immune-system breakdown."

So far, it is unclear whethercourts and state worker com-pensation systems will acceptany of the theories that con-nect different diseases withemployee exposure to chem-icals. After almost two years,the cases brought by Lozanoand her co-workers have yetto come to trial.

Levin believes that the pub-lic will benefit from the suitsregardless of the outcome."My goal is to make the pub-lic recognize the dangers ofthe indiscriminate use of toxicchemicals. I think the toxictorts arena works faster andmore effectively than virtuallyany other in this respect, cer-tainly faster and more effec-tively than publishingfindings in a scientific jour-nal."-Seth Shulman

~

n the site of ane abandoned gas-works in Black-burn, Lancashire,

in the British Midlands, bio-technology is being used forthe first time to decontami-nate spoiled land. The two-year project began this pastDecember. It could be thelargest such cleanup opera-tion ever undertaken in Eu-rope or the United States, saysa representative of Bio-T echnica Ltd, the companyhired by the Blackburn Bor-ough Council to do the job.

The Greenbank Gasworksclosed in the 1970s, whennatural gas from offshorefields in the North Sea re-placed "town gas" manufac-tured from coal. The site wasleft contaminated, primarilywith phenols, coal tars, andcyanide.

The idea that microbescould munch through heapsof waste like an army of Pac-men appeals to those whomust deal with the excreta ofindustry. The usual practiceof shifting the material fromone site to another simplybuys time. At Greenbank,BioTechnica employs naturalmicroorganisms from the siteitself to completely eliminatethe problem.

The technique being usedat Blackburn does not rely ongenetic engineering to createnew organisms. Rather, it fo-cuses on stimulating existingmicrobes-with improved cli-mates and nutrients-to vig-orously attack waste materialand contaminants. The firststep is isolating microorga-nisms that have, on a limitedscale, already begun the deg-radation process. According

to John Rees, BioTechnica'senvironmental program di-rector, such microbes have toexist. "It would be a verystrange site that did not havenatural microbes."

However, says Rees, theyexist in insufficient quantitiesand conditions for them areusuall y "unsatisfactory."Therefore, once the active mi-crobes are isolated, they arebred in ISO-liter fermenters.Then layers of the microbesgo into specially designedmounds built by a team fromMiller Buckley Projects, acivil-engineering firm that isundertaking the decontami-nation with BioTechnica. Toprovide a better climate forthe microbes, tents enclosingthe mounds raise the temper-ature a few degrees. A wa-tered-down mixture of themicrobes and soil will besprayed on the rest of the site.

The bacteria digest the con-taminants in the mound, ex-creting water and carbon

10 J LY 1986