Lucius D. Clay: An American Life by Jean Edward Smith
Stanley Goldberg · Technology and Culture · 1992
TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 175 familiar with the history of early computing, these statements will come as no surprise. For those preoccupied with later computer technology and its applications, Aspray’s account may be a useful reminder. Finally, Aspray’s book bears powerful witness to the role of military considerations not only in the history of computing but in postwar American science. Von Neumann built a computer to solve “scientific” problems. Some of this work, such as Martin Schwarzschild’s astrophysical research, was notjustified by its possible military importance. However, von Neumann persuaded military agencies that they should contribute funds to build the IAS computer not only because copies of it could then be built at military installations, but because the work he and his associates planned to do was of direct military significance. The first large problem run on the IAS computer related to the design of the hydrogen bomb. Computations for weather forecasting, which took the largest amount of the computer’s time, were important to the U.S. Navy. During the same period, von Neumann made theoretical studies of linear programming that proved of great use in solving logistics problems of the U.S. Air Force. Computer develop ment in the 1950s was often described in terms of “business” and “scientific” applications. Scientific applications included not only projects like the IAS computer but also computers intended explicitly to help design and guide ships, missiles, and bombs. Aspray’s account reminds us of the extent to which the development of scientific computing technology, even at institutions like the IAS, was shaped to fit a military patron. Those who knew John von Neumann have numerous stories about his penetrating insight and colorful personality. Aspray has used such accounts sparingly, concentrating instead on drawing together von Neumann’s diverse contributions to computer technology. His book is welcome indeed. Peggy Aldrich Kidwell Dr. Kidwell watches over collections in the Section of Mathematics at the Smithso nian Institution’s National Museum of American History. She is coauthoring a short book on landmarks in the history of digital computing. Lucius D. Clay: An American Life. By Jean Edward Smith. New York: Henry Holt, 1990. Pp. xii + 835; illustrations, notes, appendix, bibliography, index. $35.00. It was the noted biographer Elinor Langer who opined that every biography is, in one way or another, an epistemological swamp. Such epistemological and historiographic conundrums come to mind very quickly in considering Jean Edward Smith’s biography of General Lucius D. Clay. Clay is perhaps best known for his roie as military 176 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE proconsul in Germany at the end of World War II; he then became U.S. commander in chief in Europe. Smith’s approach is high and wide. There is no deep psychological analysis. There are no intimate detailings of Clay’s childhood family, his marriage, his relationship with his children. And while Smith explores some of the landscapes of the ever-changing political terrain of the Army Corps of Engineers as well as the army’s General Staff, he does not dwell on the gossip or on personal conflict. And yet, not very far into Smith’s narrative, one has the sense of knowing Lucius D. Clay—what kind of person he was and the traits that made him ideally suited to be a leader in the military, in government, and finally in the world of business and high finance. In his introduction, Smith reports that he worked on this biography for twenty years. It shows. The backbone of the narrative is a set of interviews with Clay that Smith conducted between December 1969 and June 1974. In fact, at times Smith breaks off his own narrative and simply inserts interview segments either to make the point at hand or to reinforce the narrative. It is quite an effective technique. Although Smith never examines, in any depth, details of Clay’s efforts in his successive assignments, one quickly perceives that Clay was a remarkable human being—quick, intelligent, and sensitive to nuance in the most delicate political situations. Paradoxically, Clay’s strength was his ability to be absolutely straightforward, absolutely blunt, and absolutely resolute and certain of the correctness...