Theodore Postol
Encyclopedia
Theodore A. Postol is a professor of Science, Technology, and International Security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and is a prominent critic of U.S. government statements about missile defense
.
and his PhD
in nuclear engineering
from MIT. Postol worked at Argonne National Laboratory
, where he studied the microscopic dynamics and structure of liquids and disordered solids using neutron, x-ray and light scattering
, along with computer molecular dynamics techniques. He also worked at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment
, where he studied methods of basing the MX missile
, and later worked as a scientific adviser to the Chief of Naval Operations
.
After leaving the Pentagon
, Postol helped build a program at Stanford University
to train mid-career scientists to study weapons technology in relation to defense and arms control policy. In 1990, Postol received the Leo Szilard Prize from the American Physical Society
. In 1995, he received the Hilliard Roderick Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science
and in 2001, he received the Norbert Wiener Award from Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility for "uncovering numerous and important false claims about missile defenses."
missiles fired by Iraq
. The U.S. Army claimed a success rate of 80% in Saudi Arabia
and 50% in Israel
, claims that were later reduced to 70% and 40%. But President George H. W. Bush
claimed a success rate of more than 97 percent during a speech at Raytheon
's Patriot manufacturing plant in Andover, Massachusetts
during the Gulf War, declaring, the "Patriot is 41 for 42: 42 Scuds engaged, 41 intercepted!"
In April 1992, Postol told a House committee that "the Patriot's intercept rate during the Gulf War
was very low. The evidence from these preliminary studies indicates that Patriot's intercept rate could be much lower than 10 percent, possibly even zero."
The House Government Operations Subcommittee on Legislation and National Security later reported,
Postol later went on to criticize the Army's "independent" Analysis of Video Tapes to Assess Patriot Effectiveness as being "seriously compromised" by the "selective" and "arbitrary" use of data. The Army ultimately downgraded its assessment of the systems' effectiveness.
blew the whistle against TRW for exaggerating the capabilities of an antiballistic missile sensor. The sensor was subsequently used in a "successful" missile test in 1997. The then-Ballistic Missile Defense Organization
launched an investigation in 1998 and asked a Pentagon advisory board called POET (Phase One Engineering Team), which included two staff members from MIT's Lincoln Laboratory
, to review performance of TRW software, using data from the 1997 flight test. These engineers concluded in their report that Schwartz's allegations were untrue and despite failure of the sensor, the software "basically worked the way TRW said it worked." In December 1998, TRW's contract was not extended by the government, which chose a competing system built by Raytheon
.
In 2000, Schwartz gave Postol an unclassified version of the POET report from which sensitive text and graphs had been removed. Based on this redacted report, he notified the White House
and senior MIT officials of possible fraud and research misconduct at TRW and MIT Lincoln Laboratory. The Pentagon responded by classifying the letter and dispatching Defense Security Service
members to his office. Three agents of the Defense Security Services arrived unannouced to his campus office and attempted to show him other classified documents, but Postol refused to look at them. If he had read them, he would not have been able to criticize the antimissile system without putting his security clearance at risk. Postol claimed the visit was meant to silence him, which was denied by the Defense Security Services.
investigate possible violations to MIT policies on research misconduct. The administration initially resisted, but later appointed another faculty member to conduct a preliminary investigation. In 2002, this professor's investigation found no evidence of a credible error, but he subsequently recommended a full investigation when Postol provided a statement of additional concerns. A subsequent 18 month investigation by the General Accounting Office in 2002 found widespread technical failures in the anti-missile system, contradicting the original report in 1997. In May 2006, a panel composed of MIT faculty members concluded that the investigator recommended a full investigation "because of his inability to exhaust all the questions that arose during the inquiry," not because it appeared likely misconduct had occurred, and that a full investigation had not been warranted.
Under National Science Foundation
regulations governing research misconduct, a preliminary inquiry should be completed within 90 days of an allegation, and a full investigation within 180 days subject to penalties as severe as suspension of federal funding. By December 2004, four years later, no formal investigation had been performed, and the Missile Defense Agency formally rejected MIT's request to investigate the classified
data. Postol asserts that the MIT administration has been compliant with the Pentagon
's attempts to cover up a fiasco by dragging its feet on an investigation because defense contracts through Lincoln Laboratory constitute a major portion of MIT's operating budget.
