Scientists ponder role in national security: Doubts about long-term security through nuclear arms buildup stir new activity among groups opposed to nuclear war, as global insecurities challenge science to examine its principles of objectivity

It used to be that in the simpler days of overstuffed chairs and musty men's clubs, thoughts of war turned to battlefield strategies, martial grandeur, unified purposes, and now-curious words like "valor." Battle was bloody all right, and the suffering horrid beyond description. But civilians and the military usually were dying for a high cause. So it all seemed to be worth the gore. Today war is different. It is in many ways the handiwork of research and development fantasies transmuted to high-tech hardware. It is annihilation by pushbutton, or if nonnuclear, the screeches and blasts of armor-piercing rocketry. It is the deployment of doomsday machines, MX's, and SS-20 missiles. It is Trident missiles, Backfire bombers, and laser weaponry. It is above all, hypersonic chaos. And it is increasingly a new call to conscience among the scientific and technological community—the subculture which has so much a hand in developing the new weaponry. Many military strategists ...