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	SANDIA HISTORY/ARCHIVES PROGRAM NEWSLETTER
Unlimited Distribution SAND2001-3189		September 2001

NEWS FROM CORPORATE HISTORY Historical Analogy as Analytical Tool by Rebecca Ullrich, Research Historian We will all know where we were when American Airlines flight 11 hit Tower 1 of the World Trade Center. We will mark it and know forever how to articulate our story, clearly weaving emotion and event together in memory. The shocking images of that Tuesday morning will lead smoothly in our minds into whatever happens next - as if whatever happens next is inevitable. It is not, of course; choices are being made, options are being considered, and historical events are being selected out of the vast morass of the possible. In memory, we will know what happened; we are having trouble predicting it now. History is not very good at prophecy. We can learn a great deal from the past - about who we are, about why we live and act the way we do, about patterns of behavior, and about desirable and undesirable outcomes achieved through specific actions implemented in particular circumstances. The problem lies in knowing when the circumstances are similar enough to current conditions to rely on historical lessons for guidance into the future. Historical analogy often appears as an analytical tool, particularly in news analysis of large events. September 11, 2001, for example, is being frequently compared to December 7, 1941- President Roosevelt's declaration of the latter as "a date which will live in infamy" being repeated in the search for words and phrases large enough, important enough, to describe what has happened now. We must be careful with the past, however. We should not let it mislead us. Whatever these two massive shocks to American sensibilities and systems might have in common - and certainly they do share the effect of focusing world and American attention on what will happen next - the analogy to the attack on Pearl Harbor should not be allowed to box us in, to make us think that whatever happens next should look like what happened next back in 1941. The wonderful difference between the past and the present is that we face multiple choices now - we should not let our images of the past narrow them for us. Chapters into Papers Work on volume two of Sandia's technical and administrative history is on hiatus after a review of future resources and task loads. Instead, the History Program will pursue a policy of publishing papers, either in academic journals or as SAND reports, on individual topics with a long-term goal of eventually combining them into a larger work. Currently in development are papers on women in technical jobs at Sandia in the 1950s, Sandia and the Albuquerque community, technologies Sandia developed for the Vietnam War effort, the creation and growth of Sandia/California, the Plowshare program, and the Building 828/50th-anniversary monument.