“Democracy Depends on an Informed Electorate”
“_It is most important in our democracy that our government be frank and
open with the citizens. In a democracy it is only possible to have good
government when the citizens are well informed. It is difficult enough
for them to become well informed when the information is easily
available. When that information is not available, it is impossible.
While there may be some cases in which the information which the citizen
needs, in order to make an intelligent judgment of national policy, must
be kept secret, so that military potential will not be jeopardized, the
present use of secrecy far exceeds this minimum limit. These are the
methods of an authoritarian government and should be vigorously opposed
in our democracy...._
“_The citizen must choose insofar as that is possible. Today, if he
tries to come to some conclusion about what should be done to increase
the national security, the citizen runs up against a high wall of
secrecy. He can, of course, take the easy solution and say that these
are questions which should be left to the upper echelons of the military
establishment to decide. But these questions are so important today,
that to leave them to the military men to decide is for the citizen
essentially to abrogate his basic responsibility. If, in time of peace,
questions on which the future of our country depends are left to any
small group, not representative of the people, to decide, we have gone a
long way toward authoritarian government._
“_The United States has grown to be a strong nation under a constitution
which wisely has laid great emphasis upon the importance of free and
open discussion. Urged by a large number of people who have fallen for
the fallacy that in secrecy there is security, and, I regret, encouraged
by many, including eminent scientists, to prophesy doom just around the
corner, we are dangerously close to abandoning those principles of free
speech and open discussion which have made our country great. The
democratic system depends on making intelligent decisions by the
electorate. Our democratic heritage can only be carried on if the
citizen has the information with which to make an intelligent
decision._”
(From a talk on the hydrogen bomb, March 27, 1950, at Town Hall, Los
Angeles, by PROFESSOR ROBERT F. BACHER, head of the Physics
Department, California Institute of Technology. Professor Bacher
served as the first scientific member of the Atomic Energy Commission
and was one of the major architects of the atomic bomb at Los Alamos,
New Mexico.)