In early 2006, a compromise was reached whereby MIT would halt any attempt to conduct its own investigation and senior Air Force
administrator Brendan B. Godfrey and former Lockheed Martin
chief executive Norman R. Augustine would lead a final investigation. Postol disputes the impartiality of this new investigation as Augustine was CEO while Lockheed was a contractor with NBMD.
In May 2006, a MIT Ad-Hoc Committee on Research Misconduct Allegation concluded delays in the investigation were caused by a number of factors, including: "initial uncertainty about the applicability of MIT's research misconduct policy to a government [non-MIT] report"; government classification of relevant information, possibly in an attempt to make it unavailable to plaintiffs in the TRW whistle-blower trial; and Postol's failure to provided a clearly written summary of his allegations, which changed repeatedly during the investigation. The committee also found that Postol repeatedly violated MIT confidentiality rules "causing personal distress to the Lincoln Laboratory researchers, their families and colleagues".
announced that his administration was scrapping the Bush administration's proposed anti-ballistic missile shield in Europe
and replacing it with reconfigured SM-3
missiles. A "Ballistic Missile Defense Review" was completed in March 2010 concluding that existing ballistic missile defense technologies provided a reliable and robust defense against limited ICBM
attacks. In May 2010, Postol and George N. Lewis published an analysis concluding that the majority of SM-3 interceptor tests classified as "successful" actually failed to destroy incoming warheads. The Missile Defense Agency challenged the New York Times article, claiming that the SM-3 program is one of the most successful programs within the Department of Defense and that the New York Times chose not to publish information supplied by the MDA in response to the allegations made by Postol and Lewis.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
and is a prominent critic of U.S. government statements about missile defense
Missile defense
Missile defense is a system, weapon, or technology involved in the detection, tracking, interception and destruction of attacking missiles. Originally conceived as a defence against nuclear-armed Intercontinental ballistic missiles , its application has broadened to include shorter-ranged...
.
Background
He received his undergraduate degree in physicsPhysics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
and his PhD
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in nuclear engineering
Nuclear engineering
Nuclear engineering is the branch of engineering concerned with the application of the breakdown as well as the fusion of atomic nuclei and/or the application of other sub-atomic physics, based on the principles of nuclear physics...
from MIT. Postol worked at Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne National Laboratory is the first science and engineering research national laboratory in the United States, receiving this designation on July 1, 1946. It is the largest national laboratory by size and scope in the Midwest...
, where he studied the microscopic dynamics and structure of liquids and disordered solids using neutron, x-ray and light scattering
Scattering
Scattering is a general physical process where some forms of radiation, such as light, sound, or moving particles, are forced to deviate from a straight trajectory by one or more localized non-uniformities in the medium through which they pass. In conventional use, this also includes deviation of...
, along with computer molecular dynamics techniques. He also worked at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment
Office of Technology Assessment
The Office of Technology Assessment was an office of the United States Congress from 1972 to 1995. OTA's purpose was to provide Congressional members and committees with objective and authoritative analysis of the complex scientific and technical issues of the late 20th century, i.e. technology...
, where he studied methods of basing the MX missile
LGM-118A Peacekeeper
The LGM-118A Peacekeeper, also known as the MX missile , was a land-based ICBM deployed by the United States starting in 1986. A total of 50 missiles were deployed. They have since been deactivated....
, and later worked as a scientific adviser to the Chief of Naval Operations
Chief of Naval Operations
The Chief of Naval Operations is a statutory office held by a four-star admiral in the United States Navy, and is the most senior uniformed officer assigned to serve in the Department of the Navy. The office is a military adviser and deputy to the Secretary of the Navy...
.
After leaving the Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
, Postol helped build a program at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
to train mid-career scientists to study weapons technology in relation to defense and arms control policy. In 1990, Postol received the Leo Szilard Prize from the American Physical Society
American Physical Society
The American Physical Society is the world's second largest organization of physicists, behind the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. The Society publishes more than a dozen scientific journals, including the world renowned Physical Review and Physical Review Letters, and organizes more than 20...
. In 1995, he received the Hilliard Roderick Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...
and in 2001, he received the Norbert Wiener Award from Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility for "uncovering numerous and important false claims about missile defenses."
Patriot missiles in Operation Desert Storm
The Patriot Missile was used in Operation Desert Storm to intercept descent-phase SCUDScud
Scud is a series of tactical ballistic missiles developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and exported widely to other countries. The term comes from the NATO reporting name SS-1 Scud which was attached to the missile by Western intelligence agencies...
missiles fired by Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
. The U.S. Army claimed a success rate of 80% in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
and 50% in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, claims that were later reduced to 70% and 40%. But President George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
claimed a success rate of more than 97 percent during a speech at Raytheon
Raytheon
Raytheon Company is a major American defense contractor and industrial corporation with core manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. It was previously involved in corporate and special-mission aircraft until early 2007...
