Family Relationship archive
From the Quicksilver Metaweb.
The Cryptonomicon page for the real world counterpart to ETC - IBM and its' officers.
Stephensonia
*Codebreakers had a major impact on both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters of the conflict. U.S. and British codebreakers helped defeat German submarines in the Atlantic. In the Pacific, cryptanalysis played a crucial role in sinking Japan's merchant marine fleet. Codebreaking also enabled Allied forces to identify and shoot down the airplane carrying Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Japan's chief naval leader. Cryptanalysis led to many victories against German forces in North Africa and Europe. The code solutions hastened the defeats of Germany and Japan and shortened the war by months.
Few of the current era readers have ever worried about JCL or Card Readers. They've never made an IBM model 4341 sit up and beg to run D&D die tables. One one level the 20th Century Comstocks seem to be based upon IBM's Watson and on various others - Cold War spymaster John Foster Dulles and General Westmoreland and the Bush Junta stalwarts Donald Rumsfield and former Attorney General John Ashcroft.*
Authored entries
Thomas John Watson
Thomas John Watson (1874-1956), was an American industrialist. He worked for the National Cash Register Company (now NCR Corporation and owned by Xerox Corp) for 15 years. In 1914, he was made president of a company that became International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) in 1924. Under Watson's leadership from 1914 to 1956, it became one of the world's most successful corporations. Watson was born in Campbell, New York.
John Foster Dulles
John Foster Dulles (February 2, 1888May 24, 1959) was an American statesman who served as Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 - 1959. He was a noted Cold Warrior advocating an aggressive stance against communism around the world. He advocated support of the French in their war against the Viet Minh in Indochina and famously refused to shake the hand of Zhou Enlai at the Geneva Conference in 1954.
He was also the older brother of Allen Welsh Dulles, head of the CIA under Eisenhower.
John Foster Dulles, the son of a Presbyterian minister, was born in Washington D.C., and attended public schools in New York. After attending Princeton University and George Washington University he joined the New York law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, where he specialized in international law. He tried to join the United States Army during the First World War but was rejected because of poor eyesight.
In 1918 Woodrow Wilson appointed Dulles as legal counsel to the United States delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference. Afterwards he served as a member of the War Reparations Committee. Dulles, a deeply religious man, attended numerous international conferences of churchmen during the 1920s and 1930s. He also became a partner in the Sullivan & Cromwell law firm.
Dulles was a close associate of Thomas E. Dewey who became the presidential candidate of the Republican Party in 1944. During the election Dulles served as Dewey's foreign policy adviser.
In 1945 Dulles participated in the San Francisco Conference and worked as adviser to Arthur H. Vandenberg and helped draft the preamble to the United Nations Charter. He subsequently attended the United Nations General Assembly as a United States delegate in 1946, 1947 and 1950. He also published War or Peace (1950).
Dulles criticized the foreign policy of Harry S. Truman. He argued that the policy of "containment" should be replaced by a policy of "liberation". When Dwight Eisenhower became President in January, 1953, he appointed Dulles as his Secretary of State.
As Secretary of State Dulles spent considerable time building up NATO as part of his strategy of controlling Soviet expansion by threatening massive retaliation in event of a war. Dulles was also the architect of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) that was created in 1954. The treaty, signed by representatives of the United States, Australia, Britain, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand, provided for collective action against aggression.
Dulles was one of the pioneers of Mutually Assured Destruction and brinkmanship. In an article written for Life Magazine Dulles defined his policy of brinkmanship: "The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessary art." His critics blamed him for damaging relations with communist states and contributing to the Cold War.
Dulles upset the leaders of several non-aligned countries when on 9 June 1955, he argued in one speech that "neutrality has increasingly become an obsolete and except under very exceptional circumstances, it is an immoral and shortsighted conception."
In 1956 Dulles strongly opposed the Anglo-French invasion of Egypt (October-November). However, by 1958 he was an outspoken opponent of President Gamal Abdel Nasser and stopped him from receiving weapons from the United States. This policy seemingly backfired, enabling the Soviet Union to gain influence in the Middle East.
