Bobby Inman

["Alan (Miburi-san) Wexelblat" <wex@media.mit.edu>]

Phil Karn sez:
> After what Inman tried to do to civilian crypto in the late 1970s, the
> word "slime" keeps coming to mind.

I think this is mistaken, in the sense that we think of lawyers, car
salesmen, RBOC directors, etc. as slime.  What Inman did was wrong from our
point of view, but I think he was acting forthrightly and honestly and in
concert with what he believes.

Inman is a very jingoistic patriot.  America First is not just a slogan for
him, but a way of life.  MCC's and Westmark's purposes in the universe were
largely based on promoting American ideas and technology in competition with
the Japanese.

Example: during an election year, he invited US Representative Jake Pickle
to come to MCC and speak and press the flesh.  Now, Inman is a blue-blood
Republican, and Jake is a *very* liberal Democrat.  But Inman had become
convinced that Pickle's progressive stand on corporate policy (reward
corporations for keeping jobs and technology in the US) was better for
America than his opponent's (who favored Reaganesque laissez faire let-the-
corporations-do-anything).  Therefore, Inman supported Pickle and put MCC's
considerable muscle behind Pickle.

This, and similar incidents, lead me to believe that if we could get Inman
to understand that cryptographic secrecy and export controls are in fact bad
for America he would oppose them.  At the NSA he (no doubt) had people
telling him that classification was necessary for American security (what a
surprise).

> But then again, there are plenty of Inmans in the military-industrial
> complex.

Unfortunately that's not the case.  I think if we had more men and women of
principle in the M-I complex we'd be a hell of a lot better off.

My favorite Inman story: how he got to be Admiral.  He was into spook stuff
in the early 70s, particularly intelligence analyses.  He is reputed to have
predicted the Arab attack on Israel that began the Yom Kippur war in '72.
According to the story, he filed reports saying the attack would happen a
couple weeks before the event.  His superiors disagreed and (in true NASA
Challenger management fashion) demanded he change his reports, which were
being passed up to the JCS and the President.  Apparently he refused, and
they essentially forced him out of the military.  While his commission was
in the process of expiring the attack happened and they made him an Admiral.
Apparently this was not enough to mollify him and he quit anyway.

Of course, this stuff is all hush-hush, but the timing is about right for
this story to be true and people who know Inman say he won't deny it.

In any event, the point of these stories is to illustrate my contention that
Inman is a man of principle who is willing to risk his career for what he
sincerely believes is right.  I would not call him a slime and I would not
make the mistake of underestimating him.

--Alan Wexelblat, Reality Hacker, Author, and Cyberspace Bard
Media Lab - Advanced Human Interface Group	wex@media.mit.edu
Voice: 617-258-9168 Page: 617-945-1842		an53607@anon.penet.fi
The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir a nation to
action is one of mankind's oldest illusions.