's Patriot manufacturing plant in Andover, Massachusetts
Andover, Massachusetts
Andover is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. It was incorporated in 1646 and as of the 2010 census, the population was 33,201...
during the Gulf War, declaring, the "Patriot is 41 for 42: 42 Scuds engaged, 41 intercepted!"
In April 1992, Postol told a House committee that "the Patriot's intercept rate during the Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
was very low. The evidence from these preliminary studies indicates that Patriot's intercept rate could be much lower than 10 percent, possibly even zero."
The House Government Operations Subcommittee on Legislation and National Security later reported,
The Patriot missile system was not the spectacular success in the Persian Gulf War that the American public was led to believe. There is little evidence to prove that the Patriot hit more than a few Scud missilesScudScud is a series of tactical ballistic missiles developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and exported widely to other countries. The term comes from the NATO reporting name SS-1 Scud which was attached to the missile by Western intelligence agencies...
launched by IraqIraqIraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
during the Gulf War, and there are some doubts about even these engagements. The public and the Congress were misled by definitive statements of success issued by administration and RaytheonRaytheonRaytheon Company is a major American defense contractor and industrial corporation with core manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. It was previously involved in corporate and special-mission aircraft until early 2007...
representatives during and after the war.
Postol later went on to criticize the Army's "independent" Analysis of Video Tapes to Assess Patriot Effectiveness as being "seriously compromised" by the "selective" and "arbitrary" use of data. The Army ultimately downgraded its assessment of the systems' effectiveness.
National ballistic missile defense
In 1996, Nira Schwartz, a senior engineer at defense contractor TRWTRW
TRW Inc. was an American corporation involved in a variety of businesses, mainly aerospace, automotive, and credit reporting. It was a pioneer in multiple fields including electronic components, integrated circuits, computers, software and systems engineering. TRW built many spacecraft,...
blew the whistle against TRW for exaggerating the capabilities of an antiballistic missile sensor. The sensor was subsequently used in a "successful" missile test in 1997. The then-Ballistic Missile Defense Organization
Missile Defense Agency
The Missile Defense Agency is the section of the United States government's Department of Defense responsible for developing a layered defense against ballistic missiles. The agency has its origins in the Strategic Defense Initiative, which was established in 1983 and was headed by Lt...
launched an investigation in 1998 and asked a Pentagon advisory board called POET (Phase One Engineering Team), which included two staff members from MIT's Lincoln Laboratory
Lincoln Laboratory
MIT Lincoln Laboratory, located in Lexington, Massachusetts, is a United States Department of Defense research and development center chartered to apply advanced technology to problems of national security. Research and development activities focus on long-term technology development as well as...
, to review performance of TRW software, using data from the 1997 flight test. These engineers concluded in their report that Schwartz's allegations were untrue and despite failure of the sensor, the software "basically worked the way TRW said it worked." In December 1998, TRW's contract was not extended by the government, which chose a competing system built by Raytheon
Raytheon
Raytheon Company is a major American defense contractor and industrial corporation with core manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. It was previously involved in corporate and special-mission aircraft until early 2007...
.
In 2000, Schwartz gave Postol an unclassified version of the POET report from which sensitive text and graphs had been removed. Based on this redacted report, he notified the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
and senior MIT officials of possible fraud and research misconduct at TRW and MIT Lincoln Laboratory. The Pentagon responded by classifying the letter and dispatching Defense Security Service
Defense Security Service
The Defense Security Service is an agency of the United States Department of Defense . Within areas of DoD responsibility, DSS is tasked with facilitating personnel security investigations, supervising industrial security, and performing security education and awareness training. It is not a...
members to his office. Three agents of the Defense Security Services arrived unannouced to his campus office and attempted to show him other classified documents, but Postol refused to look at them. If he had read them, he would not have been able to criticize the antimissile system without putting his security clearance at risk. Postol claimed the visit was meant to silence him, which was denied by the Defense Security Services.