Dulles, suffering from cancer, was forced by his declining health to resign from office in April, 1959 and died in Washington on 24 May, 1959.
Washington Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Virginia is named after him.
Carol Burnett first rose to prominence in the 1950s singing a novelty song, "I Made a Fool of Myself Over John Foster Dulles"; more recently, Gil Scott Heron commented "John Foster Dulles ain't nothing but the name of an airport now" in the song "B-Movie".
General William C. Westmoreland
William Childs Westmoreland (born March 26, 1914, Spartanburg County, South Carolina) is a retired United States General who commanded US military operations in the Vietnam War from 1964-68 and served as US Army Chief of Staff from 1968 to 1972.
John Ashcroft
John David Ashcroft (born May 9, 1942) is the Attorney General of the United States, having served in the first administration of George W. Bush since 2001. He is noted for his strong conservative stance on many issues, as well as his deep religious convictions. Immediately following Bush's re-election in 2004, his resignation (dated November 2, 2004) was announced. It is effective upon confirmation of his successor, who is presumed to be Alberto Gonzales.
Donald Rumsfield
Donald Henry Rumsfeld (born July 9, 1932) is the current Secretary of Defense of the United States, since January 20, 2001, under President George W. Bush. His current term of office is as the 21st Secretary of Defense, and he is the oldest person to have held that position. He served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977, making him also the youngest person to have held the position, under President Gerald Ford. Rumsfeld has also had a long career in private industry and public service. On December 3, 2004, he was reappointed for Bush's second term despite widespread media speculation that he would retire.
Rumsfeld has been married to his wife Joyce since 1954. They have three children and five grandchildren.
International Business Machines
International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) is the world's largest manufacturer of information systems and equipment. IBM produces computers that range in size from large mainframes to portable laptops. The company also offers computer services that help customers develop and operate information systems. In addition, IBM supplies such hardware devices as disk drives and printers. It also develops software products for both business applications and consumer use.
International Business Machines Corporation grew out of an earlier firm, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company. It adopted its present name in 1924. The company dominated the office equipment industry until the mid-1900's with such products as tabulators, time clocks, and electric typewriters.
The development of computers transformed IBM's business. In 1951, Remington Rand Corporation (now part of Unisys Corporation) developed the first commercial computer, UNIVAC (UNIVersal Automatic Computer). UNIVAC began replacing IBM equipment in some businesses. IBM first manufactured computers for commercial sale in 1952. From the 1960's to the early 1980's, IBM dominated the office equipment and information technology industries. Mainframe computers provided the cornerstone for its success. Important innovations from IBM include the FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslation) programming language and floppy disk storage.
In 1995, IBM acquired Lotus Development Corporation, a leading software developer. IBM headquarters are in Armonk, New York. As of 10 December 2004, IBM has finalized negotiations to sell its PC division to China-based Lenovo. The new division is headquartered in New York. IBM maintains a significant (about 19%) stake in the new division. Starting from the date of the acquisition, Lenevo will have five years use of the IBM and "Think" trademarks.
Computer history in brief
The ideas and inventions of many engineers, mathematicians, and scientists led to the development of the computer. The first true calculating machines were developed in the 1600's. In 1642, the French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher Blaise Pascal invented the first automatic calculator. The device performed addition and subtraction by means of a set of wheels linked to each other by gears. The first wheel represented the numbers 1 to 10, the second wheel represented 10's, the third stood for 100's, and so on. When the first wheel was turned 10 notches, a gear moved the second wheel forward a single notch. The other wheels became engaged in a similar manner.
During the early 1670's, the German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz improved Pascal's calculator. Leibniz added gear and wheel arrangements that made multiplication and division possible. Leibniz also sought a counting system that would be easier for a machine to handle than the decimal system. He developed the binary numeration system.
