Gordon Gould Quotes
There was a second problem that was still not a technical problem... the project became classified. I couldn't work on it after having gone to all that trouble. I was considered a security risk, so I could not get a clearance.
Taylor, Nick. Laser: The Inventor, the Nobel Laureate, and the Thirty-Year Patent War. Simon & Schuster, 2000.
This radical reform did not make much headway. The “need to know" standard used specific knowledge to signify the status of different officials and was intended to minimize the likelihood of intelligence leaking as few people saw the whole picture and understood the implications. But that was the great weakness in that the major purpose of intelligence is to analyze the information and guide the nation’s policies and responses to events and situations. Without all the information available so many intelligence and other officials are unable to ‘connect the dots’ and see the picture emerging. The attack of September 11 was a classic example where much of the information that was known never was conveyed to most people and so no one had a big enough picture. By the time one could establish a ‘need to know’ it was too late to utilize the conclusions even if they were reached in time.
Gordon Gould was an American physicist who is often credited with the invention of the laser. (Others attribute the invention to Theodore Maiman). Gould is best known for his thirty-year fight with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to obtain patents for the laser and related technologies. He also fought with laser manufacturers in court battles to enforce the patents he subsequently did obtain.
