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September 05, 2011

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Mary Dudziak

Al, thanks for mentioning this! My title, "Rumors of War," comes from Jackson's 1951 Mitchell Lecture, "Wartime Security and Liberty Under Law." He describes the national security environment in 1951 this way:

"We can no longer take either security or liberty for granted. The best that we
can now hope for seems to be a prolonged period of international tension and
rumors of war, with war itself as the ever threatening alternative...I see not
the slightest probability in the foreseeable future that any conqueror can impose
oppression upon us, and the dangers to our liberties which I would discuss with
you are those that we create among ourselves."

The idea of rumors or threats of war, rather than war itself, is so resonant with other writing at the time, perhaps beginning with Orwell's reflection on the atomic bomb -- that it would lead to an era of "a peace that will be no peace." So I will attempt to place Jackson's writings on security and civil liberties in that murky war-but-not-war cultural context.

Here's Jackson's speech: http://www.roberthjackson.org/files/theman/speeches-articles/files/wartime-security-and-liberty-under-law.pdf

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