An important contribution to the development of binary mathematics was made in the mid-1800's by George Boole, an English logician and mathematician. Boole used the binary system to invent a new type of mathematics. Boolean algebra and Boolean logic perform complex mathematical and logical operations on the symbols 0 and 1. Thus, a mechanical representation of binary mathematics would require the representation of only those two digits. This advance shaped the development of computer logic and computer languages.
Early punched-card computing devices
Joseph Marie Jacquard, a French weaver, made the next great contribution to the development of the computer. In the weaving process, needles directed thread to produce patterns. In 1801, Jacquard invented the Jacquard loom, which used punched cards to automate this process for the first time. The cards had patterns of holes punched in them and were placed between the rising needles and the thread. The presence or absence of a hole could be compared to the two digits of the binary system. Where there were holes, the needles rose and met the thread. Where there were no holes, the needles were blocked. By changing cards and alternating the patterns of punched holes, it became possible to mechanically create complex woven patterns.
The punched cards of the Jacquard loom inspired the English mathematician Charles Babbage. During the 1830's, Babbage developed the idea of a mechanical computer that he called an analytical engine. He worked on the machine for almost 40 years. When performing complex computations or a series of calculations, the analytical engine would store completed sets of punched cards for use in later operations. Babbage's analytical engine contained all the basic elements of an automatic computer--storage, working memory, a system for moving between the two, and an input device. But Babbage lacked funding to build the machine.
The first successful computer
In 1888, American inventor and businessman Herman Hollerith devised a punched card system, including the punching equipment, for tabulating the results of the United States census. Hollerith's machines used electrically charged nails that, when passed through a hole punched in a card, created a circuit. The circuits registered on another part of the machine, where they were read and recorded. Hollerith's machines tabulated the results of the 1890 census, making it the fastest and most economical census up to that date. In a single day, 56 of these machines could tabulate census information about more than 6 million people.
Governments, institutions, and industries found uses for Hollerith's machine. In 1896, Hollerith founded the Tabulating Machine Company. He continued to improve his machines. In 1911, he sold his share of the company. Its name was changed to the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (C-T-R). In 1924, the name was changed to International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).
The First Electronic Computers
Ignoring the bombes and the slightly later MIT code table comparison tabulator; The first special-purpose electronic digital computer was constructed in 1939 by John V. Atanasoff, an American mathematician and physicist. In 1944, Howard Aiken, a Harvard University professor, built another digital computer, the Mark 1. The operations of this machine were controlled chiefly by electromechanical relays (switching devices).
In 1945, two engineers at the University of Pennsylvania, J. Presper Eckert, Jr., and John William Mauchly, completed one of the earliest general-purpose electronic digital computers. They called it ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer). ENIAC contained about 18,000 vacuum tubes instead of relays. The machine occupied more than 1,500 square feet (140 square meters) of floor space and consumed 150 kilowatts of electric power during operation. ENIAC operated about 1,000 times as fast as the Mark 1. It could perform about 5,000 additions and 1,000 multiplications per second. ENIAC also could store parts of its programming.
Although ENIAC worked rapidly, programming it took a great deal of time. Eckert and Mauchly next worked on developing a computer that could store even more of its programming. They worked with John von Neumann, a Hungarian-born American mathematician. Von Neumann helped assemble all available knowledge of how the logic of computers should operate. He also helped outline how stored programming would improve performance. In 1951, a computer based on the work of the three men became operational. It was called EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer). EDVAC strongly influenced the design of later computers.
Also in 1951, Eckert and Mauchly completed a more advanced computer called UNIVAC (UNIVersal Automatic Computer). Within a few years, UNIVAC became the first commercially successful computer. Unlike earlier computers, UNIVAC handled numbers and alphabetical characters equally well. It also was the first computer system in which the operations of the input and output devices were separated from those of the computing unit. Like ENIAC, UNIVAC used vacuum tubes.
The first UNIVAC was installed at the U.S. Bureau of the Census in June 1951. The following year, another UNIVAC was used to tabulate the results of the United States presidential election. Based on available data, UNIVAC accurately predicted the election of President Dwight D. Eisenhower less than 45 minutes after the polls closed.
