Contact: Sammy McDavid
How scientists during the Cold War learned to navigate the labyrinth of national security will be examined Friday [March 22] at Mississippi State.
"Keeping Secrets, Learning to Lie" is the title of a presentation by historian M. Susan Lindee of the University of Pennsylvania. Open to all, the hour-long program begins at 4 p.m. in the Rogers Auditorium (Room 100) of McCool Hall.
Penn's associate dean for the social sciences and professor of history and sociology of science, Lindee is among participants at the seventh annual Southern Regional Conference on the History of Science, Technology and Medicine.
Sponsored by the university's history department, the campus conference is a registration-required event. The session featuring Lindee is an exception, and interested members of the general public are encouraged to attend.
Typically dated between 1947 and the Soviet Union's disintegration in 1991, the Cold War was an undulating period of political and military tensions between U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization members and communist Eastern European countries of the Moscow-directed Warsaw Pact.
Lindee's history presentation on the role of scientists during the Cold War era will explain how the professional world of science was reshaped by its increasing relevance to national security. In the process, scientists were forced to learn how to pass polygraph tests, speak "correctly" at security clearance hearings, properly dispose of sensitive material, and conceal the military relevance of their research projects, among other skills.
For more on the speaker, visit http://hss.sas.upenn.edu/people/lindee.
Additional information on her presentation is available from assistant professor Jessica Martucci at 662-325-3604 or jmartucci@history.msstate.edu.