Allegations of research misconduct
Postol demanded the MIT administration under President Charles Vest and Provost Robert BrownRobert A. Brown
Robert A. Brown is the 10th president of Boston University. He was formerly the provost of MIT.-External links:*...
investigate possible violations to MIT policies on research misconduct. The administration initially resisted, but later appointed another faculty member to conduct a preliminary investigation. In 2002, this professor's investigation found no evidence of a credible error, but he subsequently recommended a full investigation when Postol provided a statement of additional concerns. A subsequent 18 month investigation by the General Accounting Office in 2002 found widespread technical failures in the anti-missile system, contradicting the original report in 1997. In May 2006, a panel composed of MIT faculty members concluded that the investigator recommended a full investigation "because of his inability to exhaust all the questions that arose during the inquiry," not because it appeared likely misconduct had occurred, and that a full investigation had not been warranted.
Under National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
regulations governing research misconduct, a preliminary inquiry should be completed within 90 days of an allegation, and a full investigation within 180 days subject to penalties as severe as suspension of federal funding. By December 2004, four years later, no formal investigation had been performed, and the Missile Defense Agency formally rejected MIT's request to investigate the classified
Classified information
Classified information is sensitive information to which access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of persons. A formal security clearance is required to handle classified documents or access classified data. The clearance process requires a satisfactory background investigation...
data. Postol asserts that the MIT administration has been compliant with the Pentagon
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
's attempts to cover up a fiasco by dragging its feet on an investigation because defense contracts through Lincoln Laboratory constitute a major portion of MIT's operating budget.
In early 2006, a compromise was reached whereby MIT would halt any attempt to conduct its own investigation and senior Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
administrator Brendan B. Godfrey and former Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin is an American global aerospace, defense, security, and advanced technology company with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, in the Washington Metropolitan Area....
chief executive Norman R. Augustine would lead a final investigation. Postol disputes the impartiality of this new investigation as Augustine was CEO while Lockheed was a contractor with NBMD.
In May 2006, a MIT Ad-Hoc Committee on Research Misconduct Allegation concluded delays in the investigation were caused by a number of factors, including: "initial uncertainty about the applicability of MIT's research misconduct policy to a government [non-MIT] report"; government classification of relevant information, possibly in an attempt to make it unavailable to plaintiffs in the TRW whistle-blower trial; and Postol's failure to provided a clearly written summary of his allegations, which changed repeatedly during the investigation. The committee also found that Postol repeatedly violated MIT confidentiality rules "causing personal distress to the Lincoln Laboratory researchers, their families and colleagues".
SM-3 interceptor
In September 2009, President Barack ObamaBarack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
announced that his administration was scrapping the Bush administration's proposed anti-ballistic missile shield in Europe
US missile defense complex in Poland
The US missile defense complex in Poland, also called the European Interceptor Site was part of the Ballistic Missile Defense European Capability of the US, to be placed in Redzikowo, Słupsk, Poland, forming a Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system in conjunction with a US narrow-beam midcourse...
and replacing it with reconfigured SM-3
RIM-161 Standard Missile 3
The RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 is a ship-based missile system used by the US Navy to intercept short-to intermediate-range ballistic missiles as a part of Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System. Although primarily designed as an anti-ballistic missile, the SM-3 has also been employed in an...
missiles. A "Ballistic Missile Defense Review" was completed in March 2010 concluding that existing ballistic missile defense technologies provided a reliable and robust defense against limited ICBM
Intercontinental ballistic missile
An intercontinental ballistic missile is a ballistic missile with a long range typically designed for nuclear weapons delivery...
attacks. In May 2010, Postol and George N. Lewis published an analysis concluding that the majority of SM-3 interceptor tests classified as "successful" actually failed to destroy incoming warheads. The Missile Defense Agency challenged the New York Times article, claiming that the SM-3 program is one of the most successful programs within the Department of Defense and that the New York Times chose not to publish information supplied by the MDA in response to the allegations made by Postol and Lewis.
External links
- MIT Faculty Webpage for Theodore Postol
- Science, Technology and Global Security Working Group
- Going Postol, Boston Globe Magazine
- Rogue State, ABC Australia
- Why Not to Go Postol, National Review
- The Missile-Defense System and University Research, The Chronicle of Higher Education
- Postol vs. the Pentagon, Technology Review, April 2002
- M.I.T. Studies Accusations of Lies and Cover-Up of Serious Flaws in Antimissile System , New York Times
- MIT physicist knocks anti-missile system, San Francisco Chronicle
- Theodore Postol's presentation for his August 2007 report at the Congress
- July 2007 Postol's appearance in a show on White House Plans for Missile System in Eastern Europe