Miniaturization
The invention of the transistor in 1947 led to the production of faster and more reliable electronic computers. Transistors soon replaced the bulkier, less reliable vacuum tubes. In 1958, Control Data Corporation introduced the first fully transistorized computer, designed by American engineer Seymour Cray. IBM introduced its first transistorized computers in 1959.
Miniaturization continued with the development of the integrated circuit (a complete circuit on a single chip) in the early 1960's. This device enabled engineers to design both minicomputers and high-speed mainframes with huge memories.
By the late 1960's, many large businesses relied on computers. Many companies linked their computers together into networks, enabling different offices to share information. Computer technology improved rapidly during the 1960's. By the early 1970's, the entire workings of a computer could be placed on a handful of chips. As a result, computers became smaller.
The personal computer
The first personal computer, the Altair, was introduced in 1975. Only electronics hobbyists bought these computers. In 1977, two young American computer enthusiasts, Steven P. Jobs and Stephen G. Wozniak, founded Apple Computer, Inc., and introduced the Apple II personal computer. The Apple II was much less expensive than mainframes. As a result, computers became available to people other than computer specialists and technicians. Personal computers were purchased by small and medium-sized businesses that could not afford mainframes or did not need the immense computing power the mainframes provided. Millions of individuals, families, and schools also bought personal computers.
In 1975, former schoolmates Bill Trey Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft Corporation to develop programs for the Altair. In 1981, IBM entered the personal computer market with its PC. IBM began marketing its personal computer (PC) in 1981 by using the iconic Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp as a sympathic business owning everyman. This powerful machine was smaller and cheaper than mainframe computers, and it quickly became popular for both business and home use. Although not the first such machine, the IBM model quickly became the standard. Other companies soon began manufacturing computers called IBM clones, which use the same microprocessors (chips that perform computer operations) as the IBM PC and can run the same software programs. In the mid-1980's, growing competition from clone manufacturers caused a decline in IBM's market share. Nevertheless, the company remained the world's largest computer manufacturer. The machine was even more successful than the Apple II. Microsoft soon was developing programs for the PC. Gates and Allen went on to become two of the world's wealthiest men. Apple scored another success in 1984 with the introduction of its Macintosh, a powerful, easy-to-use desktop computer. The iMac repeated that success in 1999. As computer power increased, so did computer speed. These increases were accompanied by a steady reduction in both size and cost. More than one-third of all U.S. households had personal computers.
National Security Council
National Security Council (NSC) is a part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States. The council serves as an interdepartmental cabinet on defense, foreign policy, and intelligence matters. Members include the President, the Vice President, and the secretaries of state and defense.
The NSC advises the President on a broad range of security problems. It brings together the departments and agencies most concerned with foreign policy and military matters. The council supervises the Central Intelligence Agency. The President calls meetings of the NSC. If a serious world crisis develops, the President may summon the group into immediate session.
The NSC is assisted by a staff headed by the assistant to the President for national security affairs. The staff works with the member departments and agencies to prepare studies and policy papers for the council's action. Congress created the council in 1947.
In 1986, the NSC came under heavy criticism for exceeding its authority as an advisory agency. This criticism arose when it was revealed that the NSC staff carried out secret arms sales to Iran and provided the profits to U.S.-supported rebels in Nicaragua forever tainting any credibility. Some legal experts argued that both activities violated federal government policies at the time. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan responded to the criticism by adding a special legal adviser to the staff of the NSC.
National Security Agency
National Security Agency/Central Security Service is an agency of the United States Department of Defense. It has two primary missions: 1. Ensuring the security of U.S. information systems 2. Gathering secret information transmitted by other countries.
The agency is responsible for providing centralized coordination, direction, and performance of U.S. government activities related to these missions. The National Security Agency was established in 1952. The Central Security Service was created in 1972. It's worth noting is that the NSA recruited as many of the Bletchley Park and their Austrailian counterparts as they could.